Swimming for Sunlight

by Allie Larkin

  “Did you forget?” Mo asked.

  “No. No,” I said, suddenly acutely aware of the fact that I was still in my pajamas with disaster hair. “I’m running a little late. Five minutes!”

  “Mo and I can do it.” Luca gave my shoulder a squeeze.

  “Don’t you have to film?” I asked.

  Luca shook his head. “I’ve got a few hours. The mermaids are at a spa and they told me I wasn’t allowed.”

  I loved the way he called them mermaids, like it was normal.

  “I can do it,” I said, “it’s fine. I just need—”

  “It’s gonna be more than one trip,” Mo said. “Why don’t we make the first one and you can come with us on the next.” She gestured to her neck, like she was trying to tell me something without Luca seeing.

  “Fine,” I said, and turned away from them. “I’ll be ready on the next one.”

  When I got back to my room and looked in the mirror, in addition to the horrible hair and worn-out pajama pants, I had a streak of blood from my pinpricked finger across the side of my neck. I inspected Hannah’s tail, and once I was sure it was clean, I jumped in the shower.

  * * *

  Mo and Luca were back faster than I’d planned for. I threw on my ugly brown shorts and a t-shirt from a production of Starlight Express that had been done sans roller skates for insurance purposes. I left Bark in the bedroom and ran outside, hair dripping wet, to help load the truck.

  Mo and Luca left me at the pool to arrange things while they went back for the last truckload. I hadn’t been to the community center since I first moved in with Nan and she was convinced I was too young to stay home alone. She’d drag me with her while she swam laps, and I’d sit on a lounge chair in the corner, as far away from the pool as I could get, facing the fence, reading Harry Potter. I’d try to pretend I was at Hogwarts, not waiting for the only adult I had in my life to get out of the water.

  I’d forgotten how big the pool was. Olympic-sized, three meters at its deepest. I tried to focus on hanging Lester Sam’s old fishing nets from the fence, but I felt dizzy knowing the depths that were there. Even though I stayed several feet from the edge, I felt like a misstep or a gust of wind could push me in the wrong direction.

  My phone rang. It was Nan.

  Hannah got in at noon. She’d rented a suite at the hotel by the golf course, and wanted everyone to come by for champagne. “We can do the fittings over here,” Nan said while I tried to figure out how to get Mrs. Cohen’s flamingos to stand on concrete. “Come over when you’re done.”

  “The sewing machine is at Bitsie’s,” I said.

  “Well, bring it.”

  I sighed.

  “Or don’t. Pin everything and sew later,” she said, like that didn’t also add unnecessary steps.

  “Fine,” I said, but I felt like bursting into tears. I hated that I couldn’t let go and have fun, but I was exhausted. The worst of me was starting to leak out.

  When Luca and Mo got back, Luca left for the hotel in a hurry, frustrated, because Nan had promised to call him once she had an ETA on Hannah, not after her arrival. Mo stayed behind to set up the air tanks.

  I ran to Nan’s to pick up Hannah’s costume, then Bitsie’s to get Woo Woo’s costume. At least Woo Woo’s fitting was for show.

  I was a flustered, sweaty mess when I got to the suite. Hannah’s tail was in a garment bag, but I hadn’t wanted to put Woo’s damp one in with it, so I looped that tail around my neck. It left wet spots on my shirt.

  I dropped a box of pins on the floor right after I knocked. “Come in, come in!” Hannah said when she opened the door, and then she had to wait while I picked pins out of the carpet.

  Hannah was elegant, with shiny silver chin-length hair and soft pink cheeks. Her zaftig figure was beautifully draped in a magenta silk caftan. She was at least four sizes larger than her measurements had led me to believe. They’d seemed out of line with the pictures I saw on the internet, but they were old, so I assumed the discrepancy meant she’d recently lost weight. I’d cut the costume a bit bigger, and positioned the sequins away from the seams, so taking it in wouldn’t be a problem. But even with the generous cut, there wasn’t any way the costume would fit.

  I would have to work straight through the night if I had any shot of getting a tail for Hannah done in time. And I couldn’t call her out on it. How awful it would be to say, “You could have been honest!” But the truth was, she could have been. I loved the idea of making a costume that showed off her beautiful curves. I had a million ideas, and no time to execute them.

  “I’m so sorry,” I blurted, ignoring the fact that I had an extra garment bag with me. “I haven’t gotten to your costume yet. But I can take your measurements and get it together tonight.”

  Luca was sitting on the corner of the coffee table, filming chatter between Woo Woo and Bitsie, so he didn’t catch my lie.

  “I sent you my measurements,” Hannah said, filling a champagne glass and handing it to me.

  “I know.” I waved off the glass. “But since I’m here, let me just check them.”

  “Well, fine,” she said with a bright smile, but enough edge in her voice to let me know she was irritated.

  I pulled the tape measure from my purse and got started at her bust, typing the numbers into my phone as I went.

  When I got to her waist I said, “Hannah?” as gently as possible. “I think maybe you’re sucking in, and what I need is a true measurement. Don’t worry. I’ll make you look good.”

  “Okay,” she said, laughing but keeping her voice low. “I’ll let it all hang out.”

  And then she sucked in.

  “Oh! I think you did it again. It’s a costume that has to move with you, so I want to get an honest fit. I’m the only person who will see the numbers.” I felt weird assuming that stance, like I was somehow telling her the size of her waist mattered in a greater way. It didn’t. I just needed the facts so I could make a good costume. She didn’t have to pretend to be smaller. And it made me sad, because I had this idea that by the time you reach your seventies, the superficial pressures of being a woman would dissipate, and health and happiness would be all that mattered. That was supposed to be the bargain you made with age.

  “Sure, honey,” Hannah said. And then she sucked in again.

  I wanted to scream. It felt like a giant spoiler. I didn’t want to know that I might still care about my stupid thighs in forty-five years. I turned away to catch my composure. Bitsie saw me and smiled. I made a face, hoping she’d come over to help me, but Woo Woo had a tablet on the table and said, “This one, here! That’s my great-granddaughter’s christening! Can you believe it?” Bitsie went back to oohing and aahing over pictures.

  I tried measuring the rest of Hannah and then going back to her waist. I tried asking her questions, hoping to get her absorbed enough in conversation to let her stomach relax. Nothing worked. In the end, I had to estimate, which didn’t make me feel great.

  My head throbbed, my fingers stung, and I knew it was only going to get worse.

  * * *

  Back at Bitsie’s house, I had to come to terms with the fact that there was no way to take those numbers and fix the tail I’d already made. I thought about using insert panels, but since Hannah seemed self-conscious about her stomach, I wanted to cut her tail a little higher than the others. If it ended right below her rib cage, the neoprene could arc over her curves instead of cutting into them. Part of me wanted to say, “Screw it!” and do a hatchet job on the old tail, but if I didn’t make her feel good and look good, it would make me look bad. I’d put so much work into every other detail, I didn’t want to ruin it all in the last lap. So I sewed my way through a new tail. I didn’t have enough orange tulle to make a matching dorsal fin, so I used a mix of what was leftover from the three other tails. I was much more adept with the fabric, and I had a good system in place for assembly, but it still took me two hours to get the tail together enough to run back to the hotel for Ha
nnah to try on.

  “It’s an interesting color,” Hannah said, not trying at all to hide her disgust.

  “I’m going to paint over it. It will be orange.”

  Hannah looked disappointed.

  “Like the tail from Splash!” I said.

  “I’m sure you have a vision,” Hannah said.

  I turned away and took a deep breath, hoping my face wasn’t too flushed with anger.

  And then, to keep Luca and Nan happy, I had to help a very tipsy Woo Woo into her costume so we could pretend to be thrilled and surprised when it fit.

  Before I left, I pulled Nan aside. “Aren’t you planning to rehearse?” I asked. Nan and Bitsie had their routine down, and the synchronized swimmers were well practiced. The plan was to use Hannah and Woo Woo sparingly, having them perform moves they could learn easily in a few hours, but they still needed to learn their parts and get a refresher on breathing air from tubes.

  Nan looked at her watch. “We have to get going, girls,” she announced.

  “You shouldn’t be swimming if you’re drunk,” I said.

  “Oh, Kay. We just had a little champagne.”

  “It’s not safe!” I whisper-yelled.

  “We’re fine. We’ll sober up on the drive over.”

  “You can’t drive like this!” I said.

  “We’re taking one of the hotel golf carts over there,” Nan said, laughing. “It’s fine.” But the worry had started coursing through my veins, collecting more worry as it went.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  I spent the rest of the afternoon working on the tail. I worried the paint wouldn’t dry in time to sew any sequins and the tail would look completely out of sorts. It’s not like I could print an asterisk statement in the program to say it was Hannah’s fault, not mine.

  Once I had the tail stitched, I stole Bitsie’s hair dryer. On the way back to Nan’s to start painting, I remembered I knew the code to get into Mo’s house, so I went over there and poked around. No hair dryer in Mo’s bathroom, but in the master suite, I found her grandmother’s old beige Conair and swiped that too. I didn’t think Mo would mind.

  Once I’d finished the base coat, I strung up the tail and Nan’s hair dryer from the rafters of the garage and grabbed the other two dryers, pointing them like a double-shooting outlaw from an old Western. When it was dry enough to work with, I used dark orange permanent marker to draw scales, standing on a chair while the tail was still suspended. The markers didn’t have as nice of an effect as the airbrush, but I couldn’t risk adding more paint, and I couldn’t deal with the frustration of it. When I’d drawn enough scales, I stitched sequins sparsely while it hung from the ceiling, hoping if I spread the sequins strategically, the sparkle would be distracting, and I could get away with fewer.

  Even still, I ran out of sequins and had to cut some off the old tail to fill in the gaps, fighting tears as I undid my careful stitching. I was used to dismantling what wasn’t working. It’s par for the course in a costume shop. I prided myself on being able to hack away at what I’d done without too much angst, but this was different. When I re-sewed Edith’s costumes, they weren’t mine. And I wasn’t also worrying the actors would drown on stage.

  A familiar rusty yellow Chevy truck pulled into Nan’s driveway, sending a cloud of diesel fumes into the garage. It was Luca’s friend Danny, and I wished I could hide behind the garbage cans. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone.

  “Hey,” he said when he got out. “Katie, right?”

  Bark whined from behind the door. I heard a thud as he pushed his body against it.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Nice tail,” he said, and I felt my face get hot. I knew he meant the actual tail hanging from the rafters in front of me, and not my backside, but I had a hard time with compliments. I wished he were seeing one of the good tails.

  “Thanks,” I said, trying not to sound mopey.

  “Luca around?”

  “He’s filming.” I used my orange Sharpie to draw a quick map to the pool on a scrap of newspaper.

  “Thanks! Hey,” he said, “Luca told me I could crash at some guy’s house. Moe, I think? Are you sure it’s okay? I can grab a room at a hotel, if—”

  “I’m sure it’s okay,” I said, suspecting Luca was plotting something I thoroughly approved of. “She’ll be happy to have you stay with her.”

  “Oh!” Danny smiled. “Thank you for that.”

  When he left, I went back to sewing sequins. The brief break made the work feel even more laborious. My shoulders ached from holding my arms up as I stitched. The muscles in my neck clenched, and I couldn’t get them to relax. I swiped a shot of whiskey from Nan’s pantry, then another, hoping it would loosen me up, but it only fueled my headache.

  Thankfully, Hannah’s bust measurements weren’t as far off as the numbers for the tail, so I managed to save the top by adding extension fabric to the sides and a ruffle of tulle across the bustline.

  By the time I finished, I was sore, tired, almost in tears, and a little bit drunk. Instead of taking a hot shower or flopping in front of the TV, I searched Facebook for Nikki’s profile page again. Like piling hurt on hurt on tired would erase all of it. Or maybe I wanted to feel worse.

  Eight hours earlier, Nikki posted a photo of Eric holding up an ultrasound. Eric’s eyes brimmed with tears as he pointed to the baby in the middle of the black static. Her caption read: FOUR MONTHS ALREADY!

  “Kay,” Bitsie called from the foyer. “Kay? Are you alright? You left the door to my house unlocked.” I heard her footsteps in the hall. “That’s like me, but it’s not like you.”

  “Shit,” I called. “I’m sorry. Hey, I left Hannah’s—Hannah’s costume is in the garage.” I hoped she’d take it and go. My voice was thin.

  “Are you okay?” she called. And then she was in my doorway.

  I wasn’t crying yet. I wasn’t anything yet. But I must have been wearing the shock on my face.

  “What happened?” Bitsie asked.

  I pointed to the screen.

  “Oh, kiddo,” she said, hugging me to her chest.

  “I don’t want this to hurt so bad,” I said, holding the tears in with such great force I felt like I was choking.

  “Let it hurt.” She wrapped her arms around me even harder. “I promise it won’t kill you. I promise I’ll pull you back.”

  I buried my head in her armpit and sobbed. She held me the whole time.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said when I finally came up for air, leaving wet blotches on her shirt.

  “Are you kidding?” Bitsie said. “Don’t you dare be sorry. Sure, technically you’re Nan’s, but you’re my kid too, dammit. I’m here for this stuff.”

  “I feel so shitty.”

  “It’s okay to feel shitty about what’s shitty,” she said, wiping my hair from my sweaty face.

  The front door opened.

  “We’re in here, Nannette,” Bitsie called.

  “Nan hurried in, freezing when she saw my face and Bitsie’s tearstained shirt.

  “Where’s Luca?” I asked, terrified this might be caught on camera.

  “He’s with Hannah,” Nan said. “What happened?”

  “Nikki is pregnant,” Bitsie told her.

  “Oh, that . . . fucker!” Nan said. They sandwiched me in a hug so strong I thought I’d be crushed. “I’d like to cut his balls off.”

  “You take the right one. I’ll get the left,” Bitsie said.

  I pictured the two of them showing up at my old house in their matching mermaid t-shirts, pinking shears in hand. It didn’t make me feel any better, but it was enough of a distraction to help me pull myself together.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  I went to Bitsie’s to put together a sewing kit I could take to the pool for last-minute emergencies. When I got home, Luca’s truck was out front, but the house was quiet. I wondered if he was at Mo’s with Danny. The ladies were ordering room service and spending the night in Hannah’s suite
.

  Bark skittered across the tile, wagging his tail. I bent to press my face to his. “I love you, bud.” He licked my chin. I got him some kibble and sat on the kitchen floor with him, digging into a ramekin of vegan shepherd’s pie without bothering to heat it up. Bark kept trying to lick mashed potatoes off my fork.

  He followed me to the bathroom and lounged on the bath mat while I brushed my teeth. When I headed to my room, Bark darted to the end of the hall, pushing the door to Luca’s room open.

  “Hey!” I whispered. At the sound of my voice, he slowed enough so I could catch up and grab his collar. In the dark, I heard Luca’s breath, heavy and metered from sleep. His feet hung off the end of the pullout couch.

  He slept on his stomach, making it harder for him to breathe. I wanted to flip him over. Clear the airways. I hated the fact that other people didn’t look for the disaster in every damn thing and I always did.

  I pulled Bark back to my room and closed the door behind us firmly like I was cementing a decision.

  When I got into bed, I couldn’t fall asleep. Bark snored while I lay there, trying to see the shapes in my room in the dark. And then I heard the first rumble. A flash. Tiny, but true. The tightness in my stomach started small, but it spread with each clap of thunder.

  I snuck out of bed. Bark stirred, but didn’t wake.

  The rumbling got louder and the lightning got closer and I wanted Luca’s arms around me. I tiptoed down the hall and stood in his doorway, waiting for him to notice. He’d been so busy and I’d been so busy, and suddenly the idea of how little time I’d actually spent with him seemed unbearable. We hadn’t even talked about what would happen after the show. How long he would stay. Where he was going next. I’d been so scared of getting too close, and now I felt the loss of him before he was even gone.

  I climbed into bed, slipping under his arm. He adjusted his body around mine, like a reflex. I listened to the whoosh of his breath until my eyelids felt heavy and I drifted into sleep. The storm didn’t matter. I could ignore the thunder if I focused on Luca’s breath.