Learning to Swim

by Annie Cosby

  I, too, was shocked. My stomach did a quick somersault. Was it joy? I didn’t think so. I realized with a great sense of satisfaction that it had actually been many, many weeks since I had thought about Josh Watson.

  “Sally Crawford told him you still had a crush on him—it’s okay, I already yelled at her for it—and so Josh came to me, and, like, asked about you. Like how you were doing and if you were dating anyone. Cora? Why are you being so quiet? Aren’t you psyched?”

  “Uh, I’m sure you remember the debacle at the movies,” I said. “Do you need a refresher?” Everyone remembered that day. The day Cora Manchester was humiliated in front of half her friends, half Josh’s friends, and several movie-going families.

  I remembered everything about that day. I remembered the jean shorts Rosie was wearing when she approached Josh, the soccer player I’d been crushing on for at least a year. “Enough is enough,” she had declared, before marching off to do what I wouldn’t. To ask Josh Watson out. For me.

  I remembered the embarrassed look on Josh’s face when he heard Rosie’s suggestion. “No, thanks.” That’s what he’d said. It was worse than “No.” It was pity.

  I hadn’t cried until I’d gotten home. I’d put on a flippant face for everyone, for all of our spectator friends, for Rosie, for my parents. And then I’d climbed into my bed and sunk beneath the covers and cried myself to sleep. Just once. One night. That’s all I would give Josh Watson. But it had ached in my soul ever since. That is, until this summer.

  “Cora, people can change their minds!” Rosie chirped. “Apparently Josh has!” Her excitement, usually so contagious, wasn’t having an effect on me. Something was different.

  I started to mumble a protest. I started to say that Josh was just being polite, asking about how I was doing, but I stopped myself. “I don’t really care,” I said instead.

  And this time, it was the truth.

  It sang like a glorious songbird inside my chest. I didn’t care! I did not care about Josh Watson! I didn’t care that my friends knew Josh Watson didn’t want me. That I wasn’t pretty enough or smart enough or popular enough or whatever enough for him. I was over it.

  “Cora, I know you’re like, trying to be all calm, cool and coll—”

  “No, Rosie, I’m not,” I interrupted. “It’s just that I really don’t care. It’s been a long time since I cared about what Josh thought about me.”

  “Oh.” Rosie deflated.

  I’m free. This was huge news. I should have been ecstatic. But the songbird inside my chest had already fluttered away. There was one problem. I knew that the reason I hadn’t thought about Josh for so long was because I cared a great deal what somebody else thought about me now.

  Somebody who had really big brown eyes. Somebody who swam like an Olympian.

  Nuair a Casadh an Taoide

  When the Tide Turns

  In the meantime, barbecue season was in full swing and anniversary parties abounded with the families in the old houses. Apparently every middle-aged couple who summered in Oyster Beach had had a perfect summer wedding.

  One such event was a flowery gathering in our own backyard. It was the Carltons’ anniversary, and Mom was throwing them a party. It was her first in Oyster Beach (a big day for her) so I was trying to be cooperative. I was wearing my resident fancy dress—the cream-colored one with the big pockets. The only thing I owned that would please my mother. The things Mr. Hall had told me about Mrs. O’Leary had moved me. Disturbed me, to say the least. And so I couldn’t help thinking of my own poor mother. I had relegated that dreadful lacey dress to the back of my closet, but my mother had successfully dug it out and implored me to wear it. I did so in order to avoid confrontation and maybe even to please her a little. As if in some way I could alleviate Mrs. O’Leary’s past suffering as a mother by being good to my own.

  The evening of the party was unseasonably cool, but the backyard was glittering and gorgeous. There were tables and chairs spread around the perimeter with candles flickering to each other in the middle of each table. There were luminaries going down the stairs all the way to the boardwalk. And the back porch was festooned with little paper lights and tables heaped with food and drinks. The caterers had brought servers and they stood around the yard like obedient end tables, balancing trays with ever-replenishing glasses.

  And there was to be dancing. A makeshift dance floor had been constructed by the caterers earlier. The band was set up on the landing midway up the stairs.

  The guests started to appear at dusk, light summer sweaters and carefully-wrapped presents under their arms. It was picture-perfect, and my mother was beaming.

  “Thank you,” she said unexpectedly. I was standing next to her at the top of the stairs. Dad was at the bottom, greeting the Ritzes and another family whose name I couldn’t remember.

  “For what?” I asked.

  She grasped my arm with one hand and held out the skirt of my dress in the other. “For being my daughter,” she said. She kissed me on the forehead and then rubbed the lipstick off with her thumb. There were tears in her eyes as she floated down the stairs. My stomach fell a few feet. Why was it always so difficult for me to just be her daughter?

  She only has one. And not by choice.

  I was always angry at her for not talking to me about these things, about the big things, about why we were here this summer, why she couldn’t let me make my own decisions about the rest of my life. But the truth was that she was always talking, always, I just didn’t want to listen.

  The party was a smash hit, but I tired of it quickly. I managed to stand near the stairs with a look of silent amusement on my face, hopefully masking my disdain inside. All I thought about was Mrs. O’Leary. Or more accurately, Rory. And about how right he was. About everything he’d said. I even looked down on my own mother.

  I wondered what Mrs. O’Leary would say if she saw these people in our backyard. Would she tell them her stories? Would they make fun of her? Surely Blondie would call her a crazy old bat. But these thoughts distressed me more, because I knew it wasn’t Mrs. O’Leary I was thinking of. Not really. It was Rory, what he thought of me, what he would think of this scene. And that just proved his point. Even when I thought I had the old woman’s interests in mind, they were purely selfish ones.

  Not wanting to be a part of the good-byes, I made my way toward the beach when the crowd started to thin. The couples were saying their drunken good-byes to the Carltons and my parents, while kids sneaked away, grasping the hand of the opposite sex, or perhaps an armful of beers.

  I laughed at the wine in my own hand. I didn’t even like wine. But I disliked it less than beer, so I had grabbed it from one of the servers. If only to stop the constant badgering, from guests and servers alike, to have a drink. And then I had grabbed another. And another. And who knows how many others.

  Maybe I was drunk or maybe it was just my annoyance at seeing Owen approach, but I started to laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked, as he joined me on the beach.

  I slipped off my shoes and ran to the soft sand left wet by the ebb tide. It was freezing cold, but I plunged into the water until the waves were up to my knees.

  Owen hesitated at the edge of the water. “You’re drunk,” he said with a laugh.

  Maybe I was. That could certainly be the ticket to stomaching life in the big houses. No wonder they guzzled wine and cocktails at an alarming rate. But I just shook my head with a laugh. “I’m not drunk. I’m just looking for Shoney.”

  “For what?” he asked.

  “The ale-loving water spirit,” I said simply.

  “Is this another one of those fantastical tales you got from that crazy old lady?”

  Before, that statement might have made me angry. I would have told him he was an ignorant, arrogant ass. But it didn’t hurt now. Because I regarded it as mere evidence of a truth. A once-painful truth. But now there was a scar where it hit, and it merely bounced off painlessly. “Yes it is,” I sa
id. I swirled the wine around the glass and watched some of it slop over the side.

  “You’ve gone insane,” Owen said. “She’s rubbed right off on you.”

  For some reason, at this, I cackled. “Shoney! Shen-en-an-doya-ya. Shoney, I present to you this wine so that thou—” Here, I hiccupped. “Thou will send us good … good harvest for the coming … the coming harvest.”

  “Wasted,” Owen muttered.

  “Imagine,” I was saying, “someone so easily (hiccup) pacified.”

  “That’s about all it takes for me,” Owen said.

  “It’s supposed to be ale,” I said. “But I don’t know where to find that.”

  That’s when we heard the shouts drifting down from the house. Angry, drunken shouts.

  “Time to go, drunkie,” Owen said, holding his hand out to me. I let him lead me back up to the house, carrying our shoes, but Mrs. Carlton met us on the boardwalk in a huff.

  “Come on, Owen, we’re going home!” she said, throwing daggers in my direction with her eyes.

  “Mom—”

  “Get away from that tramp, let’s go!” In shock, Owen let his mother pull him away north and off down the boardwalk. Striding past me, Mr. Carlton averted his eyes, his mouth a thin line.

  My dad appeared beside me. He put a hand on my shoulder.

  “Did I do some—(hiccup)?”

  He sighed and shook his head.

  “I’m not getting inta St. Bernard—ammi?”

  He just shook his head again and went about setting the remaining guests on their way home.

  Inside the house, my mother was standing at the kitchen counter, Princess hovering at her feet, carefully hopeful eyes on the servers who moved about, washing dishes and packing away rented plates and uneaten food. Mom watched them with glowering eyes.

  I didn’t know whether or not to broach the topic, but I finally decided on a peaceful, “How are you, Mom?”

  “For God’s sake, Cora, let’s not talk about it in here,” she said. Her eyes flashed around the room and she stalked into the empty living room. Princess was at her heels and I followed reluctantly. Of course she didn’t want to fight in front of the hired help, but I had the nagging feeling that this was about me—and I would have liked witnesses there in case she was in the mood for murder.

  In the living room she sat down. I could see there were tears in her eyes.

  “Did something happen to Mrs. Carlton?” I asked lamely. I tried to stifle a hiccup.

  “That insolent witch had one too many drinks is what happened,” she said severely. I saw her wipe her eyes.

  “She called me a tramp,” I said quietly.

  “She called you a lot worse than that,” Mom said. I turned red. I couldn’t tell if I was the victim here or the guilty party. “She has no right, no right, to come into my house and talk like that about my daughter. There’s a lot worse that can be said for her dumpy little donut of a girl.”

  I couldn’t stifle the grin on my lips. So I was to be defended. “What exactly did she think I had done?” I asked carefully.

  “Oh, nothing more than is true!” she flashed suddenly. Uh-oh. “You spending all your time over there in that—that place with all those locals and the motel! That’s what you’re doing! Shunning every kid, every respectable person we put in front of you. Acting so proud and above everyone here!”

  “Proud? Shunning who?” I demanded. “Wasn’t I just down there letting Owen Carlton make ridiculous puppy eyes at me?”

  “As if the whole world can’t see you running around with those people like a regular … well, a tramp!”

  “What are you talking about?” I sputtered. “Why—Why in the world did you defend me? Why did you stick up for me if you agreed? Why let something as ridiculous and superfluous as your daughter come between you and your precious Linda Carlton!”

  “Yes, yes, turn this around on me. I’m the bad guy here.” She stood and grabbed a handful of seashells that I had stowed on the end table by the couch. “I’ve spoiled you,” she said, holding up the shells, as if they were evidence. “That’s what it is. I’ve let you have the run of the world! It’s time to shape up, Cora.”

  “That’s lofty, coming from someone who had to be taught laundry by a housekeeper at the age of fifty-two.”

  “Yes, well, luckily you won’t come to that! From here on out, you’re doing your own laundry, emptying your own goddamn pockets—” She threw the seashells back on the table with a clatter. “And for Christ’s sake, in one month, you’re going to whatever college I pick out!”

  I cried myself to sleep in my lacey dress that night and still felt like crying when I woke up. I couldn’t remember a time in my life when I’d cried this much. I hadn’t been to Mrs. O’Leary’s since my fight with Rory, but I didn’t know where else to go. Sure I could go and cry at the pier, but the truth was, I missed Mrs. O’Leary. Actually missed her, and nobody, not even Rory, could convince me otherwise. A purely selfish motive, I wanted to hear her soothing voice and feel better.

  But what would I say after being away so long? I grabbed the tin whistles and stuffed them in the big oversize pockets on the front of my dress, a good cover motive. If Rory didn’t want me talking to her about the future, I would talk about the past. And Seamus definitely knew about these little instruments. I would talk about anything to get my mind away from the Pink Palace.

  I scraped my tangled hair into a bun and pulled a sweatshirt on over my dress, then shuffled off to her house before my parents woke up.

  But when I saw her on the porch, I quickly forgot about any of my planned conversation. I even fleetingly forgot why I was upset.

  She sat on the porch, rocking slowly, in the same position as usual, but her face was stony and her eyes watery. She’d mentioned on numerous occasions that her eyesight was failing.

  Her face opened in surprise when she saw me. “You haven’t been around in a while,” she chirped. It was feigned cheerfulness.

  “I know, I’m sorry,” I said. I briefly considered telling her about Rory’s words, with some amendments of course, but I didn’t want her to tell me they weren’t true. I knew they were.

  “Oh, no need for apologies,” she said. “I know I’m just an old woman; I just missed your burst of energy every day, that’s all.” I knew it was a sad state of affairs for someone to consider me a high point of their day. I filled with pity and remorse that she had been able to say what I had not—that I considered her a friend. This filled me with such a fond feeling, I wanted nothing more than to pour my aching heart out to her.

  “Have you heard of kappas, dear?”

  I shook my head slowly and sat down tentatively on my rocking chair. But I didn’t want to get caught up in another story. Today, I wanted to do the talking.

  “They say there are these creatures in the water, they have green skin supposedly, and they pull children down. Drown them.”

  The lump was back in my throat. I gulped it down quickly. “Mrs. O’Leary,” I said valiantly. “I need to talk to you. I had a fight with my mom, and then I realized you’re the only other person I can talk to about it.”

  Mrs. O’Leary’s eyes were pulled from the horizon and landed on me. They were shifty and looked nervous, but her voice was even as she returned her gaze to the ocean. “Yes, of course, dear, what is it?”

  “My mom …” I was editing the story in my head; I didn’t want her to know that my own mother was disapproving of the south end of the beach and most probably, Mrs. O’Leary herself. “My mom isn’t proud of me,” I finally said. “She complains all the time. But then last night she yelled at someone that criticized me.”

  Mrs. O’Leary didn’t seem to understand.

  “It’s just that I feel as though she hates who I am, but then she goes and does something to make me think she is the tiniest bit … well, proud.” I was definitely grasping at straws now. Words were coming out quicker than their corresponding thoughts could form in my head. “I can’t tell if she’s
ashamed or proud, and I get the feeling that she doesn’t know either. I feel like I’m living this pre-arranged life where she’s running along a little in front of me, trying to set everything up as we go, but she keeps stumbling. And so then I keep stumbling.”

  I took a deep breath.

  “I had a sister,” I said. “Only it doesn’t feel right to call her my sister. She died before I was born. She drowned. So I never knew her. She’s just this vague idea that made a lot of people sad in the past, but nobody talks about anymore. That whole thing spawned this huge, irrational fear of the water that, like, runs in our family.”

  I had been holding my breath and it was coming out fast, in my words. “And, so, I guess sometimes I feel like maybe my mom is so focused on doing everything right this time, and just, gets it wrong.” I finished up shakily, leaving my own self rather confused.

  “Dear, I do not know the circumstances, but I assure you that every mother feels the tiniest bit of pride in her child, no matter how much time goes by. But what you have to remember is that losing a child, for a mother, is a pain like no other.”

  My body filled with regret. Rory was right yet again. There I was thinking only of myself. How could I have been so callous as to bring up something as sensitive as children to Mrs. O’Leary? Everything Mr. Hall had said about her depression after her children’s deaths, her troubled marriage, it all came flooding back to me. I was making her relive all that pain.

  I was about to change the subject when she knocked me out of all reservations.

  “Ronan is a good example.”

  “What?” I said.

  “I think of Ronan and I am more proud of him than anyone else in the world. I don’t think it would matter if he killed someone; it wouldn’t lessen my pride.”

  I wasn’t sure if we were talking about Ronan O’Leary or Rory.

  “Maybe your mother is disappointed that you are not like her or like her first child,” she said philosophically. “But I assure you that doesn’t change how much she loves you, takes pride in you, despite herself.”