Sara Jaffe - Dryland

THE AWNINGS UPover the booths at the River Market kept the rain out somewhat. I let Erika lead me around. The incense guy told us five sticks for a dollar. A long ash hung on the stick in the wooden stand. The guy said, Strawberry, best seller. Erika bought a few sticks for her mom. It was hard to make conversation. I kept thinking about Ben. How he said he’d just been thinking about me. The way he knew my phone number and acted as if he knew me. If I told Erika about it, she’d ask me if Ben was cute. Erika lingered at the wooden bowl guy and I kept walking. It was more boring to not buy anything so I got a new Guatemala wallet. Sometimes the white woman who ran the booth had two girls who were probably Guatemalan with her. It felt easier to buy something when the Guatemalan girls, who wore dresses in the same patterns as the wallets, weren’t there. It felt embarrassing to give them money for something from the country they were from, that they or their grandmothers might have made. The booth next door had these little clay pots. They were elephant gray, very plain. I picked one up. I really liked how smooth and simple it was. They were more like cups than pots. They would have made a good present for someone. The person at the booth said, I’ll give you a last-day-of-the-market deal on those. She had shortish, curly hair and a nose ring and a really cool-looking jacket, like a jean jacket lined with some material, sheepskin. Jean jackets didn’t usually look that warm.

I said, How much?

She said, I could go down to twenty-five each.

Twenty-five dollars felt like a lot for little clay cups. The only people I got presents for were my parents and Erika. None of them would like the cups enough. I thought about asking the seller if she sold the cups anywhere else, so I could ask my parents to give them to me for Christmas or Hanukkah, but it wouldn’t be the same if I had to tell someone to get them for me. I wanted someone who would just look at them and know I’d love them.

I wished I knew how to stay standing around the booth without buying anything, just to keep looking at the cups, to pick them up and put them down again, and maybe ask the seller how she’d made them like that, so thin and smooth, and also ask where she had gotten her sheepskin-lined jacket and if she thought it was a place where I could find one like it. Usually blue eyes felt icy but hers seemed nice. I saw Erika coming down the aisle and made what I hoped was a smile at the seller and walked away before Erika got there. Erika asked if I’d found anything cool. I showed her my wallet. I said, Are you hungry?

Under the coffee-shop awning by the fountain was still the best place to eat our noodles.

Erika said, I think I might be over skaters.

My noodles steamed. I pushed a scallion out of the way.

Erika said, I don’t know. They kind of seem like assholes. They think they’re interesting but they only care about skateboarding. She said, The only problem is they’re hot.

The steam from the noodles warmed me. I’d be warmer in a jean jacket lined with sheepskin.

Erika said, I don’t know. What do you think?

I said, About what?

She said, Do you think they’re hot?

She was looking at me as if she really wanted me to say yes. As if that would make her feel better for liking assholes. I did understand what Erika liked about skaters, whether or not I agreed with it. Erika took a forkful of noodles and blew on it. She blew on it again and then let the noodles fall back into the container. She said, Can I tell you something, even if it might sound crazy? She said, Last night I went to the skate park by my dad’s house and was sitting on the bench watching these guys skate, and I decided that if one of them came over and wanted to make out with me, I would do it.

I said, On the bench?

She said, Or maybe behind the clubhouse? Just somewhere. She said, I decided I would let him get to second, but not any further. She said, Is that crazy?

I said, It’s not crazy. Raindrops hit the water in the fountain. It was completely crazy. Partly because it was dangerous, but even more crazy because how did all the blanks in a story like that get filled? Something dark swam through me. How did the guy get from skating, to the bench, to sitting close enough to Erika that he could, because she’d let him, get his hands up her shirt? I said, Did you even know his name?

Erika said, Nothing actually happened. She moved out of the way to let a man come out of the coffee shop. She waited until the man was a few steps away and said, The cutest one, though, I thought his name should be Aidan. Isn’t that a good name?

I said, Sure.

Erika said, Don’t worry, I’m not saying I would really have done something like that.

I felt very small or very old. I said, I know. Erika wanted me to reassure her, to tell her that I had had exactly that same kind of feeling, but I’d never had a feeling even close to that.

We stood there looking at the empty fountain. It was too cold and wet out even for the skaters. A pigeon pecked at a Mounds wrapper. Erika said, Wasn’t it weird, the other week, that girl who was skating who looked like a guy? I guess she was a pretty good skater.

The pigeon flew up to the statue in the middle of the fountain. I said, I forgot about that.

Erika blew on a forkful of noodles and slurped it down. She said, You shouldn’t be embarrassed. I thought she was cute, too, before I realized.

THAT NIGHT, ASa test, I imagined myself on a bench watching skaters. I imagined one separating from the pack and rolling himself over to me. He was tall and he had hair that fell into his eyes. He said, Julie, right? and I liked that somehow he knew my name. His lips looked rough. He leaned in to kiss me and his breath smelled like cloves. I focused on that smell. I pushed my sleep-shirt up and put my hands there. My hands felt like paws. They felt warm on my skin. I pushed them around and eventually I felt my nipples get harder and I felt something else, not in my hands or my chest. I let my crotch pound. I didn’t know if I was supposed to be me or the guy. I tried to see the guy’s face again. It was somewhat familiar. I saw a bead on a cord around his neck. I took my hands out from under my shirt and rolled over onto my side, fists under my cheek, and pressed my legs together. I had talked too much to Ben. I hadn’t asked him the questions I should have asked him. What did he and my brother used to do together? Had they been good friends, or just acquaintances? Had my brother ever given Ben something that had once belonged to him, my brother, that Ben kept now in a special clay cup, or wore on a cord around his neck, even when he swam, when he showered? I curled my fists tighter and pushed myself toward sleep.

THE AIR ONthe pool deck was colder than in the locker room. Towels would have been nice but it was a thing, for some reason, to leave our towels in our lockers. Coach read out the lane assignments, last name first. Erika, next to me, bounced her knees, vibrating the bleachers. On the bus ride to practice she’d been all nervous chatter — how of course Coach should place her in whatever lane he thought she should be in, but that she really, really thought Lane Four was a great fit.

Coach read, Berry, Lane Four.

I said, See? I meant it nicely. I meant it to get Erika to still her bouncing. It got tiring to keep reassuring her when the outcome had always been obvious.

Coach read, Deitch, Lane Two. Alexis, most likely, had expected Lane One. I wanted to turn and look up the bleachers to her, to see if she had a face that masked or expressed what she felt. I wanted to know, when or if she called me later, whether to console or congratulate her.

Coach read out a Lane One and somebody hooted. Coach said, No verbal feedback. No matter what lane he read out he maintained the same flat, encouraging tone. That may have been why it wasn’t until the R’s that I noticed Coach hadn’t called out a Lane Six. I asked Erika, to make sure I hadn’t missed it. She said, Weird, I don’t think he has. Coach was on the S’s. He read, Lane Five. Every lane he read had Lane Six beating behind it. He read, Lane Four, Lane Two. The feeling came up in me, sure as blood. Coach was going to put me in Lane Six alone.