Sara Jaffe - Dryland

At my locker I put my math book into my backpack. I took it out and put it back into my locker. I needed a minute to arrange myself. I looked in my locker mirror. My hood was up and faint goggle prints still ringed my eyes. I combed my fingers through my chlorine-stiff hair and pulled it back into a low ponytail.

I walked slowly back down the stairs to Alexis. I pulled my hair out of its ponytail in case she thought it was weird that I’d changed my hair in the two minutes I was gone. Alexis was standing where I’d left her — with her puffy parka and long wet hair and her backpack on one shoulder. Her backpack looked so lightweight and neat, as if it didn’t hold any books. Her arms were crossed over her chest and she was a bit bent over, really looking into the trophy case. The look she gave my brother’s trophies was dreamy and deep.

She turned and I felt the hologram of my brother settle over me. She said, Ready to go?

Alexis’s car had a bunch of knickknacks in it, a little stuffed panda hanging from the rearview, a stack of CDs with cases lying in the ashtray area. The new U2 was on top. Alexis said, Greg said he’d throw the CD out the window if I made him listen to One one more time. But you don’t mind?

Alexis asked where my house was. The car was comfortable, the way a Taurus looked like it would be from the outside. The car might have been bought expressly for Alexis, or it could have been handed down. It might have been a rude question to ask. We really only had two topics. I said, How’s the yearbook coming?

Alexis said, Oh, it’s okay. Ms. C. gets pissed at me and Melanie for not putting all our time into it, but what does she want us to do? It’s not like anybody just does one thing.

I said, Right.

She said, Don’t think I’ve forgotten about the photo thing. We’re just a little behind.

It would have been a good moment to mention that I didn’t really care about photos, and that Erika was the one who really wanted to do them. I said, It’s okay. You can let me know.

Alexis put on the wipers to clear a few drops. It wasn’t raining hard. She said, So? How is it going?

I said, With swimming? knowing she meant with swimming. I owed her an answer. I wanted to know how much she knew, what she had seen of me. She had been on those bleachers and heard Coach slough me off to Lane Five. Part of me wanted to be so baringly honest with her — to say it was harder than I’d thought it would be and to have her tell me it was fine or how to make it better. I wanted to tell her how I couldn’t stop stopping and to have her understand, without explaining too much. But Alexis was the one who had brought me on. She had, obviously, seen something in me, and who was I to tell her she’d been wrong? The heater balmed the air and Bono sang One love on repeat.

The windshield had accumulated more specks of rain. I’d answer when Alexis flicked the wand to clear them.

I said, It’s going okay.

Alexis said, Someday you’ll have to share some of your tips with me. You must have some good ones.

I raked her voice for sarcasm. She wasn’t a sarcastic kind of person. My memory pressed back through all the swimming magazines I’d skimmed. I hadn’t been looking for tips. I’d only seen pictures of people who weren’t my brother, lists of names that weren’t his. There was one page I could almost remember. I said, Think of your arms more like a propeller than a paddle.

She said, Like an old-fashioned plane?

Now I could see the diagrams, like a page from a science textbook. I’d paused to read it because it reminded me of the way my brother swam. I said, Right. To help you get above the water.

Alexis said, I like that. That could be cool, to think of yourself as an airplane. She said, Thanks, Julie. That’s a cool tip. She glanced at me and smiled. My brother, racing, was a jet on water. He was a plane never touching the ground. Alexis arrowed the CD back to the beginning of the song. Alexis driving meant I could look at her without her seeing me looking. This was what it would be like to have a sister — driving around, listening to music, talking about swimming, whatever. I looked at her. She leaned her head a little to the left as she drove, as if she were not just looking at the road but noticing it. Being sisters meant an infinity of closeness. I pressed my legs together. Alexis said, There’s a party on Saturday. You should come. It’ll be mostly swimmers.

My house was coming up on the right. She said, Which one is it? She told me the details for the party. She said to bring a friend. She said, It should be fun? Who knows with these things. She said, Have a good night, Julie, and touched my arm on my way out the door.

IN THE SHOWERI smelled the chlorine steam off me. I worked the soap bar into a washcloth and scrubbed, starting at my ankles and working my way up. It wasn’t redundant to shower when I got home from practice — the locker room showers were five nozzles, no stalls, and everyone showered quickly, to save hot water and because we didn’t have much time. Some girls took what they called army showers, sharing a nozzle and taking turns soaping up, rinsing off. The girls who took army showers acted as comfortable as if they were showering at home, soaping their breasts, swiping their crotches, stepping out of the stream to rub swimmers’ two-in-one shampoo into their hair. Alexis added another conditioner. Agree. She shared the bottle with Melanie and its smell bloomed down the shower line. It smelled like its color, a rich, soft green, a part of the forest that got sun.

I wrung out my washcloth and turned up the temperature to scalding. My skin went pink. My body didn’t look any different yet, but it felt different. I picked up my bottle of conditioner, turned it upside down, and shook it hard to squeeze some out. Maybe when it ran out I should try Agree.

ALEXIS PASSED MEon her way to the back of the bus and said, See you this weekend?

Erika said, You guys are hanging out now? She said, Those girls are obsessed with you. Here’s a Blow Pop! Here’s a granola bar!

No one had given me a granola bar. I said, I don’t know what you mean.

Erika said, Do you think they want something from you?

I said, They’re just being nice.

Erika said, I don’t trust those girls.

Erika had no clue what she was talking about. She clumped people into boxes and kicked the boxes around. I said, Alexis invited us to a swim team party tomorrow.

Erika said, What does that mean?

I wanted to shake her. She was driving me crazy, and I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t tell her I wanted to go to the party. The bus pulled out of the parking lot.

Erika said, No, I mean — do you know that guy Kyle?

I said, The one who sits in front? There was a Kyle who always sat alone, in the seat behind the driver, across from Coach, a seat no one else would want. He wore a black wool watch cap, and he read a paperback book, keeping the cover bent back against the spine. I said, He’s going to get in trouble if that’s a school book he’s always reading.

Erika said, I started calling him PT. For Pale Tadpole. Doesn’t he look like one?

I craned up to get a better look. I said, When did you start calling him that?

Erika said, Don’t you think he’s hot?

He had on the wool cap, and his face was a face. It was pale. He had wire-rimmed glasses and a skaterish haircut, but he seemed more like something other than a skater. Looking at Kyle and trying to gauge his hotness, I felt as if I had never had a feeling in my body in my life.

I said, Sure. I like his glasses.

Erika said, I know, right? Nobody has glasses like that anymore. We watched him take off his glasses and clean them by breathing on the lenses. Erika said, Oh my god. Do you think he’s going to be at the party?