Sara Jaffe - Dryland

I said, You can if you want.

Erika said, You’re the one they want to be friends with. It’s like they think if they’re nice to you, you’ll introduce them to your brother.

A look must have come on my face. Erika put her hand on my arm. She said, I didn’t mean that.

The look must have just been a surprised look. I was only surprised because Erika never mentioned my brother. I said, It doesn’t matter.

Someone turned up the volume on the stereo. A clump of non-swimmer sophomores shouted the lost-souls-in-a-fishbowl line. Erika said, It’s really hard to imagine PT at this party.

I said, It’s really hard to imagine us at this party. I wasn’t trying to be funny but as soon as I said it I knew it was the funniest thing I’d ever said. Erika laughed and I laughed until chewed-up specks of hot dog burned my throat.

The doorbell rang and Grapestuff said, Finally, dudes! and a pack of swimmers tumbled into the basement. Erika said, Your friends are here. Alexis had gotten a haircut, to just above her shoulders. It made her look older, or nicer. Erika started talking to one of the guys from Lane Four. He had glasses that were kind of like PT’s. Alexis went over to get a soda and I got up for a refill. She said, Julie! She said, I’m so glad you made it, and put down her soda to give me a quick, light hug. I smelled alcohol, a touch of cigarette and fabric softener. She was wearing her oversize swimming sweatshirt. Who knew what she had on beneath it, but, no offense to Erika, I thought it was a better choice for a party than showing everything off.

I said, You got a haircut.

She nodded and took the ends of her hair between her knuckles and tugged, as if to pull it back to its former length. She said, I’m not exactly used to it.

I said, It looks nice. The compliment came like a cold copper penny dropped into my mouth. It was as if all I had to do was say it and she would, and she did, touch her hair again and say Really? and then say Thanks, and then look at me as if looking up at me before she went back to her friends.

I sat on the couch, playing with my ring and half listening to Erika talk to whoever about things I didn’t know she knew or cared about: the Dead, snowboarding. She squeezed my arm every time the doorbell rang. Eventually she stopped squeezing. Alexis stood with her friends by the stairs, leaning against a wall of photos. She went up and down the stairs with Melanie and, once, with Greg. It wasn’t even that I wanted to talk to her again, or for longer, or for her to be sitting on the couch next to me. I wanted to keep being in the same room with her and sensing her like heat.

After one trip back from upstairs Alexis and Melanie stood whispering and, it seemed like, looking at me. Alexis whispered something to Melanie and then she made a come here signal with her finger. I pointed at myself, a goofy move, and Melanie cupped her hands to call across the room, Come over here Julie Winter please.

Alexis said, Julie. I’m so glad you made it.

I said, Thanks. Alexis’s cheeks were flushed. She had never looked happier.

Melanie said, Listen, we just wanted to ask you something.

Alexis said, Wait. Do you want a sip?

She handed me a cup with Mountain Dew in it. She said, It has a lot of vodka in it, and Melanie said, A lot, and the two of them laughed in a way that shut me out of their laughing. It wasn’t their fault. The drink smelled so strong that the yellow of the soda might as well have been food coloring.

Melanie said, Listen. So, Alexis thinks your brother is really hot—

Alexis said, No! We just think he was a really great swimmer—

Melanie said, And his picture in this old yearbook we saw is really hot—

Alexis said, And we just wanted to ask you. What is he doing now?

They said, Does he live nearby?

They said, Do you think he’ll ever show up to a meet?

The craziest thing was how calm I felt. Maybe the pro guy asking had prepared me — but this felt different. I’d seen Alexis staring into the trophy case. My brother and I had none of the same features, but, it was true, people had said before that we looked alike. I took another sip of Alexis’s drink. It gauzed me in something bold and warm. It was as if I’d been waiting all night, years, to be asked these questions.

I said, He travels a lot. All over the world.

I said, He stays in shape.

I said, It’s hard to say when he’ll be around, with all his traveling. I’m going to send him the meet schedule.

Alexis said, He must be so psyched that you’re swimming.

I said, He can’t wait to see me.

ON OUR WAYout, on my way up the stairs, I felt a tug on the cuff of my henley. Alexis was leaning against the wall under the stairs with Greg. She said Good night, Julie, and let my cuff go. Erika and I got our coats and headed back down the hill. It had stopped raining and mist silvered the air. Erika said, That Grapestuff is kind of a dork, right? She said, Those girls were wasted, weren’t they? What did they want to talk to you about?

I said, Just some Yearbook thing. My arm was still tracking in the direction Alexis had pulled it.

Erika said, What about Yearbook?

I said, It turns out I can’t do photos. They hadn’t cleared it with Ms. C. before they asked me.

Erika said, Are you bummed?

I said, Not really. I said, Not for me. If they had given me an assignment, I was going to give it to you. Generosity brimmed out of me. I said, I’m sorry PT didn’t show up.

Erika said, Yeah, I knew he wouldn’t. She flicked her lighter at a clove and held the lit clove without smoking it. She said, If I can get invited to a party he’s going to be at you’ll go with me, right?

I said, Of course. It was shiny out. The pavement was slick and the streetlights were starfishes of light. It was so quiet, except for the occasional car revving wetly up the hill. My mind felt foamy and clean. Erika passed me the clove and I took a deep drag. I let the smoke sink down and used the full force of my lungs to push it out.

I COULDN’T KEEPmyself asleep. I woke up at 3:30 AM, 4:00, 5:15. At 6:00 AM I realized what it was: I was starving. I had never been hungrier. I went downstairs quietly. I could make eggs and toast but at some point my parents would wake up and talk to me. They’d want to ask me how the party went. I left a note on the counter.

Nobody was out and the sky was dark blue, purpling at the edges. I’d never really seen a sunrise. As I waited for the bus I looked east. The whole sky lightened around me. The bus was fuller than I’d expected and completely silent. Of course people had jobs on Sundays. They probably didn’t want to go to them, or talk about them. My spot was sideways-facing, and I sat forward on my seat to avoid touching, or crowding out, the people next to me. It was peaceful on the bus. It was nice how people called Thank you to the driver when they got off. Downtown looked quiet and clean, a movie set of a city. I was so awake.

Mar-Shell’s was the only 24-hour diner downtown. Still left downtown, my dad would say. I had good memories of coming for weekend breakfast and choosing songs from the jukeboxes that sat on each table. Sometimes, if it was after practice, my brother would be with us. The joke was that my mom would always choose Total Eclipse of the Heart after flipping through the songs and acting as if she might choose something different. I sat at the counter and ordered a two-egg breakfast and a cup of tea. I was definitely the youngest person in the diner. Nobody seemed to notice, or care. There was no need for me to come up with a story, other than that I’d woken up early and been ravenous and wanted to eat eggs at a diner. I had some money, why wait? There were other people at the counter eating alone, and groups in the booths. Some of them might have been out all night. I could tell from their clothes, and they seemed wound up, on the far side of tired. In a booth by the windows was a guy with his head on another guy’s shoulder. They had their fingers intertwined between their plates on the table. The waitress didn’t say anything or act weird when she refilled their coffee. I knew that in New York and San Francisco and maybe here they had bathhouses with rooms for sex in them. Maybe all the rooms became sex rooms at some point. Not that I knew anything about it, but that didn’t seem like what those guys had been doing all night. I mashed up my eggs with my potatoes and ate everything on my plate. I sopped up the yolk with my butter-soaked toast.