Sara Jaffe - Dryland

I needed to pick up my film from Camera World, which had been ready in an hour but had been sitting there for weeks. The store wasn’t open yet. It was funny how when a store was open it seemed as if it had always been open and would be until closing time. But who thought about the mornings? I felt warm with tea and greasy potatoes, and it might have been a figment but I felt that something had happened between me and Alexis at the party. The only way I could understand it was that she felt it, too. Half a block down, Rich was rolling up his grate. I took a weekly newspaper from the box and leaned against a building. They were making plans for a new central library but hadn’t factored in enough room for all the books. Now they had to figure out whether to change the plans or get rid of some of the books. I thought of Ben saying Arizona was super dull. I’d meant to ask him what his schedule was so I could avoid going into Rich’s when he was working. It seemed unlikely that he’d be working so early on a Sunday.

I pushed the door open and the bells jingled. Rich came out of the back room, saw it was me, and told me to holler if I needed anything. He said, I can trust you, sweetheart, right? I felt a little bad that I never bought anything. I picked up Swimming Monthly. My brother had covered the walls of his room with pages ripped out of these magazines. There was something about that that seemed more honest than putting up pictures of bands or movie stars. It was better than mirrors, the image of the thing he wanted to be. What did it feel like, the day he opened a magazine and saw a glossy picture of himself?

I put the magazine back and went up to the register. The red-and-white boxes of cloves had their own section in the stacks of cigarettes behind the counter. I picked up a pack of Trident and waited for Rich to come out of the back room.

THE WISPY BOYdisappeared from Lane Five. It was as if the current had taken him. I kicked. I stroked. I tried to keep my elbow lifted. I tested and sorted the reeds of myself, and I could feel something happening. My body knew what it was doing. I stuffed a pull-buoy between my thighs and my arms were golden. Water moved for me. I went arm to pit to hip to toe and I let my mind catch on moments: Alexis calling me over. Alexis pulling at my cuff. My memory rubbed the moments raw.

In the middle of the 200 Back I bumped into the striver and she told me I’d swim straighter if I followed the lines on the ceiling. I said, I know that.

At the end of the length I rested my elbows on the wall’s metal lip. Donna swam up and stared at me. She said, What’s up with you?

I said, What do you mean?

She said, Not to be rude, but why do you stop after every lap?

I said, I’m just resting. I said, It’s not every lap. I get leg cramps. You can ask Coach.

Donna said, No offense, but if you don’t want to be here, you shouldn’t be.

She looked as if she might punch me. Not at that moment, but later, when she wasn’t in her bathing suit, and when there weren’t swimmers around to witness it.

I said, It’s fine.

She said, Not really.

I said, It’s fine.

MY DAD WASfinishing up a work project and couldn’t come get me after practice. I lingered for a minute at the trophy case. Nobody came up behind me. At the bus stop an old woman said the 47 had just passed. The time it would take for the next one to come would be longer than it would take me to walk home. The rain was steady and light, strong enough to notice but not to care about. At the corner ahead a silver Taurus pulled up at the curb. U2 was playing loud. Greg leaned out the passenger window and asked if I wanted a lift. I told him I was almost home. Alexis, from the driver’s seat, asked if I was sure. She said, It’s raining.

I said, It’s okay, I like walking. It was cold and dark and wet and late.

On my front lawn was a wheelbarrow with a tarp over it. I looked under the tarp: wood chips. Some space had been cleared in front of the house, and I couldn’t remember what had been there before. Next to the wheelbarrow were a few small bushes swaddled in burlap. The cleared space made the house look naked.

At dinner I said, What’s going on with the front of the house? My dad said Ben had had the day off so he’d decided to get started. He’d brought in some plants that would do well through the winter.

Our old plants had done fine through the winter. Ben was becoming some kind of lurker, hanging around when I wasn’t there. I didn’t want him around when I wasn’t, digging holes in the yard with my dad standing by. I could see them, Ben leaning on a shovel, my dad in his raincoat. It wasn’t crazy to think Ben might have asked where I was, or what time I got home from practice. I said, What did you guys talk about?

My dad said he’d been busy working, that he hadn’t really had the time to chat. I said, Then how did he know where the plants should go? My dad said he’d trusted Ben to figure it out. I didn’t know what reason my dad had to trust him. I got up to get a new bottle of salad dressing from the refrigerator. On the door was a magnet for USA Swimming that had been there forever, so old it couldn’t hold anything up. Had my brother stuck it there or had my parents put it up in hopes he’d notice?

I got the bottle from the fridge and stood there holding it. I said, I joined swim team. I said, I thought I should tell you before you found out from Ben.

My mom said, Ben?

I didn’t know why I had told Ben. I said, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before.

My mom said, Well, we’re not shocked.

My dad said, We had a feeling.

I wasn’t telling them to shock them. I said, You had a feeling when?

He said, When you told me about Erika.

I felt myself getting angry. The angry feeling flared over something else. I said, Then why were you asking me how Erika was doing?

My mom said, We wanted to give you the opportunity to tell us on your own.

They’d gummed me up in a trap. I waited for them to get mad, to ask why I hadn’t told them. My dad reached for the last drumstick.

I said, Do you want me to tell you anything else about it? I waited for them to ask what events I was swimming, and how good I was. I wouldn’t tell them about stopping, but I’d describe how I swam just after stopping, when the machine of my body worked best.

My mom said, What else do you want to tell us?

I said, Nothing.

I made myself watch a little TV with my parents after dinner and I got up at a commercial to get a snack. This felt like Ben’s fault. In the front of the Rolodex was a business card with a green background and a small graphic of a crossed rake and another garden tool, and above it it said Benjamin Mitchell, Landscaping and Yardwork. In quotes it said Competitive Rates. My parents were probably overpaying him. I took a sheet of scrap paper from the grocery-list pad and wrote down the address and phone number from the card. I didn’t write anyone’s name on it. I folded the paper and put it in my pocket.

ALEXIS GAVE MEa strip of her Kit Kat. Melanie offered me some gummy bears. Erika said I could get rich starting a resale business, with all the treats they gave me. She said she’d passed PT in the hall and he’d said Hey, and the next time the two of them were thrown into a circumstance like that, she was going to keep the conversation going. I said she could go sit with him on the bus if she wanted to. She said sitting with him would be like entering his inner sanctum.

Our opening meet was a week away. I was the first to take off for the first drill, without anyone asking me to, practically before the whistle blew, and I swam as hard as I could to get some distance between me and the rest of my lane. Coach was walking around with his clipboard. He’d watch us and let us know our races on the day of the meet. I lifted my head higher. Looking ahead made my body feel lighter. I slapped the wall and turned quickly. Freestyle was the stroke that made the most sense to me — my arms pulling water, my legs more or less kicking to propel me. 50 or 100 Freestyle was something I could more than handle. After eight lengths I stopped at the wall.