Sara Jaffe - Dryland

The striver sidled up to me before Coach called out the cooldown. She said, Can I give you a little tip?

I said, What?

She said, Your head? You shouldn’t hold it up quite so much. It spoils the line?

I said, What?

She said, The line? That your body’s supposed to stay in when you swim. It sounded like something from a textbook about swimming. What did she do, read up at night and memorize tips? She said, What race do you hope he puts you in? I’m really hoping for 100 Breast. Or a breast spot in the Medley Relay.

On her cheek was a whitehead shiny with pus. I said, I thought you were into the fly.

She said, I changed my mind, after you talked to me about it. She said, What do you think my chances are?

I wanted to say, Why are you asking me? but I knew why.

Coach called me over on my way to the locker room. If he asked me what race I wanted to swim, I’d say 100 Free. I wouldn’t tell Erika he’d asked me, because she wanted so badly to swim 100 Back, the same race as PT. I’d save her from knowing I’d gotten to choose and she hadn’t.

Coach said, I found this in my files. Thought you might want to take a look.

The pamphlet said Miracle Swimming. The smaller print said How to Feel Safe in Deep Water. I said, I’m not afraid of the water.

Coach said, Sure.

I said, You see me swimming in there every day.

Coach said, Right. I was thinking about this part. He took the pamphlet back and pointed to a heading that said Panic Prevention. He said, Believe it or not, I was there once. I had these little pink pills I would take.

The pamphlet said when panic came to take deep breaths and count back slowly from ten. It had nothing to do with me. I said, I’m not panicking. I get cramps.

Coach said, Sure. Same story with me.

The pool deck was freezing. I hated that my towel was in my locker. I said, Why don’t you just cut me?

Coach said, That’s not in my philosophy.

I got my swim bag out of my locker and stuffed the pamphlet in the bottom. I didn’t want to risk throwing it in a can where anyone could find it.

THE CLASSIC ROCKstation was coming in staticky. I moved my arm toward the dial and the signal got clearer. I dropped my arm on my pillow and the fuzz came back. My body felt dead. I put the back of my hand to my forehead. Coach was so full of shit, the way he thought he was helping me out. Handing me that pamphlet was him tossing me in a hole and saying, Swim out of it. Or saying I was already in a hole and he was sorry but he didn’t know if I could swim out of it. He hadn’t said he was sorry.

Pledge’s body warmed my feet. Any minute she would start barking and the doorbell would ring and Ben would be there in the yard, digging holes. If I had the energy or desire to get out of bed, I would put on R.E.M., loud, and time it so that Country Feedback was playing when Ben came in for his coffee. Then he would get over his idea that I only liked the same songs everyone liked. I wanted to see the look on Ben’s face when I told him I was going to quit. I wanted to see him awkwardly figuring out what look to throw on. He’d been so self-satisfied when I told him I was swimming, so sure he’d known from the first time he met me. He thought he knew me better than I knew myself.

Pledge jumped up and started barking and it was my mom coming back from grocery shopping, and I got up and put on a hoodie and slip-ons. I wanted to see if she’d gotten the Hot Pockets I’d put on the list.

My dad was outside pushing wood chips around. My mom said she thought the landscaper was supposed to take care of that. My dad said that Ben had been called in to his other job and couldn’t make it until next week. My mom said if the project got left halfway done, she wasn’t planning to be the one to help finish it. She was right to be pissed off.

I said, I’m not helping either.

He used the back of his work gloves to sop up his sweat. I thought he was going to tell us Ben was fired. He said he was glad to know he could count on us. He held his back as he stood up, a comic-book version of an old man straightening. He was too old to be doing yard work.

TWO BUSES THATweren’t mine came first. Nothing felt stupider than stepping up to the curb and raising my hand to make the driver stop, and then realizing that it wasn’t the 47. The jumpy guy in a running suit bouncing his knees in the bus shelter said, Fucking buses. His accent sounded like something. When the 47 came he stood behind me in the aisle. He looked like Baryshnikov. He hadn’t shaved, or he couldn’t grow a real moustache. He was wearing an outfit Coach might wear, but he didn’t remind me of Coach. Once he reached into his pants and adjusted, or whatever it was guys did when they did that. I thought, after the adjustment, that I could make out the edge of something pushing against the shiny fabric. The guy was wearing cologne. He cracked his knuckles and stared at nothing. If he were a coach of something, he would be a mean coach. He would act as if he didn’t care about us, but would never give up on us just when we were getting going.

The guy got out by City Hall. Maybe that’s why he’d been cracking his knuckles so nervously. I stayed on until the Galleria. My plan hadn’t been to go to Rich’s — I hadn’t had a plan — but I felt as if I needed to say something to Ben. I wanted to blame him for something. Rich looked up from his old guys at the counter. It was embarrassing how often I had been in the store recently. Ben was nowhere on the floor. The old guys stopped talking when I went up to the counter. They smelled like cigars. I said, Is Ben working?

Rich said, Oh, you know Benjamin? Nice guy.

I said, Is he here?

Rich said, Couldn’t say, sweetheart. He got rid of his Saturdays a few weeks ago. I think he has his, what’s it called, gardening business going on the weekends.

I said, Landscaping. I said, Thank you, and bought a pack of Trident.

It was one thing to lie to me, or Rich, but to my dad? Who might actually hurt his back spreading wood chips? I hoped he hadn’t given Ben any money yet. I got to the bus stop just as the 15, which crossed the river and went up Morrison, was pulling away. The stop was in front of the central library and I sat on the steps to wait for the next one. The steps were damp. My butt was getting damp from sitting on them. The other people sitting on the steps were, I guessed, homeless. Their shopping carts lined the curb. Homeless people used the library bathroom as if it were their bathroom, which was fine. One of the younger guys in a thick, ripped flannel had a skateboard that he pushed back and forth with his feet while he sat. He might have been looking at me. Ben’s address was on the piece of paper in my pocket.

The bus took me across the river and I got out at 20th and walked two blocks east. The sign above the entryway said The Alderwood. These kinds of old apartment buildings were all over Southeast. A tree — an alder? — was stuck in a muddy parking strip across the street. It provided some cover. The phone book hadn’t listed an apartment number, and the face of The Alderwood told me nothing. One window had bright blue curtains. Three windows had plants on the sill. Ben was interested in plants. Ben’s being interested in plants didn’t mean he had any. A gray cat poked its head out a second-story window. A gray-haired woman walked out of the building, carrying a bicycle. There had been a Plaid Pantry back where the bus had let me off. Inside, my craving veered toward savory, then sweet, from Fritos to a Heath bar to a Slurpee to nothing.

No one was on the pay phone outside. Erika said, Where are you?

I said, Just a pay phone.

Erika asked if I wanted to come over and do homework. A car revved loud down Morrison. Erika said, Where are you?