Sara Jaffe - Dryland

She handed me the pen. She said, Do you want to write down a race?

I pressed the ballpoint into the skin on the back of my hand. I had to press hard to get a faint line of blue. I said, I don’t want to jinx it.

Erika said, Crap, you’re right. She wet her thumb and wiped at the writing.

We massed on the sidewalk, before the last bell, waiting to get on the bus. Alexis and Melanie stood near the curb, tented together. If Alexis looked over at me and waved and offered me something, some meet-day treat, I would wish her good luck when I took it. Greg walked over and Alexis put her arm around him and leaned against his shoulder, and he patted her head like there, there. The pat didn’t strike me as sincere. Coach stood at the entrance to the bus, clipboard in hand. Erika was so amped up that I let her get on ahead of me. Coach said, Erika, nice job with backstroke lately. He told her she’d swim the 100 Back and the 400 Free Relay. She high-fived the palm Coach offered. When I stepped up Coach angled his clipboard toward him and looked down at it. He said, Julie. Glad to see you. He kept looking at his clipboard. He said, We’ve got you in the 400 Free Relay. I said, Okay, waiting for more. He said, So you’ll be with Erika on that one. He said, We’ll try to work toward a solo event for next time, okay?

Because Erika had gotten on first, she sat in my window seat, forgetting or ignoring that I always got the window. I stood in the aisle until she saw me and slid over to let me in. Coach went down the rows, handing out swim team sweatshirts to the people who had ordered them. They were expensive, and I hadn’t wanted to ask my parents for the money. The bus was a heap of enthusiasm. People were waving their races in the air like flags, and nobody had won anything yet.

The meet was at Madison, they had their own pool, and the locker room was as clean as a hotel bathroom. The locker room buzzed. Girls were talking to girls they would never talk to. I changed quickly and went into the bathroom stall for a pube check. My new green-and-white competition suit was tighter and higher-cut than my regular suit. There were two pubes showing below the leg-line — a pain at the pulling, then a pop. I put them in the toilet and flushed. Alexis was at the sink pushing stray hairs into her bathing cap. I hadn’t thought before about how it would be harder for her to sweep her hair easily into a ponytail and cover it with a cap now that she’d gotten it cut. I saw her see me in the mirror.

She said, Oh my god, Julie, I’m so nervous.

I said, You’re going to do great. I meant it. It was hard not to look at the reflection of her and me in the mirror.

Alexis said, Hey Julie, can I ask you a weird question?

I said, Okay.

She said, Did your brother do anything before a race? For luck or something?

I wished I had something to give her, for luck. A clover or a disc on a chain. I said, Let me think for a second.

I’d read a spread in the latest Poolside about swimmers’ pre-meet rituals. Their answers had been pretty predictable — playing the Rocky song, calling their mothers. There was one I had liked. It had struck me as something my brother might do. I said, He went to sleep super early the night before, so he could get up and watch the sunrise.

Alexis said, That’s sweet. She said, That’s kind of romantic. But I missed the sunrise.

She was nervous, I could tell. I wanted to give her something else. I wanted it to be something she could use. I looked in the mirror and saw her nervous eyes blinking, her hands tapping against her crossed arms. I said, He also did a thing where he closed his eyes and breathed. Alexis nodded, and her tapping slowed. I said, Then he counted back slowly from ten.

Alexis said, Cool! She finished adjusting her cap. She said, That sounds easy.

THE MADISON POOLwas cleaner and bigger than the pool at the Y. It may have just looked bigger because it was cleaner.

The Madison swimmers wore navy and gold.

The striver asked me if I was nervous.

The whistle the referee blew to start the meet wasn’t louder or different-sounding from a regular whistle. I’d thought he would use the starting gun.

Alexis swam the breaststroke leg of the Medley Relay. Coach was standing in front of me, blocking my view.

We were allowed to have our towels on the pool deck. I wrapped mine around my waist.

The referee blew the whistle. A Madison swimmer had dived in too soon.

The Madison swimmers were bigger than our swimmers. They looked stronger. Their coach probably cut people from the team.

Erika told me to wish her luck.

Erika came in fourth, beating out Madison’s B and C teams. PT came up and gave her a high five. When had she learned to do flip turns?

Someone tried to start We Will Rock You.

Someone tried to start a wave.

Coach, red-faced, yelled, Pull! Pull! He lunged close to the edge of the pool.

Alexis stepped up on the block for the 100 Breast. She swam stiff and stilted for the first length. I thought, I believe you can do this. I thought, Count back from ten. Midway through the second length, her stroke untensed. She smoothed the water. She took up and folded it. She touched the wall and the stands went crazy.

The striver asked me if I knew how many points were needed for a varsity letter. She was wearing a gray swimming sweatshirt. It swam on her.

I tensed for the crack and the starting gun went.

The 400 Free Relay was the last event of the meet. I had almost forgotten I had a race to swim. The C team was Erika and Donna and the striver and me. The striver tried to lead us in a cheer.

The gun popped. The striver dove. With her careful scoopings, she kept fairly apace. Donna, next, swam strong and sharp and pulled us a fraction ahead of Madison’s C team. I climbed up on the block. I hadn’t thought, all meet, about swimming. No one had mentioned how much the block slanted forward. No one had told me how to curl my toes or when to put up my arms for the dive. Donna touched the wall. I put up my arms and went. My body hit cold water. For a second I flailed, or my mind did. Then my arm went, then my other one, my legs did what they did and I got on the rails. I kept even and clean. I stroked and kicked and turned my head in rhythm. I came up on the wall and I touched, and turned, and I stayed on it, a good machine back down the lane. I counted backward from ten. I touched the wall, done.

Someone was yelling my name. More than one person. Donna was saying, Holy shit, she’s stopping, and Coach was saying, Julie, keep going! I’d only done two lengths. I had somehow forgotten that I was supposed to do four. I arced around and pushed off with no momentum. I’d known 100 was there, back, there, back, but I’d forgotten, or I’d thought I’d done it all, or I hadn’t been thinking, which was supposed to be the point. I chopped. I spat. My brain went everywhere, nowhere good. My suit chafed and rode up. It wasn’t made for someone who was built like me. I slapped and churned. Finally finally finally the wall. Erika dove in. The A and B teams were finished, and the Madison C team, almost. Erika would be the last one in the pool because of me. My arms were spent. They used the last they had to hoist me up and out of the pool. I didn’t say a word to Donna or the striver. I stood against the wall with my hands in fists. The striver said, It’s okay, you forgot. If she offered me a tip, I would lose it. I was this close to losing it. The meet was over. Erika got out of the pool.

I said, I’m sorry.

Erika hopped on one foot, shaking water from her ear. She said, It’s completely okay. Don’t worry about it.

I said, I’m really sorry. I really fucked up. I wanted her to slice me with an accusation.

Coach came over. He said, Hey Julie, what happened in there, forgot we were doing a 100?