Sara Jaffe - Dryland

Erika said, It’s my fault, we were talking about doing 50s right before she got in.

I said, I’m really sorry. Now I was completely crying. There was no way Coach couldn’t tell.

He patted my shoulder. He said, You know what, Julie? It happens. It happens once so it won’t happen again, right?

Erika said, Absolutely.

COACH STEPPED ONTOthe bus and the team went wild. He put his hands up for silence. He said, Let me tell you what. We just beat the number one-ranked team in our division. And we beat them with some kick-ass races. Greg cupped his hands and said Alexis’s name in a low, loud growl, and the back of the bus cheered and the cheer carried up in waves. I felt the waves pass over and around me. Melanie said, Party at Alexis’s, and the cheers swelled again.

Erika said, Yeah, should we go? They were talking about it in the stands.

I said, I don’t think I was invited.

Erika said, The whole team is invited. Let’s go?

I let Erika convince me to come over to her house for dinner, where we ate mushy veggie burgers and Erika did most of the talking, describing how mean and ripped the Madison team was, and how she’d beat her best time on backstroke. She hadn’t mentioned that she’d been timing herself. Erika’s mom asked how it went for me. Erika said, Julie did great.

Erika’s mom looked younger than my mom, not in her face or skin but in how she moved and talked to us. I said, She’s just saying that.

Erika said, It was an honest mistake.

I said, I ruined the race. The veggie burgers were a lukewarm paste. I took another bite. I said, I’m thinking about quitting.

Erika’s mom said, I don’t think an honest mistake feels any better than a dishonest one. She put her hand on top of my hand and squeezed it. She said, I’m really sorry, Julie.

I didn’t know what she was sorry about. I could have stayed in that kitchen for the rest of the night.

I lay on Erika’s bed and looked away while she changed. I looked back each time she had something new to show me — two tight T-shirts that were the same except for their color, and a purplish button-down with the top buttons open. Erika said, Too slutty?

I said, Not if you don’t mind Grapestuff staring at your chest.

Erika said, Really? Gross. She said, The question is how to get PT to look at my chest.

I said, Right.

Erika said, Stop looking at the ceiling and tell me if you think I should do two buttons or three.

I turned on my side to face Erika. I lay on my side while she said, Okay, here’s two, and gave a little curtsy sort of flap of her hands at her sides. My eyes had nowhere appropriate to go. She said, Okay, here’s three, and revealed the tops of her boobs — tits was the word I felt I should use — and the line of cleavage. I dipped my eyes there. It was what she was asking me to do — to put aside my, in her words, gloom and doom, and look at her as if I were PT. I looked full-on at Erika with her shirt half-unbuttoned, her tits hanging out, her bra almost showing, and a hum or a pulse hit my crotch area — my crotch or PT’s. I sat up. I said, Start with two.

Erika said, You’re right. PT seems like he’d prefer a little mystery. She said, You’re not really quitting, right?

Erika said that if I wasn’t going to borrow a shirt from her I could at least not hide in my hoodie, so I took off my hoodie and wore my second layer, my teal heathered henley, one of my favorites which, big laugh, I had put on that day for good luck. Erika said at least I could try wearing my hair down. I undid my low ponytail and put my rubber band around my wrist. Sometimes I forgot how long my hair was. My hair undone made my face too soft. It looked as if I were trying to look like something. I pulled my hair back.

GRAPESTUFF OPENED ALEXIS’Sfront door. He said, Ladies!

Erika said, What are you, the official door opener?

He said, Alexis’s parents are at the coast. Keg’s in the kitchen, ladies.

Alexis’s house was full of swimmers holding big red cups of beer. The Beastie Boys blasted loud from the stereo. People raised their cups and yelled the words. It was a winners’ party. I said to Erika, I think I might go.

She said, Stay an hour with me. Please? She said, There he is. PT was sitting on the arm of a couch talking to a butterflier. They both had beer. Erika said, Let’s get some.

Greg was standing at the keg. He said, Step right up. He filled my cup and said, Julie, right? It’s nice to meet you. It was a stupid thing to say, we weren’t meeting now, and we had basically met before. And to say, now, that it was nice to meet me meant he was thinking about my ruined race and lying through his teeth.

I stood silently next to Erika while she talked to Lane Four swimmers and newspaper kids, a few groups over from where PT sat. My beer tasted like pee, or Swiss cheese. I took another sip. I didn’t feel anything. I wanted the drinking to make me even less there. Every once in a while someone would cup his or her hands and say JACK-SON. And then cheering, even from the non-swimmers. Everyone wanted to be celebrating something, still, though the races were done and the points awarded. Winning dragged and dragged on. I said, It’s probably been an hour. I can go by myself. Erika asked me how I would get home. I said I could call my parents, but the idea of calling them felt terrible, the idea of being in the front seat with my dad, with the radio playing and nobody talking, of getting home and being alone in my room.

I drank more. I had to pee. There was a long line at the downstairs bathroom. Someone said there was another one upstairs. I didn’t care about waiting, I didn’t have anything better to do, but I left the line and went upstairs to see more of Alexis’s house. It was pretty fancy — up in the hills, the back held up by stilts. A big window at the top of the stairs had a view of the river and the lights and bridges. It was relaxing to look out at a view like that. The window was big enough that I could step out into it and be another shadow in the dark. Another cheer roiled up from downstairs. The worst was remembering the moment when I’d thought I was done — when I’d come to a stop I’d thought I’d earned. The view out the window was clear enough that I could step out into it and be as small and useless as a shadow, or the light’s reflection on the water. A door down the hall closed and Alexis was standing next to me. She said, I love this view. She had on a light blue sweater.

I said, Congratulations.

She said, Thanks. I know. I was honestly surprised.

She was glowing so hard that there was almost room in the glow for me. Her sweater looked very soft. It was only a matter of time before she remembered what I’d done.

I said, I’m really sorry I messed up. My stare leveled out the window to keep me from crying.

She said, What? What happened?

It was nice of her to pretend she didn’t know. I said, I made my relay team lose. The team lost those points because of me.

She said, Oh, whatever. What looked like a boat passed far away on the river. She said, Those points were nothing. No one will remember. The boat was a light tracking across our view. The smell of Alexis’s conditioner curled toward me. The smell was a forest on a blanket in the sun, the smell from the hair of someone on the blanket beside me. Alexis leaned the weight of her left arm against my right. She tugged my cuff and said, Come here.

Alexis closed the door of her bedroom. She didn’t turn the light on. She asked, Do you smoke? There was a pot pipe on her desk.

I said, No thanks.

Alexis came over and stood in front of me. She was around my height, an inch or so shorter. She took her hands and put them on either side of my neck, and slid her hands out to the ends of my shoulders, measuring me. She said, You have a really nice body, Julie. If I had been able to move myself away from her I might have. Alexis tightened her grip on my shoulders. She pulled me closer or pushed herself closer. The first kiss felt like a test. Her lips were dry and they pushed against mine and my air was gone, and then I felt her tongue. It was a soft, wet thing invading my mouth and my lips and my tongue did nothing back. She said, Is this okay? My mouth was beer-sour. It wasn’t that it wasn’t okay. I must have nodded, I must have made myself nod, because she came back and kissed me again and I was ready for it. I knew how to kiss her back. I pulled her lips with my lips and let my tongue touch the ridges of her teeth and her tongue. My hands touched her waist, and her sweater was as soft, softer, than it had looked, and it was easy to touch her waist and her hips and to press my hand in the crook of her hips. She took my hand and moved it up to her breast and pressed it there and took her hand away and I felt the weight and the heat and the outline of her bra underneath the thin sweater. Her nipple, as I touched it, got harder and she kissed me harder and my crotch pounded and her hips pressed against my hips. Alexis stepped back. My hair was loose, she must have unloosed it, and she combed her fingers loosely through it. She said, You’re a good kisser. We were standing in the middle of her dark room. She said, Do you mind? and went and picked up the pot pipe and lit it. The pot glowed. She blew the smoke out in my direction, on purpose, a tease. I had to say something.