Sara Jaffe - Dryland

In the back of the box were some small white envelopes that I thought for a second were letters from my brother — he’d been homesick, he missed us, he’d gotten sick of the sun. The envelopes held brief updates from his coach, form letters acknowledging receipt of funds. Did my parents know what was going on with him and my brother? Like me, did they know without really knowing? My dad’s steps sounded on the ceiling above me. Behind all the papers was a tangle of medals. The satiny ribbons had pulled in places. These were the kinds of things we’d lay out at his funeral. We’d frame a copy of the Swimmers’ World article and call the San Diego line a typo, not tell anyone that his favorite food was really Froot Loops, he ate it by the bowlful, anything with sugar. I unknotted a small gold medal from the bunch. It showed a swimmer’s arm angled out above reliefed lines of water. Ben might want one. Alexis might want to see it. The cold disc warmed in my palm.

MELANIE OFFERED MEa granola bar. Alexis leaned her head on Greg’s shoulder. I stood in the bus aisle waiting for Erika to let me in. She said, Are you sure you want to sit here?

I said, This is where we always sit. She moved her knees to the side as if I were a stranger in a movie theater.

She said, So did you not get my messages?

I said, I told you, I had a headache.

She said, What about when I called in the morning and you were out?

She’d already called twice when I got back from Ben’s. I said, I was at the library.

She said, What about your swimmer’s shoulder?

The more Erika came at me, the more I emptied out. It didn’t matter what I said to her. I said, My shoulder’s okay.

Erika said, Why do you have so many things wrong with you all of a sudden? She worked her eyes into a glare.

I said, I’ve been training harder. I don’t know.

She wiped her eye with the cuff of her jacket. She said, I know you think my feelings for PT are stupid.

Her feelings weren’t stupid, but she was obsessed with them. I would never say it, but Erika was nothing like the girls a guy like PT would like, and that made her feelings mean less. They had nothing real to catch on to. I said, I don’t think your feelings are stupid. I said, How was the concert? I was going to ask you.

She said, Were you? Erika, even trying, couldn’t sound mean. She said, Are you really asking me? She said, It was a show, not a concert. She said, PT didn’t say that the friend in the band was his ex-girlfriend from St. Mary’s. I basically had to spend the whole night watching him look at her.

I said, That sucks.

She said, It’s not like they’re back together, but the point is I don’t do anything cool.

Alexis’s laugh separated from the din at the back of the bus. I had thought, while I lay on my carpet, that if I found out my brother had AIDS and was dying, I would tell Alexis. She would be the one to tell, because in some way she felt something for him. We would be alone, in her room, and she’d tear up when I told her. We’d lie on her bed next to each other, and she would work her fingers loosely through my hair. We’d want to make out and know we shouldn’t because the news was so sad.

Erika said, I was thinking. Maybe we should start a band? She said, Don’t you have a guitar? I could sing.

My dad’s old acoustic guitar sliced my fingers when I’d tried to play the chords he’d shown me. It was going to be hard for me and Alexis to find time alone together, with practice every day. I said, I’m pretty busy right now. I’m doing this whole training thing.

Erika said, Oh right. She wasn’t mad anymore. She said, Maybe in the spring. She was so much more comfortable not being mad at me. She said, Really I just wanted to ask you about your date with the older guy. Tell me everything.

I used the side of my fist to clear fog from the window. If my brother had really been safe, Ben wouldn’t have needed to say it. Ben knew, maybe better than anyone, that my brother was the type to go to a bathhouse and have sex with ten men whose names he didn’t know.

I said, He canceled at the last minute.

Erika said, Oh no! She looked disappointed. She said, So disappointing. Did you reschedule?

With the last bit of generosity I could dig up, I said, Actually, it turns out he has a girlfriend. I said, It’s okay, he was too old for me.

AT ONE POINTduring practice, midway down the lane, I breathed to my left and I saw the striver on the other side of the lane line, swimming in the same direction, a few feet ahead of me. My head was where her knees were. I knew this was a test. It was as if someone had handed me a sword and said fight. My lungs worked. My arms sloughed off old water. My body pulled even with hers and we matched strokes with each other, scoop to kick and neck to neck. We were stopped in time. We inhabited the same moment in time. We were insects in amber and the water pushed against us and then I pulled ahead of her.

I LAY INbed and looked up Alexis’s number in the phone book. I read her address and her last name. They hummed off the page at me. I turned on my back and brought the book to my face and smelled the cheap, slurry scent of newsprint. My fingers, for days, had smelled like Alexis, or they hadn’t but I’d smelled her on them when I breathed in deeply enough. There was no one to tell me what was normal. My parents’ footsteps sounded on the stairs and I pushed the phone book to the floor. It was late. I didn’t have Alexis’s private number. I’d forgotten to ask, or she’d forgotten to give it to me. I waited until I heard the TV murmur from my parents’ room and I picked up the phone and listened to the deep, rich hole of the dial tone.

She’d say, Hi.

She’d say, I was just thinking about you.

Or she’d say, What’s up?

I’d say, My brother’s dying, and I’d wait for her to melt with sympathy.

Or I’d say, Not much.

She’d say, How’s the training for the 500 Free going?

I’d say, Pretty good. I’m really building strength.

She’d say, That’s great.

I’d say, How are you?

She’d say, I had kind of a crappy week. Or, I had kind of a shitty week.

I’d say, Why?

She’d say, Melanie and I keep arguing about this yearbook stuff. And Greg’s not being helpful.

I would feel helpful. I would ask her to tell me what was going on. She’d tell me about the argument over the black paper.

I’d say, Silver pens are a cool idea.

She’d say, Thank you so much for understanding. That’s so helpful. Then she’d say, I was just thinking about you.

MELANIE CAME OVERto our table with another stack of photos for us to ID. She said, So am I going to see you two at my house on Friday night?

Erika said, What’s at your house Friday night?

Melanie said, I thought Alexis had invited you. She said, I’m having a big girls-only slumber party thing at my house after the meet.

Alexis came in and Melanie said, Al, I can’t believe you didn’t invite these girls to my thing on Friday.

Alexis said, Sorry, I’ve been so busy. She’d been back and forth to the copy room all period. She was busy with ads. She said, You’re going to come?

Melanie said, We’ll watch movies and do face masks. Have you ever seen Grease?

Erika said, We’re free, right, Julie?

I didn’t like Alexis standing there while Erika said we, as if Erika and I always did everything together, as if Erika were the master of my schedule. Alexis looked a little stressed, standing there with an armful of copies, but not flustered, or annoyed at Melanie for bringing up the party. She wasn’t trying not to look at me. I had no reason to believe she’d been anything but busy. I said, not very loud, You want me to come?