Learning to Swim (10 page)

As I stepped outside, I felt a flutter of nerves, the same feeling I had in fifth grade when I had to recite the line “Papa, the Wells Fargo wagon is a-comin’!” in a (very lame) school performance of
The Music Man.

“Hey.” Keith greeted me with his signature gaspinducing smile.

I took a deep breath. “Do you want something to drink?” I asked.

“Thanks, but I have some water.” He hopped off the mower and took a swig from the bottle that he had kept in his messenger bag.

I nervously glanced toward the house as my mind went blank. What was I supposed to say next? “Thanks for mowing,” I said mechanically as I squashed a mosquito on my arm.

Suave. Especially the part when I flicked the dead mosquito away and rubbed the blood off with my thumb.

“No problem,” he said. “Tell Alice I'm happy to help out whenever.”

I wrung my hands together nervously. “Herbert Lewis usually does it.” He was the freckly-faced seventh grader who lived in the apartment below mine. “He's visiting his dad in Virginia. Do you know Herbert?” I asked.

“Um—I don't think so.” Keith took off his hat and
shook his head a bit. Then something amazing happened. A little bead of his sweat landed on my shoulder!

Quite honestly, I lost every shred of composure I had maintained up until that moment. I could feel that my leg was bobbing up and down just like Barbie's had been earlier that day, and I began tugging at the strap of my tank top that was closest to where his sweat had landed, in a vain effort to touch his fluids. My end of the conversation was totally shot.

There was a moment of silence as Keith glanced around Alice's yard, as if admiring his handiwork. He also seemed unaware of the fact that I wanted to tackle him and roll around in his handiwork. “So were you going to level this whole thing with a push mower?”

I nodded.

“Wow,” he said, impressed. “It's got to be, like, what? At least two acres, right?”

“I guess,” I said. Two acres. Two hundred acres.
Keith McKnight's sweat was on my body!

“Not too many places around here have this much property.”

“That's because the houses are so big.”

“True.” His beautiful eyes darted across the creek to his house. He shook his head. “Big and awful.”

“I like your house, Keith.” For some reason, I took a step toward him. “It's very… palacelike.”

Ick.

“Thanks,” Keith said, and smirked. “I shouldn't complain, though. At least it's big enough for me to not have to deal with anyone that much.”

“I wouldn't know what that's like,” I said. “My mom and I pretty much live on top of each other. I liked our apartment before this one a lot better. The dining area was separate from the living room.” As I stared into Keith's eyes, I could feel a smile creeping across my face that was not even the slightest bit secret.

“Where was that?” he asked.

“In Hagerstown.”

“Hagerstown?”

“It's on the other side of the state, near West Virginia.”

“I know exactly where it is,” he said. “I go to school in Frostburg, so we drive through Hagerstown all the time. What made you guys decide to move here?”

It felt as though something was lodged in my throat. Now we were getting into uncharted territory. The last thing I wanted to do was come across as some sort of crazy sap, which I was, but he didn't need to know that
now
, did he? And how could I explain our constant moves without giving away too much information?

“Stef?” Alice peeked her head out and rescued me as if on cue. “Could you help me with something?”

“I'll be right back.” I hurried back inside like a boxer retreating to his corner.

“How's it going?” Alice whispered. She handed me a glass of ice water.

“Exhausting,” I replied before gulping it down (even though I knew she had intended it for Keith). “Who would think that making conversation with a guy would be so hard?” I said when I was finished.

“It's not just a guy, though,” Alice said with a lilt in her voice. “It's Keith.”

I wasn't sure if I was glistening from the heat outside or what, but I was feeling rather dewy all of sudden. “I know. But Barbie makes it look so easy.”

“When it comes to flirting, your mother's in a league of her own,” Alice agreed. “But she has years of experience. You just need some more practice.” She paused for a minute and then asked, “Do you feel up to inviting him for dinner?”

I hesitated, and Alice said, “We'll never eat all that food by ourselves. And besides, the pickles I made the other day are ready.”

Alice was right. Keith had mowed her yard. As nerve-wracking as I found the whole concept of his staying for dinner, the least I could do was reward him with some pickles.

I took another deep breath, handed Alice back the empty glass, and returned to the ring. Keith was leaning against his lawn mower with his head back and arms crossed, soaking up the last rays of sunshine.

“Would you like to stay for dinner?” I blurted out.

He opened his eyes and stood up straight. “I'm sorry, I can't. I'm having dinner with my dad. But thanks anyway.”

“Sure,” I replied, secretly relieved. Due to the sudden itchiness of my chest, I was pretty certain I was breaking out in hives.

He looked at me and smiled as we endured an awkward silence. Dinner with his dad or not, he was obviously in no rush. His seeming reluctance to leave was confusing. Not that I was anxious for him to go, but why was he gazing at me like that? Oh God, was there something hanging out of my nose?

“We should schedule another lesson,” he said finally. “How about tomorrow night?”

“Warthog… I mean, Mr. Warzog didn't talk to you?” I asked.

“About what?”

“He found out about me being at the pool when it was closed.” Considering that Keith's father was one of the club's best golfers, I wasn't really surprised that Warthog had not even bothered to mention this to Keith. “He told me it was against club rules.”

“What?” Keith said tersely. He was visibly surprised. “When did he tell you that?”

“This morning.”

He swiped back his hair as his eyes narrowed. “How did he even know you were there?”

I was tempted to accuse Mora, but I could hear my elementary school teacher's voice in my ear reminding me that no one liked a tattletale. “I guess somebody complained,” I said graciously.

“Mora.” He shook his head in seeming disgust.

I shrugged. “He didn't say.”

The muscles in his jaw tightened. “I hate all this bullcrap. I mean, why the hell do they care if you're at the pool when it's not open? You
work
there.”

I shrugged again.

“Not to mention that you're around that pool all the time. And you almost drowned in it. People should mind their own damn business.”

I couldn't believe how irate he was getting, and it was all because of… me.

“All right,” he said resolutely. “We'll just move our lessons to the bay.”

My heart dropped. We were once again way off script. How could I tell him that there was no way in hell I was going into that bay? It was one thing to be at the pool when there was at least the slightest sense that “the man” was watching over us all the time. But the
bay?
We were just asking for something unexpectedly romantic to happen. This was not an option. I would just have to let him down easy and tell him under no circumstances could I allow myself to be vulnerable to the likes of love lunacy, or the jellyfish,
crabs, and other squirmy, smelly creatures that were lurking in the bay.

“How about Friday night?” he asked. “I can meet you at Crab Beach after I get off work around seven.”

I looked into his deep brown eyes and smiled in spite of myself. “Sounds good,” I said.

On Friday morning, I went to work and soon found out that life as I knew it was no more. I was no longer invisible.

How did I know this?

Because of the Cola Catastrophe.

Shortly after lunch, I headed to the pool for the daily sanitization of the bathrooms. As I made my way through the crowd of bathing beauties, I saw Mora lying on a lounge chair in her thong bikini (so overkill) and sipping a diet soda (food and drinks were prohibited in the pool area—but because she was
the
Mora Cooper, she could have eaten a lobster on the sundeck and nobody would have cared). Our eyes locked and she sneered at me in a way that made it extremely clear she was not happy to see me. I felt a little chill prick my skin, an almost extrasensory hint of disaster. But I decided to ignore her and the chill. And just to prove that
I wasn't intimidated by her godawful stare, I walked right past her.

And then it happened. Her almost empty can of soda came spiraling through the air, bouncing off me and landing beside my foot, where the remainder of her drink pooled around my white plastic shoes.

“Oops,” Mora said coolly, looking me directly in the eye. Instead of apologizing, she motioned toward the cement with her red-lacquered toe and said,
“Maid!
Can you clean that up? I don't want it to get all buggy.”

All of Mora's friends—Liv Reynolds, yearbook editor and fourth cousin of Ralph Lauren; Suzanne Perling, head of the prom committee and a senator's daughter; and Georgie Sweetwater, state beauty queen and total airhead—started snickering. I thought about what Alice would have done had this been her— probably something along the lines of making Mora lick the soda off the sole of her shoe (Suzanne too, because her father was a Republican). This made me determined to teach Mora a lesson. I wiped my sticky hands on my uniform, took a step toward her, reached inside my pocket, and then…

I pulled out a rag, bent down, and wiped up the soda.

“Oh, c'mon, Steffie!” Alice exclaimed when I told her what had happened. We were in the laundry room folding thick white towels and tablecloths. “You call that a comeback? Why didn't you throw down with that skank?”

I laughed so hard that I knocked my pile of clean washcloths onto the floor. I loved it when Alice talked all gangsta. “What good would that have done?”

Alice opened up a tablecloth and shook it free of lint. “It would've made you feel better, for one.”

“It was awful,” I confided. “Now I know how Barbie felt when she got nailed with merlot.” Right before we'd moved last year, Barbie had been working as a waitress at this above-average Italian restaurant. One day, a woman she had never met walked right up to her and tossed a glass of red wine in her face.

“Let me guess,” Alice said. “She was a jealous wife.”

I picked up the washcloths and threw them back in the dirty pile. “Yep.”

“This isn't the same thing. Mora is not married to Keith. And you haven't done anything wrong. Mora is just being crazy. That's all.” Alice shook her head. “Maybe you should talk to Mr. Warzog. Let him know what happened.”

“No,” I said. “I'd rather forget about it.”

“Well,” Alice said finally, “there is a bright side to all this. I'm obviously not the only one who thinks that Keith is interested in you.”

And that changed
everything.

Unlike the evening of his party, I felt no inclination to stay home and watch TV that night. Come hell or high water, I was going to Crab Beach. When I got home from work, I pulled out all the stops, like
blow-drying my hair with Barbie's big round brush and flicking on some CoverGirl waterproof mascara and lip-gloss. And then just so I wouldn't be that obvious, I put on my standard beachwear: peach-colored T-shirt, secondhand J. Crew drawstring jean shorts, and Barbie's prized slightly platform flip-flops.

It was dusk when I arrived, and a shirtless Keith was sitting on Crab Beach's thin strip of sand, waiting for me. Like most “beaches” on the Chesapeake, Crab Beach was just a grassy, reedy area. But because Keith was gracing this place with his glowing presence, it felt as though we were on the shores of Belize, peering out at the infinite topaz ocean.

“Hey.” Keith stood up and blocked the sun like an eclipse. “How are you?”

“Good.” My hands were trembling.

Keith was quiet for a second and I heard the water gently lapping up against the marsh's edge. He seemed uncomfortable, as if he was about to disappoint me or something.

“I heard what happened today at the pool,” he said, and looked down at his feet.

I didn't answer.

He made a design in the sand with his heel. “I'm really sorry, Steffie.”

I calculated how many steps I'd have to take to be close enough to kiss him. Five. “Why are you
apologizing? It's not your fault. Besides, I'm sure it was an, uh, accident.”

“You're being nice,” he said. Suddenly he looked me in the eye and his awkwardness vanished. “Mora and I have a complicated relationship. We've been working through some… things lately, and I feel bad that she took it out on you.”

The news that Keith and Mora were having problems sent a tremor of elation straight through me. “That's too bad,” I managed to say.

He walked toward me a little bit. Four steps left. “We're both kind of at a crossroads, trying to figure out if this… us… is, well, worth it.”

“How long have you guys been together?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer to that question, as did everyone else within a ten-mile radius.

Keith did an about-face and headed toward the water. Eight, nine, ten. “We've been friends for a long time and hooked up last summer. We broke up when I went back to school.”

I decided to follow him, but stood a safe distance away. “I didn't know you broke up.”

He nodded. “Yeah. I mean, not to get too personal or anything, but I was studying philosophy at school and it just gave me a different perspective on Jones Island and life in general. I felt like I really didn't have that much in common with the kids around here anymore. They
all seemed so… shallow. There was no depth to them at all.”

I couldn't believe this. Keith was wearing his heart on his proverbial sleeve, and there was no one around to appreciate it but me.

“So when I came back this summer, I really didn't have any intention of hooking up with Mora again. But our parents are good friends, and Mora and I kept getting thrown together. She seemed like she had really grown up a lot in the past year. The way she's been acting recently, though… Well, I'm beginning to wonder.”