The Twilight Swimmer (24 page)

They met up at the Harbor House restaurant with Randy and Samantha, where they ordered a table of lobster tail and crab legs. The food came in steel buckets upended over a checkered tablecloth, and they dug in with bare hands and shell crackers. The boys ate like it was their last meal. Shrapnel flew everywhere, one piece of bright red carapace lodging in Brandi’s hair that took Spider’s long fingers to liberate. But they managed to keep the melted butter and cocktail sauce away from the girls’ dresses. The meal was loud and invigorating and over too soon.

The dance was being held at the courthouse, the only building big enough to house tables and a makeshift dance floor for all the students and chaperones. The student body government had raised enough funds through bake sales and car washes to flood the main hall with blue and white lights, and to drape the cathedral pillars in ‘seaweed’ made of twisted lengths of green fabric. It was an underwater theme, as expected and cliché as any high school student could ask for, but Brandi found herself drinking in the scene with none of her usual cynicism. This
was
a special night. No amount of intellectual snobbery on her part could make it anything less, so she shut off her brain and enjoyed it.

The DJ was already deep in his set by the time they arrived, spinning records he could barely see through his oversized sunglasses.
D
ozens of kids were romping on the dance floor. Boys had flung away their jackets so they wouldn’t pass out, and girls were letting down their hair so it flipped and flew when they shimmied.
Brandi’s counselor, Ms. Grace, was one of the adults supervising the dance. She stood against the wall nursing a plastic cup of bright red punch with a wedge of pineapple impaled on the rim. She watched the kids dancing with a hint of nostalgia in her eyes. The other chaperones – a blend of teachers and parents in rumpled suits and dresses that were decades out of style – watched the kids with suspicion and disapproval. They muttered to themselves over round bellies and crossed, flabby arms, somehow taking it personally that the teenagers were capable of spinning and ducking and sliding without gasping for breath.

“Do you want to dance now,” asked Spider, all but screaming to be heard over the music. “Or do you want to dance
now
?”

“Too many options!” Brandi hollered, laughing.

Spider wrapped his long arm around Brandi’s waist and led her onto the dance floor, parting the crowd with his narrow body. A few kids nodded greetings as they created an open spot near the stage. Spider politely nodded back, but quickly returned his attention to Brandi. The song pulsing from nearby speakers was fast and loud, and Spider unraveled his dance moves one limb at a time. First he pumped one fist, the rest of his body entirely motionless. He brought the opposite foot into the choreography, sweeping it across the floor and tapping his shiny-shoed toe. His remaining limbs joined the action soon after, and Brandi felt like she was dancing with an octopus. His moves were so exotic and inconsistent, she couldn’t figure out how to dance with Spider. So she settled for bobbing up and down, her arms bent at the elbow, and laughing at him.

“You’re amazing!” she said with as much sarcasm as she could muster.

“You think you’re kidding, and yet you
are
amazed! You were not expecting to see a display like this, were you?!”

“Absolutely not! I’d be less surprised if you spontaneously caught on fire!”

Spider laughed and increased the intensity of his flailing. “Baby, I
am
on fire!”

They danced their way through a half dozen fast songs, Spider mixing up his style about half way through each song. Brandi tried to restrain him and force him to dance like everyone else, but it was no use. She finally gave up fighting him and joined him instead, dancing around him as if his gravitational force was inescapable and she was a helpless satellite trapped in orbit. Her dress whipped around her legs, lifting on the air, and she felt the pulse pounding speakers vibrating from her feet to her teeth.

Just as they reached a fever pitch and Brandi thought she couldn’t keep up the pace, the DJ switched gears and put on a slow song. Spider and Brandi eased into the song and moved closer together. He placed her hands for her, on his shoulders, and placed his own hands on her hips. His height made dancing close an awkward endeavor, but Brandi was happy to give it a try. He looked so content, gazing down at her with his chin glued to his chest. All around them, other couples were equally engrossed with the each other.

When Spider moved his hands farther down her hips and slid them behind her, Brandi hopped away.

Spider was badly embarrassed. “Whoa, sorry. I just—”

“Let’s take a break,” said Brandi with a diplomatic smile. “I’m sweating like a pig.”

Brandi and Spider shared a few more dances, and danced with other friends as well. But there was discomfort between them. Spider was afraid to get too close to Brandi for fear of offending her again. Brandi was afraid of giving Spider any encouragement he might interpret as romantic. When they finally left the dance it was still fairly early, but they both seemed relieved for it to be over.

“There’s an after party at Dylan Carmichael’s house if you want to swing by there. I mean, if you
want
to.” Spider jingled the keys to his wagon as they crossed the parking lot, but never looked Brandi’s way. When they reached his car, he did open the door for her.

“You should probably just take me home,” she said as she climbed inside and tugged the broken seatbelt over her shoulder. She accidentally snagged the seatbelt on the corsage still pinned to her dress. It tore loose and fell in her lap. She lifted the damaged accessory with a frown then quickly stuffed it in the glove box. She didn’t want Spider to think she had removed it on purpose. It was an unnecessary precaution. When he climbed behind the wheel and started the engine, he kept his eyes pointed straight ahead.

When they reached her house, Spider pulled into the driveway and parked behind her father’s police cruiser. He kept he engine running.

“I had fun,” he said, braving a glance her direction. “Sorry if you didn’t.”

“No, I did. You were a great date.”

Brandi reached for the door handle and pushed with her shoulder to swing it open.

“Brandi—”

“Yes?”

“You’re in love with him, aren’t you?” Spider forced the question through clenched teeth, his hands still squeezing the steering wheel and his shoulders rolled forward. He shook his head slowly, as if trying to come to terms with an answer he knew was inevitable. “I could tell that night, at the beach. The way you two… I don’t know. It was obvious. And I get it. What could be more mysterious, more intriguing, more… alluring? The guy is… I mean, he’s nothing like anyone you’re ever going to find here. ‘Here’ meaning the whole world, I guess. Not just this crappy town.”

“I’ve barely spoken to him, and I haven’t seen him since that night.”

“I don’t know what that means. That means you’re in love with him, but he doesn’t love you back? He ran out on you? Probably has a girl in every port, right? Literally every port. Sorry, shouldn’t make jokes, right? I always do, though. Drives you crazy, I know. You and everybody else. Wish I could do the strong silent thing like you’re friend the… the, um…”

“The Swimmer,” said Brandi in a whisper.

“Yeah, him. Is that the Latin term for his species?”

She took a long look at Spider, still handsome in his tuxedo. “It’s still early. Want to come up?” 

He should have been able to climb the big oak tree in the back yard more easily than Brandi, every branch easily within his reach. But Spider was worse at climbing trees than he was at dancing. He didn’t seem to know how to use his feet at all, and his hands refused to work together. One hand kept a firm grip on a low branch while the other tried to pull him up from a higher point. Brandi sat on the edge of the roof in awe of his non-coordination.

“You’re going to kick out a window if you don’t stop flailing,” she chided.

“What are they going to say if they catch me up here with you?”

“You mean what will my dad say?”

Spider nodded, straining to hoist himself the last few feet to the roof.

“He won’t say anything. He’ll just pull back the hammer and let the click do his talking for him.”

“Oh god, that’s not funny. Don’t make jokes like that.”

He followed Brandi up the back slope of the roof and down the other side, his rented shoes slipping and scraping on the shingles. One square chunk tore free under his awkward weight and cartwheeled, end over end, until it leapt off the roof and plummeted to the front yard below. Spider watched its decent with horrified fascination, no doubt imagining his own body performing such involuntary acrobatics. Brandi casually took a seat outside her closed bedroom window, and Spider cautiously crouched down beside her. Maneuvering his legs out from under him while crouching proved impossible. He stood up again, thought things through, and lowered himself again until his butt struck solid ground, holding his breath the whole way.

“Still have that balky ankle,” he explained.

Brandi chuckled, but bit her tongue.

“It’s nice up here. Besides the treacherous heights, obviously. Don’t laugh. You know I’ve had some bad experiences being trapped up high.”

“The heights would have been fine, but there was fire that time, too.”

“Oh yeah,” Spider conceded. “I still have that balky ankle.”

“You already said that,” said Brandi.

“I know. I was giving you an update,” answered Spider. “It hasn’t healed in the last thirty seconds.”

A cool wind blew down Brandi’s street and rolled up the front of her house. They both shivered. Brandi reflexively scooted closer to Spider, leaning into the thin shield of his torso. He immediately forgot his own goosebumps and looked down at the top of her head, pleasantly surprised that nature had conspired to bring them closer together. He raised his arm for a moment as if to put it around her shoulders, but didn’t want to press his luck.

“You like what I did there, with the wind?” he said with a grin. “That’s my best move.”

“It’s a good one.”

“I can only control the weather if I really like the girl. Like, if I’m smitten.”

Brandi leaned away from him and sighed. “You’re wasting your time with me. There are lots of girls—”

“I don’t want to hear about ‘lots of girls’. I’m not interested. You’re the one who makes me nauseous.”

“Oh, thanks! That’s really sweet!”

“Not how I meant it. I mean, I did mean for it to be sweet. You’re the one who makes me so nervous and confused and frustrated and excited that my stomach starts doing whirlygigs.”

“What’s a ‘whirlygig’?” she asked.

“You’re costing me more than a little sleep, too, if you want to know the truth.”

“I’m not sure I do want to know that.”

“Well too bad. I’m too sleepy to filter,” he said. “And you look way too cute in that dress. What is that, pink?”

“Coral.”

“
Coral
. The color of unrequited love.”

“Since when?” she asked.

Spider raised his arm again, and this time he did put it around her shoulders. “You don’t have to like it. But you do have to let me do it, for a few minutes at least. Dinner was really expensive.”

“Date mathematics? Another good move. What would I owe you if we’d gone for fast food?”

“Oh, this is the fast food repayment scale. I’m letting you off the hook easy.”

Brandi laughed, then pushed herself up off the roof just high enough that she could reach his cheek with her lips. “Is that more equitable?”

“I don’t know what ‘equitable’ means, but it’s way cooler. Even though I
did
get one of those before, as you might remember.”

“You earned that one, too. You’ve been really good to me.”

Spider puffed up his chest proudly. “I didn’t think you’d noticed. I’ve basically been wooing you, old school. Or courting. Or whatever the right word is. What’s the right word?”

Brandi was about to answer, but stopped short. She heard something in the back yard. While Spider watched, anguished, she climbed to her feet and trekked back up the sloping roof. He righted himself as well and tried to follow, but the imposing height of the roof asserted itself again and he lagged behind. When she reached the roof peak, she lay down flat on her stomach to shield herself from view while she peeked past the protruding chimney column.

At the back edge of the yard, by the dock, she saw a man standing in the deep black of a nighttime shadow. He was perfectly still. Tall and slim, with powerful shoulders. The curve of his hairless head just visible in the moonlight. He was shirtless, but wore an old pair of wet blue jeans that clung to his muscular legs. Even from this distance, his identity was unmistakable.

“It’s him,” said Spider as he clung to the chimney. “The Swimmer.”

Brandi nodded, unable to subdue her forming smile.

“What are you waiting for?” asked Spider, his voice cracking as he forced the courageous words. “If you don’t go, it’ll make it worse. I don’t want to feel like I’m holding you back.”