In Deep

by Terra Elan McVoy

  “Um . . .” I try to remember any names.

  Louis makes the sound of a buzzer and slaps the meaty heel of his hand on the steering wheel. “Too slow, too slow. What about her?”

  We’re passing the gas station that’s a famous hangout for hookers and drug deals.

  I make the buzzer noise myself. “Too easy.”

  “Okay, this guy.”

  And like that, all the way to school.

  4

  THAT I DON’T CARE MUCH about school is an understatement. But it isn’t because I’m so absorbed in my swimming. (Though that is a mighty convenient justification, for many teachers.) Instead it’s the senseless, mind-numbingness of the whole situation. The timed bells. The shuffling to the lockers. The disgusting cafeteria. The way we’re all supposed to be so excited about cheerleading and baseball scores and yearbook and all that. People say sixteen is the best year of your life—they make such a stupid deal of it. But sixteen? The pinnacle? Not for me, thanks. Of course it’s true that even the best swimmers have pretty short careers, but that’s why I’m looking for a swim scholarship to a decent college, away from here. It’s not like I haven’t thought this through. Whether my high school peers know it or not, there needs to be something beyond all this, and for me swimming’s the way I’m going to get it.

  Maybe it’s the classes I’m in—why school mostly sucks. Maybe in AP and IB and Advanced Gifted Superfantastic Film Studies it’s all academic overabundant enthusiasm all the time. But I wouldn’t know. A lot of the other club members are hard-core students. They do nothing but swim and homework. They obsess about their GPAs, their academic standing, and being in the tenth percentile. Eight hours of sleep a day, and all that. But when I decided to stop thinking and just swim, school fell under the no-thinking umbrella, too. I just didn’t see the point. Not here. Not in this place, with its cookie-cutter conversation and overworked, underpaid teachers tiredly reigning over classrooms full of kids whose parents call to hassle them if their precious baby gets less than a B+.

  So I don’t get to talk about The Great Gatsby with Mrs. Bowles and all the lit heads. I don’t frown over string theory in Advanced Physics II or whatever, and I don’t get to solve the math problems of the universe in Quadruple Trig 1000. Instead I’m as basic as they get: regular English (Mrs. Drummond, who thinks that twenty-first-century high school students are still interested in Newbery Medal–winners from 1964); PE (ha); Math for Dummies (really it’s Algebra II with Dr. Herrington, who was cool about it when he failed me last year, and let me take it again instead of doing summer school); Spanish II (easy, because Señora Gupta is half-blind); Enviro Science (with Ms. Chu, who’s actually pretty cool); and the one semi-interesting class, Dr. Woodham’s U.S. Conflicts, which is just one of the many alterna-history courses this school is famous for offering.

  As long as I make it through without fucking up enough to get me thrown out of the club, and as long as I nail National Cut at State next month, it doesn’t matter. It’s not that I don’t want to learn something halfway useful or interesting. It’s just that I know I can’t do it here. So I get up early and walk through my classes. I don’t make myself a disciplinary problem, but I don’t really make an effort, either. When the bell rings at the end of the day, I walk out the door and take myself to the pool, which is where I’ll earn my way to something better, pretty much anywhere I want.

  Having Charlie with me at school has helped—at least, lately. We met on the school team at the start of freshman year and became team pals right away. We rolled our eyes together behind the coach’s back, joked around. Buddies, whatever. But I didn’t stay on that team long, because, honestly, the team sucks, and I’d heard about the club, which was way more vigorous. Charlie had a girlfriend on the team, this girl Sarah. They were pretty inseparable. After I quit, I didn’t see much of him, even though he lives just a couple blocks away. I didn’t even know he and Sarah had broken up until Coach Brubeck asked me to go to a meet with them at UGA last month, just to help up their scores and times. On the bus back, tired and pizza-drowsy, Charlie told me all about it—how serious Sarah’d gotten, talking about the future all the time. He said he missed me being around, that the team wasn’t the same since I’d left. And I ended up kissing him. I don’t know. He’s good-looking and funny. A relationship-relationship isn’t anything I have time for or interest in, but having someone to get it on with is way better than not, and plus, the extra tiredness after we hang out helps me sleep better.

  Today at lunch he’s at our table before I am, and as soon as I walk into the cafeteria, he smiles and raises one hand in greeting. I go over, drop my bag in my chair, and head straight for the rack of still-warm plates at the end of the salad bar. Following me in line, he rubs the tight spot between my shoulder blades, but I roll myself out from under his hand, pretending I’m stretching.

  “You okay?” I can sense, just by the tone of his voice, that his dark eyebrows are scrunched down.

  “I just don’t understand why every teacher has to give us a fucking progress report today. PE? Are you serious? Do I care that I have a C in that class? Absolutely not, Coach Bradley. Not in the slightest.”

  I’m practically flinging banana peppers onto my plate. And, screw—most of the spinach is wet and wilted.

  “Month of school left,” he says. “Some people want to know.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t. Just gimme my 2.75 and let me get out of here.”

  “You worried about Conflicts?”

  I ignore him, continuing down the salad bar to the black olives and the feta, mounding my salad high and dousing everything with plenty of oil and vinegar.

  “I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think,” he tries again when we’re back at our chairs. “And if it really is, you still have time. The exam’s the main thing.”

  Charlie took U.S. Conflicts last year. This year he’s on to Modern Presidential Campaign Strategies or some crap like that. The AP version, I think. If they have that.

  “Woodham’s not the extra-credit type,” I remind him. I know. I asked about it when my third D shook a bit of my confidence about gliding through this class like the others. Why would I give you extra, Ms. Polonowski, he’d said, when it’s apparent you’re barely interested in getting any credit at all? Pompous prick-mouth.

  Charlie chomps a forkful of red cabbage. There’s a glaze of French dressing along the right hump of his upper lip. He talks around it. “Maybe I can help.”

  “You’ll really give me your tests from last year?” I feel halfway hopeful.

  He fake-glowers at me. “No. But I can look at yours, give you some pointers, and let you know what to focus on for the next three weeks.”

  “Jerk.”

  He pauses, about to put another bunch of cabbage into his mouth, still amused. “You’re gonna have to learn sometime, Ivy League.”

  “You know I don’t care about Ivy League.”

  “Sure you don’t.”

  He’s teasing, but it’s stupid.

  “You may think that the National Merit Scholar Jerkoff Program sounds like fun,” I say, “but I’m not interested in spending four years pretending I care about the Pythagorean philosopher’s pee hole. Or even discovering nuclear fusion. It just needs to be something besides some Podunk community college around here, is all. I’m not going to turn into my mom.”

  “Whoa, okay.”

  I stab my salad. Charlie waits. When he starts up again, instead of being snarky or impatient, he’s calm and almost sweet. “No matter where your swimming takes you, you’re eventually going to have to study, Polo. Woodham’s good practice. And you like that class.”

  “Woodham’s a good asshole is what.”

  “All you have to do is pass the exam, Brynn. It’s not that big a deal.”

  “I know,” I grumble.

  “You won’t have to go to summer school. Your training will be fine.”

  I spear the olives and peppers on my plate. I know Charlie wants me to lo
ok at him. I know he wants to try to calm me down, reassure me, or whatever he thinks I need right now. But the only thing that’ll make me feel better is getting into the pool and swimming this off. Part of what we’re also not talking about here is that since I’m a better swimmer than Charlie is, it’s possible I could get into a school that rejects him, even though he makes way better grades. Even if there has to be summer school, which of course there can’t be.

  “I’ll still help you, if you want,” he finally says.

  “What would really help would be if I could just challenge Woodham to a race. See who’s so superior then.”

  Mainly I say this to take the attention away from Charlie’s offer. Though it’s nice he wants to help, I can’t really picture the two of us, heads together in the library, doing something so boyfriend-girlfriendy. Sitting together at lunch is public enough; I didn’t want to do it all, until I realized having someone to complain to, someone in the know about swim difficulties and lingo, helped take the edge off until it was time to be in the pool. For now I shrug without giving him an answer and chew big mouthfuls of my salad.

  “A smackdown between you and Woodham would be pretty funny,” he says finally. “In fact, I’d pay to see it.”

  And damn him—in spite of how pissed I am—that does make me laugh.

  5

  OTHER THAN LUNCH WITH CHARLIE, the highlight of my school day is fifth and sixth periods—two classes back to back with Kate. It’s hard to describe who Kate is in my life. She’s not much of a friend, because we don’t see each other outside of these classes at all, and though I have her number, I don’t use it. But we walk between Enviro and Conflicts together every day, and we always sit together: her in front, me in back. I have no idea who her actual friends are, if she has many. She alludes to doing things sometimes, but she might mean doing things with her animals. Because Kate is very into her animals. She’s on a special science track because she’s going to some high-ranking veterinarian school when she graduates. It’s why she’s in Enviro at all. Normally she’d be in Super High-Tech Biochem III. But I think she’s already taken it.

  Kate is strange, but in an interesting way. She’s sort of like a hipster nerd girl dreamboat in some ways, but in other ways she’s just odd. Kate bites her nails—like, disgustingly bites them—and buries herself in old man cardigan sweaters that are way too big for her, even though she seems to have a decent bod, from what I can tell. Every single day she also wears these scrungy black ballet flats, and when she kicks them off under the desk in front of me, the unmistakable stink of feet wafts back. She has long, dark-brown hair with a thick fringe of bangs that hang just past her eyebrows, and she has a habit of looking up at you from under them in a way that makes you feel really small. But Kate also has plastered the inside of her locker with pictures of horses. And sheep. Really—sheep! The covers of all her notebooks are slathered with animal stickers too, and sometimes when she’s done with a test or whatever, she’ll put her head down and I can hear her whispering to them.

  But she always pairs up with me when we have to do labs or partner projects, and she doesn’t mind if she ends up doing most of the work. She writes little reminders to me during Woodham’s lectures—That thing about Kennedy is important! Make sure to reread section 5.6 at least!—and she loves answering my swim coach’s logic puzzles, which I bring her from practice. I don’t know—I like her. She doesn’t care what people think, and she’s one of the only people I know who doesn’t carry that around like some kind of medal. She’s just into her own thing, period, which makes being around her sort of comforting.

  Today she cares about something, though. When I walk into Enviro, she’s scowling up at me from under those bangs. I can’t help but feel a little better, knowing she’s having a crap day too. But Chu gets class started right on time, and it isn’t until our quick stroll between fifth and sixth that I get to ask her anything.

  “You get your progress reports too?”

  Her face is expressionless as she walks. “Sure. Why?”

  “You just looked like you were maybe, I don’t know—grouchy or something.”

  “I am grouchy. But it’s not about grades. Why? Are yours bad?”

  “You know mine are bad.”

  She blinks at me and chews on the edge of her thumbnail, spitting out little flecks of it in a way that seems she thinks I can’t see.

  “So why are you in a bad mood then? Me, I got plenty of excuses and”—Woodham’s door is open, so we waltz in and slide into our desks—“I’m about to have another one in here.”

  Kate just shrugs. More scowling. More nail-biting. She shakes her head but doesn’t say anything.

  “Tell me or don’t. I’m not going to try to guess.”

  She turns around and faces forward, scrunching her shoulders away from me. Whatever. She can sulk if she wants. I could really use a good distraction though, and Kate’s so rarely in a bad mood that this feels significant. I’m about to tease her again, to get her to talk, but then the bell rings, and Woodham’s up in front of the class, waving thin strips of paper in his giant, hairy-knuckled hand. He babbles something similar to what the rest of my teachers have said today: Think of this as an opportunity for final improvement, blah, blah, blah.

  He moves down the first aisle, passing out each slip and offering a mumbled comment to everyone as he goes. Kate uses this as her chance to turn back around.

  “Connor Bendingham.”

  My eyebrows go up. I actually know him. Only because he ran for class treasurer, and rumor was he cried in the guys’ bathroom when he lost.

  “What about him?”

  “He asked me out,” she hisses.

  “Isn’t that good?”

  She glowers.

  “Why isn’t that good? I mean, he’s decent, right?” Though I’m trying to remember exactly what he looks like. I give her a light punch on the arm, lowering my voice because Woodham’s now at the top of our row. “Go you, Katie.”

  The thumbnail goes back in her mouth. “I don’t like Connor Bendingham.”

  “Why not? What’s wrong with him?” Except for the crybaby part, of course.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  But she can’t answer, because Woodham’s there at her desk. He hands her the slip and taps her desk twice with his finger in this way that just lets her know he’s pleased.

  “Miss Polonowski” is all he says, sliding my report to me. He doesn’t have to say anything else. I’m barely hanging on to a D+. And if I don’t pass the exam, I don’t pass the class, no matter what. Which means my summer training will be screwed. I don’t look at him. I don’t look at Kate. I just clench my teeth, pull a deep breath in through my nose, and let it out long and slow. It’s the only way to stop my heart from racing.

  6

  KATE DOESN’T SAY ANYTHING ELSE to me about the Connor Bendingham problem for the rest of the period, and I’m too pissed about this whole day to follow up. Instead I head straight to the pickup loop and wait for Louis: earbuds in, not looking at anyone, blanking my mind and pretending I’m in the pool. It works, sort of. Not as well as I want.

  I avoid telling Louis about my grades, though a couple of these reports do have to be signed—thanks, Woodham—and then there’ll be a conversation. Mom wants me to go to college because Dad didn’t, and she dropped out her senior year at Georgia State because of me. Which is fine. She can have her dreams. It’s what moms do. What she doesn’t fathom, though, is that even though we both want the same thing—she doesn’t want me to turn out like her, and I sure as shit don’t want to either—that still doesn’t mean I care in the same way.

  Finally I’m at the pool. I ignore everyone milling around, catching up after the weekend. There are times when I can get into the rah-rah-rah togetherness and all that crap of the club, but I did enough of that at the meet on Saturday. I won for them, cheered for them. They can do without me this afternoon. I need to get into the water. I n
eed to get my body going and let the rest take a backseat to working hard, breathing hard, just flat-out going hard.

  Fortunately, Van lopes in, and we can get started. Everyone loves Van. They’re all like little flowers following the path of his sunshine. Except for when he pulls shit at practice like a 200 fly while wearing athletic sneakers after we’ve already done probably 4,500 meters all told. Yeah. That one can suck, I won’t lie. The relationship you have with your coach is definitely one of those cliché love-hate things. Even I’m not immune to it. Today he’s going to go fairly easy on us though—starting with a 400 free. As I push off, the feel of the water pressing against the top of my head is a relief. As long as I let my body do what I’ve built and trained it to do, there’s no way I can disappoint anyone else, and they can’t disappoint me, either. My arm reaches up, my lungs fill when I break the surface, and then the rest of everything drops away.

  • • •

  After first drills, Van pulls us out for a minute to give us a pep talk, discuss the meet, and overview the afternoon’s goals. This is also when he throws out the crazy logic problem-solving puzzle he’s looked up on the Internet before coming to practice, in order to keep our minds sharp too. Whoever solves it first gets to pull from Van’s ugly Elvis beach bag, which is full of every kind of king-size candy product known to man.

  I stare at the quick notes I made while Van read the “family dinner and who sits-next-to-whom” problem aloud to us. Sounds like a freaking nightmare to me, all those people. While I’m thinking this, Grier bends over my shoulder, showing me the picture she’s drawn of a craggy grandpa in giant cartoon spectacles telling his picnic tableful of smiling stick family members: EAT ME. I elbow her and try not to laugh.

  She adds something to the drawing, cracking herself up even more, but then she suddenly stops. I look up, following her gaze to where three guys are strolling in from the locker room, Speedos barely covering their everything. Around us everyone else has stopped working on their logic too. The tallest one on the left looks a little delicate for a swimmer—like he should be an English professor or even a dancer instead. The middle guy is shorter, stockier. But then there’s one on the right, so hot your eyes have to leap away: all tanned thighs and shoulders, the kind of back that makes a ski-jump curve down to his butt. His face, too, is handsome, chiseled, and full of itself.