by Jonah Black
And I remember that being this whole big insight because when you’re a kid you think the one thing you can fall back on, when everything else fails, is to tell the truth. But this time we’d told the truth, and this adult had assumed it was a lie anyway. Like, telling the truth had made absolutely no difference. It was an awful thing to learn. It was like one of the fundamental laws of the universe changing, and there suddenly not being any gravity. From then on I had to live in a world where telling the truth didn’t necessarily save you from anything.
Dec. 18, 11:53 P.M.
The first reason I knew the swim meet was going to be weird was that Wailer—Señor Bellyflop—pulled off the double somersault with a one-and-a-half twist. I mean it was perfect.
The crowd, including Honey and Thorne and Posie, went crazy, but not nearly as crazy as they should have. I actually felt really proud of Wailer. He had worked and worked on this dive, and the one time in his whole diving career he actually did it right was when it mattered.
He got out of the water with this big grin on his face and everybody on the bench gave him high-fives and congratulated him. Mr. Davis just looked at him and said something like, “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you son?” Then the scores came up, and they were good. Mr. Davis was psyched—we all were. Then the coach looked over at me and nodded, like he was saying, You helped him learn this, Jonah. Good work. It was kind of exciting. But when I looked over at Wailer, he was looking up at Posie in the stands. She wasn’t looking at him—she was busy talking to Thorne—but it struck me that Wailer was still trying to impress her. Maybe even more now that Posie and I had broken up, and she was available.
As I looked up in the stands I saw that Watches Boys Dive was sitting behind Posie and Thorne. She’s that girl who always comes to swim practice and sits in the bleachers. That’s not really her name. I don’t know who she is, but she looks Indian. She saw me looking at her and she suddenly smiled this huge ear-to-ear smile, and then she waved her fingers kind of shyly at me. And I was like, whoa, cool.
The diver from Ely got up, this guy everyone calls “Fats” Cleveland. He’s always fun to watch because he’s this huge guy, not the normal build for a diver at all. He usually does these relatively simple dives, but he has amazing control for a guy who’s like, the size of a bus. He did the same dive as Wailer, which was a surprise because I’d never seen him do anything that challenging. Also, doing the somersaults was especially hard for him because it’s not easy to flip that much weight around, especially if you don’t have the body strength. Still, for all that I have to admit that it was kind of cool to watch him; there was something beautiful about a huge fat kid twisting around in space. Fats’s dive really wasn’t all that technically proficient, but the novelty of him was enough to melt the hearts of a couple of the judges, and his scores reflected that. That kind of pissed me off. I mean, I’m all for people trying to stretch themselves, but it’s not like I think you should give somebody a 9.1 on a 4.5 dive just because they’re really huge.
Anyway, Martino Suarez did his usual back flip, and the next guy up on Ely’s team did the same dive, only a little better, and the crowd went crazy. It was definitely exciting. I like diving against a team as good as Ely because it makes you push yourself a little bit farther. It’s worth saying that about ninety-five percent of the Ely fans were black, and about seventy-five percent of Don Shula High fans were white. That’s another thing I like about sports—everybody kind of comes together. Anyway, the meet was intense. It was so incredibly close.
Our guys did better than anyone expected, and Ely had a couple of mishaps. After that first outing, the judges started taking points off for Fats’s technique. By the time it was down to the last two divers, me and Lamar Jameson, the meet was tied.
Lamar climbed up the high dive. He’s so damn huge. It’s like even his ears are muscular. He walked to the end of the board and looked right at me with this big grin on his face. Then he turned around and balanced on the end of the board with just the balls of his feet and his toes touching, and the rest of his feet sticking out into empty space.
Everybody got really quiet. He held his arms out to his sides like a bird and it was just beautiful to watch. Lamar is always good, but I’d never seen him work the crowd like this before. I mean everybody wanted him to do well, even the people on our side. He pressed down with his legs and the board sprang up. Airborne, he reached up high to the ceiling and twisted his body in a full turn; then he tucked his arms and head in and spun over, once, twice, two-and-a-half times before straightening his arms and sailing down like an arrow, slicing perfectly into the water.
Everyone went crazy. 9.1/9.2/9.0/9.1/9.2.
Now it was my turn. The creepy thing was that Lamar and I had both signed up to do the exact same dive. And as I climbed up the ladder, I thought, I wonder if Lamar knew I’d do exactly this, and so he signed up for a dive he didn’t think I could do as well as him.
Not that I can’t do a two and a half somersault with a full turn starting from the inverse position, but it is not my favorite dive. It definitely screws with your brain. Especially the way you have to start out with your back to the pool, balancing on your toes at the edge of the board. I’m not crazy about that, but it’s just one more thing you have to psych yourself up to do.
So there I was, standing at the end of the board with about half of my body hanging out into empty space. I tried to totally shut down all thoughts and just concentrate on the dive.
But I couldn’t concentrate. Instead I thought about the last couple of meets when, at the critical moment, all I could think about was Sophie. And of course it started to happen again.
I thought about Sophie and me in the hotel in Orlando, and what she looks like with her clothes off. She has this fine, fine blond hair on her arms and it makes her skin feel so soft, and I kiss her right in the crook of her elbow and her skin tastes the way daisies smell.
I heard the crowd start to murmur behind me and I realized I’d been standing at the end of the board for a long time and that I’d lost my concentration. There was no way I could do the dive unless my mind was totally clear, and suddenly I felt really afraid, like I’d forgotten how to dive and what was I doing there anyway? I was sure I was going to screw everything up. So I tried to let everything drain out of me.
I raised my arms out to the side and then I felt my arms closing around Sophie’s naked back and it is so smooth and soft and I can feel her breasts against my chest and her hair falling over my shoulder and her lips on my neck, kissing me softly and I’m wondering, Are you thinking about me at this exact same second, Sophie, up there in Pennsylvania? Are people looking at you, wondering why you aren’t leaping into the air like you’re supposed to?
Then I thought, Come on, Jonah, do it. DO IT.
So I pressed down on the board and sprang toward the ceiling and I did the dive like it was right out of a book. It was picture-perfect.
I wish Sophie had seen me do that dive. If she saw how well I can dive she might fall in love with me even more.
I heard the crowd roaring even while I was below the surface. I love hearing that muffled cheering getting louder and louder as I rise up. I got out of the pool and I looked at Lamar Jameson, who was sitting on the bench looking very serious, and then all of a sudden he cracked this huge smile and pointed at me and shook his head, like he was saying, You’re good, you bastard.
9.1/9.3/9.0/9.1/9.2.
I’d beaten him by one tenth of a point. Everybody went nuts. We’d won the meet. The place went crazy. It was like the end of the Second World War when sailors were grabbing girls they didn’t know and kissing them. The Ely guys were totally bummed. They just sat there on the bench with their faces in their hands—everybody except Lamar. I think he knew he was great, but just this one time I’d out-psyched him. Still, he knew we’d meet again and that he’d get me sooner or later.
I think he also knew how close I’d come to screwing it up again.
Ou
r teams filed past each other shaking hands. Lamar and I were the last guys in line. He squeezed my hand hard, then gave me this weird look.
“Okay,” he said to me. “You’re good.”
“Okay,” I said back. “You, too.”
Then we all headed out to the locker room. I looked up in the stands to see what Watches Boys Dive was doing, but she wasn’t there anymore. Neither was Posie.
Dec. 19, 10:30 A.M.
So here I am in history class, and we’re stuck in the series of presidents after the Civil War, all of whom were basically winos or something: Rutherford B. Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland, Harrison, Cleveland again—as if once weren’t enough. And what’s with the whole Chester Alan Arthur thing? I mean, like there was actually a President Arthur???? Seriously, who do they think they’re kidding?
I wonder if some day the time we’re living in right now will look like that to somebody. Like, they’ll look back and go, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush Junior, and they’ll go: Who?
There is this girl behind me named Lauren Spellman and she has perfect knees. They are totally tanned and it’s a real tan, too, not a fake one from some tanning cream. I want to tell her, Listen, you better use sunscreen, it’s not good for you being out in the sun all the time.
And she says, “Oh, Jonah, you are so thoughtful. I mean, I have been with a lot of guys before, but nobody ever worried about me getting cancer before.”
And I say, “Well, Sophie, you should take care of yourself.”
And she says, “I try to, but it’s hard.”
I touch her arm and the hairs on it are as soft as moss in a forest, and the sunlight has warmed her skin. She reaches forward and puts her hand on the side of my face, and I can feel each finger on my cheek.
Now it’s on to the Spanish-American War, I guess, and Mr. Bond is telling us about people saying Remember the Maine, which is the state that Sophie comes from. And I’m like, Remember it? As if I could forget.
(Still Dec. 19, Later)
I’m in the cafeteria and guess what I’m eating for lunch again? Here at good old Don Shula High, every day is pizza day. They have pizza stix, those bread sticks you dip in a little bowl of sauce, and pizza rounds, which are like bagel pizzas. Sometimes it’s plain pizza slices, and other days it’s pepperoni. I mean I like pizza. It’s one of my favorite foods. But between pretty much eating pizza every day at school, and then delivering pizzas for First Amendment after school, enough is enough already.
It’s funny how all the girls have salad for lunch. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a girl eat pizza. They put salad on their plates, and either eat it dry (which is about the grossest thing I can think of), or else they put the dressing on the side, or else they use the fat-free vinaigrette and maybe splurge for a yogurt. I think it’s sad that girls don’t allow themselves to enjoy food. There are a couple of girls in my class, like Tina Cleveland, who can’t weigh more than ninety-five pounds. She never eats anything except dry lettuce, and after class she’s in the gym on the treadmill, running it off.
They say that girls who are anorexic can’t see themselves—like they look in the mirror and all they see is some huge person. It’s really sad, but I think I can kind of understand what that’s like. Seeing yourself as you really are is hard to do. Like, what do people think of me really? Do they see some athlete, because I’m good at diving? Do they see someone who thinks he’s above it all, since I’m really a senior stuck in eleventh grade? Or do they see a loser who got thrown out of school in Pennsylvania and had to come home to Pompano Beach and repeat junior year? Can they tell I’m a virgin from the way I eat my pizza? Who knows.
(Still Dec. 19, 4:30 P.M.)
So Thorne was leaning against his Volkswagen Beetle as I came out of swim practice—the last one before break. He smiled when I saw him and said, “Jonah, dude. How’s it hanging?”
“Fine,” I said.
“So what’s it like being the school hero?” he asked me.
“I’m not any hero,” I said.
“Get out, dude! Winning that meet? You’re like the golden boy. Man, if I were you I’d be cashing in!”
“Who says I’m not cashing in?” I said.
Thorne just smiled. “So what do you want to do? You want to drive around?”
I said okay and we took off in the Beetle. Thorne started driving south on A1A and we just looked out at all the expensive hotels and the ocean crashing on the beach.
“So I heard you failed your driving test,” Thorne said.
I couldn’t believe he knew! I hadn’t told anybody I was even taking it! How come Thorne always knows everything?
“Thorne, how did you find that out? Seriously,” I said.
“Dominique told me.”
“Dominique?” There is nobody at Don Shula named Dominique.
“Dominique Teasdale? Your driving examiner?” he said.
I remembered Ms. Teasdale, her shiny brown hair, and how upset she was when I ran the car into the back of that guy’s Lincoln. Thorne had told me he’d met some new girl, but he didn’t tell me who. I can’t believe him sometimes.
“How are you planning on getting up to Orlando?” he asked. “So you and Sophie can have your little Disney hotel orgy?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Now that I’ve flunked my test, it’s kind of a problem. I don’t have an alternate plan.”
“Well, I have a plan for you, Jonah,” Thorne said. “How about I drive you?”
“Really?” I acted all surprised, even though I’d been planning to ask him anyway. Either that, or steal Mom’s car and drive it illegally, which was a pretty dumb idea. Although the whole plan to meet Sophie in Disney World was pretty crazy anyway.
“You don’t mind?” I said.
“Why not, man? I was thinking I’d go up to UCF anyway, look around, maybe get an interview or something,” he said. “Anyway, consider this my gift to you, Jonah. Think of me as your own Mr. Cupid Dude.”
I looked at Thorne, with his shaggy hair and his goatee and his big-ass grin. He does sort of look like a Mr. Cupid Dude.
“That’s awesome, Thorne. Thanks,” I said.
“Nada,” he said. “It’ll be fun. A road trip!” He screeched the Beetle around a corner. “I gotta meet this Sophie chick, anyway. She sounds tasty.”
Suddenly I felt kind of dizzy. I didn’t want Thorne to meet Sophie. It would ruin everything.
“You want to meet her?” I said.
“Hell, yes,” he said. “You got a problem with that?”
Actually, I did have a problem with it, but if he was giving me a ride I wasn’t sure I could deny him a chance to at least meet her. Still, it made me uncomfortable. Sophie was from a whole different world, a whole different part of my life. I don’t want those two worlds to meet. And even though he’s my best buddy, I don’t want Thorne’s grubby paws anywhere near Sophie.
“So. Have you seen Posie?” Thorne said. “I hear she’s already got a new boyfriend.”
“What?” I said, stunned. I couldn’t believe Posie would start seeing somebody else so quickly. I guess I kind of figured she’d be all broken up about me and she wouldn’t feel like dating anybody.
“Yeah. Since she ditched you, she’s never home anymore. Everybody says she’s got some new guy, but nobody knows who.” Thorne glanced at me suspiciously. “You sure it’s not you?”
“Me?” I said.
“It’d be just like the two of you to break up and then get back together and not tell anybody.” He looked over at me. “But I guess you’re on to bigger things.”
“Yeah. I guess,” I said, but thinking about Posie like that made me feel sad.
Thorne honked his horn at some girl I’d never seen before, and instead of giving him the finger, she smiled and blew him a kiss.
“You’re a lucky man, Jonah,” he said. “A girl like Sophie waiting for you in a hotel room. Damn, sometimes I wish I was you. Jonah Black, Teenage Stud!”
“Yeah, I�
�m definitely lucky,” I said. But for some reason, I didn’t feel all that lucky.
(Still Dec. 19, even later)
At five P.M. I headed over for my appointment with Dr. LaRue. As usual, I sat there looking at him with his itchy sweater and his short bristly mustache and his huge bald head. He looked like the full moon rising over a cornfield. Or something. Anyway, he asked me what was going on in my life and for some reason I started talking about Dr. Boyers and Toby and Honey and that time we went looking for the dog.
So I thought we were going to have this whole big discussion about telling the truth and lying.
But instead, he just asked me, “Do you love your sister, Jonah?”
“Of course I do,” I said.
“Do you ever tell her?”
“Of course not,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Because,” I said, “if I did she’d punch me in the nose.”
And Dr. LaRue laughed! It was like, the funniest thing he’d ever heard. He had to take his glasses off and wipe his face with a Kleenex.
That’s when I realized I’d never made him laugh before. I guess we’re making progress.
Dec. 20, 6:33 P.M.
Saturday. I spent all day delivering pizzas and videos on my bike for Mr. Swede at First Amendment Pizza and the whole time I was thinking, You know, I must be stupid to have a part-time job that pays as lousy as this. I mean, I’m making like, six bucks an hour plus tips, which I don’t even think is minimum wage. And I have to admit that for about three seconds I wondered how much money I could make working for Thorne’s dad on the Scrod.
