by Zoe Fishman
“Just once or twice. Okay, six times.” I wondered why I hadn’t given him hell about it today. Too awkward, I supposed. What was I, a psycho ex-girlfriend stalker or his sister?
“Did you tell your parents?”
“No. I ain’t a rat.” I smiled weakly at her.
“Okay, okay. This isn’t The Sopranos.”
The mosquito was back. I swatted at it again, and this time crushed it underneath my palm. I pulled it back to find a giant red smear on my upper arm.
“Speaking of the Gulf, we have to go to the beach a lot this summer, Reed. Whenever we have days off.” I licked my fingers and rubbed the blood away, hoping that it was mine.
“Definitely. I guess I’ll need to drive your ass, huh?” She smirked at me.
I smiled back. “Yes, please. I’m your Miss Daisy for the summer.”
“Bitch, you’ve been my Miss Daisy since we were sixteen.” I’d never had a car, and borrowing my parent’s or David’s had always proved to be more trouble than it was worth. My friends had begrudgingly accepted my passenger status, and as a result, I now drove like a ninety-year-old.
At the bottom of the hill, the pool came into view. It sat at the bottom of another small hill, on the left of this one’s base. It was protected on all sides by a tall barbed-wire fence, which some asshole climbed at least once every summer to get in and push the giant, electric blue lifeguard stand into the pool. Cars could park at the top of the hill in a sea of white gravel—the kind that always found a way to lodge itself in your sandal or flip-flop. They could also park around back, which was basically an unused field of red dirt and bramble. Beyond that were the railroad tracks.
David and Jason stood inside the empty pool, surrounded by the bleached whiteness of its sides. They were examining the bottom drain and hadn’t noticed our approach. Shirtless and pale, their muscled torsos gleamed. Jason looked up as the gate creaked and we made our way toward the pool.
“Who the hell is that?” Jason asked. “We’re closed, dumb-ass!” he yelled from the bottom of the pool as we rounded the corner and entered the snack bar area. The concrete floor had just been washed, and the smell of ammonia was amplified by the heat. M.K. and I shielded our noses with our hands.
Jason leaped over the shallow end’s wall, ready for a fight.
“Who’s the dumb-ass now, dumb-ass?” I asked.
“Look who’s here!” He grinned. Jason’s blond hair would be white by the summer’s end, and his torso mahogany, but for now he looked as sun-starved as the rest of us. “If it ain’t the famous Yankee herself.”
“Hey, Jason.” I broke into a jog of excitement and hugged him. When I pulled back, his sweat had imprinted itself on my tank top like a fingerprint.
“David, you didn’t tell me Ruthie was here!” He looked me up and down. “Or half of Ruthie. Girl, you are skinny as hell. They don’t feed you up in Michigan?”
I wondered if everyone I saw that summer would have the same thing to say—behind my back rather than to my face most likely. It reminded me of going over to my rich friend Julia’s house once when I was little. Her mother had been holding court in her giant kitchen with her friends, all of them poised daintily on bar stools and grasping glasses of amber-colored liquid with their manicured fingers. Their myriad wrist bangles clacked and jangled as they gestured dramatically about whatever it was women like that talked about. I couldn’t imagine. They were the yin to my mother’s yang.
Julia, y’all come in here and say hey to Miss Paula/Andie/Sandra/Sue! We had trudged into the room with false smiles plastered to our faces. Hey, Miss Paula/Andie/Sandra/Sue, Julia said dutifully. As I took secret issue with the whole concept of “Miss” in front of a first name, I just emitted a general hello. We rambled on about nothing for a minute or two as the women ogled us, before being dismissed with a Y’all be sweet, girls!
I was old enough to expect that they would say something about my chubbiness after I left, like the ever-familiar Such a pretty face, but. . . . I was surprised to hear something else entirely once Julia’s mom thought we were out of earshot.
“Isn’t Ruth precious?” Pause. “Y’all know she’s Jewish,” she tried to whisper. My face had burned red, out of anger or embarrassment, I wasn’t sure. It was the first time I had realized my Jewishness was something people could whisper about like a terminal illness. Weight comments stung, but at least I could change that. The Jewish thing, not so much.
“No, they don’t feed us, Jason. I haven’t had one meal since last August,” I replied.
He cocked his head and scrunched up his nose as if he were smelling something bad. “Well, I guess ya look good. Gonna be nice to see you in a bathing suit.”
“Hey, man, take it easy,” said David as he pushed himself up and out of the empty pool.
“Yeah, you perv,” chimed in M.K., her eyes glued to my brother’s flexed arms.
“Hey, M.K.,” said David.
“Hey, David,” she replied, blushing slightly. Damn him and his good looks. Even M.K., who’d known him since he was in Underoos, was susceptible.
“So, how’s she lookin’?” I asked.
“Who, M.K.?” asked Jason. “She looks pretty good to me.”
“No, jackass, the pool,” I answered as M.K. punched him softly in the arm.
“Oh! Not bad, actually. We just had her mildewed ass cleaned, and now we just have to fill ’er up and shock her.” “Shocking” was pool-speak for chlorination.
“Just in time to have twenty kids take a leak in that same water,” said David.
“You betcha,” said Jason. “David and I are gonna fill ’er up now. Want to help?” I glanced over at David, who tensed at the mere mention of me invading their afternoon, and my heart hurt.
“Uh no, that’s okay. Gonna head back to my house soon and take a nap.”
“Cool, cool. I’ll have your lifeguarding schedule tomorrow, at the swim team meeting.”
“Okay, see y’all,” I said, looking to David for some sort of fraternal nod of approval. Something. Anything.
“See ya,” he said, mostly to M.K., and walked back to Jason—who was already jabbering about some sort of new pool-filling technique. M.K. and I climbed the hill back to the street.
“Want to have a cigarette?” she asked.
“Do I ever.”
She smiled. “C’mon.” We trudged up another hill in the back of the elementary school.
“How many hills can there be in one damn neighborhood?” she huffed. M.K. lived right across the street from the elementary school—the very one we had met at so many years before. We cut through its massive backyard.
“Is your mom home?” I asked.
“She is. She’s watchin’ Judge Judy.” Sheila was the mom who let us drink and smoke in high school. With her acrylic nails, tanning-bed face, and affinity for all things bedazzled, she was a walking cliché. That said, she had always been really good to me, and I adored her for it. Once, when she found me in their bathroom lying in my own drunken vomit, she had patiently cleaned me up and put me to bed without a word until the next morning.
“I’m not gonna tell yer mama about last night, but you need to be careful, darlin’,” she had said over Krispy Kremes. “You ain’t cut out for that mess.”
Before M.K. plopped herself down in her back porch swing, she pulled a pack of Marlboro Lights from her back pocket. We lit up in silence, the smoke hanging around us like a curtain.
“I can’t believe it’s really summer,” I murmured. “This year flew by.”
“It really did. Do you feel different, Wass, since you were so far away and all?”
“I can’t tell yet. A lot is different, I guess.” I exhaled. “But still the same, you know?”
“I know.”
“Miss Ruth, you ain’t gon’ come in and say hello to me? Your mama raised you better t
han that, girl!”
“Sheila!” I squealed. I handed M.K. my cigarette and ran to hug her.
“Hey, Ruthie!” She patted my back. “How’s the Midwest treatin’ you?” She always looked so deeply into my eyes when she spoke to me that it felt like she was burrowing through my brain.
“Good, good. Happy to be home, though.”
“I know it. M.K.’s been dyin’ to see you and Jill. The Three Mouseketeers.” She smiled, revealing newly whitened teeth.
“Sheila, your teeth are so white!” I exclaimed.
“I know, right? Isn’t it somethin’? I went in for one o’ those professional jobbies. I feel like Jessica Simpson!”
“Yeah, now Shelia’s mouth looks bigger than her head,” said M.K., swinging behind us.
“The only mouth I see that needs work is yours, honey. It could use a good smack.” She stuck her tongue out at her daughter. “Well, gotta get back to Judy, but I jes’ wanted to say hey and I’m glad you’re home, Ruth.” She turned around to go in and then abruptly stopped in her tracks. She leaned in close, her tangerine perfume singeing the hairs in my nostrils.
“Honey, you ain’t throwin’ your food up, are you? ’Cuz that’s just nasty.”
“No, ma’am,” I answered.
“Okay, just checkin’. You let me know if you want to talk about anything.”
I watched her go and then turned back to M.K. “I better get goin’.”
“Aw, what happened, did she freak you out?”
I laughed. “No, not at all. I just should get home.”
“All right, baby, I’ll call you tomorrow.” She got off the swing and gave me a hug.
“ ’Kay,” I answered. “Smell ya later.”
“Nerd!” she yelled after me.
4
“Should we at least talk about what we’re going to say to the kids?” I asked David. I was eating a bowl of cereal at the kitchen table when he breezed past me without a hello. Cereal was one of my food groups. Some would have said that candy was my second, and raw vegetables my third and fourth food groups. They were pretty much right. Calorically, this didn’t make much sense—I knew that—but I figured that sugar was easier to burn off than, say, protein. Also, the energy boost was immediate.
David’s back was to me as he reached into the refrigerator.
“What’s there to say? It’s the same shit we say every year. Show up for practice, swim like hell, and don’t get disqualified.” He pulled out the cream cheese. “This we have to rehearse?”
“I mean, I dunno, I’m talking to kids who can barely read. I wonder if I shouldn’t be a little softer in my welcome approach this year.”
“That’s your problem. You’re the guppy master. If you want to pull them aside for some sort of private baby talk, be my guest. And by the way, all of the kids on this team can barely read. It’s Alabama.”
“Derrrrrr, very funny.” I fished through the milk with my spoon, hoping for a drowned flake.
“Where the hell are the bagels?” David snarled at me. Whenever he was hungry he turned into The Incredible Hulk. I wondered how long he would last in my shoes before ripping someone’s head off with his bare hands.
“You know where they are.” I rolled my eyes. “A hundred bucks says they’re in the freezer.”
He opened it, and there they were—like an inflated roll of quarters. He grabbed them. “What is with her? Every piece of bread in this house has to be frozen?”
“No carbohydrate is safe.”
“Well, I hate it. If you nuke one of these, it shrivels up into a weird little sponge. Shit.” He pulled one out and tossed it into the microwave, where it landed with a thud.
“I’m out,” I said, sliding my chair back from the table. “Are you going to the meeting straight from home, or no?”
“No.”
“Oh, you’ll be coming from Hillary’s?”
“Hillary and I broke up.”
“Really?” David and Hillary had been together on and off since their freshman year of high school. She was the kind of pretty that always put her in the running for Miss Teen Something.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Damn, Ruth, you are so nosy. Who cares why?” He took his bagel out of the microwave and pried it open before throwing it in the toaster. Toss, throw, slam, shut. All of his movements were so forcefully deliberate. You’re too rough, my parents would say to us when we were toddlers—biting, kicking, and pinching at whim.
“And how would you understand, anyway? You’ve never even had a boyfriend.” His insult stung. Technically, Tony had been my boyfriend. We had spent two months and seventeen days together. We had sex regularly, he told me I was pretty, and sometimes he bought me a drink when we were out. That had fulfilled my boyfriend requirements. I’d found out later (on day eighteen) that he’d been flirting and sometimes sleeping with various other girls the whole time, but still.
“Sorry, you’re wrong. Maybe if you had called me once this year, you’d know that.” I got up from the table, slammed my bowl in the sink, and headed toward my room. David said nothing. Of course.
My dad’s frame filled my doorway. “You know, this is going to be a long summer if you two don’t get along.” I could feel the tears coming. My lip trembled like a five-year-old.
“Hey, whatsa matter?”
“David is an asshole.”
“Language, Ruth,” he warned. “And go easy on him. Can you imagine playing soccer in this heat? My nerves would be shot.”
“Oh God, give me a break.” I flung myself on my bed dramatically. “He gets a personality pass because he kicks a ball around?”
It had always been like this. Whenever David and I had gotten into fights growing up, my parents always figured that I was the one who had started it. Moody Ruth. Even the time when they had left us alone to go to the movies and returned to find me pinned underneath him with his knee in my throat and choking me, I had taken most of the blame.
“I’m heading to the office, but what are you doing tonight?”
“I’m going to hang out with the girls.”
“I wish you would come to synagogue with me instead.”
“Yeah, not so much,” I replied. He pursed his lips in disapproval.
“I know, Dad. I’m sorry. Maybe later in the summer.” He went to Friday night services every week—usually alone. My mom wasn’t exactly a fan of synagogue either. It wasn’t the Jewish part—that was okay with me on a cultural level—but the whole synagogue experience was just not my bag. If I wanted to leave the entire time I was there, how did that make me a better Jew? Because I endured it?
“Well, David’s coming with me.” Naturally. David: the golden Jew.
“Cool,” I replied. “I promise I’ll go another time, okay?” He nodded. I put my pillow over my face. Not even twenty-four hours in and the summer stretched ahead of me like I–95.
I closed the door behind me and crossed the garage to the workroom to find my bike. I dug the keys out of my backpack and unlocked it, immediately fighting the urge to lie down on the cool, concrete floor. Just for a little while.
When we were little, David had been obsessed with trains, and together he and my grandfather had built an elaborate, elevated train set atop a giant wooden table that filled more than half of the garage. Green felt-covered hills and valleys rose around an idyllic village complete with a post office and cars.
Now the table was piled with cardboard boxes of who knew what—clothes or baby crap, perhaps. I wondered if my old Barbies were hiding in there, with their botched haircuts and chewed-up feet. My appetite for those minuscule hunks of malleable plastic had been insatiable. By the time I had been done with a Barbie, she was hairless and crippled.
A bit wobbly at first, I pedaled past Mrs. Mayfield’s house, checking for the JESUS LOVES YOU flag
waving from her front porch. Still there. I made a right at the corner. There was poor, tortured Nancy Fink’s house—her yard was crisscrossed with scraps of missing grass, the skid mark scars left from the giant trucks of the jackass jocks who tormented her at school. I plunged down the hill that led to the pool and saw the lot filled with cars I recognized. Here we go.
“Coach Ruth, Coach Ruth!”
I pulled into the bike rack to a flurry of six- and seven-year-olds chanting my name. They burst from the picnic area like puppies—their mouths ringed in red, pink, and blue popsicle smear.
“Coach Ruth!” Tabitha exclaimed in a burst of sugar-fueled excitement. Oh Tabitha. Sweet, headed-for-teen-pregnancy Tabitha. Chubby, with an overbite that could shade a trailer, Tabitha always wore pink lipstick and jutted her hips just so when talking to any of the male lifeguards—especially David. She was six.
“Hi, sweetie,” I said as she hugged my knees. I patted her blond head and uttered a silent prayer that her parents would allow birth control when the time came. Tyler brought up the rear of the pack of ankle-biters. Round and solid, he was like a baby manatee when he swam.
“Hi, Ty.”
He blushed. “Hi, Coach Ruth.”
“Hey, Coach Ruth!” screeched Crystal as she made a beeline for me. All angles and sinuous muscle, she reminded me of a panther. Crystal may have been the first kid in her family to know how to swim in a body of water that did not come with the requisite rope swing. Her father Travis showed up at every swim meet in his cutoffs and T-shirts advertising his car shop with his long mullet pulled into a shoulder blade–skimming braid. He was her biggest fan, standing nervously by the side of the pool when she raced and cheering her on like she was part of the Indy 500.
“Hey, girly.” I smiled at her. She smiled back at me and revealed pink gums. Three of her front teeth were missing.
“Look at those missing teeth!”
“I know, I lost ’em all this week,” she explained.
“You must be rich!”
“I am,” she whispered solemnly.
David was perched on top of one of the picnic tables talking to Julie. She was probably our best swimmer and had placed in the top ten for her age group in the city last year. That had been her last summer before high school, though, and I could tell just by looking at her that things had changed. Gone was the sweet, slightly nerdy eighth-grader who was obsessed with Twilight. In its place stood a daisy dukes–wearing temptress—her eyes ringed with black and a brand-new nose ring twinkling in the sun.
