Hope and Other Punch Lines(34)

“I saw that six-pack and assumed that anyone who takes the time to shred their body like that must be dumb. I was wrong,” Julia says to me. We are dangling our legs in the water at morning swim. At the other end, Lifeguard Charles presides over the plake like a king. “He’s really smart. He goes to Wesleyan!”

“Wow,” I say.

“Right? I don’t know why I was so fixated on Zach. Did you see him meditating this morning at check-in? Come on. If you’re actually serious about meditating, you don’t do it with six hundred kids running around. He’s always working so hard to craft his image. I think he thinks it looks like he’s not trying at all, but it’s the total opposite,” Julia says, and then splashes her legs to cool off. We are in the middle of a heat wave—103 degrees and humid—and my lungs feel sluggish. My cough has been coming in frequent fits today, rough and hacking, so I keep tissues and a water bottle with me at all times. So far no blood, but I feel it pulsing through my veins, too close to the surface. Like it’s waiting for the right moment to burst through. “Charles is on the swim team.”

“That explains his stomach,” I say, and steal a glance at him. He looks outrageously handsome without his T-shirt and in his red lifeguard shorts. His bare chest is accessorized by a whistle on a pink lanyard and what it turns out is the exact right amount of chest hair—and if you had asked before this moment what the exact right amount of chest hair is for a guy, I admit I wouldn’t have been able to answer. He doesn’t look like an actual real-life person who wakes up with morning breath or gets wedgies or occasionally stubs a toe. Nope, he’s like an advertisement for youth, or maybe milk. Staring at him now, basking in his glow, I find I’m not into him. Not despite his perfection but because of it. Unlike Julia, I never assumed he was dumb. I assume he’s boring.

Still, no doubt, people like Charles get to live forever.

“Yup,” Julia says with a smile. And then lower, in a whisper, “We hooked up.”

“I know,” I say. “I was there.”

“Indulge me here. I just want to say it out loud again. Make it a little bit more real.”

“Oh, it was real. You guys weren’t exactly discreet.”

Julia splashes me and then smiles too. She’s not at all embarrassed. And why should she be? If I were her, I’d want the whole world to know. I’d put up a video on YouTube. In fact, that is the sort of thing that should make one worthy of a People magazine sidebar. Julia and Charles hooking up would be much more interesting to read about in a nail salon or while getting your hair done than Whatever Happened to Baby Hope?

“We’re going out for pizza tonight,” she says, her voice giddy.

“Oooh, I see some pepperoni in your future,” I joke.

“Sausage,” she says. “Zach was pepperoni. Charles is…one hundred percent organic artisanal sausage.”

“Look at us, bro-ing out.”

“I know, right? Maybe we should do some catcalling.” Julia puts two fingers in her mouth and manages an impressive whistle. “Your turn.”

“No way,” I say.

“Just compliment him or something. Look! He likes it. He’s practically preening.”

“Ooh la la,” I shout, but not nearly loud enough for Charles to hear. “I could shred some cheese on those abs and make me some tacos.”

Julia bursts out laughing, which it turns out is all the encouragement I need to make a fool of myself.

“I’d like to shred some lettuce on you too,” I say, this time too loudly. “Your abs are the first step to making a delicious and healthy snack.”

Lifeguard Charles looks up at me, and his face freezes into a slightly demented smile. He has heard every word.

I don’t care, though, because Julia and I are laughing so hard, we have tears streaming down our faces. Worth it.



* * *



—

After camp, Noah is waiting by my car. He lifts two shopping bags in greeting.

“No Slurpee, unfortunately, because we would have faced a melting crisis, but I did get us fully snacked up for our mission,” he says, and then we climb into the car and resume our positions. His knees on the dash. Me at the wheel. This time, I don’t bother thinking about my elbows.

“I’m optimistic about this one,” Noah says while he enters the address into his navigation and then plugs his phone into my charger without asking. Mr. T’s voice directs me to turn right. “She was super nice when I talked with her. Actually excited to hear from me, which is a first.”

Today we are visiting Sheila Brashard, whom I’ve always thought of as “second from the right.” I’ve never met her, never even thought about her much until Noah started this whole project. Apparently, she lives in Ridgewood, which is a couple of towns over. In the Baby Hope photo, her eyes are huge and scared and her mouth is in the shape of an O. You can tell she’s well aware that her life has suddenly morphed into a horror film.

“Can I ask you a question?” I ask. We’re cruising along with the windows down, and the wind blows my hair off my face and then whips it back again.

“Always.”

“What would you do if you were told you only have, I don’t know, like six months to live or something like that?” Not sure why I choose to ask Noah, of all people. Maybe it’s because he has big plans and I doubt he’s ever once thought about death stealing him greedily in the night. What he lacks in Charles’s kind of hardiness, Noah makes up for with his own tenacity.