Learning to Swim(19)

“You were just nervous,” Alice said, eating a spoonful of dough. “And having your mom leave you high and dry like that, well, it threw you for a loop. But it's okay. There'll be other parties.”

“Tell that to Barbie. She's going to go nuts when she finds out I didn't go. She thinks this was my big break.”

“Big break for what?”

“To be popular.”

“Oh, please.” Alice rolled her eyes. “It's a party. And from the looks of it,” she said, as she trained the binoculars on Keith's kitchen, “not a very good one.” She handed me the binoculars. “Pizza from Romero's? Yuck.”

I twisted around to get a better view of the kitchen. We had been watching the house for the past hour, and with the setting of the sun and the turning on of lights (his), our view had improved dramatically. The back of Keith's house was almost all floor-to-ceiling windows, so Alice and I could see inside with all the clarity of HDTV. Suddenly, I saw Keith walk into the kitchen. Although my heart skipped a beat at the sight of him, I was almost immediately distracted by the miniskirted big-busted girl hanging on his arm and looking at him like an affectionate puppy. As I watched the girl silently jabber away, Keith stopped in front of the window and turned toward the water. I focused the binoculars back on him, and for one brief, terrible moment, it looked as if he was staring right at me. I rolled off the couch and hit the floor.

“What?” Alice asked, ducking down with me.

“Keith,” I whispered. “It looked like he saw me.”

Alice peeked over the couch. “Nah. The only way he could see you is if we were all lit up and he happened to have a pair of binoculars handy.”

“Who's that girl with him?” I handed Alice the binoculars as I crawled back up onto the sofa.

“I don't know,” Alice said, scanning the house. “I didn't get a chance to see her. They're not in the kitchen anymore and I don't know where they've gone.”

“What are all those girls doing over there, anyway?” I was trying to ignore the jealousy that was sitting like a lump in my belly. “I thought I was going to be the girl minority.”

Alice leaned forward for a better look. “You mean the girls watching TV in the library? Tammy Cheskus and Michelle Ronsaville. They were in Keith's class at Brucker's. They haven't been around much this summer because they both did internships out of state. But they're no threat.” Alice handed me back the binoculars.

“I wish you could've seen that girl with Keith,” I said, hoping at one point Alice would recognize her and tell me she was his long-lost sister.

“Look, Steffie, are you sure you don't want me to take you over there? I could watch through my binoculars and you could give me a code or something if you wanted me to come and get you.”

I turned back toward the TV. “I'd rather be here. If I was at Keith's, I never would've seen that dog jumping through the burning hoop.”

“That was cute,” Alice admitted.

“Besides, how can I go to a party when Barbie's in the third stage of love lunacy?”

“So what? Why let your mom's love lunacy get in the way of you having a good time?”

“My point is that I'm going to be moving soon anyway. So why bother expending all that effort to make new friends? It hardly seems worth the trouble.”

“I think Keith is worth the trouble, don't you?”

I picked some chocolate chips out of the dough and popped them into my mouth. “Let's face it. Keith wanting to hook up with me is about as unlikely as me winning the hot-dog-eating contest at the county fair. I mean, even if he wanted to cheat on Mora, he would do what all cheaters do: he would pick a girl like Barbie, a hot tamale who goes on dates armed with a duffel bag stuffed with lingerie.” Actually, a girl just like the big-boobed miniskirted one that had been hanging on his arm.

I twisted around once again and focused the binoculars on his house. “I wish we could see his bedroom from here,” I said.

“You don't think he took that girl you saw him with up to his room, do you?” Alice asked.

“I don't know,” I said. “I hope not.”


“I'm sure he didn't… but if it would make you feel better, I bet we could see his room from the Berkensteins’ dock,” Alice said. She stood up and grabbed another spoonful of the cookie dough. She swallowed it and grinned mischievously. “Come on.”

“But what if someone sees us?” I asked. After all, the Berkensteins’ dock jutted so far out into the creek that a long jumper could make it to Keith's back door without getting wet.

“He's not going to see us,” Alice said. “The dock is totally dark. And besides, Keith is inside.”

I followed Alice out the door and around the side of the house. We went down to the dock and crept out to the end. I trained the binoculars on the second floor of his house. “Where's his room?” I whispered.

“Over there.” Alice pointed to a dark window. Just then, I heard a door slam. “Let's go check out the boat,” I heard a girl giggle from Keith's backyard. I could only assume the boat she was referring to was the one directly in front of us, the one roped to the end of Keith's parents’ dock.