Learning to Swim(26)

And then it happened. Her almost empty can of soda came spiraling through the air, bouncing off me and landing beside my foot, where the remainder of her drink pooled around my white plastic shoes.

“Oops,” Mora said coolly, looking me directly in the eye. Instead of apologizing, she motioned toward the cement with her red-lacquered toe and said, “Maid! Can you clean that up? I don't want it to get all buggy.”


All of Mora's friends—Liv Reynolds, yearbook editor and fourth cousin of Ralph Lauren; Suzanne Perling, head of the prom committee and a senator's daughter; and Georgie Sweetwater, state beauty queen and total airhead—started snickering. I thought about what Alice would have done had this been her— probably something along the lines of making Mora lick the soda off the sole of her shoe (Suzanne too, because her father was a Republican). This made me determined to teach Mora a lesson. I wiped my sticky hands on my uniform, took a step toward her, reached inside my pocket, and then…

I pulled out a rag, bent down, and wiped up the soda.

“Oh, c'mon, Steffie!” Alice exclaimed when I told her what had happened. We were in the laundry room folding thick white towels and tablecloths. “You call that a comeback? Why didn't you throw down with that skank?”

I laughed so hard that I knocked my pile of clean washcloths onto the floor. I loved it when Alice talked all gangsta. “What good would that have done?”

Alice opened up a tablecloth and shook it free of lint. “It would've made you feel better, for one.”

“It was awful,” I confided. “Now I know how Barbie felt when she got nailed with merlot.” Right before we'd moved last year, Barbie had been working as a waitress at this above-average Italian restaurant. One day, a woman she had never met walked right up to her and tossed a glass of red wine in her face.

“Let me guess,” Alice said. “She was a jealous wife.”

I picked up the washcloths and threw them back in the dirty pile. “Yep.”

“This isn't the same thing. Mora is not married to Keith. And you haven't done anything wrong. Mora is just being crazy. That's all.” Alice shook her head. “Maybe you should talk to Mr. Warzog. Let him know what happened.”

“No,” I said. “I'd rather forget about it.”

“Well,” Alice said finally, “there is a bright side to all this. I'm obviously not the only one who thinks that Keith is interested in you.”

And that changed everything.

Unlike the evening of his party, I felt no inclination to stay home and watch TV that night. Come hell or high water, I was going to Crab Beach. When I got home from work, I pulled out all the stops, like blow-drying my hair with Barbie's big round brush and flicking on some CoverGirl waterproof mascara and lip-gloss. And then just so I wouldn't be that obvious, I put on my standard beachwear: peach-colored T-shirt, secondhand J. Crew drawstring jean shorts, and Barbie's prized slightly platform flip-flops.

It was dusk when I arrived, and a shirtless Keith was sitting on Crab Beach's thin strip of sand, waiting for me. Like most “beaches” on the Chesapeake, Crab Beach was just a grassy, reedy area. But because Keith was gracing this place with his glowing presence, it felt as though we were on the shores of Belize, peering out at the infinite topaz ocean.

“Hey.” Keith stood up and blocked the sun like an eclipse. “How are you?”

“Good.” My hands were trembling.

Keith was quiet for a second and I heard the water gently lapping up against the marsh's edge. He seemed uncomfortable, as if he was about to disappoint me or something.

“I heard what happened today at the pool,” he said, and looked down at his feet.

I didn't answer.

He made a design in the sand with his heel. “I'm really sorry, Steffie.”

I calculated how many steps I'd have to take to be close enough to kiss him. Five. “Why are you apologizing? It's not your fault. Besides, I'm sure it was an, uh, accident.”

“You're being nice,” he said. Suddenly he looked me in the eye and his awkwardness vanished. “Mora and I have a complicated relationship. We've been working through some… things lately, and I feel bad that she took it out on you.”

The news that Keith and Mora were having problems sent a tremor of elation straight through me. “That's too bad,” I managed to say.

He walked toward me a little bit. Four steps left. “We're both kind of at a crossroads, trying to figure out if this… us… is, well, worth it.”

“How long have you guys been together?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer to that question, as did everyone else within a ten-mile radius.

Keith did an about-face and headed toward the water. Eight, nine, ten. “We've been friends for a long time and hooked up last summer. We broke up when I went back to school.”

I decided to follow him, but stood a safe distance away. “I didn't know you broke up.”

He nodded. “Yeah. I mean, not to get too personal or anything, but I was studying philosophy at school and it just gave me a different perspective on Jones Island and life in general. I felt like I really didn't have that much in common with the kids around here anymore. They all seemed so… shallow. There was no depth to them at all.”