Learning to Swim(5)

“Explain that to Barbie.”

“Maybe if you told her that it was purely a matter of safety,” Alice suggested.

Safety. Once again, I envisioned Keith and me in the water. He would touch his hand to my cheek and I would stand on my tiptoes, so I could look into his eyes. He would lean forward and kiss me softly…

Mora Schmora. Alice was right. This was a matter of safety, for God's sake. “But I already told him no.”

“So tell him you changed your mind. But make sure it's okay with your mom first. Remember, she was your age once too. She'll understand how much this means to you.”

Alice was right. I had to run this by Barbie. She and I had been getting along fairly well lately, and I knew she had been doing her best to recover from love lunacy. Actually, she had been love free for almost a year now, so she deserved the chance to talk with me, see the light, and hug it out, right?

I knew this wouldn't be an easy task. Barbie's reasons for not wanting me to swim were borderline justifiable, and whenever she invoked the name of her dead parents, she was hard to dispute. Still, I had little choice. I had to give it a shot. I had to hope against hope that somewhere deeply imbedded in Barbie's mind was a sliver of rationality. I had to believe that this sliver was capable of overhauling all the neurons in her brain, and getting her to realize that passing up an opportunity to take swimming lessons (at no charge) with a lifeguard who just happened to be a hottie and quite possibly the future father of my children would be, as Alice had said so eloquently, “a real bite in the ass.”

Later that evening, Barbie strolled into our kitchen, humming an unrecognizable tune. She was wearing short cutoffs and a halter top—clothes that any girl in the popular Mora Cooper crowd would've been happy to wear. The sad thing was, the clothes probably wouldn't have looked as good on them as they did on my mom.

“That smells delicious,” Barbie said.

I finished stirring some Cheesy Nacho Hamburger Helper and said, “It's almost ready.”


This was Barbie's favorite dish. Alice had advised me just before our shift ended that the way to get someone to do something was to do something so nice for them that they'd feel too guilty to say no. Making Cheesy Nacho Hamburger Helper was the best I could do.

As my mother sat down at the living/dining/TV room table, I took a deep breath. I had to be very careful about this. I had come to the discussion with irrefutable facts, like:

Learning to swim could prevent me from drowning, like I almost did yesterday. It's a safety issue.



People drink water. Men and women are made up of 60 percent water. Therefore water and boys are good.



The lessons are free.



Since she doesn't know how to swim, I should learn how just in case she ever falls into the water. I could save her.



Keith is the hottest guy I know and I've been totally in love with him for forty-three days. Therefore, it would be inhumane and cruel to rob me of this opportunity. (This was only to be uttered as a last resort.)





I brought Barbie over a hot plate filled to the edges with Cheesy Nacho Hamburger Helper. She licked her lips in anticipation. Alice was right. Barbie's love of the Helper would surely take over, and she'd be putty in my hands!

The only thing I had to do was ask her in a non-confrontational way. Just kind of breezy, like “Gee, the head lifeguard at the club offered me free swim lessons, what do you think?” And then lean forward and open my eyes really wide, like I was hanging on her every word. Like I really cared about what she thought.

I sat down at the table and then swirled the Hamburger Helper around my plate with my fork for a couple of minutes.

Barbie said, “Are you all right? You seem… quiet.”

So far so good. A perfect lead-in. I'm quiet because I'm pensive. Because I want her opinion.

I looked into Barbie's heavily blue-mascaraed eyes. Nice and breezy, I reminded myself. Not confrontational.

“I'm going to take swimming lessons,” I announced.

Oops.

My mother put down her fork and swallowed hard. She leaned forward slightly and said, “Excuse me?”

“Keith McKnight offered to teach me. He said it wasn't safe…”

“Who's Keith McKnight?”

“The lifeguard at the pool. The head lifeguard.” I said this almost proudly, as if I already had bragging rights to him.

“The one who almost let you drown yesterday?”

This was so my mother. She could turn anything around. It really was a gift.

“He didn't almost let me drown,” I said. “He saved me.”

She picked her fork back up and scooped up some hamburger. “Can you learn how to swim without getting in the water?”

This was the most insane thing I had ever heard. “Um… I don't think so.”

“Then forget it,” she said, before popping the bite into her mouth.

It was time to bring out the big guns. “Everyone thinks it's ridiculous that I don't know how to swim.”

“Everyone?”

“Well, Alice does,” I said, meeting Barbie's eyes.

This was not a good idea at all. My mom had this thing about Alice. Quite simply, Alice, through no fault of her own, annoyed Barbie. It was hard to believe that anyone could actually be annoyed by Alice, because Alice was, quite frankly, the nicest person I'd ever met. She was always making cookies for people and helping out sick friends and stuff. She may not have had much in terms of material things, and may have had a filthy mouth sometimes, but if I was at her house and said I wanted a blanket, she would have given me one, even if it was the only blanket she had in the world. My mother, on the other hand, wouldn't even let me borrow her precious pair of dark indigo Levi's.