Learning to Swim(7)

Proof that Barbie is not on an illicit date: She was wearing her uniform.





“That doesn't prove anything,” I said. “I'm sure that after she dropped me off, she just went home and changed.”

“But why would she say she was going to work? Wouldn't she come up with a better excuse? After all, she knows you can easily check.”

“That's the beauty of it,” I said. “She thinks because it's so easy for me to check, I won't.”

“It seems so…”

“Crazy? Awful? Rude? Obnoxious…?”

“Terrible.”


I sighed a long, deep “my life is over” sigh as I picked up a pair of binoculars and focused them on the humongous white Mediterranean-style house across the creek, which just happened to be the residence of Keith McKnight. I had first spotted him trimming some trees in his yard about forty-three days ago, and every time I went to Alice's place (which looked more like a sorority house than an old lady's house—there was brightly colored IKEA everywhere), I peered through the magical magnifying lenses and prayed that he'd come outside with his shirt off. Sure, I saw him topless almost every day, but that was under professional circumstances, not on his own turf.

But even the thought of a potential Keith sighting couldn't pull me out of my funk. In fact, the thought of him just made me feel worse. “I obviously can't take those swim lessons now,” I announced, setting down the binoculars.

“But I thought she said you'd discuss it later.”

“It doesn't matter what she says now. I need to have my wits about me. I can't afford to get love lunacy myself.”

“That's ridiculous, Steffie. Swimming lessons are not going to tempt you to play park the pastrami with a married man.”

Park the what? “Keith may not be married,” I said, “but he's got a girlfriend.”

“Even if he was married, it wouldn't matter. You're not your mother. I mean, look at me. Roland was a drinker. That didn't make me one.”

Alice had lost her husband, Roland, to a heart attack five years before. She liked to say that they were happily married for forty years, but the truth of the matter was that they were actually married for forty-five. The reason why she didn't count the first five is because they were so bad. That would be due to the fact that, unbeknownst to Alice at the time, she had married a total drunk.

One of her all-time favorite stories was how she got Roland to stop drinking, thereby saving his life. No offense to Alice, but it hadn't sounded all that difficult. She simply gave him the old heave-ho, and he dried out in exactly two weeks, which was when he came crawling back, begging for forgiveness. I couldn't exactly throw my mother out either, although I considered going down to county court and filling out emancipation papers after every time we finger moved.

“But Roland wasn't a blood relative,” I said. “Love lunacy is genetic.”

Alice rolled her eyes. “Well, my father was a drinker and I didn't become one.”

I could attest to that. The only alcohol Alice had in the house was a grody bottle of peppermint schnapps that was coated in about two inches of dust. “But you did marry one,” I said, thinking out loud. “It's not like you totally escaped.”

Alice got up and smoothed down the back of her pink clam diggers. “Stef, I know it's hard, but even if you're right about the phone call and your mother is on the verge of love lunacy—”

“Not on the verge. I missed the verge. I also missed stage one and barely caught stage two. She's already on stage three.”

“My point is that Barbie has done this… how many times before?”

“Fourteen.”

“Exactly. There's not much you can do about it right now. Your mom needs to want to change her behavior, you can't make her.”

She was right about that. God knew I had tried to make her before. I had done everything I could think of: reasoning with her calmly until I was blue in the face, yelling and screaming irrationally until I thought I was going to have a stroke, and once I even called her boyfriend and threatened to tell his wife. None of it worked. Barbie was pretty much a lost cause. That was the scariest thing about it.

“I really wish there was more I could do,” Alice said. “But you can always come over here, any time you need to. Mi casa es su casa, and whatever.”

I flashed a brave smile as I stood up and slipped my flip-flops back on. “Thanks.”

She put her hands on my shoulders gently. “So do me a favor and stop beating yourself up about Barbie, okay?”

The only thing I could do was muster up a shrug.

For some reason, Alice seemed to think she had succeeded in getting me to see the light, because she shot me a very self-satisfied, pleased smile. “Do you want me to drive you home?” she asked.

“No thanks,” I said. And then I dropped the bomb that wiped the smile right off her face. “I'm going to the club to see if my mom really had to work.”

With that, Alice rolled her eyes and shook her head. She should've known me better than to think I'd throw in the towel so easily. For one, I was a little thickheaded, and for two, well, how could I have lived with myself if I hadn't at least tried to jump in and save my mother? If my grandfather hadn't gone in after my grandmother, he probably would have still been alive, but he would have had to spend the rest of his life knowing that he had just let his wife go.