Learning to Swim(9)

Mora's smirk turned into dismay as she looked quizzically at her boyfriend. She hooked her arm in his and led him away. “What was that about?” I heard her say to him.

In an instant, my whole mood changed. Even though I hadn't found my mother and my flip-flop broke again as soon as I stepped outside, I felt as though I was drowning in bliss.





4


On Wednesday morning I almost keeled over from shock when I went into the kitchen and found Barbie (who's usually never awake before noon) sitting at the table, humming quietly as she sipped her coffee and read the paper.

“Good morning,” she said cheerfully.

“Morning,” I muttered as the glow from my Keith interaction evaporated. I opened the cupboard and pulled out the box of chocolate Pop-Tarts. “You're up early.”

“Couldn't sleep,” she said with a shrug. “Plus, it's such a beautiful day. I thought I might go for a run this morning. Get some exercise.”

On Jones Island, there were always women jogging around in their bras and spandex. Barbie wasn't one of them. In fact, Barbie and I liked to joke that our idea of exercise was opening the refrigerator. In other words, if I'd needed more proof that my mother was in the throes of love lunacy, this would've been it. “How was work last night?” I asked.

She glanced at me. I could tell from the panicked look in her eyes that she knew I was on to her. So she said, “Actually, I didn't go to work.”

I felt a surge of relief, as if my mom was going to come clean. How na?ve of me.

“They didn't need me after all,” she continued. “I would've come home, but I knew I had already screwed up our board-game night. Since you were at Alice's, I decided to call a friend and see if she wanted to meet for a drink.”

Once again, I found myself wanting to believe her. I really did. But my mom didn't have any friends. The closest thing she had to a confidante was a fellow cocktail waitress named Laura Bates. Every time she and Barbie got together, they smoked and drank and talked about how awful men were.

“What friend?” I asked.

“Emily Mills,” she said, without skipping a beat. “You don't know her. I met her at the club one night. It was her birthday yesterday, so I, well, helped her celebrate.”

“Did Laura go to this Emily Mills birthday party?”

“It wasn't really a party. And no. Laura doesn't really know her.” She stood up and said, “I better go get dressed so I can drive you to work.” I could hear her humming as she walked away.

Oddly enough, even though I knew her excuse of having gotten together with a new friend was totally lame, I still wanted to believe her. After all, she was my mother. What kind of mother would look her daughter in the eye and lie?

Barbie, that's who. As soon as I picked up the news-paper my mother had been reading, I realized what a sucker I was. Smack on the front page was a picture of a prune-faced little old lady. The caption said: Emily Mills, county's oldest woman, turns 101.

“All right, honey,” my mom said, reappearing in spandex shorts and a running bra. “We should get going. Ready?”

I set down the paper. My mom and I had gotten into fights before, and they were not pretty. They were the really messy Jerry Springer fights, with the screaming and yelling and what have you. Anything that hadn't been nailed down had been thrown (by her) in anger at least once.

“Ready,” I said as enthusiastically as I could.

This time I wasn't going to fight. I was just going to get even.

Alice and I spent our lunch hour that day eating ham and Swiss sandwiches in the employee lounge, which was pretty much your typical hotel-conference-room type of venue. Alice loved brown-bagging it and made us virtually untradeable lunches. I never wanted to give away my sandwich because the crusts were usually cut off and whatever kind of meat was inside was slathered in Hellmann's Real Mayonnaise, my favorite condiment by far. The side dish was one of two things: mini tins of Herr's salted potato sticks or a super-size bag of Fritos corn chips. And to top it all off, Alice never forgot to include either a chocolate or a vanilla Hunt's Snack Pack pudding. Like I said, untradeable.

“So did you talk to your mom about the swimming lessons?” Alice asked as she wiped a huge glob of mayo off her face with her sleeve.

“Oh, they're a go,” I replied.

“That's great! I'm so glad she changed her mind.”


I hated the thought of lying to Alice. Therefore, I neither confirmed nor corrected her assumption that my mother had given her consent. Lying to Barbie was another matter. After all, if anyone ever had an undeniable right to go against her parent's wishes, it was me. Besides, it wasn't like I was deceiving her to do something bad. Like Alice and Keith had said, I should know how to swim.

This is about safety, I reminded myself.

“When is your first lesson?” Alice asked again.

I looked down at my pudding so I wouldn't have to look her in the eye when I said this. “I don't know.”

I could hear Alice chomping on some potato sticks. “What do you mean, you don't know?”

“Well,” I said, swallowing hard. “As soon as I got to work, I walked straight toward the pool, determined to set up a time for a lesson. But I opened up the gate and then I…”