The Night Swim(58)

“Well, there you go, honey,” said Estelle, clapping her hands together with excitement. “You know who you should be talking to?”

“Who?”

“That lawyer. What’s his name? Hal”—she turned to her husband—“who’s that handsome young lawyer who was in today’s newspaper?”

“Mitchell Alkins,” he said.

“That’s right. Mitchell Alkins knew Jenny Stills. They were at school together. In fact, everyone said he was sweet on her. You should ask him.”





33



Hannah


Earlier today, I visited our old house. It’s gone, of course. The land has been turned into a retirement home. How Mom would have laughed to know that people are swimming where our living room used to be. She wouldn’t be so happy to know that they pulled out the lemon tree and asphalted over her vegetable garden. The only things that haven’t changed are the daisies. The field that was below our old house is blooming with them.

Going there reminded me of something that I’d long forgotten. I was sitting on the front porch, reading a book, when I heard a car approach. It was a pale car. Green, I think, with a dent in the back. The driver was the boy with dark hair and athletic build whom Jenny had swum with at the beach. He was wearing jeans and a button-down shirt. I could see the leather necklace around his neck.

He nervously slicked back his hair as he headed up to the front door, swinging his car keys in one hand. The other hand held a bunch of white and yellow daisies that he must have picked in the field. He tossed the flowers on the ground as he climbed the porch stairs. I guessed that he felt self-conscious.

“Hey,” I said, tossing my book aside as he reached the front door.

“Is Jenny around?” His eyes flicked away from me to look for Jenny through the ripped netting of the screen door.

“She’s in the back garden. Come this way,” I said, leading him into the house and then out again through the back porch.

Jenny was getting in the laundry from the backyard when we came out. She wore shorts and a candy-striped T-shirt. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkled when she saw him.

“Hey, Jenny,” he said, putting his right hand in the back pocket of his jeans. He stepped off the porch onto the grass and stood awkwardly next to her as she took clothes off the line and tossed them into a wicker basket.

“I tried to call. Got a message saying the phone was disconnected. So I stopped by,” he said.

“We’re having problems with the phone line,” Jenny lied. She didn’t tell him our telephone line was cut because we’d forgotten to pay a bill and it was too expensive to get the line reconnected.

“What did you want to call me about?” Jenny tossed a bedsheet into the laundry basket.

“I thought maybe you’d want to get pizza.”

“When?”

“Now?”

“Sure.” Jenny took down the last of the laundry and carried the basket inside under her arm. “I’ll be ready in ten minutes.”

He went outside and leaned back against the hood of his car, tapping his fingers against the metal until Jenny emerged in a cloud of honeysuckle. It was the perfume we’d given her for her sixteenth birthday. She was dressed in jeans and a sleeveless button-down apricot shirt.

She looked prettier than I’d seen her in weeks. Glowing with happiness. Her long hair hung loose down her back. She wore pink lipstick and tiny blue crystal earrings. He opened the car door for her before going around to the driver’s seat. I thought to myself that Mom, who was asleep in her room, would have liked that boy if she’d seen the way he treated Jenny.

I fell asleep watching television and woke with a dry mouth and a wooly head when I heard a car approach. I lay back on the sofa, pretending to be asleep, when the screen door creaked open and Jenny came inside. A moment later, I heard a car drive away.

I watched Jenny through half-closed eyes as I lay still as a log. Her hair was messy and stuck with pine needles. The flushed excitement that I’d seen when she’d left had disappeared. She seemed numb and sad. She tossed her house keys onto the hall table and collapsed on an armchair where she buried her head in her hands. I thought she was tired until I saw her shoulders shudder as she swallowed her sobs.

Jenny never said a word to me about what happened on the date to make her cry. As for the boy, he never stopped by again.

Jenny went into town the next day and came back home to tell us that she’d been hired to pack shelves in the supermarket where Mom used to work.

After that, she was barely home. She left the house early for work and came back at dusk most days. With Jenny away, I was stuck at home. Frustrated and bored.

Mom found an old blow-up swimming pool, which she inflated and filled with water. I spent days lying in that pool, watching wisps of clouds drift across the otherwise clear blue afternoon sky like flotsam. Mom lay on a sun lounger and threaded beads onto nylon strings. She had an idea to make beaded necklaces and sell them down at the Sunday market. She said that would give us an income. She’d be able to string beads even when she felt ill and was confined to bed. She said that Jenny and I could do the selling.

Sometimes I’d sit on the front porch stairs and look out longingly toward the sea. One afternoon, Mom saw me and said she was feeling well enough to drive me there.