Landlocked (A water witch novel) (5 page)

“If you want a tortured soul, I can give it to you.”

“I believe you,
” I said. I’d seen him completely explode in anger and beat two guys that weren’t exactly shrimps.

“So what do you do when you’re not getting into trouble, arguing, and painting?” A small dimple appeared as he smiled.

“That’s it, you just summed up my life,” I said, shrugging.

“You said something to Clarissa about a meet?”

“Swim meet,” I clarified.

“Is that something I need to check out?”

Jaron watching me compete? The mere thought sent my stomach into back flips that made me nauseous. “No! It would be pretty boring, just back and forth across a pool… So where are you from?” I asked, trying to shift the conversation to him.

He hesitated a fraction of a second. “Abbeville.”

“I pegged you as an out-of-stater,” I said honestly. I couldn’t recall exactly where Abbeville was, but I knew it was in Louisiana. He looked so much different than everyone here in Winnfield. I had expected some exotic place that I'd never heard of. “Where is Abbeville, anyway?”

He shrugged. “It’s a three hour drive, pretty much directly south.”

I pulled up a map of my home state in my head and realized that his directions put Abbeville tantalizingly near the ocean. “Is it close to the ocean? How close? Have you been there?” I said in a rush.

“Well haven’t you ever been? It isn’t that far away,” he said cocking an eyebrow.

I flinched. It was such a confusing thing to be so drawn to something and yet have such fear ingrained in you about it. I tried to recover myself. I didn’t really enjoy recanting my parents' untimely deaths. Really, who would? Especially with some guy I didn’t even know. It had been bad enough telling the story through the years to explain my constant inability to go with friends on a quick trip to the beach. “No I’ve never been. Tell me about it.”

Mr. Reed glided over, her tied dyed fabric billowing around her.

He gave me an apologetic smile. “Maybe some other time.”

“You are my new student, no? Come, let me take you on a tour of my art room.” She spoke with a thick French accent, though we all knew that she was from Portland.
             

***

I stretched my legs out on the bench in front of the gym, waiting for Clarissa to exit. Sunlight filtered through the foyer windows, making me glad as always that the winter months were short and not too cold in Louisiana. I admired the bit of sun I'd gotten on my legs. The warming spring weather had me in a good mood, or maybe it was something (or someone) else. I had looked for Jaron at lunch, but was disappointed. I was riding a strange adrenaline high. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I was more excited than usual for the meet.

Clarissa kicked open the gym doors, making me jump. “Hey, crazy girl, how was the rest of your day?”

I loved Clarissa. She just said whatever was on her mind and although it ostracized her in the easily offended high school community, it just endeared her to me.

“It was fairly uneventful, after second period,” I said, smothering on the nonchalance.

She bit right away. “And what happened in second period, since you obviously want me to ask.”

She could always see right through me. I delved in. “Jaron’s in my art class, and I might  not think he’s a total jerk anymore.” My stomach felt like it was being tickled from the inside, and I thought the sensation was called butterflies, though that was the first time I’d ever experienced it.

Clarissa laughed. “Please tell me you were a bit more… smooth? Watching you after English yesterday was like witnessing the Titanic sinking. It was all slow-mo—” Her demeanor shifted and her face lost its color. She looked at me apologetically. It only took a moment for me to realize that she was horrified at her choice of words. My parents had actually sunk into the ocean.

“It’s okay,” I assured her with a squeeze of her hand. We walked toward the sickly green metal doors that led outside. “And I’m not sure if I was any smoother. I’ve decided that boys drop my IQ and increase my agitation.”

She held the door open for me. “If you think you're the first girl to decide that you're outside your mind.”

I laughed. Men and women had been driving each other crazy since the beginning of time. “I’ve never felt this way before, though. I mean, I have been annoyed by tons of boys, but it was different with him. He just crawled under my skin.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “In a good way or a bad way?”

I took a moment to think about it, matching her leis
urely stride; neither of us was in a hurry to get to the pool. I looked up at the pale blue sky, raising my hand to block out the too close Louisiana sun. I thought about Jaron. Why did he get under my skin? Was it just his unbelievable good looks? Was it because he seemed honestly curious about me as a person? Or was it the way he challenged me like no one ever had? “I don’t know. I’ll have to get back to you on it.”

“Always in your head. One thing you won’t have to think on too hard is his looks. He's a hottie with a body for sure!” She paused, cocking her head to the side. “Actually you might need to think about his looks whenever you get the chance.”

We broke into a torrent of giggles as we rounded the corner, leaving the school ground behind us. Winnfield was such a lovely town. We’d lived elsewhere, but this was the only place that I had a memory of. It was a small town full of history and intrigue, and everyone’s great-great something or other had been a big part of the civil war. I loved the shapes and detail of all of the old buildings. Ours was one of the oldest residential structures in the area, but down town was full of the spectacular things. The city pool was one of the newest buildings, and rumor had it that construction of the Olympic sized indoor/outdoor facility had been funded by my aunt and uncle. They told me not to believe everything I heard. The outside was all gray and stainless steel. I opened one of the many sleek doors and followed Clarissa in. The scent of chlorine stung my nostrils, and although I still didn’t enjoy the smell, it carried with it happy memories and the promise of swimming.

I almost missed the entrance to our locker room and collided with the wall, but Clarissa stopped me before I face planted.

“Jeez. You are distracted today!” she accused. “I've never seen you like this… it’s fun!”

“Come on, I have to deal with you having a new crush every other month. Take it easy on me. I’m new at this.”

She twisted the knob on her locker quickly. “I’m just excited for you. I remember my first crush. Bobby Sanders, he was six, I was five.” Clarissa opened the small door with a metallic clank. “I wonder where he is now?”

I rolled my eyes. “So what did you think about him?” I asked, spinning my combination on the dial.

She lifted an eyebrow. “About Bobby? I guess he was a good boyfriend, hard to tell we were so young.” She shifted her eyes to me impishly.

“You know who I meant.” I threw my towel at her.

She caught it before it hit the cold cement floor and tossed it back to me casually. “Besides the obvious?” She wiggled her eyebrows.

I nodded.

“He’s different. I can’t tell if it’s good different or bad different.”

I frowned.

“Maribel, anyone who can get your attention has to be special.” She smiled reassuringly at me.

“I hope he’s good different, like you,” I said.

She opened her mouth forming a capitol O. “What? Different, me?” she said, feigning hurt. “So what are we going to do for an hour, and don't say you brought a book to read!” Clarissa said in horror.

“Well, actually I have a couple in my locker if you want to read too…” I said hopefully, but her facial expression told me it was a no go. “And I also have a deck of cards we could play—”

“Sold! Let’s get a tan while I beat you.” She dragged me away from my locker/bookshelf.

***

Our teammates began to trickle in, and Aunt Sylvia arrived before the coach or any of the other parents did. She waved at me from the stand, still looking a bit on guard. I shook my head. I'd never known her to put any stock in dreams. We always laughed together when those psychic infomercials came on, now it seemed she would call the one eight hundred number at the bottom of the screen. I wondered off-hand if she had some kind of whimsical new age yoga instructor that liked to interpret dreams.

“Sylvia looks more nervous than usual. She can’t be worried about the meet. We all know you’ll win every match you’re in,” Clarissa said as she stretched her shoulders.

“I wish it was something that normal. She’s freaked out about some dream I had.”

She paused mid-stretch. “Are you for real? Oh, the worrywart knows no bounds! What are they going to do when we go to college next fall?”

I join her in our pregame loosening up ritual. “They'll buy a house next to campus and have us all move in together.” I smiled up at Sylvia, trying to ease her unnecessary concern. “Come on, I think everyone has showed up by now.”

We walked side by side into the cool locker room. When we turned the sharp corner, I saw that all of the girls had made it on time. We had about fourteen girls on our team. It was enough—but twenty would have been better. With our current roster, no one got a break. I didn’t mind, of course, but most of my teammates were completely drained after their first two races. I might have to go on a recruiting spree again. I felt a little guilty for missing the beginning of my coach’s pre-game speech, so I tried to look extra attentive as Clarissa and I joined the group.

“They’re from bigger schools. But you know what we have? A bigger heart—”

“And Maribel,” one of the younger girls interjected.

“Yes and Maribel, but she is just one person. This is a team, and without all of you pushing your hardest, we aren’t anything. Now go get stretched and ready, and don’t forget your gear!” Some of them would forget about their goggles and cap until right before a race.

The locker room slowly cleared out, and just me and Clarissa remained with the coach, Mrs. Winegar. “Anything we need to know about, coach, changes to the line-up or anything?”

“No, everything will be the same as last meet. I’m sure we’ll do well against North and Kelly’s, but Saint Mary’s is the biggest school we have ever gone up against. Their swim program has been around longer than black and white photography. Ours has been going for three years.” She looked down; coach hated losing almost as much as Clarissa. I didn’t care much so long as I got to swim.

We walked back out into the bright afternoon light and took our seats. Mrs. Winegar reminded everyone to stay loose. Each of us could only compete in four events and no more than two individual races, so it was easy to get cold and have your muscles tighten up on you. My events were always the two longest team relays, the individual five hundred, and my personal favorite the two hundred IM (individual medley). They were fairly well spread with only two of them back to back. Clarissa and a few other girls stood up; the two hundred medley relay was the first event. My first event was the third on the roster and waiting was always the worst part. I wished I could swim in every race… stupid rules.

As I sat watching Clarissa dominate her event, I felt my aunt’s eyes on my back. I didn’t want to turn around and wave at her like a twelve year old, so I decided to wait until my event was called. I could give her a smile before I hit my mark. Clarissa took a seat next to me, beaming.

“World!” she whispered in a throaty voice.

“Domination!” I replied in an equally deep tone. “Shouldn’t we say water world domination?”

Clarissa dabbed her face with her towel. “No way, that movie sucked!” The next race went so terribly Clarissa threw her stopwatch into the towel at her feet. “No point in clocking when we’re getting spanked that bad.”

“There really is no point in clocking since the refs and the scoreboard do it for us,” I said.

“Whatever, I’m old school.” After the race, she leaned over and whispered, “The other teams could have exited the pool and had a tea party long before our girls touched the wall, if they had a mind to.”

I laughed; she was so bad at losing. My race was next, and I bubbled with excitement. I had a pool at my house, but it wasn’t the same as this. The two girls who had lost the race returned to their chairs, dejected.