Swim the Fly (5 page)

I walk over to the swim lane and dip my foot into the water. It’s pretty warm. Warmer than the air, anyway. The smell of chlorine fills my nostrils. It’s always stronger at the end of the day. I don’t know why. Maybe the water evaporates during the day and the chlorine gets more concentrated.

There’s no time to waste. I clutch my goggles in my fist and step off the ledge. I drop right down and dunk my head under the water. When I surface, I push my hair back and slide my goggles on. I look over at the clock on the wall by the bathrooms through the blue tint of my goggle lenses. Five forty-two. I’ve only got eighteen minutes now, which means I might have just enough time to finish four laps.

In case you don’t know, eighteen minutes is not a great time for a hundred yards of butterfly. If it takes me eighteen minutes at championships, I’m pretty sure I’ll be asked to stop. Tony Grillo’s best time last year was fifty-six seconds. That’s a record time for the Rockville Swimming Association. Ms. Luntz told me. I didn’t ask.

The swimming lane is all mine. I take another quick survey of the pool to make sure nobody I know is around, suck in a deep breath, and plunge into the water. I push against the wall with my feet and I’m off.

The butterfly is the worst stroke there is. It’s pure torture. It’s all shoulders and legs. You need good upper-body
strength and powerful thighs. Neither of which I possess. People worry about me. How thin I am. My brother calls me the broomstick in a bathing suit. Mom’s friends tease her about me. “Are you feeding this boy?” they say. I eat plenty, for sure. I can even eat more than Coop, and that’s saying something. We had a competition once. Who could eat the most slices of Napoliano’s Meatza. That’s their specialty. A pizza with every meat known to God or man piled on top. Sausage, bacon, ham, pepperoni, meatballs, chicken, lamb, and steak. It’s pretty disgusting. Coop calls it the slaughterhouse. He ate eleven slices before he did the growling splash monkey all over the restaurant floor. I ate eleven and a half slices and kept it all down. Sean couldn’t believe it. He had to stop after only five. So it’s not for lack of trying that I can’t gain weight. It’s just my metabolism. That’s what Mom tells everyone.

Which is why the butterfly is not my strongest stroke — not by a long shot. My body is much more suited to freestyle. That’s when I can use my wicked thinness to my advantage. Piercing through the water like a dart. Okay, not really like a dart. But at least I can finish four laps before sundown.

It’s up with the arms and head, suck in a breath, and back under again. A hard kick with feet together. Weaving in and out of the water. You’re supposed to look like a dolphin. Smooth and graceful. You’re
not
supposed to look like a palsied whippet struggling for its life. Which
is exactly what I feel like. I am all splash and very little momentum.

I’m trying as hard as I can but I can’t get any kind of rhythm going. I’m completely winded and I’m not even halfway across the pool yet. My arms feel like soggy jeans. I can barely lift them. Finally, I give up and freestyle the rest of the way.

I hang on the edge of the pool. My head is pounding. My heart is doing a drumroll in my chest. My lungs hate me. They have shoved me aside and are sucking air in and out as fast as they can. The meat loaf and mashed potatoes are quicksand in my stomach. My body is in full revolution mode.

This whole thing is a joke. I don’t know what I was thinking. Tomorrow morning I’ll tell Ms. Luntz that I made a mistake. Coop was right. I’m sure Kelly doesn’t give a crap if I swim the fly or not. She’d never be interested in someone like me in the first place. So she smiled at me. Big deal. I probably had snot hanging out of my nose and she was just embarrassed for me.

It’ll be momentarily humiliating, and then it will all be over. Ms. Luntz will announce to the entire team that I am letting them down, but no one will really care. She’ll try to get someone else to volunteer. And I’ll be off the hook.

I swim freestyle back across the pool. I feel much lighter. It’s the right thing to do.

I get to the pool’s edge, pull off my goggles, and
smooth the hair out of my eyes. I boost myself out of the water. A light breeze sends a chill through my body. I hurry to my towel and start to dry off.

And that’s when I see her. Kelly showing her pool pass to the lifeguard at the gate. She’s with Valerie Devereaux. Valerie moved here from Montreal three years ago, and Sean has had a crush on her ever since. He loves her long, rust-red hair, her full lips, and most of all her French accent. Valerie’s a pretty nice girl, but rumor has it she’s not allowed to date until she’s eighteen. Which works out great for Sean because it gives him a good excuse not to ask her out. It also gives him the satisfaction of knowing that no one else is going out with her, either. Sean plans on growing another eight inches in the next three years, and he thinks he’ll have a shot by then.

Kelly and Valerie are both in their street clothes. Kelly gestures in my direction and says something to the lifeguard. Did they see me doing my imitation of a drowning man? Are they coming in to laugh at me? I should have gone to another pool to practice. I’m such an idiot.

The girls walk past the lifeguard and head right toward me. There’s nowhere to run. I try to think of what to say. I was just having fun? I was trying to see what it felt like
not
to be able to swim the butterfly? It all sounds so stupid in my head.

“Hi, Matt,” Valerie says.

I barely look up. “Hi.”

“I’ll be right back,” Kelly says. She gives me a quick
smile and continues on toward the pool office. I do a fast wipe at my nose with my towel just in case.

“You here by yourself ?” Valerie asks.

“Yeah.” I nod and force myself to look her in the eyes.

“Where’s Sean and Coop?”

“Dinner, I guess.”

Valerie watches Kelly as she disappears into the office. “Kelly left her sweater here.”

“Oh.” I brighten. Maybe they didn’t see me swimming.

Valerie looks back at me. “So. How’s your summer going so far?”

I shrug. “Good, I guess. You?”

“I got a job,” Valerie says, smiling.

“Cool.”

“It’s just some filing and typing and stuff. At Dr. Malkin’s office.”

“We go to him.”

“Yeah, I know. I saw your family’s file.” Valerie’s neck and cheeks flush. “But don’t worry. I didn’t look at it or anything. I just noticed it when I was filing something else.”

I’ve been toweling off for the past however long Valerie’s been talking to me. I only notice it now because my skin feels raw. It was something to do other than just stand here like a dork. “That’s great you have a job. I should probably get one, but I’m too lazy.”

“That’s not what I hear,” Valerie says.

“What do you mean?”

“Kelly told me you volunteered to swim the butterfly race.”

“She told you that?”

“She also said it’s the hardest stroke ever. I wouldn’t call that lazy.”

“Maybe just insane.” I drop my towel and start to put on my sweats. Something else to do.

Kelly comes out of the office carrying her green sweater. She walks over and smiles. “Hey.”

“Hey.” I give a quick lift of the chin.

Kelly shifts her weight and looks at me. “You come to the pool by yourself a lot?”

“Oh,” I say, and shake my head. “No. I was just getting in some extra practice.” I feel like I’m not in my body. Like I’ve stepped outside of myself and am being forced to observe just how much of a loser I am.

Kelly laughs. “I can’t believe you volunteered to swim the fly.”

“We were just talking about that,” Valerie says.

I shrug. “It’s no big deal. Someone had to do it.”

“Well, it’s pretty cool you stepped up,” Kelly says.

I smile. “Thanks.”

There is an awkward silence that balloons between us until Kelly pops it.

“Well . . . bye,” she says, and waves.

“Bye.” I give another quick lift of my chin. My smooth move.

Kelly and Valerie walk off. I try not to watch them, but I can’t help it. They’re talking to each other. I wish I knew what they were saying. They laugh. At me? I try to focus on putting on my shirt. I need to take my time. I want to wait until they are well out of sight before I leave. I don’t want to have to walk with them, next to them, with absolutely nothing to say.

I stand and collect my towel, goggles, and sneakers. I walk slowly toward the gate.

So much for quitting.

Now I’m really screwed.

I WASN’T LYING
when I told Valerie I’m lazy. It’s been three days since Kelly told me she thought it was cool I volunteered to swim the fly, and while she’s made it impossible for me to back out now, I haven’t exactly upped my exercise quotient.

If I’m really going to do this, I can’t waste any more time. I have to get serious about training. And if I don’t make myself work out for a couple of hours every day after swim practice, I’ll just wind up watching my
South Park
DVDs for the umpteenth time and never get anything done.

It’s got to be around three miles to Orchard Lane Elementary School from my house. I figure I’ll jog up there to increase my endurance, then use the monkey bars and the ring trek and the chin-up bar to build my shoulder strength. I’ll finish off with fifty push-ups and
a hundred or so sit-ups on the grass. If I do this every single day, by the time championships roll around in five weeks, I should be in pretty good shape.

I’m in my blue sweatshirt and my cargo shorts, sitting on the slate floor of the vestibule. I’ve got Bleedingtoe on my iPod while I pull on my old Nikes. They’re sort of trashed, the white leather cracking, the rubber separating from around the heel, but I don’t care. I’ll just pretend that I’m old school, that I have to get back to the hood. Back to my roots.

I’m out the front door and jogging down the driveway, the music blasting in my ears. I give a couple of air punches. A left and a right. I’m in the zone. This feels good. It’s different from running around the gym, feet dragging on the hardwood floor, wishing you’d forged a note from your mom.

There’s a reason for this. There’s a goal to be achieved. And the music is like a jet engine strapped to my back, rocketing me forward. I’ve got the song on at full volume, and I feel like I could run all day. All week even.

I turn the corner, off my street and onto Old Rockville Road. My heart is pumping. I feel the blood coursing through my body. I take another couple of rabbit jabs at the air. It makes me smile. I don’t care if anyone can see me. They have no idea what I’m about.

I bob and weave, pumping my arms hard, picking up my speed.

Which I figure out pretty quickly was a stupid thing to do.

After fifteen seconds, I’m completely out of gas and I’ve got a carving-knife stitch in my side. It’s like I’m failing the President’s Challenge Physical Fitness Test all over again.

I cut my speed by half and focus on my breathing. Try to get into a rhythm to keep my brain occupied. Once in through my nose and twice out through my mouth. Chugging, like a train. One breath in, two breaths out. One breath in, two breaths out. It keeps my mind off the pain.

There’s something exciting about taking control of your life.

One breath in, two breaths out.

Setting your mind and then following through.

One breath in, two breaths out.

It makes you feel powerful. Like you can do anything you want.

One breath in and —

Gack! Fthew! Goddamn it!

A bug just flew up my nose. And it’s buzzing like crazy. I exhale hard and a bee comes shooting out of my left nostril, flying off unsteadily.

I’ve lost my breathing pattern now, and the full force of how badly out of shape I am hits me. I’m doubled over at the curb. Dizzy. Nauseous.

There’s no way I’m making it to my old elementary school. Not today. I may have overshot a little with my expectations; I should probably work up to three miles. I straighten up as best I can and start walking back home. I’ll wait until this pain in my side eases and then do my push-ups and sit-ups in the comfort of my room.

When I get home, I head straight to the refrigerator. I grab the water jug, pour a full glass, and suck it down. I’m pouring seconds when Grandpa Arlo shuffles into the kitchen. He’s got on a lavender dress shirt tucked into belted jeans.

“There you are,” he says. “Christ, you look like hell. You just run a marathon or something?”

“Not exactly,” I say.

“Well, collect yourself. I need your help.” He’s polishing his glasses with a handkerchief. Ever since the funeral, I see Grandpa’s hankies in a whole different light.

“With what?”

“I need you to be Mrs. Hoogenboom for me.”

I’m taking a sip of water when he says this, and it goes down the wrong tube. I hack and cough and finally clear my throat before I can speak. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I need you to be Mrs. Hoogenboom. You know. Pretend to be her.”

“Pretend to be her? Why?”

Grandpa Arlo screws up his lips. “Don’t look at me like that,” he says. “I need you to role-play with me.
Obviously my tactic after the funeral didn’t work out very well, so I need to refine my technique.”