Swimsuit Girl

The water was cold enough to make my teeth ache, and I stayed under until my lungs burned, until the pool's blue tile dissolved into something darker at the edges of my vision. When I surfaced, the lifeguard was watching me from his chair, twirling his whistle on its cord. He was new. The old one, Marcus, would have been reading a paperback with the spine cracked white, only looking up when someone screamed.

"You okay?" he called.

I nodded and pushed my wet hair back. The pool was nearly empty at this hour, just me and a woman doing slow laps in the far lane, her arms rising and falling like she was pulling herself through something thicker than water. I'd been coming here for three weeks, ever since the school pool closed for "renovations" that everyone knew meant no money, no repairs, no nothing. This place cost twelve dollars a visit. I'd stopped buying lunch.

My suit was a Speedo I'd had since eighth grade. The elastic had gone slack in the straps, and the navy fabric had faded to something closer to gray, but it still fit, mostly. I didn't look at myself in the locker room mirror. I'd learned not to.

I swam another four laps, counting them off in my head the way Coach Bennett taught us, stroke, stroke, breathe, stroke, stroke, breathe. The rhythm was the only thing that made sense anymore. When I finished, I hung on the wall and checked the clock above the entrance. 7:42. My mom would be home by eight, which meant I had eighteen minutes to get dressed, walk the six blocks, and be sitting at the kitchen table like I'd been there all along.

The lifeguard climbed down from his chair as I pulled myself out. He was younger than I'd thought, maybe nineteen, with a patchy beard he probably thought made him look older.

"You're here a lot," he said.

"I like to swim."

"Yeah, I can tell." He smiled, but it wasn't a creepy smile. More like he was nervous. "I'm Danny. I just started."

"Okay."

"You don't have to tell me your name. I mean, you can. If you want."

I grabbed my towel from the bench. "It's Vera."

"Vera." He said it like he was testing the weight of it. "That's a good name."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I didn't say anything. I walked to the locker room with my towel wrapped around my shoulders, and I felt him watching me the whole way, which should have bothered me but didn't. Or it did, but in a way I couldn't name.

The locker room smelled like chlorine and cheap shampoo. I dressed quickly, pulling on jeans and a sweatshirt that used to be my dad's. It still had his smell sometimes, if I pressed my face into the collar, though that was probably just my imagination. He'd been gone for two years. His clothes were the only thing my mom hadn't sold.

I checked my phone. Three texts from her.

*Where are you*

*Dinner at 8*

*Don't be late*

I typed back *on my way* and shoved the phone in my pocket.

Outside, the air was sharp with autumn. The trees along Delaney Street had turned the color of rust, and the wind carried the smell of someone's woodstove. I walked fast, my hair still wet and cold against my neck. The houses I passed were the same as always: the yellow one with the broken porch swing, the blue one where the old man sat on his steps every evening, the white one with the For Sale sign that had been there since summer. Nobody was buying. Nobody was selling. We were all just stuck here, waiting for something to change or someone to leave.

Our house was the smallest on the block, a two-bedroom bungalow with a roof that leaked in the corner of my room and a front door that swelled in the rain. The porch light was on when I got there. Mom's car was in the driveway.

I let myself in and found her at the stove, stirring something in a pot. She didn't turn around when I closed the door.

"You're late."

"I'm not. It's 8:03."

"That's late."

I dropped my bag by the stairs and sat at the table. She'd set it already, two plates, two forks, a glass of water for me and a glass of wine for her. The wine was new. She used to only drink on weekends.

"Swimming again?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"You know I don't like you going there."

"I know."

She turned then, holding the spoon like she might throw it. Her face was tired, the skin under her eyes dark and loose. She'd been pretty once. Everyone said I looked like her, but I couldn't see it. When I looked in the mirror, I saw my father's jaw, my father's stubbornness, my father's silence.

"It's not safe," she said.

"It's a public pool."

"It's not about the pool."

I knew what it was about. Everything was about the same thing now. The empty chair at the table. The life insurance money that ran out faster than anyone expected. The way she looked at me sometimes like I was a bill she couldn't pay.

"I'm fine," I said.

She set the spoon down and poured the soup into bowls. Tomato, from a can. She used to make it from scratch, with basil from the garden, back when we had a garden, back when she had time.

"Coach Bennett called," she said.

I stopped with my spoon halfway to my mouth.

"He said you missed practice three times last week. He said if you miss again, you're off the team."

"I know what he said."

"So you're choosing this. The pool. Over the team."

"I'm not choosing anything."

"You are. Every time you don't show up, you're choosing."

I put my spoon down. The soup was too hot anyway. It would burn my tongue, and then I wouldn't be able to taste anything for the rest of the night.

"The team doesn't need me," I said. "They've got plenty of swimmers."

"That's not the point."

"Then what is?"

She looked at me for a long time. The kitchen clock ticked. The refrigerator hummed. Somewhere outside, a dog was barking at nothing.

"The point," she said, "is that you used to love it. You used to come home from practice and talk about nothing else. Your times, your turns, your breathing. You had a thing. And now you're just drifting."

"I'm not drifting."

"You're floating. There's a difference."

I stood up. The chair scraped against the linoleum, and she flinched, just slightly, just enough that I noticed.

"I'm going to bed," I said.

"You haven't eaten."

"I'm not hungry."

I climbed the stairs to my room and closed the door. The leak in the corner had spread, a brown stain shaped like a hand. I lay on my bed and stared at it and thought about the water. How it held you up if you let it. How it pulled you down if you fought.

My phone buzzed. A number I didn't recognize.

*Hey it's Danny. From the pool. I got your number from the sign-in sheet. That's probably weird. Sorry. Just wanted to say you're a really good swimmer.*

I stared at the message for a long time. Then I typed back.

*It's not weird.*

I didn't know why I said that. It was a little weird. But weird was better than nothing. Weird was better than the silence of this house, the silence of my mother's disappointment, the silence of a team I'd already quit in my heart.

I put the phone on my nightstand and closed my eyes. Tomorrow I'd swim again. Six laps, maybe eight. I'd count my strokes and breathe when I was supposed to and pretend that was enough.