Learning to Swim (22 page)

They could have interrupted. Thrown a shoe at my head. Sprayed me in the face with water. But nobody stopped me.

“Why are we even
here
? What was the logic there? That if we go to the beach and everybody enjoys it, then we’ll forget all about this weird,
insane
,
crippling fear of water that has gripped this psycho family for, like, twenty years? Yeah, that’ll make us all forget she ever existed!”

The silence that followed felt like weights on my brain. Mom stood, arms hanging limply at her sides, knife still in one hand. Dad stared at me, eyes squinted, as if I had disappeared into thin air and he could find no trace of a person before him.

And finally, he broke the silence. “You’re going to Western,” he said evenly, calmly.

I gulped, the lie on my lips. I wasn’t ready for that confession yet. For them to know that I irrevocably could
not
attend Western University. “I never got a letter—”

“You will,” he said.

I scoffed.

“It’s your dream school, I don’t know why—”

“It’s not my dream school,” I said.

“It
was
your dream school—”

I was on my feet and screaming now. “It was not
my
dream to go to Western! It was
your
dream!”

I whipped around and left the room as quickly as possible. These were the most hurtful words I’d ever spoken to my parents. I didn’t want to see the effect. I was too angry to let it be marred by anything like pity.

Compoird sa Stoirm

Comfort in the Storm

The porch door slammed behind me, but Princess had slipped out first. There was some doubt in my mind where I would end up, but not for Princess, who hadn’t seen her good friend in a long time. She started running once she realized I intended to. She bounded ahead of me, her little feet pounding the boardwalk to Mrs. O’Leary’s tiny yellow house.

With her recent track record of invisibility, I hadn’t expected Mrs. O’Leary to be outside, but I wasn’t prepared for the person who was. Rory looked up just in time to see me stop short in the front yard, panting, eyes streaming.

Jesus!
Why was he
always
around when I was crying?

Princess had already jumped up the stairs and stood pressed against his legs, imploring him to scratch her back.

“Cora, what’s wrong?”

I backed away abruptly. He got the hint.

“Where’s Mrs. O’Leary?” I asked.

“She’s inside,” he said, lingering on the bottom step. “I think she’s going to sleep.”

The tears were fast and I knew I looked like a tomato, but I wasn’t ready to let my guard down just yet. “Where were you?” I finally squeaked out. He was confused. It was clear on his face. “Where was Mrs. O’Leary?” I added. “She hasn’t been out here recently.”

“She’s been sick,” he said. He seemed to be weighing how much to tell me. I didn’t blame him. My current state obviously hinted at some mental instability. “She’s been pretty weak lately. The doctor’s been in nearly every day.”

My heart plummeted.
Selfish, selfish Cora
. Of course I hadn’t even bothered to worry about her.

“Is she okay?”

He nodded. “She misses you. Talks about you to anyone that will listen.” I sniffed loudly, and he took a tentative step off the stairs. “I missed seeing you around, too.”

I was silent.
Act detached. Act detached.
That’s what Rosie would have advised.
Don’t let on that you think about that kiss all the time. Act detached. Detached!
But I was still crying. “I’m gonna go home,” I mumbled, stumbling backward.

He stepped in front of me. “Cora, stop, you’re obviously not okay.”

“It’s nothing you’d understand,” I said.

I’d forgotten how warm his eyes were. Just looking at them made my insides melt. And the way the corner of his lip curled up in a pathetic smile hit me in the gut. “Try me?”

A sobbing, blubbering mess, I told him everything I’d said to my parents. We sat on the pier, legs dangling over the edge at first. But when it was clear I was beyond composure, Rory put his arm around me and I collapsed into a puddle in his arms.

He sat, one arm around me, one around Princess, and before I knew it, I was telling him things that I had previously thought quite unrelated to my fight with my parents. I told him about Rosie and her never-ending line of boyfriends. To my later mortification, I found myself telling him about Josh Watson. I told him about the swimming lessons I tried to go to at the beginning of the summer and the swimming lessons I’d gone to when I was young. Oyster Beach seemed a thousand miles away as I told him all about the little girl that had drowned before I was born. And somehow, in some way completely unbeknownst to me, I concluded with,

“And I just want … I just want (sniff) I just want to live in Mrs. O’Leary’s attic and (sniff) and I’d just talk about selkies with her for … for the rest of my life.”

Rory laughed.

“Am-am I crazy?” I sputtered, wiping my eyes.

“It’s quite possible,” Rory said. I snorted a particularly unattractive sound.

The pier was lashing more violently than usual in the waves. I vaguely remembered something about a storm in the forecast, and I vividly remembered Mrs. O’Leary’s account of the dog days.

“Regardless, you should go home now, it’s got to be past midnight,” he said.

 “I’m not going home,” I said.

“Why?”

“I’ve never said things like that to them before. I can’t go home. Not yet. I’ll wait here until they wake up and leave the house, go about their day, then I’ll go home.”

“Cora, they’ll be worried sick.”

I shook my head. “I’m more careful than even my mom after a few margaritas. They know that.”

Rory looked as though he was about to protest, and I didn’t expect him to understand, but at that exact moment, I distracted the both of us. I had an idea so wonderful, I did something more courageous than I had ever done before. I let go of his hand and ran off the pier. I came around to the side of the pier, right up to the gentle waves. I ripped off my shoes (and nothing else, not quite
that
courageous) and took a few tentative steps into the water.

“What in the hell are you doing?”

“I’ve got to learn sometime,” I said. The water was past my knees now, but I was too scared to go farther. Rory was already behind me, standing at the cusp of the tide.

“Cora, it’s dangerous,” he said. “Come on.”

It was stronger than I thought it would be. And I was more scared than I thought I would be. If seals were in this water, what the hell else could be in there?

“You don’t understand the ocean; can you trust me? I swear I’ll teach you, just not here with all the waves and undercurrents.”

I didn’t move.

“Let’s go to the resort, I can get us into the pool there, just please will you get out of there?”

I suddenly began a retreat to the beach. “I have a better idea,” I said and winked at him. I actually winked at him. A classic Caroline Manchester move. I was actually turning into my mother.

An Cúnamh D'Fhostaigh

The Hired Help

“I can’t do this, Cora,” Rory said. He stood beside the pool, throwing nervous glances up at the giant, sleeping house. Princess sat resignedly outside the white fence, watching us. I had never felt so brave in my life, and I was already sliding out of my shoes.

“What’s the matter?” I said playfully. “Afraid the statues might be watching?” With a grin, I stepped cautiously down the steps into the shallow end of the pool. It was cold, but I resisted shivering and kept going until it was past my waist. God, I felt courageous.

But Rory’s face was seriously worried, and he crossed his arms. He threw another anxious look up at the dark windows of the Ritz house. I’d thought sneaking in to use the massive Ritz pool was one of my better ideas. “I don’t want to do this,” Rory repeated.

Riding high on a million emotions raging inside me, I stepped up to the side of the pool. I put on the most beguiling look I could muster and began to unbutton my dress. My fingers faltered on the second button. “And there’s
nothing
I can do to change your mind?”

He groaned. I was relieved when he bent down and buttoned the one button I’d managed to undo. But my pride was a pinch wounded, too. “Well, if—”

He interrupted me. “Cora, I could get fired.”

I froze. “Please tell me you mean ‘fired’ as in set ablaze, and you’re just really confused about science and—”

“Cora, I’ve been working here.” He looked miserable as he stood back up.

“You
work
here?
Here
?”

He shrugged. “It started out with me just cleaning out Mr. O’Leary’s shed and fixing some things, Mr. Hall got me the job, but then they had other stuff around and …”

I didn’t know why I was feeling fury inside, but I was. I stepped slowly out of the water and stood shivering and dripping by the stairs. “You work for the Ritzes?” I said.

He nodded guiltily, like a toddler caught stealing cookies before dinner.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He shrugged. “It never came up. Besides, things were going so well with you not hating me.” His smile was easy. Why was he so goddamn easy-going and smiley? “I didn’t think that to admit to working for one of your friends would exactly be in my favor. I didn’t know if you’d be mad at me or think less of me for working for your friends, but either way, I knew it wouldn’t be good.”

“They aren’t my friends,” I said coldly.

“Cora, why do you care?”

“Why do I care?” I repeated mutinously. “I care because I would rather spend time with you than worthless Marshall Ritz who has never worked a day in his life and probably never will. But the world seems intent on forcing me to hang out with him while you’ve been working away in his ridiculous house. With those
absurd
statues!”

I ran over and pounded my fist on a small cement woman dressed in the robes of ancient Athens. It only hurt my hand and I groaned in frustration.

Rory chuckled. It annoyed me. “Rory, I’m serious!”

He stifled a grin. That heart-stopping grin of his. “I know you are. But if I’m not mistaken, this you-wanting-to-hang-out-with-me thing is rather new.”

Not as new as you think
.

“But,” he continued, “you’ve got time with me now.”

I rolled my eyes. “I was talking—”

He reached me in two long strides and kissed me lightly on my lips, which were twitching in anger. It was enough to shut me up, which I think was the intention. Then he took my hand and pulled me back toward the boardwalk. “Come on, let’s get out of here so that I get paid next week.”

I let him lead me out of the yard, but walked slowly to keep some form of my petulance. At the back of the Pink Palace, he paused. Princess dashed away up the stairs and waited for me to open the screen door. The lights were still on inside, but the light in my parents’ room was out. The house glowed softly in the night, framed by the darkness of the houses around it. The windows shone with a faint peachy rim, but the rest of it could have been black or green or any color at all in this light. It was almost pretty.

“Should I even bother telling you to go to bed?” Rory said.

I shook my head. “I’m going to let Princess in, don’t move,” I said.

“You’ve got to at least change!” he hissed after me.

“That would be admitting defeat,” I said.

We walked back along the boardwalk; I was barefoot but left large wet footprints on the wood.

“You
are
the most stubborn person I know.”

“You have no idea,” I said.