Learning to Swim (6 page)

Since Warthog had this dumb rule about us maids not talking in the dining room while club patrons were there, I was determined to wipe the baseboards as quickly as possible so that Alice and I could continue our fascinating bridal discussion.

She and I split up, each taking a side of the room. I was speeding along, almost to the halfway point, when I heard Mrs. Cooper's friend in the big-brimmed yellow sun hat say, “How's Mora? Is she still dating Ed's son?” (Ed was short for Edward McKnight, Keith's dad.)

My hand froze in midair—damp dirty cloth and all.

“Oh yes,” Mrs. Cooper said while playing with her peach-colored Yves Saint Laurent neck scarf. (Mora was truly the spitting image of her mom.) “I have the feeling that in five years I might be planning a wedding.”

Obviously Alice was aware of my distress and frozen hand, because she came over and whispered, “Why don't you start doing the club room? I'll finish in here.”

But I couldn't move. My eyes were still fixed on Mora's mother as she gazed at her perfectly manicured nails.

“Five years? Mora will just be out of college,” the sun-hat friend said. “Isn't that a little young to be getting married?”

“So?” Mora's mom replied. “Rick and I were college sweethearts. And Keith is a wonderful, responsible boy.”

Even though Alice was tugging on my frozen hand and I knew I should leave ASAP, I still couldn't move.

“When do you leave for the beach?” the other stuffy woman with the huge tinted Dior sunglasses asked.

“Tonight, as soon as Rick gets off work. He's been assigned a case that's had him working night and day.”

Suddenly Mora's mother glanced at me.
“Perdone, camarera,”
she said, shaking her iced tea glass at me.
“Más té helado, por favor.”

I was almost certain that I was delusional. “Excuse me?”

“Oh—you speak English,” she said, giggling. “Well, that's refreshing, isn't it?” Then she grinned and looked around the table, waiting for the applause. Although she didn't get any applause, she did get some laughter.

“Really, Bitsy. You
are
terrible,” said I-wear-my-ridiculous-sunglasses-inside woman.

“It's true, though,” said sun-hat lady. “You need to speak Spanish to communicate to any of the help these days. It took twenty minutes to explain to Isabella that I wanted her to dust the blinds in my bedroom!”

At least the acknowledgment of my presence and the politically incorrect banter broke my trance. Even though it was crystal clear I wasn't her waitress, I took her glass and used the opportunity to escape into the kitchen, which is where I came face to chest with Keith.

As much as I'd wanted to play it cool and act as if I hadn't loved him for forty-six days, the sight of him was
enough to make me stop breathing and cause the muscle near my right eye to twitch.

“Hi,” he said. “Warthog told me I'd find you here.”

I swallowed hard and finished refilling Mrs. Cooper's iced tea. “Yeah, that guy is always up my butt.”

Immediately my stomach rumbled. I had just provided Keith with the image of our sweaty disgusting boss being up… my…
butt!
What was I thinking?

But instead of being grossed out, he just chuckled. “Well, I was hoping we could move our lesson to a little bit later tonight,” he began, following me as I headed back out into the dining room.

“Keith!” Mora's mother exclaimed as she saw him. “We were just talking about you.”

Keith flashed her a quick smile but kept his attention focused on me.

“Can we make it nine-thirty instead?” he asked me.

“Um, not really,” I said, stopping. I really didn't want to have this conversation in front of Mrs. Cooper. She would definitely sense something amiss and go running back to Mora, and that would be so not good.

“All right,” he said with a shrug. “We'll keep it at nine.”

“No,” I said, looking around for Alice. Where had she gone? “I'm sorry… I can't make it tonight,” I said firmly. And then I turned and headed out as fast as I could in search of Alice. After running around Tippecanoe for a good twenty minutes, I found her in
the weirdest place—sitting on a bench between the shower and the sauna in an empty ladies’ locker room.

“Oh my God, Alice, I just told Keith I couldn't make my lesson tonight.” I plopped down next to her.

She wiped some sweat off her brow with a towel and heaved another heavy sigh. “Jesus Christ, Steffie. Why'd you do that for?”

“I know, I'm a moron.” I leaned forward to quell the rampant stomach pain that had come back to haunt me. “I ran into him when I went to get Mora's mom more tea.” Then I realized the glass of iced tea was still in my hand. I really was a moron.

“Ah, now I understand,” Alice said sarcastically.

“Well, what can I say? I guess I freaked out about the whole him-marrying-Mora thing. You know, after they both go to college and… like… sing in the glee club together.”

“Really, Steffie, I wouldn't pay attention to anything that came out of Bitsy Cooper's mouth,” Alice said with a snort. “Honestly, I've known her from the day she was born and I can tell you this much: she doesn't know her ass from a hole in the ground.”

Speaking of asses, I was about to tell Alice about my lame comment to Keith when she started coughing uncontrollably.

“Alice?” I said. “Are you all right?”

She managed to stop long enough to smile. “Yeah,
must be residue from those thousand packs of cigarettes I smoked in the eighties. It'll pass.”

I handed her Mora's mother's iced tea. “Here, try drinking this.”

“You don't think she has herpes, do you?” Alice held the glass up to the fluorescent light, as if she was trying to spot any communicable diseases.

“I doubt it,” I said, grinning. “She probably has her Spanish-speaking maid dry-clean her lips.”

Alice downed the iced tea and closed her eyes again as she took some deep breaths. “You know what would make us feel better?” she asked quietly. “A list of how many plastic surgery procedures Bitsy's had.”

Then she put her arm around me, pulled me in for a hug, and we both sat there for a while, giggling like best friends do.

I arrived home from work around six-thirty. I heated up a package of minipizzas, yanked open a new bag of M&M's, rummaged through the dirty-clothes hamper for my favorite Hawaiian board shorts and white tank top, and settled in for a long interruption-free night of TV. My night had immediately brightened when I was lucky enough to score an
AFHV
marathon on ABC Family. After six episodes of hilarity, I had finished the pizza and the package of M&M's and was brushing my teeth when the phone rang.

I answered the phone with a mouthful of toothpaste. “Yep?” I mumbled in my best annoyed voice.

“Stef? This is Keith.”

Still holding the phone to my ear, I ran to the sink and spit out the toothpaste. (Actually, it was more like barfing than spitting.)

“Hello? Stef?”

I suddenly realized I hadn't even said hello yet. “Uh… h-hi,” I stammered.

“I got your number from the employee directory. I hope you don't mind me calling,” he said.

Keith could have gotten my number from an Internet porn site and I still wouldn't have minded him calling.

“It's nice to hear from you,” I warbled.

“Listen, I wanted to ask you something.”

“Okay,” I said nervously, hoping that the next words out of his mouth would be “Will you marry me?” It was a stretch, but somehow at the time anything seemed possible.

“Are you taking these swim lessons because of me?” he asked.

It felt as though every particle in my body was about to combust.

“Um… no,” I replied unconvincingly.

“I don't want you to feel pressured, though. Just because
I
think you should learn how to swim doesn't mean that you have to. And honestly, if your heart isn't in it and you'd rather be doing something else, like
hanging out with your boyfriend or whatever, then it will just be a big waste of your time.”

I couldn't wipe the grin off my face. For one, Keith was being so sweet that I could barely stand it. Up until then, I'd only daydreamt about talking to him on the phone, and suddenly, it was happening and he was even nicer than I had imagined. For two, he had the TV blaring so loudly in the background, it was actually a little hard to hear him—how great was that? For three, he thought I was good enough to have a boyfriend, which I was, only the boy in question should have been him.

“I really want to learn how to swim, Keith. I was just busy tonight.” My voice cracked a bit, and I winced.

Keith kind of chuckled, which seemed odd. I hadn't said anything funny. “That's cool. What were you up to?”

I walked out into the messy living/dining/TV room and eyed the TV.
This
was my idea of busy? But before I could make up a good story, I realized something. The sound coming from Keith's end of the line was completely matching up with the visual from my TV.

Holy crap.

We were both watching
America's Funniest Home Videos!

I heard Keith stifle another chuckle. Oh my God, this was unbelievable.

“Sorry, Stef. There's this marathon on ABC Family,” Keith said through his charming laugh.

“I know. I'm watching it too!” I chimed in, unable to hide my enthusiasm.

“Really?”

I couldn't believe what I was about to say. “This is my favorite show of all time.”

“I'm totally with you,” he agreed. “Which host do you like better? That dude from
Full House
or Daisy Fuentes and her dorky male sidekick?”

I pinched myself really hard, just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. “There's no comparison. Bob Saget is God.”

Had I just said Bob Saget was God?

Apparently Keith thought my remark was off-the-wall too, because he laughed again. “You know what? I'm having a party tomorrow night. You should come and hang out.”

My particles finally combusted. “Tomorrow night?”

“Yeah. My dad and his wife are going out of town so I'm having some friends over.”

“Okay,” I said through a gigantic grin.

“Great,” he replied. “Mora and her crew aren't going to be around either, so I hope you don't mind being in the girl minority.”

Whoa. No Mora.

“I live at 715 Tulare Stre—”

“I know where you live,” I interrupted. “Across the creek from Alice.”

The thought of Mora not being around to chaperone
Keith had obviously affected my common sense, or else I wouldn't have said something that made me sound like a psychopath.

“Right,” he said after a brief hesitation. “So I'll see you tomorrow. Around seven?”

I caught a glimmer of my reflection in the TV. I may not have looked anything like my mother, but I had her plastic smile on my face.

“See you then,” I answered.

After I hung up the phone, I turned off the TV. Only then did I notice that I was humming.

The first thought that entered my mind when my head hit the pillow was this: Telling Keith that I would come over to
his house
when Mora wasn't around to act as a buffer had been a colossal mistake. It was like I had agreed to walk into the lion's den of love lunacy holding a rack of lamb. Was I completely out of my mind?

On the other hand, I couldn't get rid of this series of thoughts either: Did Keith invite me to this party because he liked me-liked me (girlfriend potential) or just liked me (only wanted to be friends)? Even though I knew that chances were overwhelmingly good that he just liked me, what would I do if it turned out that he actually liked me-liked me?

After tossing and turning for what seemed like hours, I finally followed Alice's advice and made a list of all the scenarios that were floating inside my head:

Possibilities:

1. I walk into Keith's house only to discover I
   am
   the party. It is just the two of us. He has planned a romantic evening to confess his love.
   

2. There are other people there, all of whom suddenly treat me with a great amount of respect. He takes me by the hand and introduces me before whisking me away to a private room where we make out.
   

3. Keith French-kisses me and then he confesses his love.
   

Ugh. I was hopeless.

It was two a.m. I had just finished making my list and switched off the light when I heard Barbie's key turn in the lock. Even though most of the time Barbie was a model of instability, she still showed some elements of traditional maternal instinct. And her bedtime ritual was an example of this. Every night before she went to bed, she came into my room and kissed me goodnight. Usually I pretended to be asleep (even if I wasn't). But this time, when she leaned over to give me a peck on the forehead, my eyes were wide open.

“Oh, Jesus!” She jumped back and put her hand on her heart. “You scared me. I didn't expect you to be awake.”

“I can't sleep,” I announced.

“Anything going on, or are you just not tired?”

“I was invited to a party.” I couldn't get this out of my mind so I figured I might as well share it with Barbie. Besides, she hadn't been this interested in me in days.

“Really?” she asked, excited. She hesitated as the hope faded from her eyes. “A young persons’ party?” she asked suspiciously.

“It's the whole Mora Cooper crowd,” I said. I couldn't tell her exactly who because she might recognize Keith's name. And then she might just wonder about those swimming lessons. And then I'd be screwed.

My mother's eyes lit up. “No wonder you can't sleep,” she said.

I knew what she was thinking. This was my big break, the one she'd been waiting for. Her daughter would
finally
be popular. “It's not Mora herself,” I said. “Just one of her friends from school.” I was proud that I had managed to muster up a fraction of honesty.

“We'll have to get you something to wear!” she exclaimed.

My mother thought in terms of practicality. And no one could dispute that the woman had style. She always said her fashion sense was a remnant from her college days at UCLA, when she was getting her business degree while taking fashion design classes on the side. (That's what she was doing when she met my dad.)
When my mom got pregnant, my dad left his wife, but he died (heart attack) before his divorce was final (i.e., no moolah for Barbie or me). So, like a heroine in one of those sappy Lifetime Movie Network flicks she loved so much, Barbie had to drop out of UCLA and give up her dream of helming her own fashion empire.