Phantom Limbs (13 page)

I watched Meg watching Dara and wished I knew what she was thinking. She leaned toward me and whispered, “Are you going to go back to swimming laps, or can you play now?” Her breath tickled my ear, and I checked to make sure my towel was in reach.
No poolside boners.

I glanced at Dara, who was screwing the cap back on my nearly empty water bottle. Before I could say anything, Meg rolled her eyes and asked Dara, “Can Otis play now?”

Dara looked at Meg, and time held still for a second. “Well. I guess we’re not going to accomplish much today, anyway. Not with Mueller’s
cramp.
” She tossed my water bottle to me.

Meg stood up and reached an arm back to untie her dress, but stopped when she realized all eyes were on her. “I’ll just go change in the locker room,” she said.

“I’ll show you where it is,” Shafer said, scrambling to get up.

“That’s okay,” Meg said. “I used to swim here! But thanks.”

We all watched her walk away. Past the kiddie fountain and wading pool, past the locker rooms, toward the concession stands.

“Uh, where’s she going?” Heinz asked.

I smiled. “She’ll get there eventually.”

Meg.

The guys started in on me, asking how well I knew Meg, how long she was in town, if she really had a boyfriend — an endless barrage of questions.

“What’re you guys up to today?” Shafer asked. “Wanna hang out?”

“Sorry, we have plans,” I told them.

“You do?” Heinz asked. “What are you doing?”

I shrugged. “You know, just —” I started to say, but Dara interrupted.

“I’m having people over tonight. I forgot to tell you guys.”

Since when? “But it’s a Sunday,” I said, which apparently was a dumb thing to say, judging by the guys’ snorts.

“Anyway,” she continued. “You guys should come.” She glanced at me. “You can bring her,” she grumbled.

Heinz and Shafer loved that idea, but I wasn’t so sure. “Maybe,” I said. Desperate to escape the hot seat, I walked over to the pool and jumped in.

It was a good thing I was in the water when Meg returned — boner bets were off. Her purple bikini clung to her kind-of-staggering curves. I was blinded by legs and stomach and chest and arms and shoulders. I cringed to think how many times Football Guy had seen this much of her, let alone what he had
touched.

D’Amico was working now, up in the guard chair. I thought about what he said about applying for a job. It looked like a pretty good gig, as jobs went, and maybe I’d see him more, too. Heinz and Shafer were kind of asshats, but D’Amico was a genuinely good guy.

Meg came over to the edge of the pool, Heinz and Shafer flanking her like bodyguards. “Is it cold?”

“It’s not so bad,” I said. “You’ll get used to it fast.”

She lowered herself into the water, inch by inch, holding on to the side. “It’s freezing!” she exclaimed, her lips holding the shape of a small “o.”

It was killing me not to reach out for her.

“Hey, Shafer,” I said, “why don’t you show Meg some of your famous dives? Meg goes wild for diving.”

Meg held back a smile as Shafer and Heinz scampered out of the pool and wasted no time making fools of themselves on the diving board.

Dara said to Meg, “So what are we doing after this?”

Meg glanced at me, confused.

I was furious at Dara’s tactics, but I was stuck. Meg and I didn’t have actual plans — there was nothing I could say.

“I had hoped to spend some time with Otis today, actually,” Meg said. “We have a lot of catching up to do.”

Dara stared Meg down. “I can imagine,” she said. “You haven’t talked to him in over three years, right?”

Meg blinked, presumably processing that Dara was being a total bitch to her.

There was a mighty splash and loud laughter. A moment later, Heinz popped from the water like a jack-in-the-box, said, “Hi, Meg!” and promptly disappeared underwater again. The three of us hovered at the edge of the pool, watching the guys and their idiot dives. Shafer had one where he charged full speed off the board and thrust himself into a sideways roll, splatting randomly in the water. From there, they just got stupider. At one point D’Amico blew his whistle at him for jumping too high on the board. Repeatedly. Shafer blew D’Amico a kiss and bowed, which even I had to laugh at.

“Am I the only one who’s starving?” Meg asked.

“You’re always starving,” I teased.

Dara poked me in the chest. “Don’t even think of pigging out on crap.”

And before I could even think of a reply that would suggest I ever make my own choices in life, Dara added, “Be there around nine tonight.” She turned and swam away from us with a splash.

Meg turned to me.

“Why do you let her treat you that way?” She seemed genuinely puzzled. She let go of the gutter with one hand so she could turn and face me better. Her hair floated in the water in amber strands.

“It’s complicated,” I said lamely. “She’s pretty serious about my swimming.”

She bit her lip. “Hey, not to be rude or anything, but . . . what happened to her arm?”

I hesitated, afraid to say anything about Dara. Especially about her arm. It was no secret a little Internet search wouldn’t turn up, but I didn’t feel at liberty to talk about it.

Before I could answer, Shafer swam toward us. “Hey, Meg,” he said. “Party at Dara’s tonight. You have to come. I’ll give you a ride. Shakespeare can’t drive yet.”

I couldn’t believe how inconvenient not having my license was proving to be. I didn’t even want to go to Dara’s. I wanted to do something else with Meg. Something private. This day was turning into a fucking train wreck.

“I might not actually be invited,” Meg said matter-of-factly.

“Oh, you’re invited,” Shafer said. “For sure. Pick you up around nine?”

To my surprise, she turned to me and gave me a
why not
shrug.

“I don’t know, Meg,” I said softly, moving closer to her. “This might not be your scene. There’ll probably be drinking and . . . who knows what.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Well, yeah.”

Apparently this was not her first rodeo.

“Pick you guys up around nine,” Shafer said, swimming off.

Meg and I were left hanging there on the side, in awkward silence.

“Do you go to parties much?” she finally asked, her legs pedaling slowly in the water.

“Not that much.” More like not ever. “You?”

“I used to,” she said. “And then I stopped. But Jeff’s, like, super social. So I sometimes get dragged along.” She gazed into the water.

“Aren’t you getting tired of hanging on?” I asked.

“Huh?”

I gestured with my head to where she held the gutter. “To the side.”

She laughed. “I thought you meant Jeff.”

Yeah. That, too.

Meg made her way to the ladder while I climbed out the side and went to our chairs, moving them close to each other and turning them toward the sun. The day was bright, but cool enough that the hot sun felt like heaven. Meg scurried over, shivering. I felt bad that she was so cold, not that I could do anything about it. She pulled a huge towel out of her bag and wrapped it around herself. After she had dried off a little, she laid the towel down on the lounge chair and settled in next to me.

It was surreal: Meg actually there, with me, at the pool we spent so much time at when we were kids — sometimes with our moms and Mason, sometimes just us. We had possibly sat in these very lounge chairs at some point, on the same patch of concrete, near the same tables. And now, here we were, together again.

Meg turned to me. “Weird, huh?”

It was as if she read my thoughts. I nodded. “But, you know . . . good weird.”

She reached out and briefly put her hand on my arm, then pulled her sunglasses down and lay back. I leaned back, too, tingling with warmth from the sun, and from Meg’s touch.

“You need a ride home or what?”

I opened my eyes to find Dara standing in front of me, toweling off her hair so hard you’d think it would leave a bald spot. I had just been starting to feel a little woozy and dreamy. She was like a bucket of ice water over my head.

I glanced at Meg.

“I feel like staying awhile,” she said.

I shrugged at Dara. “Thanks, though.”

Dara leaned over me and gave my stomach a couple of loud smacks. “Don’t eat junk. See you tonight.” She swished off.

And then the guys left, too, but not before confirming that Meg was coming to the party. Twice.

It wasn’t long before Meg got up and returned with loaded hot dogs and strawberry éclair ice-cream bars — a lunch that was high in fat and even higher in subtext. We ate it all, soaking up the new summer sun and talking about anything except Dara. Or us. Or Mason. Or her parents. There were a lot of elephants in the room. And we were doing an admirable job of avoiding all of them.

And then it all went south. Above the boisterous din came a piercing scream from the kiddie pool. And then another.

Meg clapped her hands to her ears, her face going chalk-white.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, shifting to face her. Another series of screams sliced the air.

Two lifeguards jogged past, one saying to the other, “It’s that autistic kid. He screams when he gets overstimulated.”

I turned back to Meg, who was still clutching her ears. Beads of sweat bloomed on her forehead. As the screaming continued, she started snapping a rubber band on her wrist and mumbling to herself.

I leaned in toward her. “Meg?”

She jumped up, so I stood up too, but she took off for the bathroom.

The minutes ticked by as I waited for her, wondering what the hell had just happened. The screaming eventually stopped, but there was still no sign of Meg. At one point I walked over by the bathrooms, but, with no recourse, I just went back to our chairs and sat down. I was considering asking a girl to go check on her for me when she appeared.

“Meg? What happened?”

She shook her head, shoving her things into her bag. Her eyes were pink and swollen. She took a deep breath and held it before letting it out. Finally she said, “Could we just go to your house, maybe? We really need to talk.”

“Sure. I’ll call my dad for a ride.”

I was bombarded with warring emotions: Concern for Meg, who seemed like kind of a wreck. Joy at the prospect of spending the afternoon together. And terror at the threat that seemed to cling to the words “We really need to talk.”

MY DAD DROPPED US OFF AT HOME AND headed straight to Starbucks, of all places. He claimed he planned to work there on his laptop for a bit, but I was pretty sure he was either doing recon to figure out how they make fancy espresso drinks or just giving Meg and me some space. My mom apparently was doing lunch and a movie with someone from her support group.

As my dad pulled away, Meg paused in the driveway. Her eyes went to the magnolia, then to the blossoms in the grass, shriveled and browning, and then, finally, to her old house. Her lips moved as she plucked at that rubber band around her wrist.

I stepped closer. “You okay?” My hand hovered near her back, not yet able to make the leap to touching her.

“I don’t know yet.” She took a slow breath, exhaling through pursed lips, then followed me up to the front door. I pulled the house key out from under the doormat.

“You still keep that there?” Meg exclaimed. “That’s the first place a burglar would look!”

“Look at you, thinking like a criminal.”

“But I’m right!”

“I didn’t say you weren’t.”

Meg followed me inside, pausing to look around. I set my bag down quietly, watching her.

“Everything’s the same,” she said, her eyes scanning the living room to our right. She bit her thumbnail. “Except this.” She stepped into the living room and pointed to my most recent school photo, framed on the wall with the others. “And this.” The year before. “You always did photograph well.”

I gave her a
say cheese
smile, and she smiled back.

“And you never even wore braces,” she said.

“Nope. Want some iced tea?” I asked, going into the kitchen and opening the fridge.

“Sure.” She went to the cabinet and took down two glasses.

I smiled as I took out the tea. Meg may not have known north from south, but she knew exactly where the glasses were in our kitchen.

“What?” She tilted her head at me, noticing my expression.

I shrugged, then stared into the pitcher of tea. “It’s just . . . you remember where things are.”

“I know. It’s weird. It doesn’t feel like time has passed here. Popcorn.” She walked over to the cabinet over the stove and opened it. “Check. Cereal.” She opened the pantry door and pointed left. “Check.”

She closed the pantry door and turned back to me. “Otis.”

“Check,” I said softly.

Our eyes locked for a moment. She looked away first. I went to the counter and filled the glasses with ice from the dispenser in the freezer door. I was pouring the tea when Meg said, “Oh, shoot!”

When I turned to look, she had her dress strap pulled to the side, where a strip of pale skin revealed the crimson surrounding. She shook her head. “I thought I’d be fine since I already have a base tan, but I guess that was a lot of time in the midday sun.”