Swim to Me (19 page)

“Can you imagine that?” said Crystal, raising one eyebrow and smiling at Gail.

Avalon watched the two women talk. She saw how hard Gail was trying and that there was something about her that drew people out and made them comfortable around her.
Maybe I could help her get a real job at the magazine,
she thought.
Crazier things have happened.
After dinner, Avalon walked Gail back to her room. “You were great tonight,” she said. “Thank you so much. I owe you a big one.”

Gail turned red and started to laugh. “Are you kidding? I got to see my daughter; I got to see Boca Raton. You don't owe me a thing.”

“I really do,” said Avalon. “You're the only person at that place who's ever been kind to me, much less helped me out. I owe you a lot.”

How can the Marcie Breitman Learning Center help you to achieve your goals?

No one had ever concerned themselves with Gail Walker's goals before, and it made her heart skip to think that someone actually did now. The true answer was not something she wished to write on her application to the Marcie Breitman Learning Center, so instead of saying
I want to be somebody and not always feel as if I am disappearing,
she wrote:
I want to learn the skills I need to become a professional.

Out of desperation, she'd convinced herself that an opportunity like this only came around once. The magazine had agreed to pay two-thirds of the $450 tuition fee; those silver dollars would cover the rest. Avalon said she knew for a fact that there was an opening for the secretary to the marketing director at
Cool,
and that, with a degree from the Learning Center, Gail would be the perfect candidate.

Gail tried to imagine it: a job where she didn't have to stand on her feet all day; a job where she'd get paid enough to buy clothes and wear something other than her cheap uniform. She'd quit the supermarket job. She wouldn't wake up each morning dreading the day ahead. She'd stop being an embarrassment to her daughter and herself. Delores had promised her that Thelma Foote would help
with Westie. What an awful, severe woman she was, Gail thought, but she seemed efficient and responsible. Westie would be taken care of, that's all that mattered. She judged herself a bad mother for thinking that it would be okay to send her three-year-old child away from home, but she could flip that argument and argue she was a good mother for wanting what was best for him. So yes, she told Delores that Westie could go with her to Weeki Wachee. She'd call Thelma Foote on Sunday, when the rates were cheaper, and make sure she thought it was okay. What was the big deal? He'd be outside all day, not cooped up in this stinking apartment. There'd be other kids around. And besides, this was only temporary. He'd come home as soon as she got her certificate.

Delores knew enough not to wallow in her victory. Had her mother even suspected that this is what she had been dreaming about, she'd take it back fast, if only out of spite. So Delores spoke to her only of the practicalities: the clothes he'd bring, the airline ticket she'd buy. But alone with Lester, she pirouetted merrily around him. “I can't believe it. Westie Walker is coming to Weeki Wachee.” She giggled. “Say that three times in a row: Westie Walker of Weeki Wachee.”

Lester ran his hand over his cheek, pausing to let his fingers flutter over a new zit. “Uh, I don't mean to be a downer,” he said, “but what are you going to do with Westie once you get him there? I mean, where will he sleep, and what'll he do while you're working?”

She froze in place. “Well, Lester Pogoda, you certainly
do
know how to bust a gal's bubble, don't you?”

“I'm sorry,” he said. “It's just that . . .”

“It's just that, you're right,” she said, finishing his sentence. She'd thought about how wonderful it would be to have Westie at Weeki Wachee, but she had never fully considered the logistics of what
would happen if he actually came. “I suppose he could sleep in the dorm with me. I'm sure Molly wouldn't mind.”

“What about the rest of them?” asked Lester.

Delores pictured the other girls: how they walked around the dorm naked; how freely they talked about having their periods and the jokes they made about the bloodstains on the sheets. Even with Blonde Sheila gone pure, there was still plenty of talk at night about virginity, sexual intercourse, and blue balls, whatever they were. And what if it turned out that Blonde Sheila really was pregnant?

Delores and Lester stared at each other, as if they were teetering on either end of the same thought: of course the dorm wasn't the place for a little boy. But if not the dorm, where would he stay? Maybe the whole idea of bringing him down there was a little crazy to begin with.

“Thelma,” she said. “I'll call Thelma. She'll know what to do.”

Knowing that her mother would be reassured if she knew that Thelma was in on the plan, Delores had lied to her mother about Thelma's willingness to help out. Now, as she waited for the long-distance operator to connect her, she could feel panic churning up her stomach

Thelma picked up after the first ring. “Yes, what is it?”

“Hey, it's Delores.”

“Oh, hey, how are you-all doing up there?” She sounded as if she was doing something else, which made Delores get to the point fast: “I've convinced my mother to let my little brother come live with me for a little while. So he's coming back down with us. Thing is, I'm not sure exactly where he'll sleep. You know, stuff like that.”

Silence.

Delores envisioned Thelma picking a thread off her windbreaker. She could feel her peevishness before she heard it.

“Are you out of your mind, bringing a little kid down here? I'm running a business, not a day care center.”

“Yes, but I thought that . . .”

Thelma wasn't listening. “Have you told Mr. Chatty about your brilliant idea?”

“Who's Mr. Chatty?”

Thelma sounded embarrassed. “Oh, it's just a little nickname I made up for your dad. Anyway, what does he think about all this?”

“I haven't told him yet.”

“If you're going to hold the Walker family reunion down here, don't you think he ought to know?”

“I wanted to talk to you first.” Delores sounded as if she might cry.

“How do you envision this? What do you think the kid will do all day?”

“He loves the water,” said Delores. “I'll teach him how to swim. Who knows, maybe he'll become the world's youngest merman? That wouldn't hurt business, would it?”

“I'm sure there are laws against hiring three-year-olds.” Again a pause. “This is ridiculous. No, I can't allow this. It's out of the question.”

Thelma slammed down the phone. Delores tried to hold back her tears.

Lester shook his head. “She didn't buy it, I guess.”

“I don't know what I'm doing,” Delores said, her voice trembling. “This is the dumbest idea I've ever had.”

“Call her back,” he said. “Tell her you need her help.”

This time the phone rang three times. “Yes,” said Thelma.

“Look, my mom is exhausted,” said Delores, still close to tears. “She can really use a break. Besides, I miss my brother. I don't want to come back without him.”

“Are you threatening me, young lady? Because if you are, it won't wash with me.”

Delores hadn't meant it as a threat. “No, not at all, honest. Look, I really don't know what I'm doing. I'm really scared. I know this sounds like a crazy idea; it's just that Westie's growing up so fast, I don't want to miss any more of it.”

Thelma heard the longing in Delores's voice. She remembered that wanting something so badly and not getting it could shift a person's point of view forever. Here she was with the power to give this girl the thing she probably wished for more than anything else. It was too late for her to rewrite her own history, but Delores was young: her history was still being written.

“Let's talk about this,” said Thelma, settling into her desk chair and pulling a pen and legal pad from her drawer. “For starters, we can get a cot and have him sleep in the dorm with you. While you're working, he can be with some of the other girls. We're going to have to ask Mr. Chatty to pitch in. How do you think he'll feel about that?”

“I don't know,” said Delores, “but I know that Lester said he would help out, too.”

Thelma went on: “Food: you'll pay for his food and clothing. And you have to promise me this: if he gets homesick and wants to go home, you've got to let him go.”

Delores paused. “I promise.”

Thelma wrote everything down on her notepad. Fifteen minutes later, she put down her pen and groaned. “This is probably the worst decision I've ever made, but you can bring the damn kid down here on one condition. I'm going to tell the others. If they say no, then the party's over. If they say yes, then we'll try it for a little while and see. Just call your father and tell him about your harebrained scheme.”

Delores flushed with relief. “Oh God, thank you. I'll call Mr. Chatty tonight.”

Lester gave her the thumbs-up. She made a mental note to leave her mother ten dollars for the long-distance phone calls. Lester sat on the floor with Westie, who was watching cartoons on television, while Delores went into Westie's room, where her mother had already started packing up his belongings. “I'm sorry, but he doesn't have a lot of summer clothes,” said her mother. “Don't worry about it, Mom,” said Delores. “There's plenty to choose from down there.”

Her mother seemed not to hear her. She held up a red and blue striped T-shirt. “He's so little,” she said, staring at the handkerchief-sized garment, then turned to Delores. “When you buy, buy big. He's growing like nobody's business.”

“I know, I will,” she said, folding the last of his shorts. Her mother lowered the lid of the suitcase. “Wait, just one more thing,” said Delores, stepping over to the pile of dolls. She dug out Otto and straightened his skirt. She wrapped him in one of Westie's pajama bottoms, then stuck him in one of the side pockets of the suitcase, alongside Westie's favorite Tyrannosaurus, and snapped the latch shut.

Delores knew her father got off work by five, so she waited an hour before calling him at Dave Hanratty's office. Hanratty answered the phone crisply: “Hanratty's Circus, Spectacular and Amazing. Hanratty speaking.” Thelma could certainly learn some phone etiquette from him.

“Hi, Mr. Hanratty, this is Delores Taurus. I was hoping to speak to my father.”

Hanratty couldn't have sounded more delighted if it was P. T. Barnum roused from the dead.

“Well, well. This is a special treat. How lovely to hear from you, Miss Taurus. Just one moment, I'll go find him.”

As she waited, she wondered how she would explain to her father about Westie. Maybe she'd start by saying that life was full of surprises, but here he was, living among elephants and chimps, so he probably knew that. She'd just have to figure it out as she went along. Seconds later, he picked up the phone.

“Hello,” he said with no affect.

“Oh hi, umm. It's me. Well, I guess you know that. I have some news. My mother, umm, your not-really-wife-anymore, and I decided that it would be a good idea for me to bring Westie down to Weeki Wachee for a while. You know, for a change of pace for everyone.” She paused, waiting for him to speak, but he didn't.

“I just wanted to tell you so it won't be a shock.”

“Okay then.”

“That's it? Do you have anything to say about it?”

“Not really.”

“Okay then,” she said. “See you in a couple of days.”

“Right.”

She stared at the phone before returning it to its cradle. Mr. Chatty, she thought. Now there's a man who should never have had children.

T
HEY'D AGREED
G
AIL
would not go with them to the airport. “It's too hard,” she'd said, her eyes filmy with tears. So on the morning they were to leave, they got up at six to take the subway to Grand Central Station in Manhattan, where they would catch a bus to the airport. Delores was just taking the cereal from the cabinet when her mother came out of her bedroom wearing her favorite red and white checked blouse and a pair of white pants. Her hair was neatly combed and she'd put on lipstick and some dusty-blue eye shadow. She walked slowly to the kitchen table, never taking her eyes off the floor.

“You look real nice, Mom,” said Delores.

“I don't want him to remember me as some hag,” she whispered to Delores. “Look here, I'm going to make some pancakes. Hand me the milk, hon.” Her voice was flat, absent its timbre of anger. She seemed frail and wan against the colorless light.

The four of them ate breakfast in silence. When it was time to go, Gail put her hands on Delores's shoulders. “I can't believe we're doing this,” she said. “When I spoke to Thelma Foote yesterday, she said we'd try it for a while. Just a while. And remember, if he gets homesick, home he comes.” Then she picked up Westie, and nuzzled her head into the softest part of his neck. She took deep breaths as if she were trying to ingest his smell. It embarrassed Delores to hear the creaking sounds coming from her mother's throat. After a long while, she let Westie down. “You'll like Florida,” she told him. She patted Lester on the back and smiled a pencil-thin smile.

“Mommy,” cried Westie. “Mommy is coming with us.”

“Mommy's not coming now,” said Delores, leaving her sentence in midair.

Her mother turned around and walked over to Westie. She knelt beside him and said, “Mommy's staying here for now. But you'll see Mommy very soon.”

“No, Mommy, you come with us. We'll stay in a hotel.” He began to cry.

Gail managed to keep her voice steady: “Tell you what, when you get to Florida, Delores will buy you a big box of cupcakes. You can eat one cupcake a day, and by the time you finish the box, Mommy will come down.”