Alice the Brave

  Nobody was asking me to bungee jump, after all. Nobody was asking me to lie down in the middle of a highway or race a train to a crossing. All I was expected to do was what millions of other people do on a hot summer day, yet I just couldn’t seem to get up my nerve. That’s why no one could convince me to go back to Mark’s the next day or the next or the next, and I was sure I would go the rest of my life without putting on a bathing suit again.

  9

  A MATTER OF TRUST

  PATRICK CAME BACK FROM BANFF AND brought me a pair of earrings with tiny jade stones in them.

  “To match your eyes,” he said, and kissed me. I guess we were really a couple again. You could say we were “going together.” For the next two minutes, anyway, until I told him about my deep-water fear.

  “How was Canada?” I asked.

  “Big,” he said.

  I wanted to throw my arms around his neck and say, Promise you’ll still like me after you find out what happened at Mark’s pool!

  What I said was, “I made a jerk of myself at Mark’s the other day.”

  He put one arm around my shoulder as we walked to High’s for a cone. “What’d you do? Fall off the diving board or something?”

  “Patrick, I can’t even get on the diving board.” I took a deep breath. “I’m afraid of deep water. I never told any of the other kids before. The guys tried to throw me in, and I freaked out.”

  “What’d you do? Slug ’em?”

  “I started crying and held on to a collapsible chair.”

  I could tell by the way his eyebrows moved that he was trying to imagine it.

  “I feel so dumb,” I told him.

  “You need swimming lessons.”

  “In your dreams.”

  “Join a health club.”

  “That’s even worse.”

  “You going to spend the rest of your life on land?” he asked.

  “If God wanted me to swim, he would have given me gills,” I answered. I knew I sounded too cool. Too controlled. Only Lester had seen how upset I really was. I wasn’t about to cry in front of Patrick. “I … I know how you had plans for us to try out for the swim team together,” I added.

  Patrick shrugged. “Well, there’ll be other things we can do,” he told me, but I could tell he was disappointed.

  For the rest of the week, the weather was unusually muggy for the end of August. Just moving across the room could make you hot, and even the leaves on the trees seemed to hang limp and thirsty. Patrick and all the other kids in our crowd practically lived at Mark Stedmeister’s. They went every afternoon and sometimes evenings as well.

  Elizabeth was wearing Tom Perona’s ID bracelet again, the one he’d asked to have back the summer after sixth grade, when he broke up with Elizabeth for a girl who would kiss. He must have decided that Elizabeth kissed just fine.

  She wouldn’t stop talking about it, either. Elizabeth, the girl who wouldn’t discuss bodies, now wouldn’t shut up when it came to kisses. She described each kiss as though it were a pineapple upside-down cake—every delicious crumb, right up to the cherries on top.

  I hung around with Elizabeth and Pamela in the mornings, but in the afternoons when they went to the pool, I stayed home and made excuses: I had my period; I was getting a cold; my suit didn’t fit. What hurt was that they just went without me. I was as miserable as I could ever remember. Whenever Patrick came over and we sat out on the swing together, we seemed to talk about other things just so long, and then it always got back to swimming.

  “Why don’t you take lessons, Alice?” he’d end up saying. “You’ll never get over your fear unless you do.”

  “It’s the fear that’s keeping me from swimming lessons, don’t you understand?” I’d tell him. “If I was brave enough to take swimming lessons in the first place, I’d be brave enough to go in the deep end.”

  “So you’re never going swimming for the rest of your life?” he asked finally.

  “That’s the plan,” I said, and when my voice trembled, he reached over and held my hand. That should have helped, but it didn’t.

  “Hey, Al,” Lester said that evening, when I was sitting on the front steps alone. “It’s the last week of vacation. Live it up.”

  “I am,” I said frowning, and took another angry bite of peach.

  “Where are all your friends?”

  “Where do you think?” I muttered, and threw the peach pit about as hard as I could into the bushes.

  As I lay in bed that night staring up at the ceiling, a thought that had been chewing on me suddenly nipped hard enough to be recognized: If I didn’t overcome this fear now, it would be the first of many. I would have given in, so it would be easier to give in the next time I was afraid of something. Then the next.

  What if I decided I was too afraid to learn to drive? The beltway scares the daylights out of me. Maybe I should give up that idea.

  What if I decided I was too afraid to go to the dentist? To take chemistry in high school? Maybe I’d decide I was too scared to have babies and keep putting it off until I was too old, or had to have a hysterectomy like Janice Sherman. Maybe I’d decide I was afraid to fly. To ski. To take a lot of chances that made the difference between being alive and being dead.

  I could feel my sweat on the sheet beneath me—the cold hard sweat that comes from fear—but I knew I was going to do something about it. I didn’t know what, but I’d made up my mind that it would be something. And in that very moment of deciding, along with the cold sweat and the terror, there was a strange sort of calm. For the first time I realized it was not only the deep water I feared; it was making the decision. Once I’d done that, the hardest part was over.

  Until the next morning, that is. I was awakened out of a deep sleep by somebody moving my foot. It was Lester.

  “Hey, Al. Rise and shine. No work today. Big date,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Come on. My treat.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Surprise. Can’t tell.”

  I got up and washed my face.

  “Eat something,” Lester said.

  It was nine thirty, and Dad had long since left. I couldn’t decide between breakfast or lunch, so I ate a bowl of Rice Chex while I heated a slice of pizza. By the time I’d finished breakfast, I was a little bit excited about what Lester had planned. I knew he was just trying to be kind because I was feeling so left out of things, but I decided to take whatever little bit of kindness I could get.

  “Okay, go put on your swimsuit,” Lester said.

  “Oh, no!” The excitement disappeared like snow on a summer day.

  “Just you and me. Not another soul around.”

  “Where?”

  “The Harkinses’ backyard. They have a pool, and they’re out of town for the week. Crystal wouldn’t mind if we used it.”

  “Les, I … I want to, but I can’t!”

  “Why, Al?”

  “I’m just scared. I’m terrified, in fact! You’ll say you’re going to hold me up but you won’t. I know you.”

  Lester didn’t laugh. He really seemed to be studying me for a long time. Then he said, “Come on out in back.”

  We went out the back door and Lester told me to stand on the top step. He went down to the bottom.

  “Turn around and face the house,” he said.

  I turned around, my back to him.

  “Now fall backward,” Lester told me.

  “Are you nuts?” I looked at him over my shoulder. “I’ll break my neck!”

  “You would if I didn’t catch you, but I will. You know I will. Just put your arms down at your sides, relax, and fall straight backward.”

  “Les, if you let me fall …!”

  “Trust me, Al. For once, just trust me.”

  I faced the door again. “Are you ready? Are your arms out?” I called.

  “I’m ready, Al.”

  I closed my eyes. “I’m coming, Lester,” I said, but I didn’t move. “I ca
n’t,” I wailed.

  “Listen. Have I ever let you down big? Even one time?”

  I could think of a lot of little times but nothing life threatening. “No,” I confessed.

  “Try it, Al. Just let yourself go. I’m right here.”

  I sighed. “Okay, Lester. Ready? Here I come.”

  I closed my eyes and fell straight back, and Lester caught me and stood me back up.

  “Do it again,” he said.

  I fell again.

  “Again.”

  When I’d done it about ten times, Lester said, “I will no more let go of you in the water than I would let you fall on your back.”

  I sucked in my breath. “Promise?”

  “Absolutely.”

  I had to admit I was feeling a little bit excited along with the terror. I put on my suit, and we drove to the Harkinses’ home. I hadn’t seen much of Crystal since June, but I guessed she and Les must still talk on the phone. There was a high fence around the backyard, but Lester knew how to get in, and closed the gate after us. It was like a private club—a large patio with a pool beside it and a yard beyond.

  I had no trouble getting into the shallow end, of course, and even proving to myself and Lester that I could stay up by dog-paddling. I could even get myself from one side of the pool to the other without putting my foot down once, because I knew that at any minute I could if I wanted.

  “Now let me show you how easy it is in the deep end,” said Lester.

  My fear rose again. “I can’t!”

  “I didn’t say a word about you,” he said. “Just watch.”

  I walked to the deep end with him. “I’m going to jump in, and without even trying, without moving my arms one inch, I will pop right back up again,” he said. “All I have to do is take a big gulp of air, and my lungs become a floatation device.”

  Lester went to the side of the pool and jumped in with his legs together and his arms straight down at his sides. Just as he said, he sank right to the bottom and popped back up to the surface again.

  He shook the water from his head and swam over to the side. “See, Al? See how quickly I came back up without even trying?”

  “That’s you, Lester, it’s not me. If it’s all that easy, how come people drown? How come people fall in, never to be seen again?”

  “Because they panic, or there’s a strong current that pulls them under, or because they hit their head on something—all kinds of reasons, but none that have anything to do with you. Just take a big breath before you jump.”

  “Panic has everything to do with me,” I said. “My middle name is panic. Lester, I don’t care how easily you pop to the surface; I’ll panic and drown.”

  “Al, watch.” Lester was being more patient than I had ever seen him before. He crawled out, went over to the side of the pool, and came back with a vacuum pole.

  “I’m going to take a big breath and jump in the deep end. No matter how hard I try to stay down there, you’ll have to hold me down. Now watch.”

  He jumped in again, and this time when he got to the bottom, he used his hands and kept aiming at the floor of the swimming pool, tilting his body down, kicking his feet to stay there. But just as he said, he kept rising to the surface.

  He popped up and took a breath. “Once I get down there, hold me down with the pole for a few seconds,” he said, treading water.

  Timidly, I watched until he was at the bottom, then I put the pole in the water and pressed down on his shoulder. Even then, his body kept popping out around it, starting to rise, and I had to push him some more. I kept him down for five seconds, then let him up.

  “I’m still scared, Lester,” I said. “You might as well give up on me.”

  “Okay. Plan B,” said Lester. “Let’s go back to the shallow end.”

  We walked back to the three-foot water and stood on the edge.

  “Hold your nose with one hand and hold on to me with the other, and we’ll jump together,” Lester said.

  That was easy. We jumped in, holding hands, and didn’t even go under. Lester didn’t let go of my hand for a second.

  “Okay, four feet,” Lester said when we climbed out again.

  That was a little more scary, but he let me stand on the shallow side, so that in a pinch I could balance on my toes. We jumped, and again Lester never let go of my hand.

  “Good!” said Lester. “Al, you’re doing great. Now five feet.”

  I actually wasn’t as scared of five feet as four feet, because I realized how close we were to the edge of the pool. Again we jumped, and it took longer for my feet to touch the bottom. The water thrubbed in my ears, and for a moment I felt panicky, but Lester had a strong hold on my hand, and a moment later we both popped to the surface. He held me up with one arm.

  We did six feet, then seven, and each time Lester was there for me—right there holding me up.

  “Break time!” Lester said, so we just sat on the edge by the deep end and dangled our feet in the water. I was feeling so proud of myself I was ready to burst. Once Lester even slipped down into the water and horsed around, right under my feet, so that I could touch the top of his head. The water didn’t seem so deep, somehow, when it was only a foot or so over the top of Lester’s head.

  “Next step,” Lester said finally, and swam over to the corner where I was sitting. “Turn around, Al, and lower yourself into the pool, but keep holding on to the edge.”

  “L-Lester,” I said shakily.

  “Trust me?”

  I swallowed. “Okay.”

  I turned around and crawled in, clinging to the rim like a shipwrecked passenger.

  “Now, here’s what we do,” Lester said, moving me along the edge of the pool until I was about two feet away from the corner, but still holding on. He put out his long arms and legs, making a triangular pen in that corner of the pool, and began treading water. “I want you to dogpaddle from where you are right now, Al, to my left hand over here. It’ll be about two strokes. At any time, you can reach out and grab the side of the pool if you want to. It’s right there. And you can’t come out any farther than I am.”

  It was part scary and part silly. It was like being in a playpen, actually, with hardly enough room to move. I waited until I got up my nerve, then leaned forward in the water and dog-paddled, lunging out ahead of me and grabbing the edge of the pool.

  “Bravo!” said Lester, even though I had only been detached for about a second. “You did it, Al! Do it again.”

  I smiled triumphantly, and this time did about three seconds worth of dog-paddling.

  “Okay, back up a little this time, and swim the corner again.”

  Backing up made the distance about twice as long, but with Lester out there as a fence, keeping me in the corner, I felt safe, and I did it.

  I shrieked with happiness. The whole pool seemed different somehow as I got to know this one little corner, this one small space with Lester there to keep me from sinking.

  From then on, it was easy. I finally succeeded in swimming across the entire width of the deep end, Lester beside me all the way, and had just started to go back again when the gate opened, and two policemen entered the yard.

  I was so startled I turned completely around and went back. I didn’t even know I could do that.

  “Good morning,” one of the policemen said from the patio.

  “Good morning,” said Lester.

  I climbed out and reached for my towel.

  “You the people who live here?” asked the second officer.

  “No. The pool belongs to a friend of mine, and she doesn’t care if we use it,” Lester said.

  “Well, we received a call from a neighbor about someone entering the premises, and I guess I’ll need proof that you know the owner,” the policeman said.

  Lester swam over to the shallow end. “You mean I have to have a note or something? The Harkinses are in Maine! Crystal always told me that I was welcome to use her pool. I’m teaching my sister to swim.”

  Th
e officers looked doubtful.

  Just then a woman appeared at the gate.

  “Are you the neighbor who made the call, ma’am?” the first officer asked.

  “Yes, I did. I saw this man taking this young girl in here and closing the gate, and I knew the Harkinses were gone, and …”

  “He’s my brother,” I said quickly.

  “Your name?” asked one of the policemen.

  “Alice McKinley. This is Lester.”

  “Well, we’ll just see about this,” said the neighbor. “I’ll call the Harkinses myself.” And she headed back toward her own house.

  The officers came on in and sat down on the deck chairs.

  “Nice pool,” said one.

  “Good place to be on a day like this,” said the other.

  I sat down on the other side of the pool across from the policemen and wondered if they’d shoot me if I tried to run. They asked where I went to school and where Lester went to college and how long we’d lived in Silver Spring. Then the neighbor came back.

  “I talked to Crystal,” she told us, “and she said she never heard of a Lester McKinley before in her life.”

  “What …?” Lester stared, almost speechless. “I’ve been dating the girl!”

  “Not for the past two months you haven’t,” the neighbor declared. “Actually, Crystal said you haven’t even written or called since she went to Maine, and she wouldn’t mind seeing you hauled off to jail for a couple of hours. She wouldn’t want anything to happen to Alice, though, so she said you can stay as long as Alice is with you.”

  “She knows him,” one officer said to the other.

  “And if I see you here with any other girl, I’m supposed to call the police immediately,” the neighbor went on.

  “I’d say she knows him pretty well,” the other officer said. He smiled down at me. “How’s the lesson coming?”

  I can’t think what got into me. Knowing that there were two policemen there to rescue me, plus Lester, I guess, I walked over to the side of the pool.

  “Watch!” I told them.

  And then, my heart thumping hard, I held my nose and jumped back into the deep end. Thrub, thrub, thrub, went the water in my ears. I knew it would be only a second or two before my feet touched bottom, and after that I would pop to the surface like a cork.