Once she was positioned in the middle lane, Courtney braced her feet against the wall and pushed off. She was panting by the time she swam to the far side and grabbed hold of the pool’s edge until she caught her breath.
Her grandmother and friends had no such problem. They might be eighty years old, but not only did they swim the entire length of the pool, they didn’t pause before turning and going back. Not even to breathe.
Courtney went a total of ten laps, resting after each one. When she finished number ten, she stopped long enough to adjust her goggles, even though they were fine. It gave her an excuse to take an extra breather. She was now ready to start her eleventh lap and felt downright proud.
Her grandmother had explained that sixteen laps was half a mile. In that case, half a mile in the water was a hell of a lot further than on land. Doing a quick calculation, she decided she’d already swum three-quarters of half a mile. This was great!
As soon as she got back to the house, Courtney planned to weigh herself. After such an intense workout she had to be down. It would be a relief to see that thin dial move in the opposite direction for once.
“Time to get out,” her grandmother told her before she could start the eleventh lap.
“I want to do a couple more,” Courtney protested.
“Not on Wednesdays. The swim team comes in at seven.”
A chill that had nothing to do with the water went through Courtney. “Swim team? Please tell me this isn’t the high-school swim team.”
Her grandmother lifted the goggles from her head and stared at Courtney in puzzlement. “Is that a problem?”
Of course it was a problem. It was bad enough to expose her body to her grandmother’s friends, but she was horrified at the thought of anyone from the high school seeing her like this.
What a disaster. To complicate everything, she hadn’t even brought her towel out from the locker room. She glanced through one of the large windows enclosing the pool. Just as she was about to leap out of the water and run for it, the foyer door opened and a line of impossibly thin girls filed in. Courtney didn’t dare look at the guys who followed. The girls on the swim team were intimidation enough.
She froze, unsure what to do. If she climbed out now, she’d expose her too-tight swimsuit and her fat to all those girls. They’d certainly notice someone her age with all these old ladies.
“Courtney,” her grandmother said loudly, standing on the deck. “It’s time to get out.”
“I know.” She sank to the bottom of the pool and sat there for a moment, wishing she could just disappear.
Eventually she was forced to climb out of the water and reveal herself to the world. She kept her gaze on the floor as she shuffled into the locker room, now crowded with stick-figured teenagers.
For two weeks Courtney had been dying to meet someone her own age—but not like this, when she was practically naked and at her worst. These swim-team girls didn’t have an ounce of extra weight on them. They were perfect.
Head lowered, Courtney hurried to her locker.
“You need to shower,” Leta said, stepping up next to her. “I’m finished, so you can use the middle one.”
“I’ll shower once I get home,” Courtney muttered. She grabbed her towel, wrapping it around her as if she were in danger of freezing to death.
“You should take a shower,” her grandmother’s friend continued. “Get that chlorine off you.”
No way would Courtney strip off her swimsuit in the shower, especially now.
She happened to glance up just then and saw two girls with their heads together, whispering. They looked directly at her. Sure as anything, Courtney knew they were talking about her. Turning her back, she buried her face in her hands. One day in the not-too-distant future, she’d see these very girls in the high-school halls.
10
CHAPTER
“To grow as a knitter, don’t be afraid to take chances. Knitting is a far safer sport than sky-diving. Very little is ever irrevocable!”
—Lucy Neatby, Tradewind Knitwear Designs, Inc., www.tradewindknits.com
LYDIA HOFFMAN
By Saturday it was all I could do to keep quiet when it came to dealing with Margaret. I was hurt and angry that she’d been so secretive about Matt for all these weeks. Now that I did know, I found myself watching her more closely. The longer she kept up this charade, the more offended I got.
Saturdays were generally my busiest day of the week, but sales tended to slow down toward the end of the month, just before payday.
“Do you have any special plans for the fourth?” I asked Margaret when there was a lull shortly after noon.
“Not really.” She didn’t exhibit a lot of enthusiasm one way or the other. “What about you?”
“Nothing definite yet.” Brad and I hadn’t made any formal plans, but I wanted to suggest we drive to the ocean, have a picnic and watch the fireworks there with Cody and Chase. The last time I visited Ocean Shores, a resort town about three hours away, I’d been a teenager. I remembered that it’d been shortly before they discovered my first brain tumor. The trip was one of the last carefree times I’d had that summer and for years afterward.
“We’ll probably just have a barbecue in the backyard and watch the fireworks on TV,” my sister added.
I stared at her. I couldn’t help it. Seattle had two incredible fireworks displays every year. The first was at Myrtle Edwards Park on the waterfront and the second at Lake Union’s Gas Works Park north of downtown. The fireworks on the lake were timed to patriotic music—a stirring experience and one that always dramatized for me what we were really celebrating.
Margaret lived on Capitol Hill, not far from Blossom Street, which was a perfect location for viewing the Lake Union display. I couldn’t believe that she’d choose to sit in front of her television rather than stand outside her front door.
“What about Julia and Hailey?” I adored my nieces, aged fifteen and ten, respectively. We’d grown even closer in the past year, when my rather tense and complicated relationship with their mother had begun to relax. I used to think Margaret tried to keep the girls away from me out of spite, but in retrospect I understood that she was protecting them. She was afraid of letting her daughters love me too much, for fear I’d get sick again. If I lost my battle with cancer and died, my nieces would be devastated.
Margaret focused on busywork, reorganizing one of the yarn bins. “The girls already have plans.”
“Oh.”
“Julia’s going to Lake Washington with friends and Hailey’s going camping with the neighbors.”
“So it’ll just be you and Matt?”
Margaret shrugged, her back to me. “Looks that way.”
I waited a moment, then decided to say something. I’d drop a hint to see if she responded. “Brad said he ran into Matt recently.”
Turning slowly, Margaret studied me and seemed to be searching for some clue that I’d learned the truth. “Matt didn’t mention it.”
“No need, I suppose,” I said casually.
“Probably not,” my sister agreed.
“Will you invite Mom over?” I asked next. I hated the thought of her spending the holiday alone. We’d somehow gotten through the year without Dad and all the terrible firsts that accompanied the death of a family member. The first Thanksgiving and Christmas were the worst for me, followed by Valentine’s Day and then the Fourth of July.
“I