Swim the Fly (9 page)

Coop shrugs. “We’ll just say she Photoshopped it. No biggie.”

Sean’s face brightens. “Yeah,” he says. “That’s right. You can do anything with pictures on the computer these days.”

I haven’t told them yet about Kelly. How she saw me. And how when she sees the photo she’s sure to recognize me as “that girl who crapped herself in the women’s bathroom at the Community Center.”

And then I get the mother of “Oh shit!” electric jolts up my back.

I freeze. “We have to go back.”

“What are you talking about?” Coop says. “No one’s getting naked in that sump you created.”

“No. My underwear. I have to go back and get them.”

“The ones you plugged the toilet with?” Sean snorts.

“They’re going to know they’re mine.”

Coop breaks up. “Dude, relax. They can’t ID skid marks.”

I run my hand down my face. “You don’t understand. My name is in them.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Coop says.

“My mom sewed my name into my underwear when I went on the school’s Easter break trip last year.”

Coop and Sean lose it. Spit flies from their lips. They double over.

“It’s not funny,” I say. “When they wash your clothes, they need a way to know whose is whose.”

“Did she sew the days of the week into them, too?” Coop crows.

“Do you see me laughing about this? They’re going to pull those boxer briefs out of the toilet and they’re going to see my name on the waistband and then they’ll show them to my mom and I’m totally screwed.”

Coop shakes his head, trying to catch his breath. “It’s a hell of a way to go down, Mattie.” He grabs my shoulder again. “I feel for you, dude.”

Sean is lost in fits of laughter when all of a sudden he stops. His expression clouds over. “Goddamn it,”
Sean says. “I just realized. Matt’s underpants don’t just incriminate him. It’s exactly the proof Cathy needs to verify her picture. Why else would Matt’s underwear be in the women’s locker room unless we all dressed up and snuck in?”

“You’re nuts, dude,” Coop says. “You think an overflowing toilet at the Community Center makes the front page?”

“No,” Sean says. “But this is Lower Rockville. And it’s just the kind of story people tell their friends at parties. It’ll get back. You’ll see. Way to go, Matt.”

“This was your stupid idea, Sean.”

“To see Mandy Reagan naked. Not for you to crap your pants and then try to flush them down the toilet. What the hell were you thinking?”

“Fine. I’ll go back myself.” I turn to go.

Coop grabs my arm. “You go back there and for sure you’ll be caught. Your only prayer is that they just don’t look too closely. They find the underwear and say, ‘Here’s the problem,’ and then throw them away. I doubt they’re going to bring in a detective.”

I sigh. “I hope you’re right.”

We continue home, with me tugging at the back of my soiled dress and cursing my life the whole way.

SEAN, COOP, AND I MAKE IT
back to Sean’s house to clean up and change into our own clothes. It takes way longer than I thought to get all the makeup off. Even after I shower, I have to scrub my face raw to wash away all traces of Topaz. Sean’s sister isn’t around, thankfully, so we don’t have to explain why we don’t have the pictures of Mandy or why I threw her sundress into the garbage.

I bike home, taking my time, zigzagging from curb to curb.

As I approach my house, I’m prepared for the worst. I expect Mom to be standing just inside, clenching my soggy, soiled underwear in her fist, screaming bloody murder. I put my bicycle away in the garage, leaning it carefully against the wall. Just right. Check the tire pressure. Check out an old scratch on the frame.

When I run out of things to inspect on the bike, I head out of the garage. I get to the front door of our house and open it slowly, bracing for the onslaught.

I look around.

Nothing.

Mom is nowhere to be seen.

The only sound is Grandpa Arlo mumbling to himself from somewhere inside.

I make my way down the hall and enter the family room. Grandpa’s hunched over the computer, hunting and pecking at the keyboard. I can’t make out what’s on the screen, but I could probably guess.

“Hi, Grandpa,” I say.

“Jesus Christ!” he cries, jolting in his chair. He scrambles for the mouse and quickly shuts the Web browser. “What the hell are you doing sneaking up on me like that? You want to give me a heart attack?”

“Whatcha looking at?”

“None of your goddamn business is what I’m looking at.”

“It kind of is,” I say.

“And how do you figure that?”

“Because you’re going to get another virus on the computer and then blame it on me.
Again.
”

“That was your brother who did that,” he says, his eyes sliding to the side.

“Grandpa, Pete’s got a girlfriend. He doesn’t need the Internet.”

“Okay, Mr. Know-It-All.” Grandpa reopens the browser and finds the Web page he was looking at. “There. Happy?”

I move in closer and have a look.
TheFrugalRomantic.com. The top ten most economical gestures to woo that special someone.

“It’s stupid,” Grandpa mumbles. “But I’m desperate.”

“Which one are you going to do?” I read down the list. “Are you going to give Mrs. Hoogenboom something handmade?” I suppress a laugh. “Like a Popsicle-stick picture frame? Or a handprint turkey?”

“I’m glad you find this so funny.”

I read through a few more ideas. “All right, how about sending flowers?”

“You don’t think she got enough of those when Ray died?”

“Candy?”

“Diabetic.”

“A beach picnic?”

“Anyway.” Grandpa sighs, slapping his hands on the desk. “Now that you’ve sufficiently embarrassed me, I think I’ll go for a walk.” He stands and pushes past me.

I follow him to the front door. “Where’s Mom?”

“She’s going to be late. Some crisis at work.” Grandpa sits down in the chair in the foyer and uses a shoehorn to guide on his loafers. “Which reminds me. Some Tim or Tom from NutraWorld called her. If she gets home before I do, tell her that they need her entire shipment
of protein powder and fiber laxative back ASAP. Stupid bastards got the labels mixed up.” Grandpa snorts as he stands. “I’d hate to see the sorry chump who drinks a tall glass of fiber laxative thinking it’s a protein shake. Gives a whole new meaning to squat thrusts.”

“Yeah,” I say weakly, forcing a laugh. “That would be pretty bad.”

Grandpa opens the front door. “It’s just you and me for dinner. Peter’s gone over to Melissa’s. But don’t wait for me to eat. I may be a little while.” And with that, he leaves.

I make my way into the kitchen and throw some blueberry Pop-Tarts into the toaster. I should probably take this free time to go practice my butterfly. But I’m wiped.

I think I’ll just crash in front of the TV, holding my breath until Mom comes home.

THE ROCKVILLE SWIMMING ASSOCIATION
is a joke, when you really think about it. We only have three swim meets all summer. The relay challenge, sectionals, and championships. Which is already three meets too many, if you ask me. But for all the swim practice they have us do, you’d think that they’d want us to compete more than every few weeks.

The relay challenge is always held at Walnut Avenue. It’s the dirtiest pool in the whole town. They only paint the bottom like every ten years, and there’s graffiti on every surface and broken glass all over the lawn so you have to be real careful where you lay your towel down.

And I don’t know what kinds of parties they have at Walnut, but they must be pretty sick, because you always find crushed beer cans and dead squirrels and used condoms everywhere. It probably doesn’t help that there’s a
biker bar and a pool hall and a 7-Eleven right across the street. I think they let Walnut have the relay challenge because it’s the lamest of the three meets and nobody really cares too much about it.

Mom’s dropping me off across the street from the Walnut Avenue pool this morning so she won’t have to turn around. I’m still waiting for her to bring up the underwear incident at the Community Center, but there’s been no mention of it. Yet.

Mom lights one of her organic cigarettes as I step out of the car, grabbing my rolled-up green towel, goggles, and iPod. Normally, Mom would come to the meet to cheer me on, but they’ve called an emergency NutraWorld summit today to discuss the recall of the protein powder and fiber laxative.

I wait for the traffic to clear, then run across the street. “Good luck!” Mom calls out, tooting her horn. I give a quick wave as she goes.

The grass outside the pool is sectioned off by teams. The Walnut Killer Whales, the Dowling Dolphins, the Bronson Barracudas, the Upper Rockville Vipers, the Lower Rockville Razorbacks, and the Sterling Seamen. Don’t ask me whose bright idea it was to name Sterling Avenue’s team “the Seamen,” but whoever it was condemned them to an eternity of ridicule.

Coop probably has the most fun with it. He never lets up. “I’d rather not swim with all the Seamen in the pool.” “Look, talking Seamen.” “Ew, the grass is covered
in Seamen.” He’s gotten a fat lip more than once over the last six years.

I have to walk through several team sections before I find the Razorbacks’ blue-and-white banner strung between two trees. Most of our team is already here. Kelly and Valerie are sitting on a big blue comforter spread out on the grass. They’re flipping through some magazines. Kelly’s got her grape Tootsie Pop going. Both of them smile and say “Hi” as I pass.

Valerie’s little brother, George, swims in the Tyke Races, so even though she’s not on our team, she comes to every meet to cheer him on. George is pretty good, too. Last year he won the half-lap freestyle, and this year he’ll be swimming in a full-lap relay.

I find Sean and Coop sitting cross-legged on their towels, playing Texas Hold’em. Coop cleans Sean out every time they go at it, but for some reason, Sean keeps asking Coop to play. He says that his luck is bound to change someday. What Sean doesn’t seem to understand is that it has nothing to do with luck and everything to do with the fact that Coop is the world’s greatest bullshitter and has no problem going all in with a seven-two offsuit.

“Hey,” I say, examining the ground closely before I put my towel down.

“Full house,” Coop calls, laying down two jacks.

“Are you kidding me?” Sean throws his cards at Coop. “You’re such a schween!”

“The luckiest damn schween you’ve ever seen.”
Cooper laughs and rakes in the pile of quarters and dimes. He looks up at me. “Sean’s done. You want in?”

“I’ll pass.” I unfurl my towel and let it float to the ground.

“Can you loan me some money, then?” Sean says. “I need to try and win some of my allowance back.”

“No way.” I sit down and place my goggles and iPod at the corner of my towel. “I’m getting a bag of Funyuns and a Dr Pepper after our freestyle relay.”

Sean and Cooper share a look and are unusually silent.

“What?” I say.

“Should we tell him?” Cooper asks.

Sean takes a deep breath and exhales forever. “You tell him.”

“Tell me what? Your sister hasn’t shown anyone that picture of us?”

Sean smirks. “Not yet. When I told her what happened to you, she nearly peed herself.”

“You told her? Why’d you do that?”

“I had to tell her something. Otherwise she would have circulated the photo right then. Anyway, she’s not letting us off the hook. She wants a shot of Mandy and she doesn’t care how we get it.”

“Great,” I say. “Now she’s got the crapping-my-pants story to go along with the tranny picture. I’m going to be this year’s Hot Dog Helen for sure. I’ll never live this down.”

Coop turns his whole body so he’s facing me, his expression dead serious. “Dude. You have something way worse to worry about right now.”

“What could be worse?”

“You know how every year the three of us swim the freestyle relay with Omar?”

“Yeah . . .”

“Well,” Coop says, “you’re not swimming the freestyle relay this year.”

“What are you talking about?” I say, a little confused because that’s my only event in the relay challenge.

“Ms. Luntz took you off our squad.”