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Lorrie's dad was sitting on the end of the diving board, his toes tapping the surface of the water. "This is going to be a big year for you," he said, panting slightly. He'd just swum a hundred laps or something.
Lorrie, stretched out in the water beneath him, didn't know how he kept track. She'd lose count around seven, so she just watched the big clock her stepmom had hung on the back wall of the house. She was up to twenty-seven minutes. Pretty good, considering that on Thursday, her first night here, she'd only been able to swim fourteen minutes before giving up.
"This program at Whitman is a wonderful opportunity," he went on, his voice carrying across the water. "A real chance to prove yourself."
Lorrie was sick of hearing about Whitman. Right now she was more interested in seeing how long she could float. Arching her back, she kicked her feet up to the surface. Her ears were under, and her dad's voice was muffled. She didn't need to hear every word. She knew already that hewas so glad she was here, he was so sure she would like Maryland's schools better than those in that little rural town in Pennsylvania where she'd been with her mom for the last two years, and he was so happy Lorrie was getting to know his new wife, Elaine.
Lorrie's feet were sinking. She filled her lungs with air and lifted her lower body back up to the surface. Normally she would have listened more carefully to her dad. He didn't usually lecture, but she'd heard all this before. Yesterday, in fact, when she'd taken the subway into the city to meet him for lunch at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Her dad was curator of special exhibits. He liked her to come to "D.C.," as they often referred to the nation's capital, and see the new displays and meet the "young folks" on his staff.
Suddenly she realized it was quiet. She lifted her head out of the water, and her legs sank. Her dad was looking at her, waiting. Treading water now, she replayed the last sounds she'd heard. Had he asked a question? "Uh, what was that, Dad?"
"I said, aren't you happy that you and Sarah have stayed in touch? She can show you around, maybe introduce you to the kids on the school paper."
"That'll be great." Sarah and Lorrie had grown up together. Lorrie had lived a couple of blocks from here before her parents divorced. She and Sarah liked to think of themselves as cousins, even though it wasn't true. Their families shared a distant connection by marriage, not blood, but it was a link that had fascinated them as children.
Lorrie looked at her dad through long wet strands of brown hair that stuck to her forehead and hung down across her eyes. She ducked and came up with her head thrown back. There was no way she was going to hassle with thisheavy wet hair all summer--not with a pool right here in the backyard that she could jump into anytime she wanted. She made up her mind to cut it, maybe even later today.
Her dad was tossing around all the buzz words now. Gifted and Talented. Accelerated Learner. Advanced Placement. Lorrie hated this. At her old school, she was just your typical "good student," the kind who listened in class and did all the homework, played some sports, worked on the school newspaper. She got good grades. Big deal. So did a lot of kids.
Lorrie did somersaults underwater. This was something she and Sarah used to do when they were little and spent whole summers at the neighborhood pool, over on Fernwood Road. They'd stay in the water all day, playing Marco Polo and seeing how many lengths of the pool they could swim without coming up for air.
With ease, Lorrie did five somersaults in a row. It was something you didn't forget, she figured, like riding a bike.
Now her dad was talking about some big school project that was due on the third day back. Summer reading. Lorrie piled her wet hair on top of her head. She'd have to get the list from Sarah.
Having finally exhausted the subject of Lorrie's "academic career," as he liked to call it, her dad did a neat pike dive and swam to the ladder at the shallow end of the pool. Lorrie joined him on the flagstone deck.
If he'd noticed her indifference to the thrilling topic of Walt Whitman High School, he didn't show it. "I'm glad you're here," he said happily, encircling her with his arm and kissing her wet cheek. He threw his towel over his shoulders. "Oh, I almost forgot. Elaine wants to speak with you when she gets home. You'll be around for the next hour or so, won't you?"
"I'll be sitting right here, drying off," Lorrie said, rubbing sunblock onto her arms. The June sun was hot, and she had burned a little yesterday. She wondered what her new stepmom could want.
Stepmom. She was still getting used to the word. Her dad had remarried in January, after having been separated from Lorrie's mom for three years. Last fall, before the wedding, he'd said, "Maybe you two could be friends." That's probably what all divorced parents said when they remarried, but, of course, the whole idea was silly. Elaine was forty or something. Lorrie wasn't looking for a friend her mom's age. And she wasn't looking for another mom, either. She was going to be sixteen this fall. She was almost through with mothers.
Lorrie was on the verge of sleep when Elaine came out an hour or so later. She was wearing a pale pink suit, a dressy outfit for a Saturday morning at the office, Lorrie thought. In each hand, she held a can of Orange Crush. A bag of pretzels was tucked under her arm.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you," she said when Lorrie lifted her head and rolled over on her back. Lorrie reached for the soda Elaine was offering. "I'm up."
Spreading a towel over the chair next to Lorrie's, Elaine stretched out, leaning back contentedly and surveying the pool. "I've got to get in there and scrub that grout," she said, making it sound as though she was looking forward to it. Lorrie knew that Elaine loved her pool. She'd had it put in this March, and she'd been swimming in it since the end of April.
"So, Lorrie, did Roger mention to you that I'm quitting my job?" Elaine asked, getting right to the point.
"No," Lorrie blurted out, her Orange Crush drippingover her bottom lip. Her dad hadn't said a thing about it! How could he have gone on and on about high school when this was happening?
Elaine was one of those workaholics you hear about, the kind of person who puts in a million hours a week at her law firm downtown. "This is a joke, right?" asked Lorrie.
Elaine was studying the pool tile, thinking about grout, no doubt. "Your dad couldn't believe it, either." She chuckled softly, slipping out of her silk jacket. Her hair was back in a gold clasp that she pulled out now Giving her head a shake, she lifted her face into the early-summer sun.
"My dad's big on commitments," Lorrie offered, still stunned by the news.
Elaine laughed easily, the sound bouncing off the surface of the water and filling the backyard.
"He is," Lorrie insisted. "He just hates it when we quit things--" Uh-oh. Lorrie hadn't meant to say "we." It was a reflex--a dumb one, too, since her parents had been apart for years. She started over. "I mean, my dad has a thing about people--me--starting something and not finishing it."
Elaine looked interested.
Lorrie closed her mouth. This conversation wasn't about her, and it most definitely wasn't going to be about her mother. It was just that her mom had driven her dad crazy, dropping things she'd started. It wasn't little stuff, either, like sewing projects or refinishing furniture. It was big stuff, like apartment leases and new jobs.
Elaine munched on a pretzel and looked thoughtful. "What did you ever start and not finish?"
That was an easy one. "In middle school, I wanted to play the flute. I joined the school band, but I really hatedit. Right from the start. I didn't like the way it felt against my mouth, and I never practiced."
"So you quit?"
"I tried. My dad talked me into finishing out the year." She carefully ate the salt off her pretzel. That wasn't quite the truth. Her dad had encouraged her not to drop the flute but had left it up to her, since she was the one who had to practice every day. She'd planned to quit, but then she just couldn't do it. So she started up again with her practicing, working extra hard until she got caught up. But for now, she shrugged. "He hates quitters."
"Well, I'm not a quitter," Elaine said, sounding amused.
Lorrie popped the pretzel into her mouth.
"I've been at this firm since I got out of law school. Eighteen years of sixty-hour workweeks. That's a whole lot of billable hours."
Lorrie thought about this. "Eighteen years," she said. "You've been there my whole life and then some."
Elaine groaned. "When you put it like that, it sounds even worse. Well, I've got just a little bit longer." Ever since she sat down, she'd been discarding her work clothes. Her jacket, her hair clip, her shoes. Now she pulled out her earrings. "I need to change into my bathing suit," she said, standing up. "Can you hold on a minute? There's something I want to discuss with you."
What else could there be? Lorrie wondered as Elaine disappeared into the changing room. Then it occurred to Lorrie that Elaine hadn't mentioned another job.
Oh, no, thought Lorrie, shaking her damp head. She was not going to spend the summer with her stepmother. That was just not part of the deal. The deal had been for her to come here, rather than go with her mom to California, sothat she could spend the summer hanging out with Sarah, sitting by the pool, taking bike rides, going downtown to shop in Georgetown, and working a couple of days a week at a part-time job that she planned on finding this week. She already had an interview on Monday...
