It was my first night swim of the summer.
I put on my bathing suit, my old swim team one that barely fit anymore, with the gold stripes and the racerback. I tossed and turned for a while, and then I couldn't stand it anymore. It always took me a night or two to get used to my bed again, even though I'd slept in it pretty much every summer of my life. That first night of the summer, I couldn't sleep. Looking at her now, you'd never know who she used to be, with her hair long like a teenager, like mine. After the chemo, after her hair grew back, she kept it short, cut right below her chin. Her wig didn't even compare, and it was real human hair and everything, the best money could buy. Long, caramel-colored, soft as cotton candy. No one saw her without it, not even my mother. It was the only time that summer that I ever saw her without her wig.īack then, because of the chemo, Susannah wore her wig all the time. We wouldn't talk we'd just swim, but it was comforting to have her there. I'd be underwater, doing my laps, and I'd feel her dive in and start to swim on the other side of the pool. Two summers ago Susannah found me down there, and some nights she'd swim with me. You sleep so well after you've been in the water. And then, tiptoeing back upstairs, falling asleep with my hair still wet. I loved bundling myself up after a swim in one of Susannah's cornflower blue bath sheets-I'd never even heard of bath sheets before Susannah. When I went to bed, my muscles felt nice and sore but also shivery and relaxed. I'd start doing laps, and I'd keep going until I felt tired. Susannah tried to get one for the summer house, so I could practice, but my mother wouldn't let her.Īt night when I couldn't sleep, I'd sneak downstairs and go for a swim in the pool. Which was so stupid, the summer house didn't even have a piano. I thought one day I could accompany Conrad and we could be, like, a band. When I listened to track five, "Black," it was like I was there, in that moment all over again.Īfter the summer was over, when I got back home, I went to the music store and bought the sheet music and learned to play it on the piano. I went out and bought Ten and listened to it on repeat. I'd never heard of them, but at that moment, it was the best song I'd ever heard. Conrad was as happy and enthralled as if he had discovered them himself. "Listen to this," he'd said once, stretching out his headphones so I had one and he had the other. All I knew was that it took time away from us. We'd be watching TV, or playing cards, and he'd be strumming the guitar. He'd hum to himself, and he was someplace else. He'd sit there, strumming, halfway paying attention, only halfway present. "Like I said, everybody changes."Ĭonrad started playing the guitar in middle school.
He shrugged and picked up his guitar again. I'd always had to keep mine short for piano, and then after I quit, I still kept them short, because I was used to them that way.Ĭonrad put down the guitar and stared off into space moodily. Who was this girl? I pictured someone with pale white blond hair and turquoise eyes, someone with perfect cuticles and oval-shaped nails. "Why did she break up with you?" I couldn't help myself. "What does it matter?" he said, his voice rough. Suddenly she was this compelling, actual person in my mind. I couldn't imagine anyone breaking up with Conrad. "Your mom is right, you are a heartbreaker." I meant it to come out as a joke, but the words rang in my head and in the air like some kind of declaration. I was afraid he'd be able to see how much I cared.Ĭonrad cleared his throat. "So what's she like?" I didn't look at him when I said this. I burst into his room and asked him what they were talking about, and Steven accused me of being a nosy little spy, and then he finally told me that Conrad had a girlfriend. Steven didn't say a whole lot on his end, but it seemed like a serious conversation. They were on the phone for a while, and I hid outside Steven's bedroom door listening. "My brother has a big mouth." About a month before we'd left for Cousins, Jeremiah had called Steven. "So I heard you have a girlfriend," I said.
He sat there across from me, strumming chords on his guitar with his head bent. I didn't know why I even brought it with me.Īfter dinner I stayed downstairs on the couch and so did Conrad. I kept it on the dresser in my room, and I never wore it anyway.
Anyway, I didn't leave my perfume in the bathroom mixed in with all their stuff. I think his grad student girlfriend picked it out. It smelled like vanilla and burnt sugar and lemon. They had more cologne than I had perfume-one pink French bottle my dad bought me for Christmas when I was thirteen.
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