CHAPTER 2

WATER SPLASHED FROM the churning pool onto the medium grey tiled floor. The lanes were a flurry of arms and legs as swimmers butterfly-stroked furiously. Cheers echoed off the slightly tinted windows that made up the walls of the Yellow County Community College Indoor Pool and Fitness Facility.

College kids waved YCCC flags as they sat in the bleachers as Jonathan Poole paced the length of the pool. He was striking, with breathtaking blue eyes and usually wild chestnut-colored hair tamed and just a bit of salt creeping into his sideburns. He was wearing his YCCCIPFF windbreaker, size L for the Large amount of respect that he received while wearing it and even without it on, but it was a little loose because he was fit as a fab fiddle, and he didn’t eat Fiddle Faddle.

He clapped his hands, yelling encouragement to the young YCCC student-athletes in the pool swimming their hearts out.

“Let’s go, Yellow!” he praised.

On the other side of the indoor pool, in the visitors section, sat the fans of the other college’s swim team. The Brown State swim team was a motley crew. The twins, brother Channan and sister Shannon Twinsley, were there of course, sitting very close, sharing a large brown towel with the school’s insignia. They were usually described as “creepily close” and shared beautiful yet somewhat outdated Michael Pitt from Funny Games hair styles. Then there were a couple of other chuckleheads and chuckleheadettes, but the one who stood out the most was a young man in his early twenties named Scott.

Scott, the captain of the Brown State Swim Team, had a swimmer’s body and a prisoner’s face. His left eye was severely disfigured and the scar tissue pulled his right eye towards the center of his face. His eyes were so close together that from a distance it looked like he had just one. In fact, he was nearly blind in the disfigured eye, compounding his cyclopean appearance. He was squinting menacingly at the water and sneering as his teammates fell behind.

With the sound of the whistle, the heat was over. Yellow County Community got the first and second ribbons, among others. Jonathan clapped the winning swimmers on their backs and led them into a friendly huddle, while Scott also pulled his fellow swimmers aside, barking incoherent insults at them. Jonathan’s swimmers smiled and congratulated one another, while Scott’s team shriveled like beaten dogs.

Charlie wandered into the indoor pool area, hands stuffed deep into his pockets, and took a seat in the Yellow County section. He made eye contact with Jonathan, who gave him a big smile and a friendly nod. Charlie self-consciously nodded back, looking around to see if anyone saw the exchange. He let his eyes wander like Emile Hirsch in that movie where he wandered a bunch, until his gaze rested upon a beautiful young lady in the Brown State bleachers.

Charlie’s eyes focused on only her, the rest of the indoor pool and fitness facility blurring around her. She had a clipboard in hand and she was taking down the last heat’s ranking order. She must be the Brown State swim team manager, Charlie thought. Her hair looked so soft and her Brown State T-shirt, size S for the Small amount that it left to the imagination, fit her just so. She looked up.

Oh no! Charlie thought.

It was Jill Bateman.

• • •

Charlie flashed back to the snack bar of the Yellow County Community Swim and Racquet Club on a particularly memorable Memorial Day weekend. Jill Bateman, then a fourteen-year-old (and three quarters!) first-year snack bar employee, struggled with her hollow-boned bird arms to open an industrial-sized tub of ranch-style salad dressing. Her YCCSRC T-shirt was knotted on the side to expose a little bit of midriff, size XS for Xtra Sexiness. She hadn’t quite figured out what to do with her hair yet and was all limbs and no torso, but that wasn’t slowing her down.

An eighteen-year-old Charlie chatted with Roheed, then in his mid-teens, as they did the dishes on that opening day of the pool’s fiftieth season. They were talking about Charlie recently graduating high school and the emptiness he felt, but he kept a careful eye on Jill to make sure she didn’t make a mess. Sure enough, when she got the ranch open, she spilled it all over the floor.

Charlie said, “Hold that thought,” to Roheed, grabbed some rags, and handed them to Jill. She began sopping up the creamy dressing. Charlie returned to the sink and looked over at Jill who was bending to clean up the spilled goop and looking back over her shoulder enticingly. She put her finger in the white puddle and licked it. Charlie was grossed out.

Jill was nice enough, but she was a kid, and that whole summer after that she had made it very apparent that she wanted to get down and dirty—whatever she had thought that meant at the time—with Charlie boy. Not that Charlie was great with girl stuff, but he was most certainly not going to have a summer fling with a tween.

• • •

Charlie snapped back to the present and gasped.

Jill was now grown up—and hot! She looked up from her clipboard and made eye contact with Charlie from across the pool. He whipped his eyes away from hers, pretending that he didn’t see her. He pretended to check his phone, he pretended that he was listening to a song by The Pretenders, he pretended that he had just remembered that he needed to go preheat some tenders. He pretended that his phone was all of a sudden alerting him that he must go outside absolutely that instant. He hightailed it right on out of that indoor pool and fitness facility.

Charlie speed-walked across the quad, escaping the situation. He crossed the lush lawn where coeds were sunbathing, throwing the ’bee, and even hackying a sack or two.

A voice called out to him, “Charlie? Charlie Heralds?” He couldn’t not turn around, so he didn’t not.

Jill strolled up to him, almost in slow motion. If this was some cheesy movie, it most definitely would have been in slow motion, with lens flares, and Jill would have tossed her hair to some song that would be hot during post-production, but totes outdated by the time the flick hit theaters and same day video on demand. But this wasn’t a movie, so Jill walked up at an average speed with no embellished lighting or soundtrack of any kind. Even in the natural light with ambient sound, Charlie still felt uneasy and off-balance. He hadn’t seen Jill since that last day of summer—several years ago, he guessed.

“Hey, Charlie.” Jill’s voice was more mature than before but still feminine. It melted into Charlie’s eardrums like java lava.

Charlie played the fool. “Mhm?”

“It’s me, Jill.”

“Jill, Jill, Jill . . . hmm.” Charlie thought he was slick.

Jill could see through Charlie’s nonchalant ruse like an x-ray of Swiss cheese. “Oh shut up, Charlie. You remember me, Jill Bateman. We worked together in the snack bar at the Yellow County Community Swim and Racquet Club the summer before last.”

Charlie paused. “That couldn’t have been just two summers ago.”

“Oh, you’re right, because I was fourteen and three quarters at the time.” Jill smiled. “And now I’m eighteen.”

The word “eighteen” echoed through the whole quad, or maybe just in Charlie’s mind. His jaw dropped, he tried to compose himself.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, but realized that it sounded like an indictment more than a wonderment. “I mean, I thought you were going to go here,” he gestured to the YCCC in general, “but I haven’t seen you around.”

Jill gestured to her T-shirt, giving Charlie an excuse to break eye contact and look at her chest. “I go to Brown State. I’m the swim team manager.”

“Buck Frown State,” Charlie said mainly to himself, force of habit.

“What?”

“They’re our rivals.”

“Our?”

Charlie gestured again to the community college they inhabited. “I take a couple classes here when I’m not working.”

Jill’s pocket chimed and she checked her phone. “The next heat is about to start. I gotta get in there. But it was great running into you. I’m glad we could meet.” She raised an eyebrow and tilted her head toward the swim complex. “Get it? Meet?”

“Cute.” Charlie said.

She turned to go but looked back as she walked away. “Maybe we can run into each other on purpose next time.”

Charlie’s feet were cemented to the sidewalk, his throat felt like sandpaper’s itchy uncle. “That would be awesome,” he croaked.

She walked away.

He watched.

Roheed walked up behind Charlie and put his hand on Charlie’s shoulder. Charlie jumped a little. He was expecting Roheed to arrive at some point—Roheed would be staying with him for the weekend—but he didn’t expect him in that moment, while he was still in the Jill afterglow.

“Is that . . . ?” Roheed began.

“Jill Bateman,” Charlie finished.

“She turned into quite an attractive young lady.”

Charlie just nodded.

“That must be very confusing to you.”

Charlie nodded again as they watched Jill sashay back into the YCCCIPFF.