But Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I had missed Charlie. I cuddled with one of his little outfits, a onesie with a lamb on it, for months after they left.
“Wait for me!” I called as I pulled into a space and he immediately opened the car door to run in to swim. “We’re holding hands!” I really wasn’t over the near mow-down at school.
He scowled at me, pushing his blonde hair back from his eyes. He needed a haircut, and was his hair a little green? Stupid oxidized copper in the water. The special swim shampoo at the drugstore that chelated the metal was at least five times as expensive as the no-name regular shampoo I bought in vat size at Costco, and he got furious when I tried to use lemon juice or ketchup on his head. Even when I explained why, chemically, those things would work to strip off the green. Strange that he wasn’t fascinated by my lecture as acidic lemon juice dripped into his eyes.
“Emmy, I’m seven.Seven. I don’t need to hold hands,” Charlie protested.
“Humor me.”
He shrugged, but took my hand, then after a minute squeezed it and looked up at me, smiling. “You always want me to be careful, Em.”
“Because I love you so much, pal. You’re my best sweet pea.”
“No, you’remybest sweat pea,” he told me. I ducked down and kissed his greenish head.
The smell of the pool was only faint as we entered the building and nodded at the teenagers behind the front desk. Charliescampered past the tennis courts and through the double doors to the pool deck, jogging across the tile and concrete floor toward his team mates as I looked for a spot on the bleachers. I waited for it: the lifeguard bellowed, “Slow it down! No running!” at Charlie and Charlie hollered back, “Sorry, Ruby!” Yep, they ran through that routine every practice.
I settled down and watched Charlie root through his bag to find his goggles and swim cap. He hated the cap, but his coach was making him wear it now that he had moved up to swim with the Sharks.
“Hi,” a man said and I felt the bleacher shake as he sat down. Neil, a swim parent. Alton’s dad? Dashiell’s? Not one kid on the team had an easy name to remember.
“Hi,” I answered and nodded briefly. I turned back to the pool and watched as Charlie slid in behind two older girls waiting at the second block. They grinned at him and he smiled back and said something to them, holding up his swim cap. One of the girls (Mac something?) smoothly pulled it on his head then helped him adjust his goggles. Man, it took me about ten minutes while restraining him in a scissor hold with my legs to get that dumb cap on him. It was like alligator wrestling.
Another girl lined up behind Charlie and patted his shoulder. Good. Stick with the girls, pal. Charlie had had a hard time with some of the boys when he moved up swim groups. Most of them were three or four years older than he was, and they didn’t take it well having a little kid in their lane. They were pretty interested in drowning him for a while. The majority of the girls treated him like a little brother who didn’t annoy them. They stood at his lane and cheered when he raced.
“Your nephew is really fast,” Neil whoever’s dad commented.
I had my standard answer ready. “He really loves to swim.” I had heard that compliment a lot in a variety of forms in my time around the pool. He was fast, he was talented, he was justgood.If I agreed, I was bragging, and if I denied it, I was a liar. Charlie was really fast. At seven, he was consistently beating the ten-year-olds he swam with in butterfly. When he raced his own age group, it didn’t even seem fair. And not just butterfly—he was fast in backstroke and freestyle, too. Only the breaststroke stymied him.
Neil continued. “I was watching practice the other day, and one of the boys was complaining to Coach Sean that Charlie kept passing him in the kick sets. Know what Coach said?”
I shook my head.
“He looked at the other kid and said, ‘If you don’t want him to pass you, then kick harder!’” Neil chuckled and I smiled too. I liked Coach Sean.
The bleachers shook again as my friend Tara plunked down next to me. We had been at high school together, three years apart. Not friends then, but you tended to get close to people huddled under a tent in sleet at an outdoor meet. Her daughter, Darby, was in fifth grade at Charlie’s elementary school and was also in the Shark group.
“What’s up, Emily?” she asked. “Neil, bust a move away from us. Lady business.”
He shook his head at her, but then smiled at me and got up. “Ok, I’ll talk to you later, Emily.”
“Sure,” I nodded at him. “Which one is his kid?” I whispered to Tara, as Neil moved away.
“Ellis, in that suit that says ‘USA’ on the butt,” she answered,then narrowed her eyes at me. “Why? Are you interested?”
“In him?” I tried to keep my voice down. “No way, man. No way, no time.”
She shrugged. “He’s cute. Sells insurance and drives an Escalade.”
I elbowed her. “Tara, you’re married.”
“It doesn’t hurt anyone to keep tabs. He gave me a good deal on a home and auto package.”
The familiar, “Ready, go!” rang out from the pool deck. The first swimmer dove in, and we watched the rest follow, one by one, then freestyle up and down the pool for a few minutes.
“How’s your sister doing?” Tara asked.
I sighed.“Ok.”
