After she leaves, I rinse the conditioner from my hair. I turn off the water and dry off for a moment before wrapping my towel around my chest. I get as far as putting on my underwear when I hear a loud crack and then the power goes out. It’s not until this moment that I realize that I am in a windowless interior room. I hold my hand up in front of my face but see nothing. Total darkness. Panic bubbles up from my chest and into my throat. I reach out frantically and find the lockers to my left.
“Ramona?” a voice calls.
It’s Freddie. In the women’s locker room.
“I’m in here,” I say. “But I can’t see anything.”
“Carter’s looking for flashlights out front, but he’s not having much luck.”
“Okay, so what does that mean for me?”
“I guess they were working on some lines and a generator blew.”
I turn to grab my T-shirt, but instead trip over the corner of a bench.
“Are you okay?” calls Freddie.
“Just kind of disoriented.”
“Do you want me to come in? I can try to use my cell phone for light.”
I pull my towel tighter around my chest. “Um, yeah. Go ahead.”
“Marco?” His voice is playful, and it eases my anxiety. Logically, I know that there’s no one in this locker room except for Freddie and me. But the dark makes me feel claustrophobic.
“Polo,” I answer. We would play Marco Polo on the beach with Hattie all the time when we were kids. Freddie always wanted to play on dry land, and Hattie and I would sneak off into the ocean, because we knew he’d never try to find us there.
“Marco?”
“Polo.”
We go back and forth a few times as he follows my voice to the far corner of the expansive room. And then I see the light from his phone as he rounds the corner.
“Here,” I say. “I’m right here.”
He lifts his phone so that it’s shining on me.
I squint and block my eyes with my hand.
“Oh, sorry,” he says. “I didn’t realize you weren’t dressed.” His words are clipped, and I don’t have to see him to know he’s blushing.
“I couldn’t see,” I tell him.
He holds his phone out to me. “Here. Take this. I’ll turn around and wait for you down there.”
“Thanks.”
Quickly, I tug my jeans up my still damp legs and put my bra and T-shirt on. After shoving my wet swimsuit into my duffel, I turn to see Freddie still standing with his back to me a few lockers down. His shoulders rise up and down evenly, like he’s taking meditative breaths.
It makes me want to comfort him. To give him the same calm he gives me.
I step forward lightly and put his phone down on the bench with the light still shining upward and gently trace the line of his shoulder with the tips of my fingers. Because just like out in Agnes’s backyard and in Adam’s movie room, the world is dark and it’s hard to remember that we exist outside of this moment.
He goes still.
“Ramona.” There’s no question in his voice.
He turns to me and my fingers rake across his shoulder blade around to the broad expanse of his chest.
