his face free of expression from years of practice at bearing news both good and bad. And in this split second of finding out she has lost, Jesse realizes she was utterly convinced she would win, that all along she hadn’t really given any weight to the possibility of losing. It won’t take a scaling down of expectation to accept this defeat, but rather a substantial reconstruction of her notion of herself. And she must accomplish this in the next few minutes, before she’s out of the pool and dried off and sweatsuited and ushered smiling (the smiling is imperative, imperatively expected) up onto the staggered pedestals, positioned slightly lower than Marty. Who, in the next lane, has just received the flip side of Jesse’s bad news, who in her pure joy at having taken the gold is reaching across the lane markers toward Jesse, putting a long arm around her shoulders. She can feel the hot flush of Marty’s skin under the cold film of water.
“Told you,” she shouts, although in the din no one will hear her but Jesse. “We’ve won. All the fastness, it’s ours.”
And for a brief moment—the one Jesse needs to carry her away from the pain scissoring into the wall of her heart—she believes this, buys Marty’s version and feels herself being pulled into the next lane, then borne aloft, the two of them arcing into the air, then backflipping into the water, somersaulting along the bottom, skimming the aquamarine floor.
From here, the color of the memory bleaches up to white, the dead white one of the night before. Down in the showers on a wide bed of fresh towels they’ve scattered on the tile floor, then fallen onto. It’s late. Everyone else is upstairs, held in restless, pre-race sleep. In their collective unconsciousness, they are all winning their events, all of them. The beds of this dormitory are filled with gold medals, gleaming like coins overflowing treasure chests.
Floors beneath them, Jesse is lying very still under Marty, feeling the full press of her, taking on her imprint, committing her body to memory. The small, hard breasts. The wide span of shoulder, wider even than Jesse’s. Today was Shave Day, a ritual among women swimmers—the psshhh of foam, glint of blades across this shower room as months’ worth of hair was whisked away to eliminate its infinitesimal drag in the water, to make the body the smoothest, most aquadynamic set of planes possible. And now she is feeling these planes, Marty’s hot and dry at the same time, against her own.
She looks over Marty’s shoulder, down the long length of the two of them, for they are both tall girls with great, long reaches. When they are swimming, their arms seem to catch the water as though it’s a field of a million aquamarine dragonflies. Although they are both fair by nature, a blonde and a redhead, they are extremely tan from summer training and in this peculiar moonlight, against the white of the towels and the tile, their limbs are black.
Jesse’s specific sensation in this moment is one of thrill ebbing into safety, of having vaulted over a high bar, and fallen onto a feather bed. The small tugs of doubt about Marty—that maybe this friendship did not come up out of pure impulse and mutual desire, but was calculated, planned—these fears slip away now. Jesse, who is seventeen and touching and being touched for the first time, thinks no two people can be this close and have any secrets from each other.
By the time Jesse wakes up, she is alone in the bedroom, the Imogen Cunningham card propped on the pillow of the other, empty, twin bed. “Try to know me,” it says. “Don’t make me up. K.”
There are traces of coffee and conversation in the air. Her mother and Kit are downstairs in the kitchen. From where Jesse lies, it sounds like everything is humming along nicely without her. The rhythms, the lilt and fall, seem pleasant and superficial. Kit is probably being charming, making life in New York sound “My Sister
“Told you,” she shouts, although in the din no one will hear her but Jesse. “We’ve won. All the fastness, it’s ours.”
And for a brief moment—the one Jesse needs to carry her away from the pain scissoring into the wall of her heart—she believes this, buys Marty’s version and feels herself being pulled into the next lane, then borne aloft, the two of them arcing into the air, then backflipping into the water, somersaulting along the bottom, skimming the aquamarine floor.
From here, the color of the memory bleaches up to white, the dead white one of the night before. Down in the showers on a wide bed of fresh towels they’ve scattered on the tile floor, then fallen onto. It’s late. Everyone else is upstairs, held in restless, pre-race sleep. In their collective unconsciousness, they are all winning their events, all of them. The beds of this dormitory are filled with gold medals, gleaming like coins overflowing treasure chests.
Floors beneath them, Jesse is lying very still under Marty, feeling the full press of her, taking on her imprint, committing her body to memory. The small, hard breasts. The wide span of shoulder, wider even than Jesse’s. Today was Shave Day, a ritual among women swimmers—the psshhh of foam, glint of blades across this shower room as months’ worth of hair was whisked away to eliminate its infinitesimal drag in the water, to make the body the smoothest, most aquadynamic set of planes possible. And now she is feeling these planes, Marty’s hot and dry at the same time, against her own.
She looks over Marty’s shoulder, down the long length of the two of them, for they are both tall girls with great, long reaches. When they are swimming, their arms seem to catch the water as though it’s a field of a million aquamarine dragonflies. Although they are both fair by nature, a blonde and a redhead, they are extremely tan from summer training and in this peculiar moonlight, against the white of the towels and the tile, their limbs are black.
Jesse’s specific sensation in this moment is one of thrill ebbing into safety, of having vaulted over a high bar, and fallen onto a feather bed. The small tugs of doubt about Marty—that maybe this friendship did not come up out of pure impulse and mutual desire, but was calculated, planned—these fears slip away now. Jesse, who is seventeen and touching and being touched for the first time, thinks no two people can be this close and have any secrets from each other.
By the time Jesse wakes up, she is alone in the bedroom, the Imogen Cunningham card propped on the pillow of the other, empty, twin bed. “Try to know me,” it says. “Don’t make me up. K.”
There are traces of coffee and conversation in the air. Her mother and Kit are downstairs in the kitchen. From where Jesse lies, it sounds like everything is humming along nicely without her. The rhythms, the lilt and fall, seem pleasant and superficial. Kit is probably being charming, making life in New York sound “My Sister
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