Swimming Sweet Arrow by Maureen Gibbon Page A

withhold information was one thing—I withheld information from Del every single day of my life when I didn’t tell him about Frank—but I did not want to have to tell a lie. I did not want to put my mouth around the words.
    As it turned out, all my worrying was for nothing. Ray didn’t call that night or any other night, and that was the only time I ever got a phone call like that from June. Either she and Luke planned their outings better, or June took it on faith that I’d invent a story if I had to. That’s how much she trusted me, but that’s also how well she knew me. Because while I could resolve not to lie when I was sitting by myself in my house, when the time came I’d probably do whatcame most naturally. I knew myself well enough to say that. And June knew me that well, too.
    THAT FRIDAY I came home early from dinner shift one night because I was feeling so bad. I stayed long enough to help Lorraine serve the “mad rush” of the dinner crowd and barely made it through, and I was sure I had some kind of fever, because nothing else would make me feel so stupid and weak. The whole drive home, I kept to forty. When I pulled up to the house, I was surprised to see Del’s car. When he worked the seven-to-three shift, he usually went out partying with his buddies. I was glad, though, because I figured all I had to do was make it into the house and he’d be able to take care of me if I did have the flu. When I walked in the house, though, I found Del sitting at the kitchen table, high from sniffing a can of PAM.
    I couldn’t even believe it. He’d sprayed PAM into a bag and inhaled the fumes—there among the breakfast dishes and crumbs, there beside the refrigerator and stove. He still had the bag in his hand when I walked in the door. When he turned to look at me, his eyes were so far gone I knew he was high, high, high.
    “Vangie, get me a washcloth, just a washcloth,” was the only thing he said. I guessed he wanted to wash the grease off his face from where he had been holding the bag to his nose and mouth. He looked at me a little while, and then put his head down on the table.
    I took the bag from his hand, threw it in the trash, and then just stood and watched him. I’d never seen anyone huffbefore. It was something I’d only ever heard of, read about. It must have been a gentle kind of high, because Del’s hand had no tension in it when I took the greasy plastic from him.
    In a couple seconds, he looked up at me again and said, “Vangie, a washcloth.”
    I ran the water until it got hot. I soaked a washcloth and smeared soap on part of it. I ended up washing his face for him, still there in the kitchen, him sitting on a chair, me standing between his legs.
    When I was done, I said, “I’m going to bed. I’m sick.”
    “Okay,” he said. “Okay. I’ll be up later.”
    “I threw out the can and the bag,” I said.
    “That’s all right,” he said.
    When he came to bed later, I felt sick—as much from what Del looked like sitting in that kitchen chair as from whatever bug was in my body. I didn’t really want to touch him, but when he started moving up against me, I knew he wouldn’t sleep without sex. So I let him fuck me. Or I let someone fuck me—I didn’t know who. He didn’t talk to me at all, and he didn’t touch me—except to stick his penis into me. After, he slid away and fell asleep. I thought of going downstairs to sleep on the sofa, but I felt weak and hot and didn’t want to move. I didn’t know what difference it would have made at that point, anyway If I let him fuck me, it didn’t seem like I should care about sleeping beside his body.
    DEL TOLD me he huffed the PAM because he didn’t want to drink and we didn’t have any weed.
    “I didn’t know you’d be home so soon, Vangie. I heard about it, and I wanted to try it.”
    “Yeah, well I heard about it, too,” I said. “But I hear a lot of things I’d never do.”
    “It was a onetime thing. I didn’t