Page 71 of All These Beautiful Strangers
Harper cleared her throat; her glance flicked to just beyond my left shoulder. I turned and saw Finn standing in the hall behind us. His ears were beet red.
“Excuse me,” he said.
I didn’t say anything; I just stepped out of the way so he could pass.
Harper and I stood there silently, listening to his footsteps echo back to us as he turned the corner. In the distance, we heard a door open and close.
Harper smiled. “I’m afraid this is the last week of Open Period,” she said. “So, if you want a spot on the paper, you’ll have to share this byline with Finn.”
I sighed. “There’s really nothing else you can give me?”
“I need a thousand words by Friday,” Harper said.
Then she turned on her heel and left, and I watched any chance I had of making this extracurricular activity work disappear with her.
The first thing we did was kill the lights in the fountain. It was a dark, moonless night, but when the Poseidon Fountain was lit up, we knew Old Man Riley—or anyone else strolling across campus at two in the morning—would be able to see us from hundreds of yards away.
Leo had a set of the janitor’s keys, which opened every door on campus. The A’s had made a copy before planting the original set in Auden’s locker. So, he was able to get to the control switch in the theater and turn off the lights.
Under the cover of darkness, I undressed and slid into the basin of the Poseidon Fountain in only my underwear. It was October now, and there was a cold bite in the air. Goose bumps erupted up and down my arms and legs as I waded to the middle of the fountain where the drain was at the base. With the fountain full, the water came up to my waist.
I had never particularly liked being in the water. I was a late bloomer when it came to learning to swim, which had disappointed my mother, because she had been a natural swimmer.
When I was four, my parents taught me to swim in the indoor swimming pool at my grandparents’ house in Greenwich. I remember my mother holding me as I lay on my belly, kicking and paddling, but as soon as she would let go, I would sink and cling to her in the water, and she would pull me up, gasping and screaming.
“She’s never going to learn if you coddle her like that,” my father had said, sitting on the edge of the pool with his legs in the water.
“She’ll get it when she’s ready,” my mother said, setting me on the edge of the pool next to my father. She climbed out and patted herself dry with a towel. “I learned to swim when I was barely out of diapers,” she said. “It’s in her genes. She’ll get it.”
She reached out and ruffled my hair.
“I need to call Hank back before dinner,” she said, tilting her head to one side to get the water out.
“We’ll be here, won’t we?” my father said to me. “Looking at the pretty pool, thinking how nice it would be to swim.”
“Don’t rush her, Alistair,” my mother said, ducking down to give my father a kiss on the cheek. “She’s just a late bloomer.”
When she was gone, my father slid into the water. He took a few steps away from the edge of the pool and then turned to reach his arms out toward me.
“Come on, Charlotte,” he said. “Swim to Daddy.”
I stared at him for a moment, unsure.
“Jump,” my father said. “Jump and I’ll catch you.”
I stood on the edge and looked at his outstretched arms. They didn’t seem that far away. Surely, with a leap, I would reach them. So I did it. I jumped.
I felt my feet break the surface of the pool and then my head went under and I waited, I waited for my father’s arms to reach down and pick me up, to rescue me, but they didn’t.
My first reaction was to cry out for help, and so I did. I opened my mouth to call for my father, and it filled with pool water.
My next reaction was to panic, and I started to kick and thrash in the water in a desperate attempt to swim as I sank instead. I opened my eyes and they burned with chlorine. I looked up through the water and saw the blurry figure of my father standing there, above me, just out of reach. I stretched out my arm toward him and he took a step back. I could hear his disembodied voice. It sounded like he was calling my name, but I couldn’t hear him clearly under the water.
I could feel my heart—it was pounding, hot, in my ears. My lungs ached. I couldn’t breathe.
And then something grabbed me from behind and pulled me to the surface.
I was crying, screaming; I couldn’t see as I gulped at the air. It took me a moment to realize it was my mother who was holding me. She pulled me out of the pool and wrapped me in her towel, which was already wet, and cradled me in her arms.
