Chapter 7

It was the third Saturday of June and Summer Lake was hosting the first big swim meet of the season. Teams from other resorts and a few private swim clubs around the region converged on the scenic resort for the weekend. Not only was it a chance to promote good sportsmanship and show off the Summer Lake’s competitive swim team but all the visiting swimmers and their parents stayed at the hotel for the weekend and every single room was booked.

Esmie had never been to a swim meet. It seemed very posh to her. Not quite on the level of say, a showjumping competition, but about on par with a tennis tournament at a country club, so she approved of it thoroughly. She enjoyed living the fantasy of being a rich, well-to-do young lady with her fancy events that seemed so different from her reality as a poor Mexican girl. It was a fun escape to daydream about being on a rich boy’s arm as they watched a polo match. Hanging on Eric’s big arm as they watched a swim meet was definitely close enough for her this summer. He was not rich, but he was her man and all that she wanted at the moment.

This was her boyfriend’s sister’s swim meet, though, and they were attending to support her. Abby had been waking up at seven in the morning since May to train for this. Even though Abby was very close to her brother, and seemed to depend on Eric to carry her through some social situations, the athletic girl had been nothing but kind and understanding as Esmie began dating her brother. Esmie was so used to girls being nasty, especially where boys were concerned, but Abby said they were a cute couple and was always chiding her brother to be even more of a gentleman to Esmie than he already was, much to the younger girl’s delight.

The maintenance department had set up bleachers all around the pool for the weekend. Esmie was surprised at what a big to-do the whole thing was. She had only vaguely heard of swim meets before, but it was by far the biggest event at Summer Lake so far that summer (even bigger than Polka-palooza – about which her brother was still complaining). In addition to the families of the swimmers, some old people booked rooms for the weekend just to come and see the races and follow the team’s Olympic hopefuls, which turned out to be Abby and Nicole Ballard this summer. With all the expected business, Esmie had to work nearly every other shift at the concession stand just to have six hours off Saturday afternoon to see Abby race.

She sat with her brother, who would go anywhere Abby went now. When she had tried to set up Nick and Abby as a couple, she didn’t really think it would work. Nick was such a moody, pessimistic boy that she was sure he’d screw things up. He’d pined over girls before and it always ended badly. Although Abby was nice and seemed like a good person, that girl had her own awkwardness and Esmie wasn’t sure if she was girlfriend material. But it seemed the two were actually going out. Miracles can occur. Perhaps it was good for two awkward people to date each other, Esmie thought, they might only be comfortable around people like themselves.

Eric was there, of course. This was turning out to be quite the summer romance, even if Eric bumbled whenever he tried to say something sweet and was hardly a suave Romeo type, it was the thought that counted and he only thought of her. The only downside was how people looked at them for being a mixed-race couple, and girls teased Eric with the usual nonsense (no guys dared make “bean dip” sort of jokes to his face). She hated that, but it’s just how it was at Summer Lake.

Lacey rounded up their lineup. Esmie had heard such mean things about this girl: she was the easiest lay at Summer Lake, she had STDs, she’d had sex with every boy on staff the summer before. Normally Esmie would steer clear of someone like that, but Abby said that Lacey was a good person. Lacey was always hanging around them, usually teasing Nick about being so pretentious, or playing mainstream music which Nick and Abby hated but Esmie liked. She would worry that Eric would be tempted by such a character, but she’d never noticed her boyfriend’s gaze drifting to the curvy blond, even when they were naked at the quarry that day. Still, she felt slightly uneasy having such a sexy woman near her boyfriend, even if the rumors about Lacey seemed to be cruelly exaggerated or made up entirely.

Her boyfriend. That word felt so nice as she leaned her head on Eric’s shoulders there on the bleachers above the pool. He wasn’t the least bit embarrassed to be dating a Mexican girl, not that he should have been, but most boys on staff would be. The guys in the concession stand joked that she should make burritos, or would say “Yo no hablo espanol” to her in a stupid voice even though she spoke better English than they did. Sometimes she felt like her cynical brother was right when he said that it really didn’t matter how smart they were as long as their skin was brown and their last name was Sanchez. But at least with Eric, she had someone who didn’t care about any of that.

The four teenagers sat through the men’s races in boredom since they hardly cared about any of the competitors from their resort’s team. One of the guys on Eric’s landscaping crew was an alternate but the snobby lifeguards who dominated the team didn’t even let him compete.

Just before lunch break there was finally a women’s race with Abby in it. “Wake up everybody,” Esmie said, seeming to be the only one paying sufficient attention as Nick and Lacey bickered about their conflicting tastes in music and Eric stared at Esmie’s cleavage in her white tank top. Not that she minded. “Abby’s racing.”

They sat up and began paying attention. It was fairly easy to pick Abby out even in her swim cap and black one-piece competition uniform worn by all of the girls on the Summer Lake team. At six feet tall, Abby stood out even among competitive swimmers. Only Nicole Ballard was Abby’s height. In fact, now that Esmie saw them both in their tight bathing suits, Nicole also had Abby’s muscular build, if quite not as lean, and the preppy girl’s boobs and butt were bigger. Nick would pick the weirdest looking girl at Summer Lake to fall in love with, Esmie thought, but she did have to admit that Abby had a certain graceful beauty as she stood atop the starting platform with a confident stance.

There was a buzz in the crowd now. “Oh, the secret weapon,” Esmie heard some middle-aged mom type say, “It’s unfair that Summer Lake’s brought in a ringer.”

“What an odd looking girl,” another mother said. Esmie figured these harpies were the mothers of swimmers on other teams. “Well at least she’s supposed to be good at swimming. Poor thing will never find a husband.”

Esmie wanted to claw their eyes out. She didn’t know why people had to be so nasty because someone looked different than the usual, but it was how it always was. Eric put his arm around her as if sensing her discomfort and used to repressing his own desire to vindicate his sister over such pettiness.

The announcer mumbled over the loudspeaker that it was the 400-meter women’s freestyle, and then gave the names of the various competitors and their swim clubs. When the announcer said Nicole’s name there was a cheer. When he said Abby’s, her friends hooted and hollered, but Esmie was saddened to realize no one else made a sound.

“They’re freezing her out,” she said to Eric with disgust in her voice that Abby’s own teammates would do something like that. The girl was harsh and confrontational, but she was going to win this race for them, Esmie thought, they could at least be nice to her.

“Abby’s used to it,” Eric said. “She feeds off it.”

Esmie felt the intensity in her boyfriend’s voice now as they watched his sister take her position and wait for the race to start. Esmie knew Eric loved his sister and was deeply emotionally invested in her, but in a wholesome and brotherly way that didn’t make Esmie feel jealous. Still, it was a little scary, given the scrapes Abby seemed to get herself into, knowing that Eric would back his sister up until the bitter end.

A canned voice said “take your marks” then there was a shrill beep and the swimmers took off. Esmie knew little of competitive swimming but she could definitely follow Abby’s swim cap and tell that she was in the lead. Nicole was next to her and the two women were close, but the other competitors lagged behind almost a full body length after only one lap.

It was a long race, which seemed to be Abby and Nicole’s specialty as they had not competed in the shortest ones. Each had already won races handily in their specialty strokes (backstroke for Abby, butterfly for Nicole) but this was their first time facing each other. They seemed to move through the water as fast as the boys, but much more gracefully. Even to Esmie’s untrained eye she could see why Abby and Nicole were the only two swimmers mentioned in the program as Olympic hopefuls.

By the final lap Abby and Nicole were far ahead of the others, at least five body lengths, Esmie thought. But the two girls were very close to each other.

“Is it usually this close for Abby?” Esmie asked her boyfriend.

“No,” he said with obvious concern in his voice. As far as the swim meet went it didn’t technically matter, both girls competed for the same team, and Summer Lake was already way ahead. Nevertheless there was obvious tension between the swimmers and the crowd felt it.

The friends cheered for Abby everyone else in the bleachers cheered for Nicole. Nicole was a beautiful, rich blond, Esmie thought, and a total bitch. Where was the fun in seeing someone like that succeed? Esmie thought she’d cheer for Abby even if the girl hadn’t been her friend. Didn’t people like an underdog? Apparently not here at Summer Lake. The people who spent the summer in hotel rooms at a fancy lakefront resort were all front-runners in life.

Esmie cheered her head off as the race ended, and only got louder when it became clear they were almost the only ones still cheering. Abby won by less than one tenth of a second. She pulled her swim cap off and got her big red hair wet as she celebrated alone at the end of the lane. The rest of the Summer Lake team ignored her, but she looked over at Esmie’s group and smiled. There was something lovely about seeing that girl smile since usually she looked unhappy.

“Your sister won,” Esmie said, hugging her boyfriend.

“Yeah, she’s great,” Eric said, clapping. But he was looking at the big digital clock with the extremely close times.

“Awww she can’t win and blow everybody away every time, she is only human,” Esmie said. Eric frowned.

Abby climbed out of the water and walked past her teammates, who were ignoring her despite her win. They were all on Nicole’s side, which was hardly surprising, but it did hurt deep down to once again experience how petty human beings could be. It was like being the best swimmer didn’t matter since she wasn’t popular. It was high school all over again.

And suddenly she was only barely the best swimmer. That was the other thing that bothered her. How had Nicole come so close? Abby had never lost a real race, but she had never faced Olympic-level competition either, just swimming in Wisconsin public school races. Her times were good, but it was another thing to get those times in competition with someone who was almost as fast as her one lap over. And much harder, she had just learned, when that someone was Nicole Ballard.

She tried not to worry about these things though as she walked over to the bleachers, swim cap in hand. Mean teammates didn’t bother her that much if she had friends in the bleachers. She always had Eric, and he had carried her through the darkest days back home, but it was wonderful to have the others now cheering so loudly she’d heard them from the pool after the race.

Esmie and Lacey were there, she had actual female friends now, but perhaps more importantly there also was Nick. She still couldn’t believe she had a boyfriend. She had figured he’d ask her out but she hadn’t really planned to agree to it. It was summer though, maybe Esmie’s thinking had infected her, it might be nice to have a boyfriend for the season. A breezy summer romance, wasn’t that a normal teenage thing to experience at least once in her life?

She had to admit she was unlikely to find a better boyfriend than Nick. He was smart, funny, and talented. He seemed extremely smitten with her and thrilled that she was his girlfriend. She didn’t worry that he’d push her for sex, unlike the knuckle-dragging male lifeguards who had date-rape written all over them. Not that she’d ever date one of those dummies anyway. And since she and Nick would be going their separate ways at the end of the summer anyway, the relationship could be fun and harmless.

Yes, there was every logical reason to date Nick. So why didn’t she feel any passion for him? Why didn’t she get nervous about how long it would last when he kissed her, instead of feeling her heart racing and wanting the kiss to last forever? She felt guilty about that, but she told herself she had never had a boyfriend before and it would probably just take time. They hadn’t even had a real date yet – eating mooched food in her dorm room didn’t count.

The hour-long lunch break had begun so she approached her friends, eager to be around people who liked and supported her.

“Hey dudes and dudettes,” she said, in a good mood despite the close finish and the nasty treatment from her teammates.

“You were awesome Abby!” Esmie said.

Nick stepped forward and awkwardly hugged her in her wet bathing suit. She supposed he felt pressured to do a boyfriend thing, but she found herself liking it. Why shouldn’t she have a boyfriend who cared about her? “Yeah, you showed that rich girl,” Nick said.

“Isn’t she on your team though?” Lacey asked, sitting there on the bleachers with her boobs almost falling out of her tube top. Abby was pleased to note that neither of the boys seemed to be distracted though, despite all their teenage hormones, their eyes were on their girlfriends as they should be.

“Yeah but she’s Nicole Ballard,” Abby said with a grin.

“Good point,” Lacey said with a laugh. “Come on let’s get you lunch, Miss Olympics. Champions don’t pay for lunch.”

Abby blushed at the flattery. “It’s just a rich kid swim meet,” she said, “And that cunt almost beat me.”

“Hey you were just warming up,” Eric said, “Beside the 800-meter is where you shine.”

“800 meters?” Nick said, “I think I’d drown. Again.”

Everyone laughed except Esmie who said, “Nick, you shouldn’t be such a wuss in front of your girlfriend!”

“Hey I’m not dating him for his athleticism,” Abby said, giggling.

“Yeah I wouldn’t fool anybody anyway, acting all tough,” Nick said, “I never thought I’d be dating a jock but it’s kinda nice.” The group hurried to one of the last free picnic tables by the concession stand.

Lacey looked the new couple over as they sat down. “Well I think you guys are perfect for each other. You both like awful music, Abby can beat up Nick’s bullies, and you’re really smart so you’ll always have stuff to talk about.”

“Ummm thanks, I think,” Abby said with a grin.

“Okay, what do y’all want?” Esmie asked making herself sound like a cheerful diner waitress. Everyone was in a good mood and making little jokes they all understood, Abby thought. This group was so good.

They ordered their favorite items from the concessions menu and Esmie crept in the back door to the kitchen to get them their food. Freeloading seemed to be the way of the staff at Summer Lake, everyone who worked one of the restaurants or the concession stand got free food for their buddies. In the case of the group though, none of them were from money and it was honorable mooching. Abby and Eric were saving up most of their paychecks to tide them through the school year back home, and Nick had said he and even Esmie were doing the same. Lacey seemed to spend her money on dumb stuff as fast as she earned it, but at least she wasn’t a rich kid mooching food like half the other people on staff.

Esmie came back with everyone’s orders precariously balanced on her arms and leaned over the table like a coat rack of junk food so the hungry teenagers could grab what they’d ordered. Her brother’s girlfriend acted like such a princess but she was a real trooper when it came to helping out the group, Abby thought. This group ... Abby kept coming back to how good they were together. Not just good, there was a certain power to having true friends like this. She was in the middle of a swim meet competing against an awful girl who really could beat her, yet Abby wasn’t nervous at all.

“Oh I didn’t know the snack bar had waitresses, awesome! Get me some nachos, girl.” Speak of the devil, Abby thought, as she turned to see Nicole Ballard herself, flanked by two bare-chested lifeguards in board shorts and her two female stooges, Gina and Crystal. Behind them a tactful distance was that woman again, Laura Ballard. Nicole had a cartoonishly large bottle of Evian in her strong hands.

“What are you doing here? Get away from my friends,” Abby hissed at Nicole.

“Aww she has friends,” Nicole said. It was so crowded on the terrace with all of the swim meet spectators and participants and there was a loud den of conversation, making this all feel very chaotic. “Two Mexicans, a slut, and a neanderthal. Really quite the perfect set of friends for our future Olympian here, don’t you think?” Nicole looked at her friends and they all laughed mindlessly.

Abby glared at her, re-affirming to herself that she was absolutely going to hurt this girl when she got her chance. It was one thing to make fun of Abby herself, but for Nicole to make fun of her friends was truly unforgivable.

“Oh just shut up,” Abby said, “I’m not going to sit here and trade insults with you, I’d rather hang out with my friends. If you want to go somewhere and get your bitchiness out of your system, just name a quiet place to meet and we’ll hash it out. But if your male bimbo friends interfere, or you bring Laura, they’ll have to deal with the neanderthal. He’s my brother and he’s very protective.”

Eric instantly nodded in agreement and glared at the lifeguards to either side of Nicole, who Abby thought looked like they wanted no part of the proposed altercation.

“Aw, You two are perfect for each other, but didn’t you hear that violence isn’t the answer?” Nicole said cheekily, “I’m not going to fight you, weirdo. We’re competitive swimmers, remember? So we do that thing.”

“Yeah well, I just beat you at that, so what even is your point?” Abby said, glaring at her.

Nicole looked incensed but took a breath. “The 400 isn’t even my event, genius,” Nicole said, “Coach just asked me to swim it so we could sweep. There’s something you don’t know. I’ve already been scouted for the Olympic team and they want me in the 800.”

Abby felt Nick putting his arms around her, as if for support. She found herself liking it, even though she didn’t feel the need for help. Maybe Nicole was lying about the Olympics thing.

“Well whoop-de-do,” Abby said, “But there’s something I ought to tell you. The 800 is my event too.”

“And she’s not left-handed,” Eric joked, referencing The Princess Bride, one of their favorite movies.

“My time is 8:23,” Nicole said, “What’s yours?”

“You’re just making that up,” Abby said, trying not to let on the slight feeling of intimidation she felt. If that was Nicole’s real time, Abby was in trouble. That wasn’t even a second off from a medal-winning Olympic women’s time, and with two years left to train and grow stronger. But why should she believe anything this girl said?

“Ooh you won’t say your time, guess we know what that means then?” Nicole said, hands on hips as she stood there gloating. “Don’t feel bad, at least you’ve got a boyfriend apparently so the summer’s not a total waste. Did you know he gave pretentious mix-tapes to half the girls here last summer? They were all creeped out and management had to tell him to stop, but I guess he found a new tactic for this summer, huh Abby?”