Chapter 102

It was Thursday. That meant swim meet. This week was at home, which made it nice.

Sara and Chris were in the stands as was my sister, which was a surprise to me. The meet went well, our team winning five of six. Only a couple of weeks left; we'd probably place somewhere in the top five in the state, as long as we didn't fall apart.

I got elected to drive everybody home.

After my shower, I headed out to the parking lot. The three of them were standing near my car, talking to a girl I didn't recognize. As I got closer, Mary looked over at me.

"Jack, this is Cindy. She went all the way through junior high with me."

"Hi, Cindy. Nice to meet you."

"Mary says you're on the swim team."

"Yeah."

"She says you're the captain."

"She's right."

"I've never blown a captain before."

Chris had been watching us talk while drinking a Coke. He spewed Coke all over Sara, who proceeded to get mad.

"Well, Cindy, I'm sure it's not much different from blowing anybody else."

Mary pulled her arm. "Jack and his girlfriend just moved into a new apartment."

"Oh. Well, it was worth a shot."

Chris was trying to use the sleeve on his sweatshirt to rub the Coke off Sara's, which seemed to have the effect of spreading it more evenly over the front of her shirt. She pushed him away.

"I'll wash it when we get home. Hopefully we'll make it before it dries."

"I couldn't help it. Did you hear what she said?"

"What's so unusual about that? I've never blown a captain, either. How about you, Mary?"

"Nope. I gave a couple of co-captains hand jobs once, but no captains."

My sister, the freshman entertainment committee.

"Come on, girls. Get in the car so I can get Sara out of that shirt."

That got Sara moving. "Yes Sir. Right away Sir."

Mary got up front, as the other two got in back. I noticed they weren't sitting on top of each other as they usually did.

"Chris, your house or ours?"

"You might as well take me home, Jack."

"OK. Football game and the dance tomorrow."

"OK, Jack. See ya."

I got home and was surprised that Wanda's car wasn't there.

"I wonder where the girls are?"

Mary looked at me like I'd grown another head. "Jackie, she had a meet today, too. She probably ran as late or later than you did."

"I keep forgetting that. I wish I could go to one and see her."

"She said it looked like they would be in CIF this year. That's in November."

CIF stands for California Interscholastic Federation. They are a ruling board and pretty much run all the championships for high school sports. They've been around for a while. My Dad was on a football team that took the CIF championship in both his junior and senior years.

"Maybe I can get to one of the meets."

"You should be able to. She says they hold them on the weekends at one of the colleges."

Jill hadn't mentioned that to me. I was all set to mark it up to all the stuff that had been going on, but she'd found the time to tell Mary about it. I needed to show more interest in her activities.

Sara had taken off as soon as I pulled into the driveway. I was starting up the stairs to my place when she came out of the kitchen with a clean shirt on.

"Did you catch it in time?"

"I'm sure it will be fine. I just wanted to give Chris a hard time."

"Are you two doing OK?"

"I wanted to talk to you about that. Can we go inside?"

"Sure. I don't know how private we'll be when Jill gets home."

"That's OK. We'll work something out."

We walked up the steps and I unlocked the door to my new place. Bozo immediately came out and looked at me, as if for permission.

"Go on."

He took off down the steps like a shot. Unlike this morning, when he wouldn't budge without me, he had no problem going down the stairs by himself. He ran over to the grass near the gate and squatted.

"He looked glad to see you."

"He looked glad to see anybody. Come on."

I held the door and Sara went through. I left the door open so Bozo could find his way back in.

Sara and I headed into the kitchen. I kept my eye open for any "accidents" caused from leaving Bozo by himself all day. The place looked fine. There were a few pieces of dog food on the floor next to his bowl and the water was almost empty. The mat he'd been lying on was a little to the left of where it had been this morning, but all in all, it looked real good. I started to put some water in his bowl.

"See what there is to drink in the refrigerator."

She dug around and held out a carton of chocolate milk and a pitcher.

"Lemonade?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"That sounds good."

She put the milk back and took the pitcher over to the table. I had to open three cupboards before I found glasses. I was going to have to learn where everything was. After Jill and Wanda finished moving things around.

I'd been observing Sara since she told me she wanted to talk to me. Right about the time she didn't answer my question about how she and Chris were doing. She wasn't herself.