Nightswimming
They were floating. It didn’t feel the least bit like real life. Twelve years—thirteen, counting kindergarten. An eternity, now in the rearview.
Trevor’s hand was out the car window, a dolphin swimming away from Sutton High through the muggy June air. Sarah was driving, as always. And as always, she was driving the Toyota Tercel, a family car passed down two years ago when her older sister, Janine, departed to Tufts. Janine had called it the Silver Bullet, but Sarah referred to it as the Rat. A demotion on account of rust and dents and stains? Perhaps. It was a loving name, though. The Rat was a survivor. It had seen Sarah through so much. Long detours in the farmlands after her multiple breakups with Mike. Road trips to Rochester and Vermont to see Phish. Predawn journeys to basketball practice and late-night commutes home from the job at Wegmans. And of course, the drives to school.
To school and from school, every weekday for the last two years. For the final six months of senior year, Trevor joined her, proudly sitting shotgun. An assorted list of guest stars rode in the back. Jared, Schultz, and Bev had once been the other regulars. The core. But ever since Bev saved up and got a Civic in March, those three usually rode together. Separately. Like today.
Yes, today it was only Sarah and Trevor. They both preferred it that way, even if they were both hesitant to admit it.
“Wow,” Sarah said as she shook her head in disbelief.
“Wow what?” Trevor asked.
“Just wow. It’s over, huh? That’s it.”
“Yeah. I mean…yeah.”
What else was there to say? Class of ’94 had made it. Graduation ceremony was still to come, but school was D-O-N-E done. Regents requirements met. AP tests in the books. Everything…complete. Trevor had prepared for it, talked and thought about it constantly, but now that it was here, he didn’t know what to do.
So, he turned on the stereo. A mix was in the deck, one that Sarah made called Sun / Rain. One side had songs with Sun in their titles. The other side, Rain. It was on the Sun side. The Sun side always got more play.
When that fat old sun in the sky is falling…
Trevor let the music do the talking for a while, as they passed the fields on Sudbury, all dusty and bulldozed, ready for development. Soon enough construction would start. Houses with pastel paint jobs, flimsy transplanted trees, and in-ground pools would erupt from the weeds, though probably not before Trevor would leave for college. When he returned home next summer, however, he’d be coming back to a slightly different world.
“What time does Schultz’s party start?” Trevor asked.
“Already started,” Sarah said. “I saw them pouring Zimas into Sprite bottles at lunch, then heading for the parking lot.”
“Should we go straight there?”
Sarah reached over to Trevor’s thigh and gave it a pat—mostly fingertips—and paused for a moment to look at him before saying, “Yeah, straight there.”
The driveway was already clogged with cars, so Sarah parked along the road. From the knee-high grass, she plucked a dandelion that had gone to seed and blew it at Trevor, but the wind stole the fluff before it could hit his face.
“Did you at least make a wish?”
“Obviously. Now come on.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the backyard. The Schultz house was the last one on a dead-end road, way out past the water treatment plant, where the neighbors were too far away to complain and the cops never bothered to go. There were a few dozen kids there already, mostly in the yard. On the deck, Andrew Schultz reclined on a ratty-cushioned chaise lounge.
For lack of a better word, Andrew was an odd-looking kid, with a nose that was crooked from being broken more than once (basketball, bike accident) and bulging eyes that bordered on amphibian. But what Andrew—or Schultz, as he was known to his peers—lacked in conventional attractiveness, he made up for in charisma. Pictures of him rarely did him favors. Meeting him, however, changed almost everyone’s tune. He was a disarming flirt. The young female teachers at the school knew better than to humor his advances, but they weren’t immune to them. Blushing around Schultz was common. So too was smiling. He was forever welcoming, the consummate host.
As Trevor and Sarah approached the deck, Schultz raised a red plastic Pizza Hut cup in salute. “My fellow graduates. We did it!”
“Barely squeaked by, huh?” Sarah said.
“Don’t joke,” Schultz said. “It was touch and go for me last year. Physics was kicking my ass.”
“And yet you got into Cornell,” Sarah said. “Strange how that happens.”
“Greatest comeback story of the twentieth century,” Schultz said with a shrug.
Trevor and Sarah joined him on the deck, where they too could lord over the revelers. The party wasn’t wild by any stretch of the imagination. But the smell of weed was in the air. A keg nested in a plastic tub of ice near the toolshed was already well on its way to empty.
“Your parents?” Trevor asked Schultz.
“At the lake until Sunday,” Schultz said. “Plenty of time to clean up after these…lovely people.”
“Speaking of lovely people, where’s the illustrious Miss Beverly Gleason?” Sarah asked.
Schultz pointed with his thumb to the screen door behind them.
“Well then, it’s been a pleasure, gents,” Sarah said as she slid the door open and slipped inside.
Schultz turned his head to watch her, and when she was safely out of earshot, he said, “So?”
“So?” Trevor responded.
“You and Sarah. Is that, like…?”
“Friends. That’s it.”
“Right. Right.”
“It is right,” Trevor said. “She’s…a free spirit.”
This made Schultz laugh. Hard. “That she is.”
Trevor had no response, so he grabbed a seat in a nylon lawn chair, and the two guys quietly took in the crowd. More kids arrived. Trevor knew every face and voice. Sutton High wasn’t tiny, but it wasn’t big. Ninety-six seniors were graduating, which was two fewer than the ninety-eight who had started in September. Katie Crease had dropped out after giving birth in November. She had to find a job because her parents refused to support her and the baby, but she was well on her way to a GED. Clint Hoover had been arrested in April for stealing car stereos, and then stopped showing up at school. There were rumors that he was joining the army, but Trevor had seen him a few weeks before, manning the register at the mini-mart. They
didn’t make eye contact.
Katie and Clint weren’t at the party, of course, but a good percentage—maybe thirty—of Trevor’s fellow graduates were there. Plus, a handful of former juniors and sophomores. When Trevor spotted Jared Delson near the keg, he got out of his chair.
“Check ya later,” Trevor said to Schultz, quoting their favorite movie.
“Check ya later,” Schultz echoed.
Then Trevor was off, weaving through the crowd, nodding hellos at acquaintances, raising an invisible glass to friends in the distance, until he was finally standing next to Jared by the keg. Jared had a Solo cup in his hand. Trevor tapped it with a finger.
“You’re drinking now?” he asked.
“Diet Coke,” Jared said, and then he patted himself on the belly. “Don’t want people to think I’m the new Katie Crease.”
“You look fine,” Trevor said, and he meant it. Jared was a skinny guy with long blond bangs that hung over his face. Skater’s bangs. He looked a lot like Tony Hawk, and so he played the part, sometimes well, of idling around parking lots and public buildings, attempting kickflips and rail slides. In a hope to indulge his passion, his mom and dad once offered to build him a half-pipe in the family’s barn, but he declined. “I’ll be the one who’s responsible for breaking my own neck, thank you very much,” he told them.
It was not the response they wanted to hear, and yet it was a response that fit Jared to a tee. It spoke to his independence. Also, to his darkness, a looming presence that Trevor often wished he could chase away from his friend. Out there, in the corner of Schultz’s lush and lively yard, Trevor tried to do just that. Putting his arm around Jared, he told him, “We’re gonna make this the best summer of your life.”
This lifted the kid’s spirits, or maybe he pretended that it did. “We goddamn better,” Jared said with a smile.
Twenty minutes later, Trevor and Jared were in the house, in the kitchen, sitting on the green Formica countertop, under shellacked oak cabinets. They were providing commentary as Sarah and Bev made messy sundaes.
“Add some ketchup,” Trevor said.
“No, sardines. Sardines!” Jared cried.
Obviously, the girls weren’t following the boys’ suggestions, but they were amused.
Bev, the closest thing Sarah had to a best friend, was topping her sundae with a dollop of whipped cream from a can and then holding the nozzle below her mouth.
“Should I?” she asked.
Sarah grabbed the can from her before she could proceed. “Whippits are so stupid.”
Bev shrugged. “I don’t need the headache anyway.”
Sarah put a blast of cream on the top of her sundae and then spooned a bite into her mouth.
Jared said, “It probably needs some olives and some—” but a booming voice interrupted him.
“Everyone on the floor! You’re busted!”
Quick as quick, the boys hopped down from the counter, and the girls nearly dropped their sundaes. That was when Buck, who looked like a guy you’d call Buck, started laughing and said, “I’m messin’ with you.”
He was standing in the foyer, flanked by Heather and Lori, his constant companions. Heather, enamored of barrettes and black eyeliner, supplied the weed, and Lori, averse to small talk and eye contact, supplied the ride. Buck always knew where the party was, but never arrived early. Dramatic entrances were his forte.
“Don’t scare us like that!” Bev said as the trio entered the kitchen. She set her sundae on the counter and slapped Buck on the shoulder. Then she gave him, and each of the girls, a hug.
Buck: bear hug. Heather: diagonal embrace. Lori: unenthusiastic shoulder squeeze.
Everyone liked Buck. How could you not? A tall and doughy dude, his voice boomed with vigor and was simultaneously deep and comforting in a way that rivaled any gregarious grandpa. His smile was genuine. He loved a good joke, but never a cruel one. His humbleness bordered on a charming cluelessness. In short: a good guy. Which made his friendship with Heather and Lori all the more confusing. The reason? Quite simply, these girls were not beloved. At least not by Trevor and his friends. Particularly not by Sarah, who harbored a deep distrust of Heather that Trevor didn’t fully understand. So it came as no surprise that as the three new guests moved through the kitchen, it was Buck who garnered the attention.
“Buck,” Trevor said with a nod.
“Señor Buck,” Sarah added.
“Buckaroo,” Jared hooted.
“This an ice cream social or something?” Buck responded. “We didn’t just graduate eighth grade, you know.”
“Speak for yourself, because I’ll have some of that ice cream,” Heather said, snatching a spoon and a tub of mint chocolate chip from the counter. She didn’t bother with a bowl, just dug right in.
“You guys hitting any other parties tonight?” Jared asked. A common question. This crew rarely stayed too long in one place.
“I heard some DH kids are out on River Road, but that’ll be swarming with baseball pricks, and I’m not sure I’m up for that tonight.”
Lori groaned. “Definitely not what I’m up for.”
“Our chauffeur has spoken,” Heather said through a mouthful of mint chocolate chip.
Buck shrugged and asked, “Where’s the
keg?”
Sarah motioned with her chin toward the backyard.
Buck said, “Giddy-up,” and then headed that way.
“Throw Schultz some change if you could,” Sarah called out to him. “He’s paying for this all by himself.”
Heather gave a contemptuous snort, put the tub of ice cream under her arm, and followed Buck.
Lori said, “Sorry, they’re mooches,” shrugged—but what am I gonna do about it?—and followed Buck too.
As soon as the trio was outside, Jared said, “Quick, hide all the rope.” He pantomimed a noose and a hanging. Fist up, head tilted, eyes closed, tongue out.
The kitchen fell silent. Sarah’s eyes went wide, and Trevor, embarrassed, turned away. Bev finally said, “Jesus, Jared. That’s disgusting. Why would you say that?”
“Just saying what we’re all thinking,” Jared said, opening a cabinet in search of snacks.
“I wasn’t thinking it,” Trevor told him.
“Lori is on medication now,” Bev said. “She’s seeing a therapist.”
“More power to her,” Sarah said. “If there’s any time in our lives to be happy, now is it. Hope she can enjoy it.”
“Not everyone is thrilled to be done with high school,” Bev said.
“Those people deserve this town, then,” Jared said. “As soon as I make it to Virginia, I’m not looking back.”
“Sutton too small for you now?” Sarah asked.
“Too big. Gimme a cabin in the woods. Hermitting is the life for me.”
“Kermitting is the life for me,” Sarah shot back, in a pretty good Muppet impression.
Everyone laughed.
By nine thirty, the sun was down, and colored Christmas lights were blazing. Fireflies sparked near the foxtail at the edge of the lawn. Eddie Vedder wailed from a boom box. There were close to sixty kids at the party, and it showed no signs of slowing down.
Trevor found a quiet spot near a willow tree, a place artificial light didn’t reach. He unfolded a lawn chair and sat. He sipped a sudsy beer. It was his fourth, and there was a sizzle in his skin. A lightness. An optimism.
It was easy for him to forget the person he had been when he started high school. Skinnier, shorter, sure. Also naïve, but everyone was. It was more about beliefs. Back then he believed nothing was possible. It wasn’t pessimism exactly, because he also didn’t predict a future of doom for himself. He simply couldn’t picture any future. Graduation was so far off that it might as well have been deep in the cosmos. It was beyond his abilities to imagine such a journey. Which was enough to imbue high school with a background buzz of anxiety, emotional tinnitus that he could only drown out by making sensible choices and staying busy. Sports. The school newspaper. Extra-credit projects. More recently, hanging out with Sarah. Day in and day out, these things propelled him toward that impossible destination without giving him a chance to think about what it actually meant to reach it. ...
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