Swim to Me by Betsy Carter Read Free Book Online

of Manhattan. Often she would bring home souvenirs. Once it was the suede jacket with fringes that she found at the fashion magazine in the building. “It was in the corner by the trash,” she explained to Delores. “I’m sure they meant to throw it away.” Another time she brought home a clock that had an airplane as a second hand and showed the time in places all over the world, like Halifax and the Azores. It had fallen off someone’s desk at the insurance company, she said, though remarkably it hadn’t broken. She kept the clock on top of the television and seemed to take some pride in always knowing what time it was in Zaïre. Over the next few months, she brought home a leather briefcase, a pair of Biba suede boots, a man’s Timex with a slightly bent catch, a Betsey Johnson dress, and two pairs of bell-bottom jeans. “God, those people at the magazine are such slobs,” her mother would complain, pulling the scavenged items from a Macy’s shopping bag. She’d try on all of the clothing first, and anything that didn’t fit (which were most things), she’d hand off to Delores.
    Every morning before school, Delores would bring Westie to the woman who lived three floors beneath them. She was pale and thin and slightly stooped. She had no kids and no husband. Delores only knew her as Helene. Helene wore her hair in braids pinned to the top of her head. She was of an indeterminate age and never woremakeup or perfume. The most distinguishing thing about her sparse and spotless apartment was the giant globe that sat in the middle of the living room. On one of those mornings, Delores spun the globe and arbitrarily stuck her finger on a spot somewhere outside of Guatemala. As she squinted to see where she was, she turned to Westie, and said, “Don’t worry, no matter where I go, I’ll always take care of you.” Helene studied the globe while Westie wriggled in her translucent arms. “You’ve got moxie, dear,” she said to Delores in a thin voice. “And moxie will get you a long ways.” Delores didn’t know what
moxie
meant, but liked the sound of it. It sounded foreign, and vaguely aquatic.
    Just before school was to let out for the summer, and with no sign of her father, her mother said to Delores: “We can’t go on like this, hon. I can’t support the three of us on what I’m making. You need to get a job. Maybe you could wait tables or bag groceries, something to cover some of the bills we pay around here.”
    Delores considered her skills and came up blank. She lay on her bed and looked at her feet. Size 10. Would she always feel like this, she wondered, trapped in this small house, with her sad mother, her baby brother, and these big feet? Then she remembered what Helene had said to her. She had moxie. She wondered what a girl with moxie could do. She thought about the thing she loved the most. Her body flushed with pleasure as she imagined diving into the deep end of the pool. Just thinking about the smell of chlorine made the back of her throat tingle. Maybe she could get a job at Miramar pool. No, no, of course she couldn’t do that. She didn’t even have her Senior Lifesaving Certificate.
    Under her bed in an old Miles shoebox, Delores stored her “treasures.” Aside from Otto, there was the picture of her father and her at Weeki Wachee and a birthday card with the face of a black bear that glowed in the dark with the words: “Goodness gracious sakesalive, can it be that you are five?” It was signed: “Your mother and father.” Delores had kept it these past eleven years because it was the only birthday card they had ever given her.
    And then there were the sacred pamphlets from Weeki Wachee Springs. Printed on thick glossy paper with colored pictures of the mermaids in various costumes, the pamphlets promised “crystal-clear blue waters,” and “the most