The Appetites of Girls by Pamela Moses Read Free Book Online Page A

translucent self almost slender, curving only where I longed for curves. I thought of Cole Freeman, our swim team captain, who reminded me of handsome Luke Skywalker from my cousin Gregory’s
Star Wars
cards, and wondered if Cole would ever notice me the way I had noticed him. “Ooh . . . how do I look?” Sarah teasedif she caught me, one hand grabbing her hip, the other cupped behind her head, sashaying down the block until I broke down in laughter.
    After a time, I thought I discerned another difference, as well. It seemed I was somehow lighter in the water now, that I felt a quicker energy in our practice drills. So I found the discipline to leave my meals unfinished. To fill myself instead, later, with yogurt and sliced bananas. During a Shabbat dinner at Aunt Bernice’s, as I whispered with my cousin Eva about the R-rated movie she had just watched while on a sleepover with a friend, Mama pressed her lips in annoyance at what remained on my plate. At home that night, she warned me not to believe all of Coach Hadley’s advice. “You know you can’t possibly give proper attention to your homework without solid food in your stomach. Your coach should tell you no one ever got anywhere by starving herself!”
    But I laughed and kissed her cheek to show her how wrong she was. “I’m not starving myself, Ma! See, I’ve never been stronger!” And I rolled up my shirtsleeve, revealing the newly defined muscle along my shoulder.
    •   •   •
    S everal weeks into the season, our team was scheduled for its third meet, but the first in which I would be participating. For days, I thought of little else. At night, I lay awake in bed, listening to street noises, my mind rushing like the cars that rattled past outside my window, imagining how my opponents might leave me behind in a wake of bubbles.
    We were driven to Brooklyn, to our rival school, in two yellow vans, and as we drew close, the trembling I had felt in my stomach since that morning worsened.
    “Jitters are very normal for a first race,” reassured Celia, a senior team member whose voice turned to music whenever she spoke to any of the boys on the team. Now she let the words drop flatly. “Nerves caneven work in your favor, Ruth.” But I was not sure I believed her, and as I was called to my event and curled at the edge of my starting block, I was certain I could see my knees shaking.
    But there must have been truth to what she said, or perhaps it was my new eating regime. Never before had I swum so quickly; my arms and legs churned like motors through the water. And at the end of the race, I was presented a third-place medal hanging from a long red, white, and blue ribbon. During the bus ride back to Riverdale, I cradled the medal in my palm, tracing with my thumb the tiny figure of a swimmer etched into the surface. I closed my eyes as our van hummed along Flatbush Avenue and over the Brooklyn Bridge. This was the feeling of winning!
    Once at our building, I sprinted up the four flights of stairs, too impatient to wait for the crotchety-slow elevator. By the time I reached our apartment, I was panting so that I could hardly speak.
    “Look, Ma! Look!” I dashed into her bedroom, where she was returning to its hanger the silk blouse she had worn to work that day, carefully re-buttoning its pearl buttons. Gasping, I dangled the medal before her.
    “What is it, Ruth?”
    “Third place. Third out of six, Ma. I had to beat three other swimmers to earn it!”
    “Oh?” Mama turned back to her blouse for a moment, fastening the final button. The skin beneath her eyes looked tired; this was holiday season, her busiest time at Broadway Paperie, and the one I knew she most disliked. “Congratulations,” she said, but in a way that made me wish I had explained it differently. A medal was a medal. I had won a point for my team. Maybe if she had been there she would have understood—all of the swimmers were fast, none of them easy to outdo.
    Then,