Into the Deep (2 page)

C
hristy called me shortly after I got home. She said Eliza’s boyfriend had gotten a case of beer from his older brother before telling me what she was going to wear. I planned out my outfit as she chatted away on the other line picking out a green bikini, jean skirt and white blouse. She was talking about what colors looked best with her skin tone and I stayed tuned in just enough to be polite.
     I wasn’t engrossed in fashion and the latest styles like Christy. I didn’t throw myself into a rigorous work out regiment to stay competitive in sports like Ti or Eliza. Sometimes I felt like I didn’t really do anything, like I was just coasting along. I’d like to think I was just trying to find who I was, but looking back I think maybe I was just stuck in the in-between. I wasn’t trying to find anything. I was waiting for something to feel right.
     We ended the call agreeing to meet at Eliza’s house at eight and then I finished up the little bit of Math homework I had before eating dinner with my mom and sister.
     I sat down at the dining room table. Mom came in from the kitchen carrying a dish of scalloped potatoes and set them out.
     “Sadie,” she yelled calling for my little sister, “time to eat.”
     She took her usual seat across from me. There was a place set for Dad as well, but he wouldn’t be making it home in time to eat that night. Mom had mentioned earlier that he’d be working late for some big business deal he had going on, but I had paid little attention. I was used to him missing meals. He was the CFO of a local insurance company and seemed to always have an overabundance of late night work.
     Sadie entered the dining room then. She was eight and had dad’s big blue eyes. Mine were green like Mom’s, but Sadie had Mom’s blonde hair. She was quite cute, with her hair in pig tails and butterfly barrettes, but she was at the age where she asked a million questions and often demanded attention. Lately I felt that she’d been pestering me more than usual, disrupting me when I was on the phone, or insisting to watch her cartoons when I had a show on. In middle school, I used to babysit her every other weekend, when Mom and Dad would go out. We’d sit around and play games, like Go Fish or checkers. Sometimes, I think she just missed spending time with me, but I didn’t have the time to give her, and Mom and Dad didn’t go out much anymore.
     “So, how was school today?” Mom asked me.
     “Fine,” I replied.
     “You have a lot of homework?”
     “Nope, got it all done already. Christy, Tiana and I are going over to Eliza’s at eight.”
     “Oh,” Mom said disappointed. “I was hoping we could have a movie night. I’ve got that new romantic comedy, the one with Ashton something.”
     Mom and I used to have a movie night almost once a week. Usually just the two of us, but sometimes Sadie and Dad would join us as well. Before my junior year of high school, we used to do a lot more together. Spending time with her had become just another thing that had faded from my life, like playing games with my little sister.
     “Kutcher.”
     “Right, right… I was thinking maybe we’d stay in and watch it.”
     Mom looked hopeful to spend some time with me, and later there would be times when I wished that I had taken her up on her offer, times when I would wish that I had never gone to the pool that night. But I did.
     “Maybe we can do it this weekend,” I said, “Christy and I are gonna go over our notes for Spanish. We’ve got a test tomorrow.”
     “If you’ve got school work, I understand,” she said with a smile, but I could tell she was disappointed by the tone of her voice. It was too even, she was too calm. “I’m glad you girls are studying together, you learn better that way.”
     I nodded in agreement and bit back the twinge of guilt from lying.

I
got to Eliza’s at 8:05. The sun had set hours ago and a hazy sky hung above me. The stars were faint with the city lights stealing from their luster, but a near-full moon left the soft clouds above glowing. As I pulled up, I saw Eliza and Tiana leaning against Eliza’s mom’s silver sedan in the open garage. Damon was carrying a 24 case of Bud Light from the fridge in the garage to the trunk of his mustang. I parked, leaving room for Damon to back out, and got out of my car.
     “Hey,” Damon said with a smile as I approached.
     “Hey guys,” I replied.
     Damon shut the trunk then moved to stand beside Eliza but kept his eyes on me.
     “We were just talking about the winter formal,” Tiana said.
     The formal was still months away but I wasn’t surprised to see them planning already.
     “Damon and I are getting a hotel room,” Eliza added. “If we all chipped in we could get a suite, they’re like condos practically. We’ll dance all night and then drink till the sun comes up... or until we pass out, whichever comes first.”
     “Well there might be more dancing later in the night,” Damon added turning to look at Eliza. She blushed.
     “You and Ti should think about it, Christy said she’s already in. Oh, but the bedroom is already taken, just FYI. You singletons can have the living room.”
     I cast Tiana a glance and from her not-so-discrete eye roll, I could tell she was as uncertain about this plan as I was. But, before I could say anything, Christy’s black Audi pulled up.
     “We’ll talk later though,” Eliza said as she raced over to Christy.
     Damon followed and I turned to Tiana.
     “That girl is trouble,” Ti said and I nodded in agreement.
     We watched as Christy parked and got out to talk to Eliza. It was then that a passenger exited the car. I looked on as the pale moonlight made his blonde hair gleam in the darkness. Chase Bryant shut the car door. I felt Tiana watching me as my eyes went wide and my heart started to beat so hard that I feared its sound would echo down the block for everyone to hear.
     He shook his head knocking his dark blonde hair out of his eyes. I was so lost staring at him that I couldn’t move. I heard Christy talking to Eliza, saying that Chase overheard her talking about our late night swim with Tiana in P.E. and invited him along. Then suddenly they were all standing before Ti and me and I shook my head to knock myself back into reality.
     “Hey,” Chase said as they approached us.
     Ti waved to them but I found myself unable to speak. I could only stare at his green eyes and the perfect curvature of his lips.
     “Ivy, you ready?” Eliza asked me.
     “What? Yeah, yeah, I’m all set.”
     “Great,” Christy said with a smile then turned to Eliza, “We’re gonna ride with you guys, okay?”
     “No problem.”
     I turned to Tiana as the four of them got in Damon’s Mustang. She gave me a sympathetic look.
     “Come on, you can ride with me,” she said and I followed her to her car.

“
I
told her not to invite him,” she said when we got a little ways down the road. “We all know you have a thing for him.”
     I looked at her surprised. “It’s that obvious?”
     “Uh yeah,” she said and I felt my face flush red. I must have looked horrified. “Well maybe not
that
obvious, but we’re your friends. We notice these things. You’ve been crazy about him since the three of us were lab partners in Freshman Bio.”
     I just nodded.
     “Look, don’t worry about it, you know how Christy is, she likes to flirt with every tall, dark, and hunky guy that walks by but she never gets serious with any of them.”
     “Yeah, you’re right,” I took a deep breath. “You know, sometimes I wish she would get serious with one of them. Then maybe I’d quit getting dragged on so many double dates.”
     Tiana laughed. “Steve and Alex?” she asked and laughed again.
     “Yeah, they’re coming back down next weekend or something. God, I just don’t care that much, I’m not quite as desperate as Christy.”
     “Yeah, I know the feeling.”
     “How come she didn’t ask you to meet them anyway? Didn’t you guys carpool to Nicolette’s party?”
     Tiana’s cheeks blushed. “I, um…I was preoccupied at the time.”
     My eyes narrowed in on her. “What does
that
mean?”
     She was speechless for a moment. “I… well, okay remember this morning when Farrow busted those guys for smoking?”
     “Yeah.”
     “Brant Everett, remember I pointed him out, dark hair, cheekbones to die for, gorgeous blue eyes, cute yeah?”
     I nodded. “Wait, what does Brant have to do with… Oh my God, you hooked up with Brant Everett at Nicolette’s party,” I nearly shouted and her dark skin turned rosy again.
     “Don’t tell anyone,” she said in a whispered tone as if we were sitting in a church pew, and I could tell there was some embarrassment buried in her voice. “We didn’t… we just fooled around, but… Brant’s a total asshole. Trust me on that.”
     “I’m sorry, Ti.”
     She smiled. “Thanks, hun. Don’t worry though, a few beers and a midnight swim and I’ll be just fine.”

T
he golf course at Lakefall wasn’t gated itself, just the front entrance surrounding the country club. This made it easy for us to sneak in by driving down a side road. We had to be careful nearing the pool house though. The buildings were not only locked at night but there was a security guard that patrolled the grounds as well. In middle school, a group of about ten of us snuck on to the golf course to play ghost in the graveyard only to end up getting sprayed by the nighttime sprinklers and having to run from the guard. Since then, our strategies to sneak into places had improved.
     Tiana switched her headlights off, driving in darkness as she parked a little ways away from the pool house. Both cars were left hidden in shadow and away from the main road where we hoped the guard would not be checking during his nightly patrol. Then Damon grabbed the case of beer out of his trunk and wordlessly we walked to the pool house.
     We were all on edge, nervously glancing over our shoulders and huddling close together. I heard every whisper of a sound, from the rustling of leaves and shuffling of feet to the quiet chirping of crickets. We were keeping watch while Eliza unlocked the door. I stared off into the dark moonlit green of the golf course. The clean smell of grass and pine invaded my senses as I tried to see if anyone was coming, but the only movement I caught was of shadows dancing in the darkness. Then I heard the click of the door as she twisted the handle and we all hurried inside.
     I sighed in relief once the door shut behind us then followed my friends past the front desk and through the women’s locker room. We passed the showers and I felt my stomach twist as I saw Chase put his arm around Christy. I tried to think of what Ti had said in the car, tried not to let them bother me. After all, it’s not like I’d even said more than a couple sentences to Chase in my entire high school career. There was no reason seeing them together should upset me. But it did.
     We all passed through the glass door that led to the open pool area and I smiled seeing the water before me. The pool was outside but there was a tall brick wall that surrounded it on all sides so we were safe from the sight of any passing security guards. The water was still and reflective as glass. It looked black in the night and shined back the white light of the full moon above. For a moment the wind held its breath and the mirrored water before us looked like it was set in a photograph, a serene and tranquil unmoving image.
     “What are you guys waiting for?” Eliza asked. She was running toward the water. Already stripped down to her swimsuit, she did a cannonball into the pool. The water splashed up around her and sent ripples circling out from where she broke the surface.
     Then Damon was throwing Chase a beer and Tiana and I were following after Eliza, jumping into the water. Christy hung out with the guys for a little while, sipping on a Bud Light before joining us in the pool. Shortly after that, the boys jumped in as well and we spent the next half hour swimming away from them as they tried to catch and dunk us. Chase mostly swam after Christy but Damon picked me up once and threw me into the deep end. I ended up with water up my nose, but I popped up out of the water laughing.
     I pulled myself up out of the pool and sat at the edge with my feet dangling in the water for a short while after that. A moment later Tiana joined me and we watched Eliza and Damon take on Christy and Chase in a game of chicken.
     “Well, I’m ready for a beer,” Ti said and got up to walk to the other side where the rest of the Bud Light was sitting.
     “Yeah, me too.”
     I followed Tiana and she handed me a beer. The can was wet with condensation and slipped a little in my hand. As I popped the top of the cold aluminum can, Eliza splashed into the water as Christy and Chase won the game of chicken. I took a sip and watched as Damon pulled himself out of the pool. He walked over and grabbed a beer. I was facing him and Tiana at this point and had my back to the pool. The shallow end, only three feet deep, was behind me.
     “Hey, Ivy!” Christy called from the water.
     I stepped back turning to face her. I didn’t realize how close I was to the edge of the pool. I didn’t realize that as I moved I would set my foot down and my heel would be over the edge. Christy was in the deep end swimming toward the ladder and I heard her say something else, but by then I was falling. My balance was lost and I slipped, tumbling backwards. That was it, that one small moment. Just Christy calling my name, just a wrong step, a small slip, and my life was forever altered. I couldn’t help the way I hit the water, couldn’t have adjusted the angle of my body. I barely had time to take a breath before I was submerged. I couldn’t have done anything about how my head hit that last step at the bottom of the pool, the way I crashed into its sharp edge. The water didn’t break my fall as one would hope, but it did seem to break something. Or maybe it broke something loose.