Eleven
EXCITING NEWS.
I found a definitive cure for swimsuit phobia: sheer terror of something else.
On the morning that SWET training was finally happening, I found that I did not have my usual hitch of fear at the idea of putting on a swimsuit. I was too busy fearing death .
So much so that when Beanie FaceTimed and demanded something for my beauty list, I tried to give her fingernails .
“Unacceptable,” Beanie declared. “Do something real.”
I was too tired to fight her. I let out a long sigh while I thought about it.
And then my second try accidentally delighted her.
“Okay, then,” I said. “How about my sectoral heterochromia?”
“Your—what?”
“It’s that little pie piece of brown in my eye.”
“Do you have a pie piece of brown in your eye?”
“How has no one ever noticed this?”
No one except Hutch.
I held the phone up close to my eye. “See that brown patch? It’s very rare.” Then, proudly: “It’s a genetic anomaly . You can’t just buy gray-blue eyes with a pie piece of brown like this off the rack.”
Beanie squinted. “I thought your eyes were hazel.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because you always say they’re hazel. And that’s what the song says.”
“Well, the song is wrong. And so was I.”
“Doesn’t it say hazel on your driver’s license?”
“Fine,” I said. “We’ve all been wrong forever about the color of my eyes. Even me. But now we stand corrected.”
“Who corrected us?”
“What?”
“Who inspired us to suddenly notice your eye color in a new way?”
Why did this feel like a trap? I straightened a little bit. “Hutch looked it up.”
“I knew it!”
“Knew what?” I asked, with that feeling of suppressed hope you get when somebody else might think the thing you also keep wanting to think .
“The Love Hater likes you!” Beanie shouted.
I gasped. “He doesn’t!” I said, my voice all scoldy. But I had to turn the phone camera away while I squinted an unbidden smile off my face.
“He noticed your pie piece, and he redefined the color of your eyes ,” Beanie said. “I don’t think it’s up for debate.”
“I don’t have time to debate, anyway,” I said. “I’m late to go drown in a helicopter-crash simulation.”
“That’s today?” Beanie said.
“That’s today.”
“You should definitely almost drown,” Beanie said. “But not all the way. Just enough so he has to give you CPR.”
“Hanging up now,” I said.
“Make him put his mouth on you!” Beanie ordered, as I tapped the red X .
To be truthful, I didn’t logically think that I would drown during SWET training. I grasped the almost mathematical impossibility of drowning in a pool while surrounded by highly trained, peak-condition, professional rescue swimmers.
It wouldn’t really happen.
It just felt like it would.
In fact, my feelings didn’t seem to understand math at all—because if you’d asked them, they’d have told you I was certain to drown. One thousand percent.
One thing about this morning was for sure: I had frittered away a full week goofing around with Hutch—and still hadn’t gotten that yes for my “Day in the Life.”
Tonight. After SWET training. I’d ask him again tonight—and tell the truth about why.
If I survived.
I’D BEEN HOLDING on to hope that they might let me wear clothes for SWET training, but then Hutch told me to bring a swimsuit.
I’d accumulated five suits since taking up residence at Rue’s place—100 percent of them because Rue kept buying them for me. She’d show up at my door with a gift bag from Vitamin Sea, and my shoulders would drop. “Put it on,” she’d command, and I never knew how to say no.
“Rue,” I’d asked recently, “why do you keep buying these for me?”
Rue just squeezed my hand and said, “Because I’m fond of you.”
I could feel that she meant it, and I let the warm comfort of that settle over me for a second before pressing on: “But do you buy tropics-wear for everyone you’re fond of?”
Rue was staying all business—waving me off with her hands to go try on the suit while she took her usual seat in the rattan chair with palm-leaf upholstery. “Only the ones who remind me a little of myself.”
At that, I paused. “Do I?”
Rue nodded. “Myself forty years ago.”
“Were you”—I dropped my voice to a stage whisper—“a chromophobe?”
Rue nodded, like Can you believe it? “Picture all this,” she said, gesturing grandly at herself, “in beige.”
Beige? I wasn’t sure that I could, honestly. There she sat in a red-and-orange caftan with teal accents that matched her oversized Iris Apfel glasses, looking like she was born that way. A fearless seventy-year-old from the jump.
And I said as much.
“No one’s born fearless,” Rue said. “You have to earn it.” Then she added, gesturing at the swimsuit dangling from my hand, “Every time you have to be brave, you get to be a little braver next time. That’s what life is for.”
“I don’t think I want to be brave,” I said.
“I know.” Her face was all sympathy. “That’s why you keep hiding.”
What can I say? She had me.
“But I’ll tell you a secret,” she said. “It doesn’t matter what anybody thinks if you’re having fun. And all the fun is in color.”
I tried that idea on for size.
“My wish for you,” Rue went on, “is a vibrant, bright, glorious life. That’s why I keep bringing you these vibrant, bright, glorious swimsuits.”
“So am I your pet project or something?” I asked.
“Is that so terrible?”
“No,” I said. “It’s nice, actually.”
“Good,” Rue said. “Now go get changed.”
Next thing I knew, we were contemplating my reflection in the mirror as I adjusted to the exposure, and the temperature shift, and the feel of the bare floorboards under my feet.
Every time you have to be brave, you get to be a little braver next time.
The suits, without question, were fabulous. Any past chromophobia of Rue’s was fully conquered. She brought me one-pieces with vibrant stripes and plunging necklines, and two-pieces bursting with tropical flowers, and one hot-pink bikini with petal-shaped ruffles.
I got it. I could appreciate them.
But not one of those suits was in any way appropriate for SWET training.
Hence, the morning-of panic.
I finally just gave up and left the cottage wearing my usual black jeans.
When I showed up at the car, Hutch called through the window, “You’ve got a suit with you, right?”
“A bathing suit?” I asked, like I’d missed his message.
Hutch frowned. “Yes. A bathing suit.”
Of course I did. “But isn’t it to simulate a crash?”
“Yes,” Hutch replied cautiously.
“Well,” I said, looking down at my clothes. “This is what I’d be wearing in a crash.”
“We’re not simulating it that much.”
I felt like I was making a pretty good argument. I looked down at my outfit again.
Hutch didn’t wait for another protest. “You need a suit. Go change.”
I shot him a look like a cranky teenager but then turned back toward my cottage.
“And not one of those flowery ones!” Hutch called after me. “This isn’t the yacht club! Be professional!”
“Flowery ones are all I have!” I called back.
But that wasn’t entirely true. Rue had recently gifted me an all-black one-piece that she’d special-ordered.
“Fabulous,” she’d declared, after I put it on. Then she nodded approvingly. “It’s endlessly flattering. Even if it looks like a bathing suit for a funeral.”
“Do they make bathing suits for funerals?”
I’d squinted into the mirror as we both took in the visuals, but I found myself quietly agreeing with her. Whatever mathematics or geometry or optical illusions were going on… I approved.
It was a massive life milestone. To see myself in a bathing suit in a mirror and not all-out wince was unprecedented. But there was no getting around it. This suit was flattering.
Flattering, but racy.
It was a gathered halter top that connected to the body of the suit like two curtains falling from my shoulders. And let’s just say that everything I had going on in the chest area was nestled into those curtains, and something about the way the fabric arranged itself was somehow both perfectly modest and wildly lascivious at the same time. You know those ads in Vogue , where the models’ clothes are totally legit and classy—and yet somehow mind-bendingly salacious all at once?
Like that.
This plain black one-piece swimsuit given to me by Hutch’s elderly aunt was somehow, deep down, like some kind of oil slick of naughtiness. It was worse than the flowery ones. At least the flowers on those could serve as camouflage.
When I arrived back at Hutch’s car, I was wearing my black jeans and T-shirt over the black one-piece. “I think I should go change into one of the floral ones,” I told Hutch, climbing in.
“No flowers,” he said, like We talked about this.
“I’m not sure this one is appropriate.”
“Bikini or one-piece?” Hutch demanded.
“One-piece.”
“What color?”
“Black.”
“That’s it. That’s the one.”
“But—”
“We’re already late. Let’s go.”
That’s how I wound up reporting for military training in a swimsuit so provocative it might get you kicked off of a nude beach.
To be fair, it was Hutch’s fault for being overly bossy without all the visual information.
But don’t worry. He was about to get it.
Because we’d been doing swim lessons so faithfully, I had definitely come a long way, skills-wise. I could hold my breath underwater, and blow bubbles, and make my hands into little fins, and scissor my legs for propulsion. I could push off and swim freestyle from one side to the other. I could dive down and retrieve a toy off the pool floor.
But that didn’t mean I was good .
I was fine for a total beginner, but I was still a total beginner.
And now I had to survive a helicopter crash.
My head felt woozy. I kept forgetting to breathe.
I once read that the mind can only truly focus on one thing at a time. And there’s no doubt that given the choice between (1) being looked at and judged unfavorably and (2) drowning upside down in a community pool, my mind had the good sense to know that dying was slightly worse.
Which felt like progress.
But as I took off my jeans and then my T-shirt for the test, Hutch rushed over and said, “Hey—hey! What are you wearing?”
I was flustered by both the question itself and the fact that Hutch was putting his arms around me as he asked it, like he was trying to hide me. I mean, how terrible do you have to look for a man to sprint across a pool area to cover you up? That was my first thought.
“I’m wearing what you told me to wear ,” I said, feeling a sting of humiliation.
But now he was wrapping me in a beach towel. “ That’s your black one-piece?”
I nodded, looking down at it. “Rue bought it for me.”
“Of course she did.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s totally…”
And I don’t know what I was expecting him to say or what I assumed his objection was, but I guarantee it never occurred to me that his complaint—or anyone’s—might be that I looked too good .
Looking too good was not generally a problem for me.
But that’s when Hutch finished with, “Sexy.”
“What?” I asked.
“That swimsuit,” Hutch said, like Stay focused . “It’s way too sexy.”
Never in my life had I been scolded for being too sexy.
I looked up—in awe—to check his face. Was this really his complaint?
Sure enough—there were those frown-wrinkles above his nose. And those dark, worried eyes. And a dead-serious expression.
If he was teasing me, he was the worst teaser in the world.
“You told me to wear this!” I said. “You made me go change!”
“You said it was a one-piece.”
“It is a one-piece.”
“A one-piece that got caught in a lawn mower, maybe.”
“Look—”
“Put on a different one.”
“I don’t have a different one.”
“This is all you brought?”
“I wanted to wear jeans , remember?”
But Hutch was in action mode now. He apparently decided to solve all our problems at once by yanking my towel away with a magician-like flourish, and then sweeping me up into his arms, charging toward the pool, and tossing me into the water.
Okay. Did not see that coming.
Hutch jumped in after me, and then he and Carlos each grabbed one end of the simulator’s aluminum frame to lower it, seat and all, into the water. Then Hutch called me over.
I looked at the frame and hesitated long enough that Hutch sloshed over to me, took my hand, and pulled me toward the contraption. And I let him. If I wanted to keep my job, I had to make this video. And if I wanted to make this video, I had to go up in a helicopter. And if I wanted to go up in a helicopter, I had to pass this SWET test.
So there really were no decisions left to make.
Which was helpful, in a way.
Hutch’s sudden irritability was also strangely helpful. It gave me something else to think about.
Hutch let go of my hand and I touched the aluminum of the frame, almost like I was checking to make sure it was real. Then Hutch motioned for me to swim under and come up in the middle. I did, and then climbed into the seat, which was half-submerged in the water. Then I buckled myself in. Hutch was holding the front of the frame, so I was face-to-face with him, and Carlos was holding the back.
“Here’s how it works,” Hutch said. “You have to do this successfully three times to pass.”
I nodded.
“You can push against the frame to get yourself out,” Hutch went on, “so it’s less about actually swimming than it is about getting your bearings once you’re upside down. You’ve been upside down before?”
I gave him a slightly insulted look.
Hutch gave a shrug as he said, “Use that look you’re giving me as a starting place. Tell yourself you’ve been upside down before. Next step: unbuckle—but this isn’t a car seat belt. This is a five-point harness.”
I nodded. Five points seemed like a lot of points.
Somehow, in the seconds that elapsed next, my heart had started thudding in my chest.
“It’s simple,” Hutch said, reading my face. “You just turn the release, and all five of them fall away. Easy.”
We practiced a couple of times. It was—technically—easy.
But my throat felt cold. Was that even a thing? The cold throat of fear? Was I inventing new ways to be terrified?
“Okay,” Hutch said then, when he’d taught me everything there was to teach me. “You ready?”
I was not.
“Here we go,” Hutch said. “Take a breath.”
Together, Hutch and Carlos manually turned the frame over. And then I was upside down underwater and just as disoriented as Hutch had promised. And then, obediently, like a Hutch Hutcheson tribute band, I heard my mind say, “I’ve been upside down before.”
And he was right. The thought was comforting. It was a good starting place.
From there, I did the next step and released the harness.
And, damn him. It was easy.
Unbuckled, I could feel my body drift from the seat, which took me to the next step: time to move. I grabbed the metal frame at the side and propelled myself out, but I guess maybe I pushed a little too hard, because the side of my butt scraped the frame as I went by, not badly, not enough to hurt, but enough that something—a bolt, maybe—caught on the elastic of the leg hole of this cursed bathing suit, and for a second, I was caught.
Just a short second, honestly, but long enough for me to panic and thrash around in the water like a fish on a line until I freed myself.
Then I surfaced, breathing hard, but triumphant.
I met that worried face of Hutch’s again, and he just said, “What took you so long?”
“My bathing suit got caught on a bolt or something,” I said, still breathless and still proud. “But I tore myself free.”
“Caught on a bolt?” Hutch asked, like that had never happened before.
“Yep,” I said. “Just for a minute. But I’m good now.”
But was I?
I felt a little whispery tickle at my backside. I reached back to investigate, and that’s when I felt some loose fabric, floating free.
My smile dropped. “Hutch,” I said.
“What?” he asked, looking down.
“Don’t look!” I said, pressing my hand against my butt—and, to my surprise, feeling not just loose fabric, but also a fair bit of… skin . I knew it was true, even as I said it: “I think I ripped my bathing suit.”
Hutch’s frown deepened. “Where?”
“The back.”
“The back? Like your shoulders?”
I shook my head. “Lower.”
“Your waist?”
Another shake.
Hutch’s eyes got wider. “The backside ?”
I widened my own eyes to confirm.
Then, “How much of it ripped?”
I felt around, and then winced at my assessment. “Most of it, by the feel of things?”
Hutch lowered his voice. “Are you saying your ass is hanging out of that nonexistent swimsuit right now?”
I met his eyes and nodded.
Hutch threw his head back to the heavens for a second, like this was too much. Then he looked me in the eyes and said, “Let’s shut this down for today.”
But I grabbed his arm. “No! I’m just getting the hang of it.”
“You can’t just swim around in this pool with your butt hanging out.”
I clutched his shoulder. “If we leave right now, I will never come back. I can’t. I won’t. And then I’ll have to forfeit this job and my whole career and everything I’ve ever wanted.”
“Wow,” Hutch said.
“I’m not kidding,” I said.
Hutch searched my expression then, and at last, he nodded. “Okay,” he said. “I have an idea.”
“Thank you,” I said, and I watched as Hutch reached down, grabbed the hem of his own black rash guard, and peeled it up over his head.
Then he handed the wet fabric to me in a wad and said, “Here.”
“ Here what?”
“Here, put it on.”
But I shook my head. That wouldn’t solve my problem. “It’s just going to float up.”
“Not like a shirt. Put it on like a diaper.”
I frowned. “Like a diaper ?”
“Put your legs through the armholes and then we’ll tie a knot around your waist.”
“Okay, there are a lot of other words you could’ve used besides diaper .”
“Come on,” he said. “People are waiting.”
I looked around. People were waiting.
“Okay.” I nodded, but then I just stared at the pile of wadded-up nylon until Hutch took it from me.
He found an armhole and stretched it wide, and then he lowered it under the surface near one of my feet and said, “Step through.”
What else could I do? I stepped through.
Then I did the same on the other side.
Then I stood there, still as a department store mannequin, as Hutch worked his upside-down rash guard up my legs, pulled the hem of it tight around my waist, and twisted it into a knot. Then he pushed and pulled at the fabric (and by extension me) for a minute before declaring, “That’ll hold.”
“This is lunacy,” I said.
“Is your naked butt still hanging out of your swimsuit?” Hutch asked.
“No,” I answered.
“Then let’s get this SWET test finished.”