Chapter 7
Arnold Weinbrandt drove with one elbow propped on the open window, the other draped over the wheel.
He took it slow, carefully describing the mile and a half distance from the school to the club.
The way could not have been more straightforward.
Walk down South Mooring, left on Deer Island Lane, take the Arboretum bridge over the lake, then right onto Landfall Drive.
A strong wind blew from the east, rippling surface waves on the Cape Fear River.
Every now and then Colin thought he could smell the ocean’s faint fragrance.
A quarter mile before the club’s entrance, the golf course came into view.
Arnold drove a small Lexus SUV, the NX. Colin liked the luxury, and the way they sat fairly close together, and how Arnold’s golf clubs rattled softly in the rear hold.
As if they too were excited over the journey.
Arnold noticed Colin studying the rolling emerald fairway and smiled.
“Say the word and I might know someone willing to introduce you to a lifelong addiction.”
“I want to learn how to swim.”
“Then swim it is.” He hesitated, then asked, “You understand why I didn’t want you going to the public pool?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want you to feel like I’m being overprotective.”
Colin said what he thought Arnold wanted to hear. “Before he entered politics my father was sheriff of Edgecombe County. You knew that.”
“Of course.”
“Rocky Mount and Wilmington are a lot alike. Money is coming in, many new companies, high-tech jobs, housing developments, shopping centers.” Colin kept his gaze on the road ahead, even when Arnold slowed so as to study him.
“And then there’s the bad side. The people left behind.
Rocky Mount and Greenville and Wilmington all lead the nation in per-capita opioid addiction. ”
Arnold said quietly, “I’m from Greenville.”
“I know.”
“It’s a great place.”
“So is Rocky Mount. And Wilmington. I like it here a lot.” Colin faced his adviser. “I know I need to be careful.”
The club was Carolina in style, whitewashed stone with a pillared front portico and tall windows.
Arnold opened the car’s rear door, shouldered his clubs, picked up his golf shoes, and waited until Colin had taken out the plastic shopping bag holding his new swim trunks, sandals, goggles, and towel. “Why do I need flip-flops?”
Arnold led him around the main house, over to where a sidewalk met a high metal fence. “Wear them when you’re in the changing rooms and the showers. This is a public place.”
Colin had no idea what he was talking about, but just then the pool came into view. The club sat on a promontory overlooking the lake, and the pool was down one step. Beyond that were tennis courts, and farther out spread the golf course.
The pool sparkled impossibly blue and green and clear. The laughter of children drifted in the hot, still air. He thought it looked like a liquid jewel.
Arnold pointed to a smaller building beyond the tennis courts. “That’s the pro shop. When you’re done, go and sit there. If you need me, speak to anybody and they’ll come find me. We’ll drive back together. Unless you’d rather walk back—”
“No. I’ll wait.”
“Fine. Good.” Arnold studied Colin a long moment, then said, “Something’s bothering you.”
Colin saw the concern in those dark eyes. He thought back on the first time they had met, the cold hostility, the way Arnold wanted to dismiss him as a waste of time. “Thank you. For everything.”
“You’re worried about tonight’s dinner with your father and his new family.”
He nodded. The day dimmed slightly. But not because of the visit.
Not really. Because he had lied to his friend.
It was wrong. He knew it was. But he didn’t know any other way to move forward.
What he was planning, he knew Arnold and all the other adults would think him crazy.
They would insert themselves into the process.
But Colin had spent the last four months analyzing.
Observing. Knowing what his father intended.
His only hope, small as it was, came from …
“Colin, do you want me to go with you?”
“No.”
“Or Celeste. She could—”
“No.” He said it overloud, the word forced out with his fear and tension. He said it softer. “No. I’ll be okay.”
The pool enclosure was full of conflicting impressions.
The negative was so intense it almost drove him away.
If he had not felt such a strong draw to enter the crystal waters, he would never have made it past the dressing rooms. The other children shouted and laughed, the words so strange it sounded to him like a foreign language.
He was amazed at how easy they felt, how they formed a tight unit that constantly exploded in noise and movement.
He undressed very slowly, marking how the others fit everything into small lockers and took the key and pinned it to their trunks.
He waited until most of the others left, then finished undressing and slipped on the swimming trunks.
The cloth was stiff and strange feeling.
The sandals were very odd as well, with a single thong inserted between his big and second toes. None of it was unpleasant. Just new.
He took his towel and goggles and entered the light.
A trio of clocks stood on tall metal poles.
The swim class was not scheduled to begin for another fifteen minutes.
All the other children raced to the pool’s edge and jumped into the shallow end.
Colin seated himself on the edge of a chaise lounge and studied the situation.
He knew a large part of his discomfort came from how he hated the way his body looked.
His skin was pasty white. The excess flab created ugly little dimples and folds, which he could see just by dropping his chin.
The skin on his legs looked like Camila’s bread dough before she slid the rack into the baking oven.
But it was more than that.
Colin was used to being the outsider. The superfreak.
But this was different. He was entering the outside world.
On his own. For the very first time. Without the protection of people he could trust. And what he felt was the same distance that had always separated him.
In his family. At the school. In Sojourn House.
Which meant … what? That he was carrying this distance with him?
That he was going to stay alone and isolated all his life?
“Hi there. Are you Colin?”
He turned and looked up, but it wasn’t possible to see more than her silhouette because she stood with the sun directly behind her. He nodded.
She lowered herself onto the chaise lounge beside him. “Hi, Colin. I’m Mira Brooks.”
She was beautiful.
Colin had seen attractive girls before. Any number of the Outer Banks Academy students were attractive. And rich. But this girl was …
“I understand this is your first time at a pool, which is wild. How old are you?”
“Twelve.”
“Amazing.” She was sixteen or seventeen and tanned a uniform bronze, almost toffee colored.
She wore a red one-piece bathing suit with a white cross by her left shoulder.
Encircling the cross was the lettering, “Landfall Country Club Certified Lifeguard.” Her hair was bundled up tight under a red swim cap, but one dark strand had escaped and fell by her right ear.
“I can’t remember my first time in a pool.
My mom says I was born with flippers. Are you scared, Colin? ”
“No.”
“Because if you are, I’m here to tell you, you’ll be totally safe. That’s my job. To teach you how to swim, and keep you safe. And I am very very good at my job.”
“I’m not scared.”
She had eyes almost as dark as her hair, only the sunlight revealed a deep coloring, like a second shade hidden beneath the black surface. He had never seen eyes like hers. “Then how is it you’ve made it all the way to twelve and you’ve never been at a swimming pool?”
“I’ve lived at Outer Banks Academy since I was six. They don’t have a pool.”
“Outer Banks Academy, that school over by Market? Wow, so you’re like super smart?”
He tested the air and found no hint of scorn. “I guess.”
She linked both hands around a knee and leaned back. “So tell me something about how smart you are. I’ve never met a genius before.”
He had no idea why the words came out as they did. Only that it was incredibly easy to talk with her. “I start at UNC Wilmington next week.”
She dropped her foot to the concrete. “Get out of town.”
“I’ll still be living in Outer Banks Academy. Sojourn House, that’s my dorm.”
“For real? You’re going to UNC?”
“I want to study things and the academy can’t teach me.”
“Like what? Give me a for instance here.”
He released a portion of his hidden aims. Easy as drawing breath. “Advanced calculus. Statistics. Algorithms applied to predicting trends.”
“I don’t even know what half those things are.” She remained like that, studying him, until a whistle blew. Mira rose to her feet in one fluid motion. “Come on, genius. Let’s introduce you to my world.”
The class was exhilarating and exhausting in equal measure.
Colin had very little experience with anything to do with physical exertion.
The academy had gym classes, but he had seen them as just another opportunity for the day students to ridicule him.
Plus they were easy to avoid. None of the Sojourn House students took gym.
This was different. The other children were mostly younger, which made them less willing to mock a bigger kid.
And Mira kept a careful eye on him. Which Colin found oddly thrilling.
It was far more than just being smiled at by a beautiful older girl.
There was something to their connection, a spark that he could not define.
He felt an odd mixture of pleasure and excitement when she slipped into the water and showed him how to move his arms and legs together, fashioning the stroke she called freestyle.
She looked so graceful, the water seemed to part willingly and then slip back together after her passage.
Colin fought the water, exhausting himself in the process.
Even so, the struggle gave him an odd sense of accomplishment.
As if just by being here, just by trying, he was doing something important.
Then it was over, and the class was dismissed, and the pool was opened to all the other children who had gathered and waited impatiently for their chance to jump in and scream and splash around.
Colin sat on the edge with his feet dangling in the water, as tired as he had ever been in his entire life.
Mira was still there, standing by the lifeguard’s high chair with four other teenagers in their red swimsuits and caps, all of them with whistles either slung around their necks or dangling from one hand.
She stood with her back to Colin, but he knew from the way the others glanced over that she was talking about him.
Normally he hated being the center of attention.
But something about this day and this place left him feeling safe.
When the strength returned to his limbs, he fit the goggles back over his eyes and slipped off the edge.
The water no longer fought him, because he was not moving.
He kept one hand on the ledge, but not for safety.
He pushed himself down so his head was fully submerged.
He wanted to feel again what it was like to be surrounded by the crystal blue.
The water created an entirely new environment.
Colin felt as if he had departed one world and entered another.
One where sounds and light and sensations were all dominated by this new medium.
All around him, kids played and splashed, their noise transformed by the translucent blue.
But he was untouched, even when one of the kids jostled him.
Colin felt it, but the momentary contact meant nothing.
He stayed there until his lungs were burning, then popped up and breathed and breathed and breathed, like it was the first time he had ever tasted air.
Then he realized Mira was standing on the edge. Next to her was Kevin, the other instructor for their class. She smiled down at him. “Having a good time?”
“This is wonderful.”
“Look at this kid,” she said to Kevin. “Have you ever seen a smile that big?”
“The guy is hooked,” Kevin agreed. “Maybe you should rest a while. Swimming really tires you out.”
“One more time,” he said, taking another breath, then levering himself down into the crystal depths. When his lungs forced him back up again, they were gone.