Page 20 of Breathing Under Water

Rae reaches across the table toward Lark’s plate. Lark swats her fingers away, but not before Rae has gotten a French fry firmly in her grasp.

“Mine!” Lark says firmly, like a toddler hoarding toys. The dimple on Rae’s left cheek deepens as she winks and pops the fry into her mouth, laughing as Lark lets out an affronted yelp.

Ours is the only table with any sort of energy, probably because we’ve spent the past two hours practicing sprints in the nippy seventy-seven-degree water of the Meadowbrook pool, and now our endorphins are running high. The exercise doeshelp to distract me from focusing on Glory. Our usual six a.m. practice started at five this morning because the university needed the pool for some special event today, and the early wake-up has made us all a bit slaphappy.

“Breakfast of champions,” I say, reaching out and taking a fry from Lark too, just to mess with her.

“You guys are the worst,” she says, but there’s no bite to it.

“Who gets fries for breakfast?” I laugh back.

“Well, maybe if you started bringing us some leftovers fromhaute Hollyhock, I could upgrade my dietary choices. But nope, you’re all, ‘I can’t steal food from the club to feed the team,’” Lark says, as if I’m the one who’s ridiculous, though she’s smiling as she shakes her head. “Like I said, you’re the worst.”

But when her eyes catch on her cell phone sitting beside her plate, her smile slips. “Actually, you know who reallyisthe worst?” She picks up a fry and points it at the phone. “Darian.”

“What happened?” Rae asks.

Normally when Lark talks about her boyfriend, she looks like a cartoon character with hearts coming out of her big brown eyes. But now her lips are turned down in displeasure.

“Don’t tell me he’s not coming to visit,” Rae says.

Darian went home to his family in Philadelphia for the summer, and Lark has been counting the days until they’ll see each other again.

“He’s still coming,” she says as she takes another fry and uses it to push ketchup around on her plate. “But he says he’ll be tied up with interview stuff for one of the days. The whole visit is only three days long to begin with.”

“You’ll still get two full days with him,” I offer half-heartedly.

“Yeah, but I got tickets to Sagamore Hill. I know it soundscringe, but we were excited about it. Now he says he’s not free that morning.”

“I don’t even know what that is.” Rae laughs.

The only people my age who know about Sagamore Hill are native Long Islanders and history nerds like Darian and Lark.

“It’s Theodore Roosevelt’s house,” I explain with an eye roll.

“Summer house,” Lark quickly corrects.

Like most of the girls on our team, Lark is hardcore type A. She’s so invested in staying at the top of everything she does, whether it’s schoolwork, swimming, or dating. As a couple of history majors, she and Darian developed a joint hobby of fixating on all things related to Theodore Roosevelt—so I guess touring his summer home together, and then posting pictures about it, would have been some sort of dating achievement unlocked, proving something about their relationship to themselves or their followers. Hard to say, but she’s clearly distraught.

“Can’t you just exchange the ticket?” Rae asks as she readjusts the claw clip holding her light hair in a twist.

“I tried, but they’re nonrefundable, nontransferable, blah blah blah. I’m trying not to take it personally, but, you guys, what if he just doesn’t want to see that much of me?”

“You should just go with someone else,” I say. “Or make him pay for the new tickets.” I’m not great with sympathy when someone upsets people I care about.

The alarm on my phone goes off, reminding me it’s time to go.

“Sorry, chickadees,” I say, taking my wallet out. “Duty calls.”

I’m teaching my first community service class this morning, and I’m actually kind of looking forward to it. I did a shit-ton of reading over the weekend, and I feel ready.

“Wait,” Rae says. “Before you go, can we talk for a second about Coach and Marcy?”

“What about them?” Lark asks, pushing her plate away.

Rae glances around the diner as if she doesn’t want anyone to hear what she’s about to say. “Amber thinks they’re having an affair.”

“What?” I balk. “There’s no way. I see Coach and Paula together at the club all the time. Not to mention, I mean, Marcy? Really?” I love our assistant coach, but I’m pretty sure she’s only into women.