In the spring of her freshman year of college, Jane applied for a summer job as a mother’s helper for a family in Wellesley, Massachusetts, just outside Boston. She’d never been east of Cleveland and had only babysat a few times. But from the moment she heard her roommate talking about the job with a girl from down the hall, she’d wanted it. First, she had to get through a brief phone interview with Betsy, the mom of the family. Jane wasn’t used to calling older people by their first names, but Betsy insisted. She explained that the job would be watching their daughters, ages seven and nine, while her husband, Stephen, was at work and she managed their fourteen-year-old’s tennis career.
“The younger girls aren’t tennis players, which is good, I guess, because I couldn’t handle more than one career.” She’d sighed. “By the way, do you know anything about tennis?”
Jane had never paid attention to the game. But she thought about the way Betsy kept saying career – as if it were something holy – and said, “No, but I know all about prodigies.”
She was hired.
Now, she stood at the top of a circular gravel driveway in front of the biggest house she’d ever seen. It was three stories, red brick with two white columns on either side of a double front door. Dozens of plump red, yellow and purple flowers lined the long driveway. The yard was a deep shade of green (no dirt patches) and the trees so perfectly shaped that they didn’t look real.
Betsy was supposed to meet her at the airport. But when Jane landed, she’d listened to a message on her phone from Betsy who said that Rory (the tennis prodigy) was in a slump and she’d taken her to a private lesson in Duxbury, which was way down on the south shore and there would be traffic, and could she take an Uber? She would, of course, reimburse her. The small town in Michigan where Jane grew up didn’t have Ubers. But she’d made an account while at college, and this was what she used to get to Wellesley.
On the way from the airport, she’d chatted with the Uber driver who had a thick Boston accent like the ones she heard in the movies she and her younger sister, Martha, had watched over the last two weeks. Buttah. Lobstah. Pahk the cah in Hahvad yahd. Jane asked about his family and what he liked best about Boston and what she should do and see on her days off. He’d recommended the public gardens, the North End and the Freedom Trail, all things she knew about from watching those movies, reading and Googling. She told him that she was a literature major and wanted to come here because Boston was home to many of America’s greatest writers, including Louisa May Alcott and Sylvia Plath who’d lived in Wellesley. She was surprised — because he’d lived here his entire life — that he’d never heard of either of them.
He’d whistled when he turned into the neighborhood and said he worried about leaving her alone in the driveway. “It’s obvious you’re not from here because you’re so nice.” Then he said, “But if you aren’t safe in this neighbahood, where are you safe?”
Jane was used to waiting. She was a competitive diver years ago and there were always lengthy waits for turns on the board. But the longer she stood there, the more her heart pounded. When Jane told her parents about her summer plan, her mom said — in that tone she used when disappointed — things are different out East. Jane had her own ideas about what it would be like but didn’t ask what her mom meant because she knew it would be negative. Now she wondered. Would everyone know she was from somewhere else? Was this good or bad?
Jane had just started an online poetry class and thought about pulling out her book but instead stared at the house, breathing deeply to slow her heartbeat. It wasn’t polite, she decided, not picking her up at the airport and making her wait in the driveway. But maybe this was one of the ways the East was different. And she so much wanted this summer to work, and was so happy to be here, that she wouldn’t think badly of Betsy or the family.
Finally, as the sun dipped behind the trees, a SUV came up the driveway. Two girls in blond ponytails burst from the car while the third stayed inside. The woman driving (Betsy?) yelled from the window, pizza box in hand, “Jane! Thank God! Hope you’re hungry!”
***
The next morning, Betsy handed Jane the car keys, directions to the country club and the week’s agenda for the two youngest, Beanie and Gracie. It was the same every day. Arts and Crafts at 9. Tennis lessons at 11. Lunch at 12:30. Golf lessons at 2:30. Swim team practice at 3:30. Jane’s job was to make sure they got to their activities on time, with the right equipment, meet them for lunch and be available during down times. When Jane asked what she should do when the girls were at their activities, Betsy said, “Whatever you want.”
Jane, who’d only been to a few country clubs, was shocked at how big and beautiful this one was. There were tennis courts, a golf course, a pool and a huge clubhouse with green awnings and black shutters that reminded Jane of mansions she’d seen on television. At lunchtime, she met the girls at the snack bar by the pool. It was hot and sunny, and the girls were sweaty and tired. They looked alike with their ponytails, freckles, white shorts, and sleeveless white polo shirts.
To the left of the snack bar was a long hedge, blocking their view of the pool. Jane, who hadn’t been in a pool for two and a half years, smelled the chlorine, heard the splashes, and felt a ricochet in her chest every time someone went off the diving board. But then she wondered if these things were so ingrained in her memory that she imagined them.
Both girls ordered grilled cheeses, tater tots and chocolate milk shakes. When Jane ordered the same thing, Beanie giggling, said, “Adults don’t eat grilled cheeses and tater tots!”
“Sure, they do,” Jane said. Beanie giggled again as they carried their food to a table under a giant umbrella. She’d been the easiest to win over, especially after she came to Jane’s room last night, wanting to help unpack, and Jane put her in charge of organizing her books. She was still working on Gracie. She just had to find that one thing that meant something to her.
“Our mom doesn’t eat tater tots.” Gracie frowned. “Rory doesn’t eat them, either.”
Jane popped a tater tot into her mouth. Betsy reminded her of a woman she and Martha recently saw in a movie: tall and pretty but so anxious that she spent her days flitting around, unable to get anything done.
Rory, however, was a mystery. No one seemed to think it rude that she immediately went upstairs after meeting Jane. She didn’t come down for supper, nor was she up by the time Jane and the girls left this morning. She needed her sleep, Betsy said, because this was the most important summer of Rory’s life. She was working hard and had a chance to break into the nation’s top ten in the girl’s 14-and-under division. She was also cranky because she was struggling with her forehand which surprised everyone since it had always been a strength. This made sense to Jane. When practicing and preparing, it was hard doing or thinking about anything else. She wondered if the trouble with Rory’s forehand was related to her slump. Yet watching Betsy this morning, searching for her cell phone (it must be here somewhere!), Jane decided not to ask.
“I’m gonna get this for lunch tomorrow,” Beanie said, a smudge of ketchup on her chin.
“They might not have it tomorrow.” Gracie shook her head.
Beanie glanced at Jane who shrugged. She had no idea how these things worked.
“Will you like coming here every day?” Jane asked.
“It’s better than going to Rory’s stupid tennis matches.” Gracie paused, the grilled cheese in her hands just inches from her mouth. “What else would we do?”
“Hang out with friends in your neighborhood.” That was what Jane did as a kid before spending much of her time at the YMCA pool.
“Everyone’s at camp.” Gracie shrugged. “Day camp or sleepaway camp.”
Jane watched how easily Gracie sat in her chair. She was comfortable in this world. But she didn’t smile or laugh much. In the car, the girls had argued, and Beanie asked Gracie why she was angry all the time. Maybe she didn’t like Rory sucking up everyone’s attention, Jane thought. That happened a lot in families when one kid was special. Which was what Mona, the therapist Jane saw at the health center at college a couple months ago, told her.
The tables filled with kids dressed like the girls and moms in beach cover ups. Jane glanced at her faded blue gym shorts. She felt embarrassed this morning in the locker room when a woman, whose pink shoes matched her skirt, frowned at Jane’s sandals (she’d fixed the broken strap with a purple hair tie). Tomorrow, she’d come prepared. Clothes and shoes for the workout room. Her poetry book. And she’d have to buy sandals and a dress. Most of the clothes she brought, jeans and tank tops, weren’t allowed at the country club.
“Did you go to camp?” Beanie asked.
Jane glanced at Gracie who was watching. “Once, after my junior year in high school. I went for a week to a diving camp at a college in Ohio.”
“What’s a diving camp?” Beanie asked.
“It’s a camp where you dive, stupid,” Gracie said. Beanie scrunched her freckled nose, as if this sounded horrible. Gracie turned to Jane. “Are you a good diver?”
Usually, Jane didn’t talk about diving and rarely mentioned camp, either, except to Mona. Jane hadn’t liked it. The coaches were clicky, and the divers were aloof, and Jane had made only one friend, a girl named Rennert who’d brought her guitar to camp and played in the quad outside the pool. But Gracie had turned her body toward Jane, and now that she finally had her attention, she didn’t want to blow it. She didn’t want to blow any of it. She liked these girls and wanted them to have a good summer. Maybe the best summer. Didn’t they deserve that?
Jane rubbed her elbow. “I was pretty good. But I don’t dive anymore. I quit.”
Beanie slurped her milkshake. Gracie leaned forward and asked, “Can you do a flip?”
Jane nodded.
Gracie’s lips parted. “Can you do a backward dive?”
Jane nodded again.
“Isn’t that scary?” Beanie asked.
“Nah. I practiced all the time.”
“Like Rory.” Beanie slurped again.
When a group of kids standing near the hedge called to them, the girls perked up and asked if they could swim and Jane told them that she’d clean up and that they needed to hurry so they could be ready for their golf lesson.
Midway across the deck, Beanie turned and said, “You can swim with us.”
“Nah, but thanks.”
Beanie smiled and ran after the group.
It wasn’t until later that Jane realized they hadn’t asked why she’d quit diving. Which was okay because she still wasn’t sure she had the answer.
***
Under the massive house was a massive basement with a wine room, workout room, storage room, boiler room, huge family room with the largest flat-screen television Jane had ever seen and a bedroom-bathroom suite where she was staying. On the third night after she arrived, she was lying across her giant bed, reading her poetry book, when someone knocked.
“You’re Jane from Michigan.” Stephen had been in New York on business when she’d arrived. He was tall with sandy-colored hair, a tight jaw and prominent mouth set in a way that made him seem pissed off. He reminded her of a guy in a movie she saw with Martha who screamed at a waitress because she put mayonnaise on his sandwich instead of mustard.
“You’ve had a busy couple of days.” He pointed over his shoulder to the 1,000-piece domino run that stretched the full length of the basement floor. “That’s creative. I like it.”
Jane and the girls had spent all afternoon making it, and Gracie wanted to wait until he got home from New York to see if it worked. It had rained, so they’d skipped the club. At first, the girls wanted to stay home and play on their iPads. But Jane hadn’t seen many books around the house, and once she’d gotten them to the public library, where they read next to each other in giant beanbag chairs, and then returned home, they were on board for the dominos which she’d found in an unopened box in a basement closet.
“Why did you decide to come here this summer?” He asked.
“I wanted something new. I’d never been to Massachusetts.”
“And you found out about this job from Patrick Kelly’s kid?” He asked.
“Meredith Kelly lived on my dorm floor. But I don’t really know her.”
“You’re brave coming here by yourself,” he said. No, her mom was brave; mostly, Jane thought of herself as a coward. “What are you studying at Michigan State?”
Hadn’t Betsy told him about her? She said, “Literature.”
“Literature?” He asked. “How do your parents feel about funding that?”
“I’m paying my way.” Jane frowned. She and Martha had been reading a lot, first Dreiser and the realists and then the Victorians. Sharing this with her sister was fun — only recently had they become close — as was feeling excited about something again. Why shouldn’t she study this in college?
“We need liberal arts majors, I guess. Maybe you’ll be an editor?”
“I don’t know what I’ll do.” She liked not having a plan or strict schedule and waking up every day at college, looking forward to what she’d find.
He ran his fingers through his hair, scowling. She imagined he didn’t like her answer any more than her mom did. “Rory has a big tournament in three weeks. In Austin.”
“She has a chance to be in the top ten,” Jane said.
A small smile cracked onto his lips. “The tournament is make or break. All winter we worked on her serve, and she can place it now. We worked on her net game, too, although I don’t understand why these girls hammer away from the baseline. It wasn’t like that in my day.”
“You played tennis?” Jane asked.
“At Yale. But I didn’t have half the potential Rory has. She’s extraordinarily gifted.”
Hot prickles stung Jane’s cheeks. Today, Gracie said Rory was so good that she’d go pro someday. When Jane asked how she knew this, she said, my dad. Jane had heard of lots of divers who’d soared before crashing and burning. Staring at Stephen, she thought the saying was true, no matter the sport: behind every prodigy was at least one pushy parent. There was that diver from Chicago whose dad threw her second-place national championship medal out the window of their car because, “my daughter will never get second place.” And that mom, banned from meets because she screamed at the officials. And those parents who made their son dive with a broken wrist. It was terrible what parents were capable of doing.
“Are you worried about her slump?” Jane asked. He was one of them. She was certain.
He reared back, frowning. “She’s not in a slump. Did she tell you that?”
“No.”
After that, there wasn’t much to say, and he left.
The next afternoon, after returning from the club, Jane found Rory alone at the kitchen table. The younger girls were watching a movie in the basement and Betsy was shopping. Rory had sandy-colored hair, like her dad, and brown eyes, like her mom, and she was dressed in a tank top and shorts, the hair around her temples wet with sweat. Something about the way she slumped forward and frowned at her phone made Jane linger. Finally, she sat at the table.
“How was practice?” She asked. Rory shrugged. “Are you ready for your tournament?”
“I guess.” Rory glanced at Jane before returning to her phone.
Maybe Rory was shy. Or still in practice mode. Or cranky about her forehand. Maybe she wanted to be alone. But Jane didn’t move. “Have you ever played in this tournament?”
Rory nodded and lifted a spoonful of cereal to her lips. “You ask lots of questions.”
Jane shifted in her seat. She wanted to tell Rory to pay attention to her feelings. Don’t ignore things. Don’t pretend. But maybe Rory wanted this as much as her dad did. Maybe she was a lucky one who had talent and the head and the love for the sport. After all, she was nationally ranked. But all day Jane had been thinking of Stephen, standing in her doorway with that disapproving mouth. It felt unbearable, suddenly, not knowing.
“I used to be a diver,” Jane said. Rory looked up from her phone. “I started competing when I was thirteen. When I was a junior, I got to the finals of the state high school diving championship. It was the biggest competition of my life.”
“Did you win?” Rory asked.
“Yes.”
But afterward, everyone expected more championships and college diving scholarship offers, and that summer at camp she got the clear message that she should get a better coach and join a better diving club and quit the yearbook staff, her only school activity besides diving because she’d quit the others to focus on diving, and everything started to feel too weird.
“But it would’ve been okay if I’d lost.” Jane wanted her to know this, too.
Rory frowned. “I better not lose.” She stood and put her cereal bowl in the sink.
Jane watched her leave the kitchen. I better not lose was different from saying of course I’ll win, I want this more than anything, which was the confidence and desire needed if you wanted to be and stay a champion.
***
Three weeks later, Jane was sitting by the club pool when Martha, who was working at the family’s hardware store this summer, called. Martha said business was so slow that their parents, who’d inherited the store from their dad’s dad, fired John, who’d worked in the paint department for thirty-seven years. She added, “Personally, I thought he was dumb as a stump, but no one asked me. Dad’s pretty upset about it.”
Jane knew their mom was behind John’s firing because she was behind everything that happened at the store, and this made her worry about the family finances again. She felt guilty that it was a struggle. She felt guilty about a lot of things.
“Any-whooooooo,” Martha said. “What are the princesses doing?”
“Diving for rings.”
“We did that! But you always got the most rings. So typical. Aren’t you tired of them? You’re like their maid.”
Jane laughed. Martha was always so hilarious. She said, “They’re great. I love them.”
Now that Gracie had come around, they barely left her side. They begged her to watch their lessons and created elaborate drawings that she taped to her bathroom mirror. Sometimes in the evenings, they showed up in her room with their books. Once, they fell asleep together on the bed, open books on their chests. She’d even gone into the pool because she couldn’t stand their pleading. We need you! How could she refuse that?
Martha sighed. “Ole’ Stephen still telling everyone what to do?”
Over the weeks, Jane had told Martha all the things he’d said. That taxes were too high, and people shouldn’t expect handouts but pull themselves up by their bootstraps. And that Betsy should make a list of chores each day so she wouldn’t be forgetful. And what Rory should do during practices such as “play every ball like match point,” to which Rory replied that she already did that. And how would he know? Betsy took her everywhere.
“He’s going to London on business when Rory and Betsy get back from Austin,” Jane said. Today was the first day of the tournament. This morning, Stephen said Rory had a tough first-round match, but he was confident because the girl was ranked thirty spots below Rory. Jane hoped her frame of mind was better than what she’d seen and felt at the kitchen table that night weeks ago. Since then, Jane had barely seen her. For the last week, Rory and Betsy had been in Florida working with a pro who was an expert on forehands.
“Damn, store phone’s ringing,” Martha said. “Hold on!”
Jane stared at the pool. She’d come here to the club twice with the family for supper, and both times they’d introduced her to friends who were also members. She wondered if any of them had pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. Stephen hadn’t. Betsy told her that they’d grown up in town and met at the club when they were in high school. Jane’s mom also talked about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, but it sounded different coming from Stephen. Maybe because he didn’t seem to like poor people. And her mom, who lost both of her parents when she was twelve, really had pulled herself up by her bootstraps.
A few weeks ago, when they gathered in the kitchen before coming here, Betsy handed Jane a pair of her sandals because they’d “go nice with her new dress.” Jane wasn’t sure if this were true or if her shoes were against club rules and Betsy, being so indirect, wouldn’t tell her. Truth was, while Jane liked the club, she was disappointed that she hadn’t met any writers considering Boston’s literary reputation. Lots of people at the pool read, however, and Betsy was in a book group although she couldn’t remember the name of the last book they’d read.
Martha was back. “Soooooooo, how’s swimming?”
“Okay.”
“What about diving?”
Jane hesitated. “Nada. But I’ve been exploring again.”
On days off, Betsy let her borrow a car and she’d driven by the house where Sylvia Plath grew up and toured Louisa May Alcott and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s houses. Betsy called her “an intellectual” for doing these things which Jane liked because it was new and more interesting than to be referred to as “the diver” which was what people said about her at home.
“I told Mom that you saw Paul Revere’s house,” Martha said.
“Was she mad?”
Martha laughed. “Why would she be mad?”
Because her mom was mad at her about everything, it seemed. And really, who could blame her? But instead, Jane asked, “What did she say?”
“Why don’t you call her and ask?”
“Okay.” But maybe she’d wait a bit longer.
The store phone rang again, and Martha said she had to go. Jane put her phone in her bag and sat on the side of the pool, her legs in the water. Beanie swam toward her, and soon Jane felt a tickle on her foot and watched Beanie burst from the water, grinning. A myriad of freckles had exploded on her nose despite Jane applying sunscreen every day.
“I thought you were a shark.”
“There aren’t sharks in pools!” Beanie giggled and wrapped her arms around Jane’s leg.
“Jane! Watch!” Gracie called from across the pool. It was quiet, the air cool. For weeks, she’d been practicing diving. She stood at the end of the board, her arms raised as Jane had instructed and leaned over. But then her legs caved, her arms crumbled, and she landed in the pool on her stomach. She swam underwater and grabbed Jane’s other leg.
“You collapsed again,” Jane said.
“I know! Show me! Pleeassseeeee?”
“Sorry.”
Jane sought out Mona last spring because for some reason she couldn’t stop thinking about diving camp. She’d been lucky to receive an invitation, she’d told her. Several attendees had won national titles. A few others lived at training facilities away from their families where they went to school and practiced. Everyone was intense and gunning for a college scholarship. When Jane stood on the board for her first and only dive in front of everyone, she felt a numbing chill and clamminess come over her and then the sides of her vision collapsed until she was looking through a tunnel. It was terrifying and had never happened to her before. Mona said it sounded like panic attack, the body’s reaction to intense fear. Jane glanced at the board. She wasn’t afraid of it. That had never been a problem.
“Pleeaasseee?” Gracie whined again. When Beanie started in, Gracie called her a copycat, and they argued.
“What did I tell you about fighting?” Jane asked. “Be nice. You never know when you’ll need your sister.”
They stuck out their tongues at each other.
“Why won’t you dive?” Gracie asked.
She’d asked this before, and Jane never knew what to say. Lately, she’d had dreams about diving such as the one where she was supposed to compete, but the pool was empty. And another in which she forgot how to get to the YMCA where she’d practiced.
The girls stared at her, and she had to say something. “Couple years ago, I had a bad accident and broke my elbow, three ribs and had a concussion. I was out of school for a while. I had to stop diving and never went back to it.”
Beanie gasped. “A car accident? Our mom had a car accident one time!”
“No, it wasn’t a car accident,” Jane said.
Seemingly satisfied, they swam off to collect more rings.
***
Rory lost her match in straight sets and the next night she and Betsy returned. Jane was in her room and climbed the stairs to listen when she heard footsteps above. But everything was quiet. The next morning, Betsy was alone in the kitchen when Jane walked in.
“Thanks for helping with the girls.” Betsy stood at the counter clutching her forehead.
“Sure.” Jane thought Betsy looked terrible. Her hair was sticking out everywhere and her mascara from yesterday had smudged below both eyes.
“Rory was dreadful. She couldn’t hit a forehand if her life depended on it. She choked.”
Jane knew all about choking. Your body tenses and your mind races with terrible thoughts (what’s wrong with me?). You can’t do anything right.
“And now,” she said, “she acts like she doesn’t want to play anymore.”
“Did you ask her? Maybe she got psyched out by how good the other girls were.”
“Stephen thinks she isn’t trying hard enough,” she said. “He was so angry. I wish he wouldn’t be so disappointed in her. Well, we’ll just have to carry on, I guess.”
For the next couple days, Jane looked for signs that Betsy had asked Rory if she wanted to keep playing, but she didn’t think she had because the tension in the house kept increasing. The girls were clingier. Betsy locked her keys in the car at Whole Foods and lost a credit card, all in one day. Stephen was silent and stared at Rory during supper. And Rory hadn’t played since they returned. Her shoulder hurt, she said, and mostly she stayed in her room.
Everything exploded the following week. Jane was in her room reading with the girls when Stephen began yelling in the kitchen. He told Rory that they’d spent a fortune on her tennis and why was she doing this to him and how could she lose to someone ranked thirty spots below her and how would she compete at her next tournament when she wouldn’t practice? Her new coach in Duxbury called every day asking about her, he said, and why was she doing this to him, too? She must not care. Rory cried and said she was sorry and promised to practice. Jane imagined Betsy at the counter, clutching her forehead.
After that, Jane closed her door, and the voices muffled, but she didn’t let go of the doorknob. There could be lots of reasons why Rory lost and wasn’t practicing. Maybe her shoulder did hurt. Or maybe she got to the tournament and saw how great the top ten players were, how they were prodigies and so much better than she was, and she panicked. And now, what was she supposed to do?
“Does Dad hate Rory?” Beanie held her stuffed dolphin tight to her chest.
Jane’s hand was sore from gripping the knob. She let go and flexed it. She didn’t want the girls to see how shaken she was. “Nah, he’s just frustrated.”
In the middle of the night, Jane woke when she heard a noise and opened her door. Lights from the television flooded the room and Rory was on the couch. Jane sat next to her.
“Sorry. Did I wake you up?” Rory asked. Jane shook her head. “Guess you heard all that from earlier tonight, huh?”
Jane thought Rory sounded embarrassed and said, “Sorry about your tournament.”
“I deserved to lose. I sucked. My dad’s so mad at me.”
“Do you want to keep playing?” Jane asked.
Rory kept her eyes on the screen and in a soft voice said, “No one ever asked me that.”
Then she was quiet. Maybe her dad wouldn’t let her quit. This was dangerous because people did terrible things when they felt trapped. That girl whose dad threw her medal out the car window tried to kill herself when she didn’t make the national team. And how about the divers with eating disorders, anxiety, and the one who started cutting? You never knew who’d snap.
“I loved playing at our club,” she said. “After lessons, me and my friends swam and caught fireflies on the golf course with plastic cups from the locker room. It was so fun. But then I needed more competition. Those girls at nationals. They were much better than last year.”
Jane nodded again. She thought of camp and how she’d watched the other divers and wondered what she was doing there. She didn’t belong. She wasn’t like them. All she’d done was win a stupid high school title. “Couple years ago, I went to camp with some of the best divers in the country. I’d never competed nationally. It was hard. I couldn’t dive. I panicked. And choked.”
Jane cringed — this sounded so cowardly — but Rory nodded as if she understood. As if this was familiar. Rory asked, “What happened?”
“I stopped showing up for practices and instantly felt better. Instead, I walked around campus and spent hours at this used bookstore. One day, I was at a coffeeshop where a girl read her poetry. It was interesting. This other diver, Rennert, and I were the only ones who did stuff like that. Everyone else was too into diving and the coaches.”
“Did your parents find out?” Rory asked.
“I told them when I got home that I wasn’t good enough nor did I have the head for diving and wanted to quit. My mom was upset.”
“What did you do?” Rory leaned closer, her mouth slightly open, her eyes wide.
Certainly, Jane had never told anyone what she’d done — not Martha or their parents, not Mona, not the EMTs or doctors in the emergency room on that terrible night. But maybe Rory should hear it? “One night, in the winter, before my last diving season was to start, I went to the outdoor pool in the neighborhood where I learned to dive. It was empty. I think the owners planned to work on it in the spring. I… well… fell into the deep end. On purpose. I thought I’d hurt myself a little so I wouldn’t have to dive. It’s cowardly, I know, but I can’t tell you how much I dreaded the upcoming season.”
“What?” Rory jerked back.
“But I hurt myself worse than I’d planned. I shouldn’t have done it.”
“Fuck!”
Jane winced. “I didn’t think I had options. Which is why I told you. Don’t do what I did. You aren’t trapped. You have choices.”
“I’m not gonna fall into a pool. God! Maybe you’re a headcase or quit because you want to do other things, but I’m gonna play tennis. I just have to figure out how to win.”
Jane frowned. “I see what’s going on. You’re stressed.”
Rory turned to the screen. Then she pulled a pillow to her face and burst into tears.
The next morning, Rory didn’t come down from her room. Once at the club, the girls went off to their lessons while Jane read by the pool. After lunch, when they pestered her to dive, Jane thought, why not? She climbed onto the board, walked forward, and brought her foot down hard, launching herself. She kept it simple, a forward dive from a pike position, and felt herself suspended until her body, comfortable and familiar, bent and straightened before entering the water. When she swam to the surface and heard the girls hollering, she smiled.
Later, alone in her room, Jane felt bewildered and a little giddy. She dove a few times, including a flip for Gracie, and the feeling afterward had remained. How easy, familiar. She couldn’t get over that. Supper was late and when Betsy called to her, Jane took the stairs two at a time. Betsy wouldn’t look at her as she led her down the hall to the library. Jane hadn’t spent much time in here because the shelves were filled with framed photos and nicknacks, not books.
Stephen was on the couch. Betsy sat next to him. Frowning, he asked, “Did you tell Rory that you jumped into an empty pool to hurt yourself so you wouldn’t have to dive?”
Betsy still wouldn’t look at Jane.
“Well.” Jane’s cheeks burned. Jumped sounded much worse than fall. “Yeah.”
“Why the hell tell that to a fourteen-year-old?” He was so angry that she imagined his big mouth crushing her neck.
“I thought it’d help her.”
“Help her with what?” He didn’t wait for her reply. “She says you told her that if she didn’t quit tennis, she’d end up like that, too. You don’t say that to an impressionable kid.”
“That wasn’t what I said—”
“You told our younger ones, too, didn’t you? Only you called it an accident. Jesus Christ, at least you had the sense not to give details.”
Jane was too stunned to speak. Maybe she’d made a mistake telling Rory, but she wasn’t wrong about what was going on. They were all in trouble. It was obvious if you paid attention.
“I Googled you,” he said. “You won a state high school diving championship. Big fucking deal. Rory is — well, was — ranked eleventh in the country. She blew by everyone in the state years ago. Do you understand the difference? You’ve got some nerve, living in our house and telling our daughter what to do.”
“It wasn’t like that.” Jane glanced at Betsy who lowered her eyes.
Everyone was quiet for a moment.
“This isn’t what we expected,” Stephen said.
“This isn’t what I expected, either,” Jane said.
Stephen raised his eyebrows and told her to go. Jane was too upset to stay for supper and instead walked around the neighborhood until after dark. Then she slipped into the kitchen and down the stairs. Later, when Stephen knocked on her door and said they’d decided to send her home early, tomorrow, in fact, Jane wasn’t surprised. She nodded, a bit shell-shocked but oddly calm, closed the door and started packing.
In the morning, after Stephen left for work, Betsy said she’d take Jane to the airport. She kept restacking a pile of papers as she apologized and said the girls would miss her and wished it hadn’t ended like this. By now, Jane was angry and couldn’t imagine riding to the airport with her, and so she called an Uber. Rory didn’t come down to say goodbye, but the girls wouldn’t leave her side and kept saying they didn’t understand and who would take them to the club? Beanie cried a little after she handed Jane a small baggie of Oreos for the plane ride.
No one came outside as she waited for the Uber. Standing on the gravel driveway, she again went over last night’s conversation. She was glad she’d told them that this hadn’t been what she’d expected because it was true. She’d come here for an adventure and to get away from home and to understand why so many writers were from here. But all she saw were a country club, the inside of a huge house, a few writer’s houses and lots of family drama which wasn’t much different from where she came from, after all.
When the Uber driver arrived, he reached for her bags, but Jane slung them into the trunk. The seat squeaked when she sat, and the car smelled like sickening-sweet air freshener. As he drove down the long driveway, Jane looked back at the house. Rory had understood perfectly well why Jane told her story. But what Jane didn’t know was why Rory told her parents and whether she’d misconstrued the meaning behind it for some purpose or if maybe her parents had.
None of them asked what happened to her after the accident. Maybe they were too angry or shocked. Maybe they didn’t care. Jane felt terrible about what she’d done. Had Martha not been worried and followed her and found her unconscious in the deep end and called an ambulance, would she have died? Jane couldn’t tell anyone that she did this on purpose because it felt too hard. And yet telling Rory hadn’t been that difficult. So, maybe telling Martha and Mona wouldn’t be that difficult, either. Someday, maybe she could even tell her mom.
Jane didn’t share with Rory everything that happened when she got home from camp. After she told her parents about the competition, the panic attack, the poetry reading, and that she might want to quit, her mom had said: I’d have done anything to have your opportunities! You need to try harder. Over my dead body will you quit diving. Not after everything I’ve done for you. Yes, Jane thought at the time, the money spent for lessons and bathing suits and membership to her club team and the hours away from the hardware store and driving her to lessons and meets. And so, she’d swallowed and skulked away and told herself to work harder.
Jane squinted, trying to see the house through the trees, and thought of Rennert again. On the last day of camp, while sitting with Jane in the quad, she’d called competitive diving a “freak show” and insisted that top divers were the most boring, one-dimensional people she’d ever met because they hadn’t developed themselves beyond diving, and that maybe one of the reasons Jane wasn’t diving at camp was because deep down she was terrified that this could happen to her. Jane burst into tears after Rennert said this, and although she’d never thought of diving this way, something about it felt right.
Last spring, when Jane told Mona about this conversation, Mona said it wasn’t easy reinventing yourself. But people did it all the time. Some were forced to, like Jane’s mom who’d lived in one terrible foster care home after another. In Jane’s case, Mona said, reinventing yourself didn’t mean you were a failure or coward because you “were done with one part of your life and ready to move on.” For the first time, Jane wondered if Mona was right, and she had nothing to feel guilty about. Maybe her crime wasn’t wanting to quit diving or hurting herself that night but continuing to do something she no longer wanted to do. And that didn’t seem like much of a crime. Perhaps this was what she should have told Rory.
The driver reached the end of the driveway, and all Jane saw of the house was a sliver of the garage. Then he turned onto the road and the house was gone.
Image by Artem Militonian on unsplash.com, licensed under CC 2.0.
I love what you’ve done with this story, Karen!! The characters are so well drawn. I love it. Congratulations!
Thanks, Jamie!
Great read and such an important message!
It will change the course of your readers’ lives for the better – both children and parents. Congratulations on the well deserved recognition.