The Lifeguards by Amanda Eyre Ward
Prologue
IT WAS SO STRANGE to be the older woman. I’d always been the little one, the kid sister, the vixen. Sly and quick, that was me—a star gymnast, wild. In high school, I was the queen. I’d graduated, and as planned, escaped. But Austin, Texas, had been less triumphant than I’d anticipated. Community college parties were crowded and strange. Nobody knew me, and without my big brothers, I was lost. Everyone at home was so proud of me that I couldn’t go back. I’d even given my favorite teddy bear to my baby brother, Arlo. He’d promised to keep Beary safe when I was gone. Some nights, I wished I had Beary to snuggle, even thought I was allegedly grown up.
I was nothing in the big city. My professors talked too fast. My job at the Barton Hills 7-Eleven left me prey to late-night predators: drunk kids, every flavor of unsettling adult.
I was failing two classes when I met him. He had the glitter, and I wanted it back.
I wore makeup even though we were meeting at the Barton Springs Pool. I shaved, made sure I smelled like flowers. My heart beat fast, so good, I drove above the speed limit. In my bag, I had a towel, sunglasses, and a paperback novel—Carrie by Stephen King. It was the book I was reading—I’d thought about subbing in something to impress him, but why? Neither of us wanted to talk.
The parking lot was packed but I found a space. It was so hot the air felt thick; I walked toward the park entrance as if through butter. My sundress stuck to my skin. I paid the entrance fee and stamped my own hand with ink. The kid in the ticket booth was the same age as my date.
I found a shady spot under a tree and unrolled my pink towel. I gazed at the pool, which I knew was freezing cold, fed by an underground spring. I lifted my dress, knowing my bikini would bring covert glances. I hadn’t kept up my punishing gymnastics training for nothing. I couldn’t help it: I brought my arms over my head and stretched, the sun warming my skin.
I saw him across the shimmering water. He was leaning on the lifeguard stand with no shirt on, his chest tanned. He was off duty but still wore his uniform. I wanted to kiss that chest, to taste him. I saw the girl in the guard chair trying to get his attention. When I had been his age—not so long ago—I’d been careless. Like him, I had not understood my power.
I walked to the edge. Pecan trees towered overhead, reaching into a brilliant Texas sky. I willed him to see me. His eyes moved across the pool. He removed his sunglasses. I imagined he was smiling, though it was too far to tell.
He raised an arm and waved. In response, I dove, a flawless arc. The water was shockingly cold and I began to swim toward the other side, toward him. My lungs filled with hot summer air. My muscles firing, perfection. After a few strokes, I paused and lifted my head.
As I’d wanted, as I’d hoped for, he was swimming right for me.
-1-
Liza
OUR BOYS WERE LIFEGUARDS, we told ourselves, and were surely safe. Weren’t they safe? They knew CPR, had shown us their fanny packs filled with Band-Aids and plastic breathing tubes. Xavier, Bobcat, and Charlie （my son） had taken the course together, weekend mornings at Barton Springs. We’d dropped them off at dawn, the Texas sun just starting to climb above the horizon, making the surface of the spring-fed swimming hole flash red and orange. We’d said we’d walk Lady Bird Lake together, or we’d stand-up paddleboard or grab coffee. Instead, we smiled as we dropped the boys, went home to the adult lives we’d begun to create again, now that our children were fifteen. I was ghostwriting a cookbook; Annette was working at Hola, Amigos Daycare; and Whitney had become an Austin real estate titan.
Now that we no longer had endless summer days with elementary schoolers underfoot, it was harder to connect. But our friendship was unbreakable, as safe as the neighborhood where we’d raised our sweet little kids.
Or so we thought.
By the end of the summer, one of us would be gone.
* * *
—
“WHERE ARE THEY?” I said, glancing at my watch. （I liked wearing a thin gold watch I’d bought at an antiques store. Sometimes, I told people it had been my mother’s, conjuring an “old money” family that didn’t exist. Oh, how I loved the idea of a mother who’d wear such an elegant timepiece on a slim wrist! My actual mother, in contrast, had a tattoo of a snake on her hand.）
It was 11:00 p.m., which was definitely too late.
“Riding their bikes around the neighborhood, they said,” said Annette. Her son, Bobcat, was rail-thin and six-three, a reluctant ninth-grade basketball star. Despite Bobcat insisting he just wanted to build computers in his room, Annette’s husband forced their son to keep playing. During the last game of the season, an opponent elbowed Bobcat—hard—in the soft place underneath his rib cage. It was awful to see Bobcat’s face crumple in pain…but he only glanced toward the stands at his father…and didn’t make a sound.
When my son, Charlie, went over his mountain-bike handles on a trail and cut his forehead, I felt his pain viscerally. I could scarcely watch him pedal away, even now that he wore the most expensive safety equipment available: a two-hundred-dollar full-face helmet, padded bike shorts, neck brace, wrist, elbow, and knee pads, and a back protector made of VPD, whatever that was. Despite Charlie’s complaints, I’d bought all the items at Dick’s Sporting Goods on layaway. （The sign above the gear was a siren call: YOU CAN BUY THE FEELING OF SAFETY!） Sure, the other kids made fun of him with his braces and helmets, but I’d rather my son be embarrassed than dead.
It was possible, as Charlie had suggested gently, that I had anxiety issues. Maybe, as he’d said, I should “use our money to talk to someone.” But you couldn’t see a therapist on layaway, now could you? I’d handle my brain when I’d somehow gotten Charlie to college without any major bodily damage. Splurging on things that made me feel more secure was working for me, so I ignored Charlie’s complaints and insinuations and loved him hard and bought him safety equipment.
Annette went to every game wearing Austin High colors from head to toe. She had platinum blond hair and bronze skin, wide brown eyes. She carefully sculpted her thick eyebrows into perfect arches, accented her high cheekbones and naturally plump lips with drugstore makeup, and wore expensive jewelry at all times. When Louis （who had been too short to play basketball himself） led cheers for Bobcat from the stands and stomped his feet on the bleachers, tried to start “the wave” and was largely ignored, Annette stood by his side. We all loved Louis, his childlike enthusiasm, but Annette knew, as we all did, that Bobcat played only to please his father but really came alive when explaining the best graphics card for his latest home-built PC.
Louis wanted his son to be the athlete he’d dreamed of becoming himself—he couldn’t fathom a person with physical gifts not wanting to use them. I thought it was just a matter of time before Bobcat either became who he was meant to be or stopped trying. Did Annette defend her son behind closed doors? Or was marriage about acquiescence, silencing yourself in the name of marital harmony?
I wouldn’t know. I was a single mom, the struggling one in a sea of serene, wealthy wives. Everyone I knew had the money for psychiatrists, aestheticians, Peloton machines, and massages. I didn’t own my house. I worried about our electricity bill. I was so nervous that my friends would drop me—nobody wanted a single woman at their barbecue.