As I pull myself to standing, a strip of turquoise catches my eye. I turn toward it, then back away from the closet like it’s on fire. My heart snags in my throat, blocking the cry that wants to come out.
Gently swinging on a hanger is my favorite sweater.
10
ONE MORE LAP. I ducked underwater and emerged on my back, slicing the water pinkies first.
That the best you got?
I pushed him away but quickened my pace.
Red and white pennants, strung wall to wall over all six pool lanes, fluttered as I swam past. Emblazoned on each red one was my university’s logo. When I reached the end of the lane, I glanced at the clock. This lap had been a second slower than the last one. I docked myself a point, then pushed the thought away.
I would go again.
Inhaling deeply, I began another lap. I’d grown to love the clean, chemical scent of chlorine, the way it overpowered and purified. I was halfway down the lane when someone in neon yellow shorts and a T-shirt approached the edge of the pool. I waved at my roommate and sped up. By the time I reached Lisa’s feet, I was huffing and puffing. I lifted my goggles and rested them on my swim cap.
“Leave some gas in the tank for tonight,” she said.
“Which run-down warehouse are we going to this time?” I teased.
“Evelyn Luminescence is brilliant. You’ll see.”
“Was that pun intentional?”
She stuck out her tongue. “See you back at the dorm.”
I nodded and set off for a couple more laps, vowing to set a new personal best for the day.
Thirty minutes later and PB achieved, I slogged back to my room, no longer eager for a night on the town. When I walked through the door, Lisa, whose dark hair and skin looked perfect sans beauty products, was fussing with her eye makeup. She would fight me tooth and nail on this.
The sheets had come loose from one end of my twin mattress. I ignored the （？1） demanding to be counted, tucked the sheets back into hospital corners, and dropped onto my bed. “I think I might stay in tonight.”
Lisa spun away from the mirror, mascara wand in one hand, tube in the other. “No way. I went to that awful magic show you picked last weekend. Need I remind you the guy tried to pull a dove out from under my skirt?” I chuckled at the memory. “This art show is the least you can do to pay me back.”
I had recently tracked down a new Houdini biography and wanted nothing more than to spend the night lost in his world. “I’m tired.”
“What are you pushing so hard for in the pool? It’s not like you’re on the dang swim team.”
I’d stuck with swimming through all four years of high school like Sir had demanded. When I crossed the stage at graduation, my primary source of happiness derived from the realization that I’d never again have to don a cap and goggles. Imagine how stunned I was, after six months out of the pool, to find that I actually missed swimming. I’d made a tentative return a few weeks ago and hadn’t missed a day since. The sport was much more pleasant when I was the one deciding how hard to push.
“Old habits die hard.”
Lisa returned to her mascara application. “Then form some new habits. You’re nineteen years old and, last I checked, don’t belong to a convent. I love you, girl, but sometimes you live like life is a punishment.”
I knew she was right but I said nothing.
“What’s the point of living half an hour from New York City if you’re going to sit in the dorm on a Friday night?”
To escape from a box in the East River like Houdini had?
I raised my arms in surrender and slipped on my shower sandals. “I’m going, I’m going.”
* * *
? ? ?
LISA AND I waited in a long line outside a nondescript brick building on a seedy Manhattan sidewalk. It was a warm night in late March, the first springlike day of the year. I glanced at my roommate and linked my arm through hers, glad she’d pestered me into fraternizing. Lisa was the closest friend I’d ever had. She was an art major who wanted to run a gallery someday. She loved karaoke and dogs and Greek food. She didn’t laugh when I told her I wanted to be a magician. We’d known each other only two months before she invited me to her family’s house in Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving and then Christmas, so I didn’t have to go home. She didn’t say that was the reason, just explained her little brother drove her crazy and I’d make a good buffer. When her dad asked about my major—psychology—and what I wanted to do after school, I hesitantly admitted I was an aspiring magician. Her family didn’t laugh either. “She’s not aspiring,” Lisa butted in. “She’s been doing her own shows for four years. She is a magician.” She winked across the table. Over and over she insisted none of the labels Sir had assigned me fit. She was the first person I’d ever heard call him an asshole.