Golden States by Michael Cunningham Page B

face an agony of exertion. At either end of the pool she did a flip turn, pushing off underwater and streaking back the way she’d come. Her bathing suit was two turquoise bands in the paler turquoise of the water. David counted fifty laps.
    When she was done she clung for a while to the edge of the coping, gasping for breath. She smiled at David, unable to speak. He asked if she was all right, and she nodded. She stroked her way over to the ladder, hoisted herself out, and bent to one side to squeeze the water from her hair. David could see the herringbone stream of water that washed down her spine and disappeared into the bottom of her suit, emerging in twin slick movements on her thighs.
    Still panting, she came and sat beside him. “Hello,” she whispered.
    “Hi,” he said.
    She drew her knees up to her chest and sat the same way he did. She smelled scoured and bleached.
    “You’re a good swimmer,” he told her.
    “I just hate to have to stop,” she said.
    “What did you do today?”
    “Besides swimming? Nothing. What about you?”
    “Nothing,” he said.
    She nodded, and they both stared straight ahead at the peaked roof of the neighbor’s house, which sliced up over the fence, a reversed duplicate of the Starks’. Behind it, the sky was a limpid, even blue.
    “You shouldn’t swim alone,” he said.
    “Well, I’m not alone anymore. You want to come for a swim?”
    “I don’t think so,” he said. “I’ll just watch you.” He worried about the way his right nipple had sprouted a single dark corkscrew hair. It didn’t look right. He thought he would keep his body private until it looked more symmetrical.
    “All right.” She stood and walked to the deep end, her wet hair clinging to her back. Her back was thin, the buttons of her spine prominent enough to throw small rounded shadows. She paused at the pool’s edge, swung her arms, and dove in, cutting the water straight, barely raising a splash. David watched her swim back and forth, ticking off the laps with grim efficiency.
    The telephone rang inside the house. David ran into the kitchen. He could hear Lizzie jumping around upstairs, to the rhythm of “Beat It.” He picked up the phone.
    “Hello.”
    “Hello, David? It’s Rob.”
    “Oh. Hi.”
    “Is Janet there?”
    “Urn, no.”
    “Do you know where she is?”
    “Well, she went out.”
    “Do you know where she went?”
    “I think she went out with a friend,” David said.
    “What friend?”
    “Well, I think she went out with a friend from here.”
    “Who’s that, David?”
    “I don’t know. His name is Billy.”
    “I see. Who is Billy, David?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Is he an old friend of Janet’s?” Rob asked.
    “I think so.”
    “I don’t think I ever heard about him.”
    “Well, everybody around here knows him. He was in the marines. Now he’s studying to be a doctor.”
    “What do you know? And Janet went out with him?” “Uh-huh. I think so.”
    “I see. Well, just mention to her that I called, all right?” “Okay.”
    “Been a pleasure talking to you, David.”
    “You’re welcome,” David said, and hung up. His face was flushed and his nose ran a little, the mixture of shame and giddiness he always felt when he told a story. This one was a mistake—he’d surely be found out. But he’d worry about that later.
    He checked the kitchen window. Janet was still swimming. As he watched her he slipped his hand up under his shirt and pulled at the single hair that sprouted from his nipple. He thought about werewolves. Wolfman movies had always scared him more than any other kind; something about a man, normal and nice as anybody, turning suddenly into a monster. Monsters that stayed monsters were one thing. They were themselves and you were you. He tugged at the hair his body had grown, and considered plucking it out, but decided it would hurt too much.
    Janet was still swimming when Mom got home. Mom worked in the school superintendent’s office,