“Just…cold,” Brynna managed.
Lauren was in her Hawthorne-green swim team suit; Brynna had a half-dozen of the exact same suit, only hers were Lincoln High purple and gold. She shivered and switched her gaze to Darcy, who was adjusting the straps of her suit. It was a delicate pink with even paler pink polka dots and contrasting striped piping. With its frilly little skirted bottom, it would have made anyone else look like a freakishly tall six-year-old, but on Darcy, with her white-blond hair, sex kitten lips, and chest that made Brynna shrug into her towel, she looked like walking sex. Sweat pricked out all over Brynna, and she thought about Teddy, about what her sweet boyfriend could see in her when he’d spent nearly a year with Darcy and all her candy striper/centerfold glory. But the thought was fleeting as the girls began walking toward the outdoor pool.
Lauren held the door open, and Brynna worked to control her breathing, trying to grab on to something that Dr. Rother told her about facing challenges. She couldn’t think of it, and her frustration was overtaking her dread.
TWELVE
When all the girls were suited up in their Hawthorne High regulated bathing suits—no bikinis, no monokinis, no tankinis, or “inis” of any kind—Mrs. Markie lined them up against the far wall of the outdoor pool. Brynna was secretly relieved that the P.E. teacher had chosen to teach the class at this pool rather than the indoor one; the indoor one, Brynna thought, felt far too much like a coffin.
Mrs. Markie strolled in front of them, her tanned, freckled skin loose where the industrial-sized straps of her army-green bathing suit cut across her shoulders. She was wearing the suit with a pair of knee-length khaki shorts and her ever-present whistle. Her toes bled over the top of a pair of blue-and-white strappy foam sandals, “Hawaii” scrawled over the white part in a funky brush script. The ensemble gave her the look of a geriatric camp counselor. Brynna was so busy taking in Mrs. Markie that she failed to hear the teacher directing her students to the edge of the pool.
The shrill sound of the whistle shook Brynna out of her reverie. “In line, Chase!” Mrs. Markie barked.
Brynna didn’t move, watching while the girls filed into four rows at the edge of the pool. One girl, who wasn’t suited up, came out of the locker room and sat on a bench with a notebook.
“How come she doesn’t have to swim?” Brynna asked Mrs. Markie.
Mrs. Markie dropped the silver whistle from her lips and looked disgustedly at the girl on the bench. “She can’t swim. Can you swim, Chase?”
Brynna nodded blankly. “Does she still have to take the test?”
The teacher answered Brynna with a quick burst from the whistle. “Mind your own business and get in line.”
Brynna slowly made her way to the lines of girls, stopping to suck in her breath when the four girls at the head of each line simultaneously jumped into the water and swam the short way across the pool.
“What happened to ‘Intro to water day’?” she breathed as her heart rate started to ratchet up.
She watched, stunned, as the girls cut through the water and climbed out of the pool on the other side just as the next four jumped.
“What is this supposed to teach us, exactly?” Brynna asked Lauren, who was standing in front of her.
Lauren shrugged. “That if you fall in the pool, you can climb out, I guess. I know the trainer came over and made our dog do the same thing.” She turned all the way around to face Brynna. “Scared?”
“No.” Brynna forced a chuckle. “Why would you say that? I mean, I can swim.”
“Good,” she said, turning back around. “Because if you can’t, they make you take the beginning class with the middle schoolers.”
Brynna looked toward the girl on the bleachers, mercifully clothed. Her stomach lurched, a fist of anxiety tightening in her gut. She raised her hand.
“Um, Mrs. Markie, I’m not feeling so well.”
Mrs. Markie took her time coming around the pool, using her whistle every five feet before stopping to yell at someone in the water, someone getting out of the water, or someone on the way into the water, before she approached Brynna.
“What’s that now?”
Brynna pressed her palm against her stomach. “I don’t think I should swim today. I feel like I’m going to throw up.”
Mrs. Markie pressed the back of her hand against Brynna’s forehead. “You don’t feel hot.”
“Maybe it was something I ate.”