Read Online Swim to Me by Betsy Carter - Free Book Online

He’d stay there for as long as forty minutes until his face looked as if it might explode and his shorts and polo shirt were soaked in sweat. Once, while Delores was serving as an usher for one of the shows, she came outside for a break. It was a cloudless ninety-two-degree day, and everyone who could manage it had ducked inside to an air-conditioned part of the park, everyone except Lester and his fiery face.
    â€œHey, Lester,” she said.
    â€œOh, hey, Delores.” He was sitting up on the rock, dabbing the sweat off his face.
    â€œPretty hot day for sunbathing.”
    â€œYou’re not kidding.” He pulled his soaking-wet shirt away from his chest and waved it up and down like a fan.
    â€œAren’t you sweltering?”
    â€œI really am,” he said, sounding anesthetized.
    â€œWhy don’t you come in, out of the sun?” she asked.
    â€œI can’t,” he said. “I have a medical condition.”
    â€œOh, I’m sorry,” said Delores, taken aback by this information.
    â€œIt’s not life threatening or anything,” he said. “It’s just that I have this terrible acne. They say sun is the best cure for it. One time, a guest here, an older woman, saw me after the show. She told me that my face was unsightly. Can you imagine, she actually said the word ‘unsightly’?” Lester’s face got even redder. “She said the way to cure acne was to let the sun burn it away. She knew that because her son had had a bad case of it, and that’s the only thing that worked for him. She said that her son’s face got better and that he is now a famous linguist in Chapel Hill. I don’t know,” he said, running his fingers over his wet nubby skin, “maybe it’s getting a little clearer.”
    Delores wasn’t sure why Lester had told her all this. Maybe he would have told anyone who had come upon him at that moment. Seeing as she hadn’t had a whole lot of experience with boys, she wasn’t sure what to think. The only other boy she ever knew was Henry from the Y. Sometimes he had complimented her on her hair and told her how he liked it when she wore it up. One time, he was swimming in the lane next to her. She was doing the breast-stroke, he was doing the crawl. She could feel when he came near her by how the rhythm changed in the water. By accident, his hand brushed against her leg. She stopped swimming and merely floated. If she’d had to stand up at that moment, she couldn’t have.
    Later, when she’d gotten out of the pool, Henry had been waiting for her in the small corridor that led to the girl’s locker room. He didn’t say anything, just grabbed her close and kissed her. His tongue tasted like chlorine and she liked the way his nose bumped against hers. After that, they would kiss whenever they could find a private place. Neither of them ever spoke of it. Henry was the one who told her that she was good enough to become a professional swimmer, and Delores always wondered if he told her that so she would kiss him again.
    Lester seemed different—less sure of himself than Henry. She knew how he felt. She felt that way about her teeth, her feet, her breasts. If someone had told her she could make herself smaller and more attractive by sitting under the scorching sun for forty minutes at a time, she’d have done it without question.
    If she told Lester that she knew how alone and unattractive he felt, she would run the danger of cracking the facade of Delores Taurus. Instead, she tried to be encouraging. “You look good, Lester,” she lied. “I can see an improvement just in the time that I’ve been here.”
    â€œReally?” he asked, his voice suddenly filled with life.
    â€œYeah,” she said. “Really. Just don’t go getting yourself a third-degree burn.”
    Delores got to know the shyest girl in the group, Adrienne, when they were both chosen to