They Could Have Named Her Anything by Jimenez Stephanie

Author:Jimenez, Stephanie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-07-31T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

Maria was disappointed. She had wanted to swim.

She didn’t excel at any physical activity on land. Clumsy and a little soft, she ran pigeon-toed during relay races in the gym and gazed at the wall distractedly whenever they sat at machines in the weight room. When she signed up for the swim team during her first year at Bell Seminary, her gym class teachers discussed and discussed until they came to the conclusion that one of them ought to call Maria’s home to speak with Mr. or Mrs. Rosario, with the intention of explaining that the swim team was one of the most competitive sports at the private all-girls school. None of them had seen Maria swim, but based on her performance in the weight room and how she always walked through the semestral one-mile test, they knew she’d never qualify. They’d never seen her swim, but they assumed she didn’t know how to—most kids who grew up in the outer boroughs didn’t. There weren’t, they chortled among themselves during their planning periods, any events dedicated to the doggy paddle.

On one Wednesday night in October, the Bell Seminary seventh- and eighth-grade swim coach was on the phone with his landlord, threatening to call the New York City housing department for still not having sent someone to fix a leak that had created a bubble like a big plaster pimple that hung from his living room ceiling. At the end of the phone call, he was frazzled and distracted, but that same night, finally, someone did come. For no other reason did he neglect to call Maria’s parents the night before the first practice of the season, and so when Maria showed up with her swim cap and one-piece and sank into the pool with a clap, he had nobody else to thank for the blessing than his negligent landlord. Within seconds of sinking into the water, she propelled herself forward with a force that only Grace—the swim team captain who, at only fourteen years old, had developed certain physical characteristics and vocal intonations that prompted mean rumors that she was a lesbian—could surpass, and even so, only marginally. As the swim coach looked on, he shook his head in disbelief. Maria Rosario, newest addition to Bell Seminary’s eighth-grade class, could swim. And not just that—the coaches agreed that she’d be set to make varsity as soon as she entered upper school. And all because of those summer afternoons that her mother left her at the YMCA pool, where they fed her chocolate milk and chicken medley for lunch, free for any family who showed up willing to eat it.

But within three weeks, Maria had quit the team. She’d been genuinely sad to tell them it was because making a practice that started at 6:30 a.m. required her to wake up at 4:00 a.m. and get on a public train. But when the Bell Seminary coaches continued to approach her, stopping her in the hallway, going on about dedication, she traded her sadness for anger instead.

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