Watermark by Elise Schiller

Author:Elise Schiller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SparkPress
Published: 2020-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

chapter six

ALEX

When Angel joined the team and CJ told me it was my job to be her buddy, he meant that I was supposed to get her used to the routines of the team and help her understand competitive swimming (rules about practice, how to interpret time standards and meet entries), and help her deal with our special environment—water that was usually about ten degrees below normal because the pool was ancient (coat yourself with Vaseline and put on tights and a leotard under your suit), roaches in the locker room (hang your swim bag on a hook and don’t ever put food down, just eat it!) and racial issues (swim teams at suburban meets will treat you like you’re black only worse, since you’re white but with a black team and you have a black coach).

It turned into so much more than that.

Angel started swimming for us at a good time, near the end of the summer, when the younger kids were already finished with competing and we were just swimming to stay in shape. The workouts were pretty easy. In the afternoons while he worked with the older kids, CJ made Andrew take us places on the subway. He didn’t want us to go home to empty houses and he thought there were important things for us to see. Usually those important places were outside because inside places like museums cost money. That’s how we found ourselves one day standing in a long line with a whole lot of tourists to see the Liberty Bell. It was blazing hot and we were not happy. Even though she was new, Angel was not quiet.

“This better be worth it,” she complained, frowning at Andrew. “They rang this bell for the American Revolution?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“No,” said a tourist in front of us. “It was the bell for the State House.”

“What State House?” asked Andrew.

“Independence Hall used to be the Pennsylvania State House,” the tourist said, gesturing across the street to the old brick building.

“So if it wasn’t for the Revolution, why are we seeing it?” another swimmer asked.

“Because CJ said to see it,” Andrew said, his tone suggesting we should shut up.

Finally, it was our turn to get near the bell. The park ranger stationed there asked us to gather close and he began his well-rehearsed explanation of the history of the bell. When he concluded, with us understanding very little of what he had said about this symbol of freedom, he asked if we had any questions.

“It looks broken,” Angel observed.

“Well, it’s cracked,” said the ranger.

“Does it ring?” Angel asked.

“No,” said the ranger. “It hasn’t been rung for almost 150 years.”

Angel turned to me and the other swimmers and said, “So CJ sent us all the way down here to get hot standing in line to see a broken bell?”

The snickers were loud and Andrew quickly led us to a nearby stand and bought us popsicles. From that day, every time we found something disappointing, highly overrated, or not operating as it should, we called it a broken bell.

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