One Shot

one
Lorrie's dad was sitting on the end of the diving board, his toes tapping the surface of the water. "This is going to be a big year for you," he said, panting slightly. He'd just swum a hundred laps or something.
Lorrie, stretched out in the water beneath him, didn't know how he kept track. She'd lose count around seven, so she just watched the big clock her stepmom had hung on the back wall of the house. She was up to twenty-seven minutes. Pretty good, considering that on Thursday, her first night here, she'd only been able to swim fourteen minutes before giving up.
"This program at Whitman is a wonderful opportunity," he went on, his voice carrying across the water. "A real chance to prove yourself."
Lorrie was sick of hearing about Whitman. Right now she was more interested in seeing how long she could float. Arching her back, she kicked her feet up to the surface. Her ears were under, and her dad's voice was muffled. She didn't need to hear every word. She knew already that hewas so glad she was here, he was so sure she would like Maryland's schools better than those in that little rural town in Pennsylvania where she'd been with her mom for the last two years, and he was so happy Lorrie was getting to know his new wife, Elaine.
Lorrie's feet were sinking. She filled her lungs with air and lifted her lower body back up to the surface. Normally she would have listened more carefully to her dad. He didn't usually lecture, but she'd heard all this before. Yesterday, in fact, when she'd taken the subway into the city to meet him for lunch at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Her dad was curator of special exhibits. He liked her to come to "D.C.," as they often referred to the nation's capital, and see the new displays and meet the "young folks" on his staff.
Suddenly she realized it was quiet. She lifted her head out of the water, and her legs sank. Her dad was looking at her, waiting. Treading water now, she replayed the last sounds she'd heard. Had he asked a question? "Uh, what was that, Dad?"
"I said, aren't you happy that you and Sarah have stayed in touch? She can show you around, maybe introduce you to the kids on the school paper."
"That'll be great." Sarah and Lorrie had grown up together. Lorrie had lived a couple of blocks from here before her parents divorced. She and Sarah liked to think of themselves as cousins, even though it wasn't true. Their families shared a distant connection by marriage, not blood, but it was a link that had fascinated them as children.
Lorrie looked at her dad through long wet strands of brown hair that stuck to her forehead and hung down across her eyes. She ducked and came up with her head thrown back. There was no way she was going to hassle with thisheavy wet hair all summer--not with a pool right here in the backyard that she could jump into anytime she wanted. She made up her mind to cut it, maybe even later today.
Her dad was tossing around all the buzz words now. Gifted and Talented. Accelerated Learner. Advanced Placement. Lorrie hated this. At her old school, she was just your typical "good student," the kind who listened in class and did all the homework, played some sports, worked on the school newspaper. She got good grades. Big deal. So did a lot of kids.
Lorrie did somersaults underwater. This was something she and Sarah used to do when they were little and spent whole summers at the neighborhood pool, over on Fernwood Road. They'd stay in the water all day, playing Marco Polo and seeing how many lengths of the pool they could swim without coming up for air.
With ease, Lorrie did five somersaults in a row. It was something you didn't forget, she figured, like riding a bike.
Now her dad was talking about some big school project that was due on the third day back. Summer reading. Lorrie piled her wet hair on top of her head. She'd have to get the list from Sarah.
Having finally exhausted the subject of Lorrie's "academic career," as he liked to call it, her dad did a neat pike dive and swam to the ladder at the shallow end of the pool. Lorrie joined him on the flagstone deck.
If he'd noticed her indifference to the thrilling topic of Walt Whitman High School, he didn't show it. "I'm glad you're here," he said happily, encircling her with his arm and kissing her wet cheek. He threw his towel over his shoulders. "Oh, I almost forgot. Elaine wants to speak with you when she gets home. You'll be around for the next hour or so, won't you?"
"I'll be sitting right here, drying off," Lorrie said, rubbing sunblock onto her arms. The June sun was hot, and she had burned a little yesterday. She wondered what her new stepmom could want.
Stepmom. She was still getting used to the word. Her dad had remarried in January, after having been separated from Lorrie's mom for three years. Last fall, before the wedding, he'd said, "Maybe you two could be friends." That's probably what all divorced parents said when they remarried, but, of course, the whole idea was silly. Elaine was forty or something. Lorrie wasn't looking for a friend her mom's age. And she wasn't looking for another mom, either. She was going to be sixteen this fall. She was almost through with mothers.
Lorrie was on the verge of sleep when Elaine came out an hour or so later. She was wearing a pale pink suit, a dressy outfit for a Saturday morning at the office, Lorrie thought. In each hand, she held a can of Orange Crush. A bag of pretzels was tucked under her arm.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you," she said when Lorrie lifted her head and rolled over on her back. Lorrie reached for the soda Elaine was offering. "I'm up."
Spreading a towel over the chair next to Lorrie's, Elaine stretched out, leaning back contentedly and surveying the pool. "I've got to get in there and scrub that grout," she said, making it sound as though she was looking forward to it. Lorrie knew that Elaine loved her pool. She'd had it put in this March, and she'd been swimming in it since the end of April.
"So, Lorrie, did Roger mention to you that I'm quitting my job?" Elaine asked, getting right to the point.
"No," Lorrie blurted out, her Orange Crush drippingover her bottom lip. Her dad hadn't said a thing about it! How could he have gone on and on about high school when this was happening?
Elaine was one of those workaholics you hear about, the kind of person who puts in a million hours a week at her law firm downtown. "This is a joke, right?" asked Lorrie.
Elaine was studying the pool tile, thinking about grout, no doubt. "Your dad couldn't believe it, either." She chuckled softly, slipping out of her silk jacket. Her hair was back in a gold clasp that she pulled out now Giving her head a shake, she lifted her face into the early-summer sun.
"My dad's big on commitments," Lorrie offered, still stunned by the news.
Elaine laughed easily, the sound bouncing off the surface of the water and filling the backyard.
"He is," Lorrie insisted. "He just hates it when we quit things--" Uh-oh. Lorrie hadn't meant to say "we." It was a reflex--a dumb one, too, since her parents had been apart for years. She started over. "I mean, my dad has a thing about people--me--starting something and not finishing it."
Elaine looked interested.
Lorrie closed her mouth. This conversation wasn't about her, and it most definitely wasn't going to be about her mother. It was just that her mom had driven her dad crazy, dropping things she'd started. It wasn't little stuff, either, like sewing projects or refinishing furniture. It was big stuff, like apartment leases and new jobs.
Elaine munched on a pretzel and looked thoughtful. "What did you ever start and not finish?"
That was an easy one. "In middle school, I wanted to play the flute. I joined the school band, but I really hatedit. Right from the start. I didn't like the way it felt against my mouth, and I never practiced."
"So you quit?"
"I tried. My dad talked me into finishing out the year." She carefully ate the salt off her pretzel. That wasn't quite the truth. Her dad had encouraged her not to drop the flute but had left it up to her, since she was the one who had to practice every day. She'd planned to quit, but then she just couldn't do it. So she started up again with her practicing, working extra hard until she got caught up. But for now, she shrugged. "He hates quitters."
"Well, I'm not a quitter," Elaine said, sounding amused.
Lorrie popped the pretzel into her mouth.
"I've been at this firm since I got out of law school. Eighteen years of sixty-hour workweeks. That's a whole lot of billable hours."
Lorrie thought about this. "Eighteen years," she said. "You've been there my whole life and then some."
Elaine groaned. "When you put it like that, it sounds even worse. Well, I've got just a little bit longer." Ever since she sat down, she'd been discarding her work clothes. Her jacket, her hair clip, her shoes. Now she pulled out her earrings. "I need to change into my bathing suit," she said, standing up. "Can you hold on a minute? There's something I want to discuss with you."
What else could there be? Lorrie wondered as Elaine disappeared into the changing room. Then it occurred to Lorrie that Elaine hadn't mentioned another job.
Oh, no, thought Lorrie, shaking her damp head. She was not going to spend the summer with her stepmother. That was just not part of the deal. The deal had been for her to come here, rather than go with her mom to California, sothat she could spend the summer hanging out with Sarah, sitting by the pool, taking bike rides, going downtown to shop in Georgetown, and working a couple of days a week at a part-time job that she planned on finding this week. She already had an interview on Monday with a woman down the street who did day care in her home.
Before Lorrie could feel any sorrier for herself, Elaine was back, dressed now in a black Speedo with a splash of colors across the front. She, like Lorrie's dad, was an exercise fanatic. Sometimes they ran together in the early mornings. They were talking about running the Marine Corps Marathon this fall.
Taking a seat crossways on the chaise longue, Lorrie's stepmom got right down to business. "Okay, here's the thing," she said. "I'd like to offer you a job for the summer. Maybe part-time into the fall as well. We'll have to see how it goes."
"I don't get it."
"Of course not. I'm sorry. Let me begin again. I'll be starting a new job next week--very part-time to start--and I'll need an assistant. I'm doing some work for a woman named Molly Price. Have you heard of her?"
Lorrie shook her head.
"She's a photographer. Quite famous, in fact. Or used to be, anyway, when she was younger. She's in her eighties now."
Lorrie knew some contemporary women photographers whose work she liked, women like Annie Leibovitz, Mary Ellen Mark, and Carol Guzy.
"She lives a few blocks from here, over on Roosevelt Street," Elaine went on.
"Near my old house."
"Right. Very near to where you used to live with your parents," Elaine said, adding this detail easily. "Anyway, Molly needs some help settling her estate."
"Oh, so you'd be her lawyer?"
"Yes, and more. You see, Molly's been in that house for the past forty years and, for the last decade anyway, she's been--well--I guess the best way to put it is to say she's been a hermit. She's closed herself off from the world."
Lorrie frowned. "And what is it you're going to do?"
"She has a lifetime of work crammed into that house. Boxes of photos and negatives, as well as her own private collections of the work of other famous photographers who were her friends. And she's got letters--file cabinets full of correspondence that she's held on to all these years." Elaine looked at Lorrie. "She needs someone to go through it with her and help her make decisions. There's a fair amount of paperwork, legal paperwork, involved."
"Sounds like a big job."
"It is. Everyone wants to own her collections. Museum curators from all over the world have been requesting access for years, but she refuses everyone. Biographers, historians, art galleries, colleges." Elaine shook her head. "No, this isn't just some old lady with a house full of junk."
"So what's her problem? If everyone wants it, why doesn't she just give it to them?"
"She's hard to figure out."
"But she talks to you?"
"Yes, that's the strange part. We struck up a friendship several summers ago, when I lived over on Jefferson. I'd see her in the garden out front, and I'd stop and chat. Sometimes I'd pull a weed or two. I didn't know who she was, so I guess she felt comfortable with me. In the wintersometimes I'd check on her if I hadn't seen her in a while. And over the years I've helped her hire people to mow the lawn and fix the roof--that sort of thing. She doesn't usually open the door to people who come knocking, but she lets me in and serves me tea, too." Elaine sounded proud of the fact.
Lorrie was curious about this woman, once so famous and now such a recluse.
"I'll be needing someone to help me. And I thought of you. Are you interested?" Elaine asked.
"Interested?"
"Yes. I'll be assisting Molly with legal decisions--she's setting up grants and scholarships, too--but I'll need help with the other tasks, sorting through papers, moving around boxes, possibly getting the house ready to sell. Mundane, hands-on work."
"Wait. She's moving?"
"She's considering an assisted-care apartment. She hasn't made up her mind, though her name is on the waiting list. They have a doctor on staff, and they provide meals and social activities." Elaine chuckled. "For some reason, I just can't imagine Molly playing bingo."
"Is she sick or something?"
"No, not at all. Well, I guess I shouldn't say that. She has medicine for her heart, for low blood pressure, I believe, but she's still pretty feisty," Elaine said, smiling. "I'd love it if you'd work with me." Her voice was warm. "I'll pay you a couple of bucks above minimum wage to start. Later in the summer, if Molly does decide to move out and we get to painting the rooms, we'll go a little higher." She stood up and did some stretching exercises that looked like yoga. Lorrie knew she was getting ready to swim laps. Elainedidn't time herself or her laps, like Lorrie and her dad. She just swam.
Lorrie needed time to think. She wanted to work this summer so she could save for a car, but working with her stepmother at some old lady's house was definitely not what she had in mind, though the thought of meeting this famous photographer was kind of intriguing.
Elaine dipped a foot in the pool and splashed water onto the sunny deck, darkening the blue stone. "Think about it. I don't need an answer right this minute," she said, shielding her eyes from the sun when she looked back at Lorrie. "Why don't you come with me on Monday? I'm going over in the morning to do some preliminary work. You can meet her, maybe help me get started. And then decide."
"Just meet her?"
"Yeah. It'll be quick. Maybe an hour. I need to go over some papers with her. You can come along and get to know her a little bit. I should warn you, she's kind of abrasive sometimes."
"Abrasive?"
Elaine knelt down and swished the water up over her shoulders.
"I think you'll like her. I know you'll love her work."
Lorrie considered this for a moment. She was interested, that was for sure. And not just because Molly was famous. It was the photography. Lorrie's work on the school paper had been the best part of her sophomore year. Especially when one of her photos was reprinted in the town paper, the Clearfield News.
"Okay, I'll come along," she agreed.
"That's great," said Elaine happily. "Just don't let her get to you and you'll be fine"
"What does that mean?"
Elaine slid into the pool. "Molly is hard to describe," she said, plucking a leaf from the water. "You'll just have to see for yourself."
Lorrie waited for Elaine to say more, but her stepmom began to swim. What was it about this old lady that Elaine wasn't telling her?
Copyright © 2003 by Susan Glick