Daydreams

I wake up to the sun pouring in through my bedroom windows.

It’s a nice feeling. A rare feeling. Warm.

I touch my fingers to my lips. I kissed Levi.

Holy shit. I kissed Levi.

Mom pounds on my door. “Tadpole, almost time for church!”

I groan. I don’t want to get up yet. But get out of bed I do.

Levi and Hunter don’t go to my church, but Georgia does. We sit next to each other during the service and write notes back and forth on the little envelopes they use to collect offerings, using the tiny pencils, like when you play minigolf, which are in the pews. She tells me about how this guy David has been texting her.

She writes: He’s not my type!

Do you like him?

He’s cute, I guess, but kind of nerdy

That is true. His glasses always slide down his nose, and he runs track so he’s super skinny. His body never fills out his jeans, but his lopsided smile is appealing, and he’s very smart.

The last guy Georgia dated was a linebacker named Kevin who definitely filled out his clothes. On the other hand, he cheated on her. David, however, seems like an okay guy. He’s president of the student body and always smiles and says hi to everybody in the hallway.

Did he ask you out?

Not yet but I know he wants to and I’m not sure about it. What do you think of him?

I decide to tell her what I was thinking. Great smile. Very smart. I approve.

A grin blooms on her face. She likes him. I can tell she does. But the smile quickly fades, and her expression becomes preoccupied. Getting cheated on really affected her. We told her that he was the jerk because he cheated, but she still felt it was a reflection on her, that it may have been partially her fault, that something must have been lacking about her if he felt the need to fool around with another girl.

I roll the little pencil back and forth between my hands like I’m heating them over a campfire. Part of me wants to tell Georgia about what happened last night with Levi. We’ve never kept secrets from each other, at least as far I know. But this feels very private. Telling her could also make things weird with our circle of friends.

I put the pencil back in the little holder next to the hymnals and spend most of the pastor’s sermon replaying last night over and over again in my head. If I have a few daydreams about Levi in Superman underwear, does that make me a total sinner? Probably. I concentrate extra hard during the Lord’s Prayer, in case God is offended by my fantasies. Annnd then I go right back to fantasizing.

After church, I ditch the skirt and change into my swimsuit and sweats, and wait for Levi at the front door. I’m a little nervous about seeing my friend. After we kissed, he wanted to go looking for Martha. Yes. The boy used a snapping turtle as an excuse to stop kissing me.

I don’t exactly blame him. It was starting to get intense. Part of me even wanted him to take off my shirt, but it was like forty degrees out, and no guy is worth hypothermia.

He honks his horn. At least that hasn’t changed. After grabbing our chocolate milks and protein bars, I run out to the truck to meet him. He’s already standing outside the passenger door holding it open. I climb inside.

Once we’re driving down the road, I decide to take the edge off of the silence by being cheeky.

“So,” I say. “Do anything interesting last night?”

After a pause, laughter erupts from him. “I found some turtle eggs.”

“Is that right?”

Does he have a smug look on his face?

We argue over the radio on the way to practice. He is on a rap kick and I want rock. We settle by turning off the radio to play Overboard.

I say, “You’ve got President Obama, Michael Phelps, and David Beckham. Who’s going overboard?”

Levi moans. “Can’t you give me a girl for once? Okay, let’s see. I’d spend one hot night with David Beckham because even I can admit he’s good looking. I’d spend a year with Michael Phelps learning everything I can from him. That leaves…throwing President Obama overboard. I can’t do that! That’d be an assassination attempt.”

I crack up. “So what are you gonna do?”

“Maybe I should throw Michael Phelps overboard. I’d have a better chance of making the Olympic team that way.”

“And you wouldn’t risk the Secret Service throwing you to the sharks,” I point out.

“That’s always a positive,” Levi agrees.

Practice at the pool is pretty routine, but at the end, Coach wants to see me privately again. Twice in one week is weird. I follow him into the office and sit down in the guest chair. I try to avoid looking at the calendar. The big red circles around the dates of upcoming long course meets glare at me.

“What’s up, Coach?”

He tosses his tennis ball from one hand to another. “I looked up Roxy’s conference times online.”

Since she lives in Memphis, she competes in different conferences and regionals, but we’re sure to meet at state. “And?”

“She swam a tenth of a second faster than you in 200 back.”

I let out a heavy breath. “Shit.”

“No reason to worry yet.” Coach throws his tennis ball against the wall and catches it on the bounce back. “No matter what happens at state, you know you’re better at long course, and you’re more likely to get your cut for the Olympic trials than she is. She gets her strength from pushing off the side of the pool. You’re naturally stronger and don’t rely on your turns.”

“Thanks for letting me know.”

He nods. “We have to keep talking through these things. You’re the best.”

I walk out of the office to find Levi waiting. The second he sees me, he slides his headphones off his ears and drapes them around his neck.

“You good?” he asks.

No matter what Coach says about me being better than Roxy, it won’t be true until I beat her. My eyes start watering. “Can we go?”

My best friend throws an arm around my shoulders, and we walk to his truck.

• • •

So this is the week from hell.

First, Coach told me about Roxy beating my time.

Second, Levi has an interview with the Tennessean on Friday. The newspaper is doing a big story on how great of a swimmer he is, highlighting how he’s going to the trials in Omaha this summer. He won’t stop complaining about it because he hates attention and loathes having his picture taken.

“I just want to swim! I don’t want to do interviews!” he whines, shaking his fists at his first world problems.

“C’mon, Leaves,” I say. “You should be proud. No one asked to interview me.”

“So I’ll tell them to interview you instead,” he snaps.

I love my best friend, but we sure can get on each other’s nerves sometimes. I’m happy for him, but also jealous the paper isn’t doing a story on me. Can’t Levi see this upsets me?

Third, it appears to be safe sex week in health class.

My teacher, Coach Woods, is very down to earth and cool. Every day she wears a Hundred Oaks football shirt of some kind. If it’s not a jersey, it’s a sweatshirt or a long-sleeved tee and jeans. Never khakis and polos, like other coaches at school. I don’t know how she gets away with it. The Jordan Woods probably wouldn’t let someone give her a dress code.

I love Coach Woods, but I don’t want to put a condom on a banana in front of the entire class. On top of that, she’s timing us using a stopwatch! I mean, who makes their students race against each other to see who can put a condom on the fastest?

“All right, Maggie,” she says, hovering above me with that stopwatch. “You’re up. Grab your banana.”

“Bananas are for eating,” I reply.

She ignores me. “The time to beat is seven and a half seconds. Remember, you can’t tear the condom, and you have to make sure it’s securely in place. If it’s not, you’re disqualified. Ready?”

I’m poised with an unopened condom and my banana. “Let’s do it.”

“Three, two, one…go!” She scrutinizes me as I fumble with the wrapper.

“I don’t know why I’m even bothering,” I announce, freeing the condom from the foil. “I will never have time for sex.”

The room full of girls chuckles. I make terrible jokes when I get nervous, which is now, as I’m trying to stretch this condom over a banana that’s pretending to be a penis. I pull too hard and the latex breaks. The class cracks up.

“Arg!” Coach Woods shouts, as if she’s a safe sex pirate. “You’ll get it next time.”

I sit back in my seat and sigh. I hate losing. Even if it’s only a condom race.

The bell rings. All the girls stand and gather their bags and notebooks. I go to peel my banana because I’m starving. Who cares if lunch starts in five minutes?

“Nobody eat the bananas!” Coach Woods says. “I need them for my next class.”

Sadly, I put my banana back on the desk.

Coach Woods calls out, “Maggie, can you I see you for a minute?”

I hoist my backpack over my shoulder and walk to the front of the room. She’s one of the few women I’ve ever met who is taller than me. Her dad played football and her brother is quarterback of the Tennessee Titans, and Coach Woods herself was a player in high school. She coaches the team here now. Condom races aside, I really like her because she talks to us like we’re adults.

“I don’t have to do the condom test again, do I?”

“No.” She sits on top of her desk. “I wanted to ask you about what you said about never having time for a boy.”

I shrug. “It’s true. I don’t even have time to dry my hair.”

“I know how you feel. When I was a senior, I had to spend all my time training. And when I wasn’t doing that, I was watching game film or in the weight room. It was tough working toward a college scholarship, so I can’t even imagine what it’s like for you.” She shakes her head, and her face goes from sad to one of wonder. “You’re working toward the Olympics!”

It’s awesome that people support me. It truly is. It motivates me. But it’s also pretty scary. What if I let them down? I let my school down last year when I lost to Roxy at state. What if that happens again? What if that trend continues to the long course meets? What if Roxy gets to go with Levi to Omaha, and I’m stuck in Tennessee watching on TV?

Coach Woods goes on, “I wanted you to know that I figured out how to balance football and having a boyfriend senior year.”

“How?”

“It helped that I was dating a guy on the team”—she pauses to smile—“but I also found that if I dated someone who supported me and understood why I practiced so hard, it made it easier to spend time with him. He was willing to work around my schedule.”

I think about my friends. We always make time for each other on Friday nights.

“It would be nice to meet someone,” I admit.

“I also remember feeling like no one would take me seriously as an athlete if I had a boyfriend.”

“Yeah, I understand that,” I reply, thinking of how Coach Josh got fed up with Susannah when she was dating Lucas. “I worry that people will question my dedication if I were to start spending time with a guy.”

Coach Woods picks up the football on her desk and tosses it to herself. “Well I can solve your first problem right there. Stop worrying what other people think.”

“That’s not so easy. I don’t want to disappoint my parents or my coach.”

“I think you’ll find they want you to be happy, Maggie. You work hard. You practice hard. They won’t mind if you take a little time for yourself.” She stops tossing her ball and cradles it to her chest. “Most people are so busy thinking about themselves they aren’t worried about other people. It’s human to think that everyone is always watching everything we do, but they aren’t.”

“Even when that person might be going to the Olympic trials?” Coach Josh watches us New Wave kids pretty closely. He’s like a CIA agent, keeping dibs on how late I stay up at night and when my muscles are tight. “I don’t know if I agree with that.”

Coach Woods sets her ball down on the desk. “You’re right. It’s not always that simple. But I wanted you to know that I once thought I didn’t have time for guys, but I was able to make it work.”

I smile at her, appreciating she can admit life isn’t black and white.

Mine sure isn’t.

Levi is waiting outside Coach Woods’ classroom to walk me to lunch. When he sees me, he pushes himself off the wall where he’d been leaning and adjusts his backpack and black knit cap.

“Why’d she keep you late?” he asks.

Not wanting to tell him what she said, I make something up: “Because I failed my condom race, and then I tried to eat the banana.”

He lifts an eyebrow. “What?”

I wave a hand to dismiss the conversation.

He says, “I heard you announced in front of the class that you’re never gonna have time for sex, so why bother learning to use a condom.”

I knew I shouldn’t have said that. Good gossip travels fast at this school. “I was joking.”

He holds the door open to the noisy cafeteria, ushering me inside. “This whole hooking up thing is really bothering you.”

I shrug a little. “Sometimes I feel lonely, that’s all.”

“You’ve got me.”

“I know, but I want a little more than friendship.” I want to make out. I want a guy to press his body to mine and kiss me all over. And for crying out loud, what does an orgasm feel like? “I want someone to snuggle with.”

“Snuggling makes me hot.”

“Like hot and bothered?”

“No, like sweaty hot. Too much body heat for me.”

I smile. “You’re hopeless.”

We sit down at our regular table by the windows with Hunter and Georgia. After saying hi, I unpack my lunch of pasta and energy drinks. Hunter’s already halfway through his sub sandwich, and Georgia’s devouring a grilled chicken salad…and some bread and soup. She’s way over the calorie count suggested by the college cheerleading coach, but I think that went in one ear and out the other, which is good. It doesn’t seem healthy to be that restrictive given her workouts. I follow her gaze a few tables away to where David, the guy who likes her, is eating with the Quiz Bowl team.

I nudge her in the side. “He’s looking at you.”

“Shh.” She focuses on her salad. Does she not want Hunter and Levi to know? I guess I can understand why. David is the exact opposite of us. I mean, he runs, but he’s about half the size of Hunter and Levi. She seemed worried about what I’d think of him, so I imagine it’s the same with our guy friends. Probably even more so.

Two sophomores drop by our table to say hi to Levi. One of them lives down the street from him, but I don’t know her name. I do know, however, that she’s grown very pretty as she’s gotten older.

“Hi, ladies,” he says.

I shift in my seat, and focus on twirling pasta around my fork.

“Levi,” the neighbor says. “We got a new puppy!”

“What kind?” he asks.

“A Bernese Mountain Dog!”

Levi folds his hands behind his head and grins up at her. “Aww.”

“His name is Patches. Can I bring him by sometime to meet Pepper?”

“Of course. Anytime.”

I pretend to look at my phone while Levi and the cute neighbor make plans for a doggy date. It’s not as if he’s mine, but the vibe between us feels a little off ever since I kissed him. Hopefully it’s something I’ll get used to, like when you buy a new pair of jeans that feel tight at first, but eventually stretch and mold to your body.

Lucky for me, Shelby Goodwin leaves her table of sophomore friends to come sit on Hunter’s lap, distracting me from the girl flirting with Levi. “Hey, you guys.” They whisper and flirt for a sec, and Hunter pulls her in for a kiss.

“Want to be my girlfriend?” he asks her, as he does every day.

“Stop,” she giggles, gently pushing his chest. She still won’t commit to him.

Why can none of us seem to have a regular relationship?

Shelby wraps an arm around his neck, and they start kissing again.

“I’m eating here,” I tease.

Hunter breaks apart from Shelby. “Mags, what’s this about you telling Coach Woods you’ll never have time for sex?”

I groan, then start laughing along with my friends.