Damon
Damon was watching Brielle. She was walking around in her hooded sweatshirt, mumbling to herself. He was wearing a brand new Wimberley Swim hoodie that Brielle had given him for his birthday. He was biting the inside of his cheek. This swimming stuff was nerve-wracking. She’d taken second in the fifty and hundred freestyle and fourth in the fifty butterfly. Her team was in second place behind Clarkston, a team that looked like they had a height and weight requirement because every single one of the girls on the team was at least five ten, blond and beefy. Damon wondered if they were all cousins. There was one other black girl swimming, from a Catholic all-girls school called Mercy. Mercy had on the wickedest swim warm ups he’d ever seen. Wimberley looked like vagabonds in comparison. Damon had heard one of the parents say that the first fundraiser of the year was to get new warm ups next year. Brielle and the other black girl had embraced before the meet and cheered each other on in every race, even if someone on their team was swimming against them.
“Yo, Dave,” he said to his brother. “It’s freaky that there’s only two black girls swimming in the whole state championships.”
David rolled his eyes.
“Sisters ain’t trying to get their hair wet,” said David.
“That’s true,” said Damon. “But they’ve got swim caps.”
“Access to pools is probably limited, too,” said David. “Inner City schools cut out athletics and stuff in school and just kept the moneymakers like football and basketball. Where is some Detroit girl even going to learn how to swim, if not at school?” Damon nodded. That was always the way things were. If your parents didn’t have money, you didn’t get to do anything. Damon had resolved to himself long ago that if he was going to have a lot of money before he thought about having kids.
It was down to this last race, the freestyle relay. Brielle was swimming the anchor, since she’d had the fastest qualifying time. The first swimmers climbed up on the blocks. The pool area was deathly quiet, waiting for the start tone
“So, you really like this girl, huh?” asked David in a whisper. David was his closest brother in age and temperament. They had always been extremely tight.
“I love her,” murmured Damon without thinking. David looked at him stunned. The start tones sounded and Damon jumped to his feet along with the rest of the crowd. David stared at him for a few seconds before turning his attention to the race.
Damon and Brielle’s contingent yelled themselves hoarse. Kyzie was so overcome with excitement she had to sit down with her head between her knees. The first three legs of the relay went by in a screaming blur. When Brielle jumped into the pool, they raised such a raucous thunder that Damon was almost afraid they were going to bring down the walls around them.
“Come on, come on,” begged Damon when the Clarkston swimmer pulled even with Brielle on the first length of the 50 meter pool. They flipped at precisely the same moment and began the back to the finish. The girls on Brielle’s team were jumping up and down wildly. Both girls seemingly touched the finish at the same time and the crowd fell back to deathly silence, awaiting the posted results.
“This has been a wild and woolly day,” said the announcer, hoarse from excitement. “The freestyle relay set a new meet record and we had a photo finish which will decide the meet winner.”
“Wild and woolly?” snapped Kyzie, having recovered from her near swoon. She had her hands on her slim hips, staring indignantly at the announcer’s booth. “What does he mean by that? Is he talking about Brielle’s hair?” David laughed long and hard.
“Her sister is a nut,” he said to Damon.
“You don’t know the half of it,” said Damon.
The scoreboard lit up. At the top it read Wimberley with Clarkston a hundredth of a second behind them in second place. Brielle and her team went wild. Kyzie screamed and grabbed Damon in a hard hug. Then she realized who she was hugging and let him go abruptly, grinning sheepishly.
Damon watched the awards and clapped louder than anyone.
Damon hung out with Brielle’s family just long enough to congratulate her and give her a big hug. She was so thrilled she was talking in that rapid fire speak all the girls used when they got excited, so that he could only understand one word in five that she uttered. Kyzie snapped what seemed to be a thousand pictures.
“Grab her,” yelled Kyzie. Damon slung his arm around Brielle’s shoulders and Kyzie snapped the picture. She showed it to him on the little display screen of the digital camera.
“Send me a copy,” he said. “Okay?”
“I’ll e-mail it to you,” said Kyzie, turning to snap more pictures.
Damon nodded.
He pulled Brielle aside for a few seconds. She looked sleek, wet and elated.
“I’ve got to head out,” he said.
“You have to leave,” she asked, looking disappointed. He nodded.
“Yeah, David’s gotta work tonight, I gotta study for ACT testing, and you got your whole family here. I’ll call you, okay,” he said and kissed her cheek in deference to her father and grandparents. He shook hands with everyone and excused himself.
“Thanks for coming,” she said. “Love you.”
“I love you, too.” said Damon. He tweaked a wet braid, then watched Brielle run back into the middle of the celebrating crowd.
Damon
“So,” said David, glancing over to Damon. They were about halfway home from Ypsilanti.
“So, what?” asked Damon. David eased around a slow moving truck and sped up.
“You love
