When I finally opened my eyes, I realized that a student had stopped and was watching me. He opened his mouth, but stopped himself before turning and resuming his path. I dusted off my clothes and hurried home.
That night, while watching the news on CBC, I learned the searches had turned up nothing. Faye had vanished into thin air. I received a text from Oliver, which I decided to ignore—along with the barrage of them he sent after.
The Amber Alert was lifted a few days later; the police declared that little Faye would not be found alive. The evidence leading them to this conclusion was not revealed to the media. The only thing left to do was forget.
Forget.
Part Two
“You've got a skin fold on your waist there.”
"I know.”
“You need to get rid of it.”
“Well, what about your pectorals? Why aren’t they developing?”
“I told you, it’s because my rib cage isn’t as big as yours.”
“You have to work your upper body more.”
Our regimen has been effective. Our muscles are bulging and defined. Before we begin, we take the scale from under the bed and weigh ourselves. We are respectively 156 and 159 pounds. Our BMI is 21.7 and 22; we can calculate this mentally.
We perform a series of stretches and head to the park. It isn’t far; it’s the one at our old elementary school. We still spend a lot of time there. In the afternoon, it fills up with children who watch us exercise and try to make fun by imitating us. We don’t care.
“You have to get your chin over the bar.”
“You’re not even getting there yourself!”
“You have to if we’re going to have the same pectorals.”
At opposite ends of the bars, we coordinate the rhythm of our lifts. We do 200, breathing together as one. The symmetry has to be perfect. Next, we do sprints: 40 times across the park, then 200 squats.
When we finish training, we buy Gatorade at the convenience store on Harbord Street.
“Are we going to the dog park to drink them?”
A dry grass covers the clearing and prickles our thighs through our shorts. A man and woman are talking while their dogs run around them. We watch them as we drink our Gatorade. A boy passes us with a big grey dog. The beast comes over to sniff us, and the boy gives a tug on his leash. The dog circles the park a few times before shitting in a corner. The boy picks it up, lets the dog play for a bit, then climbs the hill to leave the park.
“What kind of dog is that?”
We like dogs.
“A poodle,” the boy responds flatly.
“A poodle. He doesn’t look like a poodle.”
“That’s because people usually shave them into stupid shapes.”
The dog sits down. No one pets him. A moment passes.
“Do you want to come to the pool with us? We’re going to Christie Pits,” we ask before getting up to go.
The boy accepts right away. We don’t really know why we asked him.
“I’ll get my bathing suit at home and meet you there.”
“Should we try the five-metre?”
We put our clothes away in lockers. The keys hang from our wrists on rubber bands.
The pool is made up of four areas. The first, very shallow, has a shower shaped like a mushroom for babies, but the water is so cold you can’t stay in there long. The second is too hot. If you jump into it first, the last two pools feel like ice. The bigger, main one is Olympic size and we can usually get in a few laps of front crawl when it isn’t overrun by amateur swimmers. The last one is just the landing pool for the diving boards; this is the one we like best. Boys perform ridiculous feats for the sake of the girls in bikinis lying out on their towels.
There are four incrementally higher diving boards: two small one-metre ones, the three-metre above them, and the five-metre platform dominating the tower.
Our towels are sitting off to the side. They are different colours and our names are embroidered on them in capital letters. Someone made a comment about them one time. But he knows better now.
We climb the steps and take position at the edge of the platform. We are the only divers on top of the tower, so we can take our time. A lifeguard is stationed nearby to authorize the jump. He is fat and tanned. He gives us a sidelong glance, no smile.
“You can go,” he says dully.
We look at the tips of our feet and a point in the water where we will land. Without hesitation, we propel ourselves forward as far as possible, before curving our body to form as perfect a vertical position as we can. We pierce the water with minimal splash around the point of impact. We smile discreetly.
“Not bad.”
The boy with the poodle is waiting at the side of the pool.
“Can you dive off the five-metre?”
“No, but I can jump,” he says.
“Let’s go.”
The three of us climb to the top of the tower. We signal to the boy that he has to go first. He positions himself, toes hooked over the concrete, at the very edge of the diving board.
“Go ahead,” says the lifeguard, yawning.
The boy doesn’t budge. He looks into the void, then back at us. We cross our arms at the same time. He resumes his position, hesitates again, bends his knees into a squat, leans forward a little, and jumps. We lean over the guardrail to watch him land. His feet and thighs smack the water. He swims to the side with his head out of the water.
All afternoon, we dive, concentrating primarily on the 101A, the 203C, and the 5122D. The boy is happy to keep jumping.
We show him how to perfect his crawl. He is a fast learner. He follows our rhythm unquestioningly and stops
