Crystal Grader by Tag Cavello (read my book txt) 📕

that spring break, curled up next to a book, or the TV remote if there was nothing she felt like plunging into. Several times she’d attempted to call Lucy on her cell, but the other end never picked up. It made Crystal wonder if she was being ignored on purpose. If so, she thought, well…che sara sara. After all, she’d been conditioning Lucy for years to realize her confidence, to come out of her shell and walk with her eyes somewhere other than her shoelaces. And if the mooring had finally broken, Crystal felt she could do little else but consider it a job well done.

By the end of the week she gave up on the calls. Instead, she decided to concentrate on what should have been a priority since day one: getting her body ready for summer. On Thursday Jarett called and cancelled that day’s lesson without saying why. This dampened her spirits (and poisoned her temper) considerably, but by Friday afternoon she was able put on a red bikini and climb out to the roof with a beach towel and a bottle of lotion. There was a flat space above Hannah’s window that Lucretia sometimes used for sunbathing. Crystal used it now, lying on her belly before removing the top of the bikini. It was uncomfortable at first; the shingles were coarse, the towel thin. But relaxation soon prevailed. She drew a deep breath, letting the sun do its work on her back. The song Promiscuous played on her cell phone.

And then the song stopped.

Crystal blinked from behind her Wayfarers as the phone began to ring. The name flashing on the screen surprised her a little. She pressed the answer button.

“Jarett?”

“Crystal!”

His voice all but exploded from the speaker.

“It’s me,” she said, after almost dropping the phone. “Are you all right?”

“Oh I’m perfect. Feeling great.”

“You sound excited.”

“As a matter of fact I am. Do you think your mom would let you come to Norwalk for a Saturday lesson?”

Squinting up at the sun, Crystal nodded, though in truth the idea of going back to Norwalk after last Saturday’s flame-out interested her little.

“Crystal?” Jarett asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, that’s fine. But why, Jarett?”

In the park below her, two young boys were playing on the monkey bars. One of them jumped down and ran over to the slide. Both were giggling in the sun, thrilled with every part of this perfect day.

“Because I have a friend who lives on Fair Road, and he’s going to be out of town that day. He loaned me his house, which is sumptuous. You’ll love it.”

“Jar—“

“And best of all,” he went on, “it has an indoor swimming pool.”

That made Crystal grin. She started to sit up before realizing, in the nick of time, that her top was still off.

“I see,” she told him. “And how big is this pool?”

“Ten feet straight to the bottom.”

Her tongue licked over her lips before answering. “Goodness, Jarett, that’s going to give my little cheerleading lungs quite a workout.”

These words were pure torture to him and she knew it. Nothing came from the other end of the phone for a long time. Her mind conjured him gasping on the floor, hand clenched over his chest. It was glorious.

“Are you okay, boss?” she almost laughed.

“Getting better every moment,” a squeaky voice answered.

“Uh-huh. Think you can control yourself for a few more hours?”

“Only with very concentrated effort.”

“All right. Do you want me to practice holding my breath until then, or would you rather just…watch my desperate bubbles come out at the usual time?”

A desiderative puff of air blew into the receiver. “Stop it, Crystal, please.”

“I’ll surprise you then.”

“Thanks, baby. I’m really looking forward to this.”

After the call was over she lay back on the blanket, feeling too happy to relax now. Her previous concern about Jarett’s hesitancy, his skittishness, no longer seemed substantial. He was excited again. He wanted her again—really wanted her.

That breath-holding weakness is a doozy for him, all right, she thought.

But then wasn’t that the way of all follies? According to the bible, a fool returned to his, over and over. If that was true then Crystal supposed they were both fools. As for her own folly…

“Jarett,” she said into the blanket.

***

“Jarett!” she said, looking down into the water the next day. “You weren’t kidding. It’s huge!”

“Oh I don’t lie about the free dives, baby.”

Crystal smiled at him. “That’s the second time I’ve heard you call me that. Is it going to stick?”

“What? Baby?”

“Yeah. You may want to be careful it doesn’t slip out in front of my mom.”

She expected to knock him off balance a little—he’d been calm and suave ever since picking her up at the house. Yet the memory of what had happened a week ago seemed very far from Jarett’s mind. Staring into her eyes, he reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a quarter.

“We’re always careful, Crystal. Until today.”

“What do you mean?”

He tossed the quarter into the pool. There was a ploink! and a brief shimmer under the surface. Then nothing.

“Can you dive down and get that for me?” Jarett asked, eyes gleaming.

Crystal began to unbutton her blouse. “Piece of cake,” she said. “What’s the reward?”

His answer came quick, as if he’d rehearsed the question already. “Dinner at the Radisson in Sandusky.”

“Oh you’re on.”

The red bikini was on underneath her clothes. She made a few adjustments to the ties, then looked back into the water. Several layers of blue paint had been spread across the bottom, giving the pool an abysmal quality that, like it or no, disturbed her the tiniest bit. A girl could dive into that and get disoriented in a hurry.

“Ten feet?” she asked. “Is that all it really is?”

“That’s all,” Jarett promised.

The house was a split level, built on the side of a hill so that the lower half was actually underground. Crystal had never seen so much space and luxury under one roof. There were huge leaning mirrors with gilded frames in every room. Tiffany lamps glowing atop oaken end tables. A skylight on one ceiling, a Baccarat chandelier on another. She drew in a few deep breaths, getting her lungs ready for the dive. Jarett asked if she was nervous. She told him no—no way in hell. Then, with the absolute deepest gasp of air that her small chest would hold, she dove primly into the blue.

And the waiting game began.

Crystal kicked down further and further, keeping her lips pursed. Her mind leaped from one thought to the next. Eating pizza with Lucy at Marko’s Pizzeria; reading her favorite book by candlelight; smoking a cigarette outside after dinner. The tactic got her to the bottom, but by then her chest had begun to feel tight. Letting out a few bubbles helped a little. Crystal looked right, then left, then straight ahead. There was no sign of the quarter anywhere.

The tightness intensified, became steady. A second, larger plume of bubbles burst from her lips. Crystal sprang off the bottom with a frustrated grimace. She knew that to stay any longer might not leave enough breath to make it back to the surface. As it stood, there was just enough. With three feet left to go her lungs began to scream blue murder. Exactly two seconds later, water splashed onto Jarett’s feet as Crystal, with a desperate gasp, broke free in the nick of time.

“AH!” she cried. “Too far!”

He asked if she was okay. She told him yes, but swam to his outstretched hand like a girl going after a lifeline. He pulled her out of the water and let her drip all over his clothes while she got her wind back. This involved carrying her to one of the reclining pool chairs on the patio, where Crystal could lie back to let failure gnash her teeth.

“I should have practiced,” she growled.

Jarett took a seat next to her. “Nah. I like this delicate side of you. It’s an interesting find.”

Her eyes shifted towards him.

“But I’m supposed to be the great and all-powerful Crystal Genesio. What will my friends at school think?”

“If your friends at school ever find out about us their disappointment with the JV cheer captain will be the least of my worries.”

Her hands went behind her head. High above, a row of fans spun from an arched wooden ceiling.

“I owe you a quarter.”

“The hell you do. I owe you dinner at the Radisson.”

“Because I can’t hold my breath for very long?”

“Because you look so good when you try.”

Crystal was silent a moment, then laughed out loud.

“Jarett,” she said, “you really are the coolest crazy person I know.”

***

Later that evening he dropped her off on Eagle View Drive without incident. Crystal walked into the living room with her gym bag over her shoulder, said hello to Lucretia and Hannah (they were both in front of the television), then went straight to her room to unpack.

She had her notebook on the windowsill and was just about to slide the bag under her bed when Lucretia appeared in the doorway. The stern look on her face caused a worm of panic to twist in Crystal’s belly. She nudged the gym bag with her foot in an attempt to get it out of sight. Except that Lucretia had seen it already, of course, downstairs in the living room. Crystal had made no effort to hide it, a fact for which she now felt incredibly stupid.

“I just wanted to remind you that Hannah has Girl Scouts orientation tomorrow,” her mom said, “so please don’t plan anything. Also, your dinner’s in the refrigerator. Lasagna. You can nuke it if it’s cold.”

“All right,” Crystal nodded. “Sure.”

Lucretia turned to go; it seemed everything was going to be fine. But then she peered back over her shoulder and asked Crystal why she’d felt the need to bring a gym bag to her writing lesson. Was Jarett teaching her gymnastics as well? Or had they taken up jogging together as a way to stimulate some creativity?

The tone in her voice was not at all conducive to a peaceful advancement in their exchange. Already Crystal felt half accused. She tried to make light of the situation with a laugh, which did nothing but deepen the frown on Lucretia’s face. Her next tactic—the truth—came close to letting all hell break loose, and Crystal vowed from that day forth to make up happy lies about everything she could, whenever she could.

“Well,” she began, “the house that Jarett borrowed has a swimming pool in it. So I figured why not—“

“You went swimming?”

“Yes.”

“In what?”

This was such a stupid question Crystal was afraid to answer it. In what?

“In the water, Mom,” she chanced. “Where else—“

She was cut off for a second time as Lucretia stormed across the room. Fearing an attack, Crystal jumped away from the bed. Her mom then snatched the gym bag off the floor and turned it upside-down over the mattress. Only one thing fell out: the red bikini, still wet from playtime.

Lucretia’s eyes seemed to sink into their sockets and grow dark around the edges. She glared at Crystal. In that look resided everything Jarett feared: accusation, hatred, disgust. An instant later Crystal decided that those lies she’d vowed to tell needed telling. Right now. Otherwise it was the end of the world.

“Mom, the house has an indoor pool. Of course I wanted to try it out.”

“In a bikini you wanted to try it out? Did Jarett see you?”

“Well…yes. Mom, you bought that outfit for me. People are going to see when I wear it.”

“I didn’t buy it so you could wear it alone in a house with an older man. And who the hell gave you permission to play when you were supposed to be working?”

“Mom—“

“Jarett did. Of course he did. Well his days of coercing my daughter out of her clothes are done, because I’m calling the police.”

“No!” Crystal shouted, horrified. “You can’t do that!”

“Watch me.”

Snatching the bikini off the bed, she turned to go. In a flash Crystal cut past her to the