#2 "Lone Shark" by Lucy Lazaro

Jenny had one too many slices of birthday cake and buttercream stuck to her lips like hot wax. “I dare Karla to push Sarah in the pool” She yelled while sashaying to the patio.


The blur of friends moved in closer. Karla looked at me with bug eyes as the beads of sweat flowed getting trapped in her baby hairs. Jenny finally had something over us rather than a house at the dead end of Bit and Spur road, and the fact that when she bent over, Charmin spheres no longer fell out of her bra. She leaned over the patio table and blew out sixteen candles.


Her bikini top is fresh hickey red and the bottoms stuffed into what mom called fast girl pants. I fix my straps to stop them from digging into my shoulders. I only had two, the black one piece suit, or the one with under the sea flowers that is now hidden in the box labeled shoes in the basement.


“Go on Karla. What are you waiting for?” Jenny smirked as she wiped the rest of the blue buttercream mustache on her hand. I felt my skin grow hot despite the cloudy overcast.


“I’ll just jump in and you can run home.” Karla whispered to me with the same worried frown she would give me back when we shared Lisa Frank coloring books and bandaids. I would always color slightly outside the lines or fill in the outlines too dark.


“I’m fine Karla. Just push me.”


“You haven’t been in the water in a long time.” She said, standing slackjaw and pressing her hands flat against her thighs. I could feel her eyes scanning my legs for the scars on my calves and the bite marks on my feet that had made home on my body since the last time Sarah and I met up at Jenny’s.


Jenny was the strongest swimmer. She liked to stay in for as long as she could, releasing air bubbles as she searched for the bottom, becoming one with the ocean. Sometimes I would forget to look for her as I ran with my knees high into the waves. The first time we met was a year ago in the pool in gym class, the one that went to twelve feet. Lap swimming as an exercise was over and we had free reign to do as we pleased. I ran in for a full cannonball, knees pressed to my breasts, my breasts sunken in like second skin. I reached the bottom feeling the coolness swell in my ears and something hard grazed my heel.
“Watch it!” she exclaimed, coming up quickly, flinging the water from her eyes and rubbing her lips. Gasping on chlorine, I mouthed what I hoped looked like a sorry. Gym lady, we called her Mrs. Clean because she dressed in all white and a mop had more hair on its head than she did, told us to head to the locker room.


“Sorry” I said out loud this time. While wrapping the towel around my shoulders, I used the locker bench between us as a spacer and waited. “I didn’t realize you were near the bottom. What's your name anyway?”


“I'm surprised you don’t already know.” She retorted, keeping her back turned and began to pull at her one piece. Her blonde curls lay matted at the base of her neck as if the hair tie was still holding them in place. Silence grows and I become uneasy.


“No really I haven’t--,”


She faced me and I immediately took off full stride. My toes gripped what they could of the brown tile. No slippage happened and I’ll put that on my list of small miracles later. Sarah managed to stop me on my way, gripping my shoulder so hard my knees buckled bringing me to a full stop.
“Hey what’s going on? Where are you going?”


I try to tell Sarah something, as we stand by the back door of the locker room. The cold creeps up my spine. Still wet. I try to meet her demands but all I can get out is teeth.


“Teeth? You mean---Oh. I see.”


Sarah takes my hand and pulls me back to the other side of the locker room where I came in. we stand together, and the girl sits on the spacer that was between us.


“My name is Jenny. But as you saw before you ran off that my teeth--,”


“ So you’re sharky.”


Sarah takes her fingernail, I imagine it's pink this week not the usual yellow flowers, and pokes my arm as Jenny begins to lunge at me. Her face wrinkled in a snarl and I felt like a fish just wafting.


“What I mean to say is I’m sorry.” I say, throwing my hands up to show I’m harmless.


“And I’m Sarah. This is Karla. Nice to meet you.”


Honestly, I thought sharks were cool. Terrifying, their mouths spread wide as they came out the deep blue, rows and rows of razor sharp triangles, but still cool. I try to tell Jenny this as we head out to lunch. We sat down with our trays hitting the table one after the other. Creamed corn, potatoes and steak was the meal. Typical scene, an invisible division line separated the cafeteria. The casual normals versus everyone else.


“So I hear your birthday is coming up” Sarah smirks between scoops of creamed corn. She works in the front office as a student office clerk, a title she takes seriously by looking at everyone’s birthdays. Even if they were months away. I look at Jenny and she smiles. All clear. Months had passed and we all became used to Sarah's nosey tendencies. Jenny had the long honey locks flowing long, one tucked behind the ear no longer in a constant knot. Her dress was camellia rose pink. We met up, sometimes without Sarah, at my parents house at the beginning of the bit and spur road. It looks a lot prettier on her than in the back of my closet. First try on, she zipped it up and twirled around. I glimpsed in the mirror watching her reflection. A blush passed through her cheeks.


“I don’t know. I can’t keep it.” She said nervously cupping her hand over her mouth. Anything reminiscent of a lonely shark was gone. No hair knotted in the back. Her angular nose caught the after shadows of the light. Jenny’s neck was short with little scars on one side delicate yet precise. She handed the dress back and I insisted that she should.


“Yeah and I think we should get you another dress too for the day.”


“I was thinking more of a pool party. At my house it's on the dead end of bit and spur.” Jenny said, ripping through the last bits of her steak.


That night we went to Jenny’s. Her home seemed like there were two houses stacked on top of each other. Smooth white brick covered the outside and its pillars. There was an odd balcony, maybe victorian. I remember looking over the history books in class picturing the higher class people dancing on a balcony,with their ascots, wondering if the balcony was even more glamorous than them. Of course the pool was large enough for the whole neighborhood to be in at once. We lounged outside next to it. The lights glaring at the pool were a dark blue like being at the seashore and the sun is about to go away. Stuffing my face with pigs in blankets, I asked Sarah to pass me the mustard to squirt on the two of them waiting in my cheeks.


“I brought some games. Like, I don’t know, Monopoly, Guesstures, Trouble, Sorry. We can play them all if y’all want.” Sarah holds them up one at a time clueless. Her type of games were books, how many chapters can you read before your eyes fall out or you pass out. Whichever comes first.


“I’m fine with Guesstures,”


“How about we play truth or dare?”


I felt a lump rise in my throat or I swallowed the pigs too fast.


“I’m fine with that too. How about you Sarah?”


“Sure.” She says almost breathless, “I’ll get more snacks.”


I stick my feet in the pool, pushing them like instructors tell beginners trying to find their stride. Sarah comes back out with more pigs in blankets. I picture the weiners squawking as they bake. Their blankets once their friends now engulf them whole. I picture what Jenny used to look like as I peer in the pool at my feet before we found her. Hair pulled back, strands in face, wearing grey and second guessing what she says.


“Karla first. Truth or dare?”


“I guess I’m gonna go with truth and then you have to give a truth.”


“Fine.” Jenny held open a bag with the camellia rose dress in it. “How do you know Brent? He seemed to really like the dress you gave me. Thought you said you just kept it in the back of the closet.”


My shoulders hunch. Brent. History class. One day I wore the camellia rose dress to school and Brent gave me a few hickies. Breathing hot into my neck, telling me that my skin was going to turn the color of the dress, his favorite. Brent was the lead of anything that had the potential to have a leader. All the sports, all the SGA members, me. I just wanted him to find a new feign. Sharky was a hot subject of his. He would always see her passing down the hallways, before we knew Jenny, asking if I could get closer.


“He’s a friend. He just kept asking me if you bite.”


Sarah fell silent as Jenny lunged at me once more. I ran, missed my small miracle, and fell into the pool. Jenny jumped in behind me and I felt something bite at my legs and heels as I struggled to stay afloat in the water.






“Since the shark, I know.”


Jenny laid back in the tanning chair watching from afar. Her jaws spread wide exposing two rows of cleaned teeth, laughing maniacally.