Page 15

"No, I..."

"So? Then? What?" she asked, raising her arms. "I don't know how to swim," I confessed.

Her mouth froze in the shape of an O.

"You don't know how to swim?" She looked at Star, who shook her head, and then turned back to me, skeptical. "How can that be? You never learned in school?"

"I had a doctor's excuse when I was younger. I once got a bad earache and my mother thought swimming would make it worse, and there isn't a pool at the parochial school I attend."

"No one ever took you to the beach or to a pool?" Star asked.

"No." I looked down. "My mother wouldn't ever buy me a bathing suit. Remember when I told you my father was thinking about building a pool?"

"Yeah, and your mother wasn't happy about it, so the idea of it went away," Star recalled.

"And with it, my hope of learning how to swim."

"All right," Jade said, lifting her shoulders, "second major OWP project is going to be teaching Cat how to swim."

"Really?" Misty said.

"Really," Jade said. "If one of us is weak in an area, we all are. That's what it means to be bound, to be one. Did you forget already?" she demanded.

"No." Misty started to smile but stopped. Jade looked like she might just explode any moment if another syllable even vaguely opposed to something she said was uttered.

"Let's go," she commanded, and leaned over to blow out the candle. Moments later, we left her secret room and headed for her bedroom and her closet, a walk-in, almost as big as my entire room.

Her room itself was three times the size of mine. She had a vanity table with a marble top and a gilded mirror that ran the length of the entire wall. I laughed to myself imagining what Geraldine would say about it if she saw it. You couldn't help but look at yourself all the time in this room.

Jade's bed, like her mother's, was also a canopy with white silk draped over posts. There were at least a half dozen huge pillows with frilly lace pillowcases that matched the beautiful bedspread. On the night table was a light red telephone shaped like a pair of lips.

Built into the wall directly across from her bed was not only a large screen television, but a stereo system.

All of her furniture had a glossy pearl finish. There were two dressers, an armoire, and a desk. The walls were a light pink. It looked like pink cloth. She had no posters, but on one wall was a painting of John Lennon of the Beatles. It looked very expensive.

When we all gazed into her walk-in closet, we could only stare at the rows and rows of garments, the shelves of shoes and the built-in dresser.

"There's more clothing here than in some stores," Star remarked.

"Every year I give away about a quarter of it to charities," Jade said.

"Put me on the list of charities," Star said, and Jade laughed.

She went directly to the dresser, opened the next-to- bottom drawer and began flinging bathing suits at us.

"This should fit Misty. I wore it only once when I was twelve," she added.

"Thanks a lot."

"Well, be happy I saved it," Jade retorted.

Misty held it up and reluctantly nodded.

"It looks like it will fit me," she said, "and it's not bad."

It was a black and gold one-piece with the black on one side of the top, streaking down over the center of the suit where it then wrapped around to the rear.

"Star is about my size so choose any of these," she ordered and heaved three at her. "Wait. This is my favorite bikini, but you can wear it today," she added and threw that as well. Star caught the top and held it up. The bottom was a thong.