“Jencey?” he questioned. “That’s different.”
She rolled her eyes. The name was a relic of her childhood. In school she’d been one of several Jennifers. She was Jennifer C, or, as her second-grade teacher coined it, “Jen C.” There had also been “Jen L.” As second grade went on, the teacher ran the abbreviations together so fast that they came out as one word. So “Jen C” became Jencey, and “Jen L” became Jennelle. As far as Jencey knew, Jennelle also went by that name to this day.
“It’s an old nickname,” she explained hastily to him now. “My real name is Jennifer, but no one calls me that.”
“I like it,” he said, nodding as if he’d considered it and found it acceptable. “My name’s Lance, short for Lancelot.” He grinned. “My mom had a thing for Camelot.”
She laughed. “Seriously?”
He raised his eyebrows, held her gaze for a second, looking totally serious. But he couldn’t hold the look for long, as his smile broke through. “No, my name’s just Lance. But I had to come up with a story to keep up with yours.”
She laughed along with him, then noticed Bryte swinging her bag over her shoulder and sliding on her flip-flops as she wrapped up her conversation. She quickly clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, Lancelot, it was nice to meet you, but I’ve got to catch my friend over there.” She hitched her thumb in Bryte’s direction. “Good luck finding Camelot.”
She walked away, shaking her head. Good luck finding Camelot? She was clearly out of practice at this whole opposite-sex thing. She’d once been so good at it. But that was a long time ago, before the hearts had started arriving, before Arch had claimed her as his own.
She got to Bryte in the nick of time, reaching for her in order to stop her from walking away. Bryte turned around with a startled look. But her face immediately relaxed when she saw it was just Jencey. “Oh, Jencey! Hey!” she said, her face filling with a grin that lived up to her name. “Everything OK?” she asked. But then her smile faded and her eyes strayed to the pool as a whistle erupted and someone screamed and, all around them, people started running.
LANCE
He was standing there staring into the water, thinking about the beautiful woman’s comment about finding Camelot, feeling like the furthest cry from a brave and gallant knight, when he saw the little boy, a dark shape gone still beneath the water. It took him a moment to realize the child wasn’t playing; he wasn’t seeing how long he could hold his breath or pulling a prank on his friends. Lance dove in without thinking, a reflex that extended, it turned out, beyond his own children. As he pushed deeper under the water toward the boy, he had two thoughts: What do I do now? And where the hell is the lifeguard?
He reached the child in seconds, but it felt like it took half an hour to get his hands on him. Eyes wide in spite of the way the chlorine was burning them, he scooped the boy up, just like he did when his own children fell asleep watching TV and he had to carry them up to bed. But this child wasn’t sleeping.
Unready for the heft of the boy’s weight—the words dead weight flashed through his mind, but he pushed them away—he struggled for a second, his lungs beginning to burn as he dragged both himself and the child to the surface. At the surface, there was air, there was solid ground, there was surely someone who knew CPR. He cursed himself for never learning it. From under the water, he could hear the clamor as people responded to what was happening—a whistle blew, a child screeched, a woman yelled. He could make out someone yelling, “Call 911!”
He broke through the surface just as the lifeguard materialized at his side saying, “I got him. I got him,” in a confident voice that made Lance want to say, “Well, you didn’t have him when it mattered.” But the lifeguard knew CPR; the lifeguard was trained in things like this. He’d probably waited his whole lifeguarding career for this, the moment he got to play hero.
Lance loosened his grip on the boy, and the child was taken from his arms. A trio of lifeguards gathered on the hot concrete as they laid out the too-still child and began working on him. Lance swam to the side and, exhausted, balanced his elbows on the edge to watch what was happening as he caught his breath. His eyes burned and he blinked rapidly. He sucked big, grateful gulps of air into his lungs.
The entire pool had gone quiet. All around him the people stood still and watched the little boy, the silence simultaneously eerie and reverent. Someone had turned off the never-ending radio they kept cranked over the speakers at an obnoxious volume. He looked around for the child’s mother, but no one stepped forward. A little girl was crying hysterically; he assumed she was the boy’s sister. He saw Zell slip an arm around her, and the girl struggled against the restraint, trying in vain to get to the boy’s side. The lifeguards kept working on the boy, who was blue and unconscious. Lance prayed for the first time in a very long time. “Please, please, please,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.
Suddenly he remembered his own son and scanned around to account for his children. He found Alec frozen in his spot in line for the diving board. Their eyes met, and Alec gave him a smile so fleeting he wasn’t sure he saw it, then gave him a thumbs-up, an affirmation that his father had done something right when it counted most. But would it count if the boy didn’t survive? Lance pulled himself from the water just as the distant wail of sirens approached. He caught the eye of the beautiful woman, and they exchanged grim looks.
After the EMTs arrived, things moved fast. From a distance, it was hard to make out exactly what they were doing. Lance just saw arms flying and faces frowning. In short order they’d secured the boy’s neck, put him on a stretcher, and headed to the ambulance. The boy’s older sister, a little girl Lance had seen playing with Lilah just a few minutes before the whole episode began, ran after him, screaming his name. “Cutter!” And then, “I have to go with him!” Lilah and Jencey’s daughters did their best to comfort her, but she was inconsolable, shaking them off and attempting to catch up to the ambulance and climb inside.
The EMTs, intent on helping the child and seemingly unconcerned about his hysterical sister, bustled past as if she wasn’t there. One, filled with a grace the other two did not possess, turned back. “We’re going to take your brother now,” he said. “We’re going to help him.” He squeezed the little girl’s thin shoulder and raced after his coworkers. Moments later the ambulance shrieked away with lights flashing and siren blaring. The nearby adults, suddenly linked by the situation, formed a messy circle around the girl, offering words of comfort and trying to decide what to do. The children gathered there, too, wide-eyed and silent.
Zell, ever helpful, rubbed the little girl’s back and assured her that she could go to the hospital just as soon as they got the boy settled in. She said “settled in” as if he were going to a bed-and-breakfast. But her voice was soothing and even and seemed to calm them all down.
“Someone needs to call his mother.” The woman standing beside Jencey spoke up, her voice shaky. She had scooped up her little boy and was more clinging to him than holding him.
Zell spoke to the girl. “Do you know your mom’s number, honey?” Zell leaned over to Lilah. “What’s her name again?” she stage-whispered.
“Cailey.” Lilah’s attempt at a stage whisper came out sounding more like a hiss.
The little girl ceased crying long enough to give her a “duh” look and nodded. Zell handed her a phone, and she punched in the numbers. Before it could start ringing, Zell took the phone from her hand.