Swim to Me

Betsy Carter is the author ofThe Orange Blossom Specialand her memoir,Nothing to Fall Back On,which was a national bestseller. She is a contributing editor forO, The Oprah Magazineand writes forGood HousekeepingandNew Yorkmagazine,among others. Carter formerly served as an editor atEsquire, Newsweek,andHarper’s Bazaar,and was the founding editor ofNew York Woman. She lives in New York City.Chapter more >>

Betsy Carter is the author ofThe Orange Blossom Specialand her memoir,Nothing to Fall Back On,which was a national bestseller. She is a contributing editor forO, The Oprah Magazineand writes forGood HousekeepingandNew Yorkmagazine,among others. Carter formerly served as an editor atEsquire, Newsweek,andHarper’s Bazaar,and was the founding editor ofNew York Woman. She lives in New York City.Chapter One


THE AIR IN THE BUS smelled like the inside of a suitcase: stale and used. Delores got on the bus early to make sure she had a window seat. Through the opaque windows she could see her mother waving. She didn't wave back, and when the bus pulled out from the station, she kept her eyes forward until she was on the other side of the Lincoln Tunnel. Alone in her seat, she pulled out her suitcase and unpacked Otto, who was wrapped carefully in a pair of her pajamas. Otto was a puppet with a white ceramic clown head that her father bought her the time they went to the Barnum & Bailey Circus in Madison Square Garden. It was one of the few times she and her father ever went anywhere alone.

At intermission, when he told her she could buy anything at the circus that didn't cost over five dollars, Delores chose the puppet with a bald white head because, even though he had a red dollop of paint on his nose, he also had a rhinestone teardrop under each eye and the sad demeanor of someone pleading, "Get me out of here." Delores recognized him as a kindred spirit, and she picked him with the intention that one day they would be able to help each other.

On days when she felt particularly lonely, she'd take Otto out of the shoebox where he lived and occupy his frumpy puppet's body with her fingers. She'd tell Otto things about school or her parents—things she wouldn't tell anyone else. Then she'd twist her voice into a high pitch and listen as Otto told her how pretty she was. "Someday, Delores," he'd say, "you and me, we'll live by the ocean. You'll swim all day. You'll be tan and beautiful and the most popular girl anyone ever knew."

She would have liked to keep Otto on her lap, liked to hold on to something that was hers, but it was weird enough being alone on the bus. A bald puppet with rhinestone teardrops would only call attention to her. So she packed up Otto again, this time between her suede fringed jacket and the satin green miniskirt her mother had given her. Delores had stuffed her money, along with a return ticket and the letter inviting her to Weeki Wachee, inside Otto's hollow head—a small comfort. His sad eyes were looking down on her. "We'll be okay," she wanted to call out to him. "This is what we've always wanted. You'll see." She tried to contain her thoughts, knowing that if she allowed herself to think about Westie she would cry. Better to stare straight ahead, holding on to the brown paper bag that her mother had packed with sandwiches and other food that she promised would keep overnight.

The world slid by, turning from the buds of early spring into the soothing green pines of Virginia and the Carolinas. She ate one of the sandwiches along with an apple and some Chips Ahoy! from the bag. The stack of sandwiches wrapped in wax paper and the individual packages of cookies, four to a packet, made her homesick. There was a dull tugging in her heart. She kept reminding herself that she wasn't doing to Westie what her father had done to them. She wasn't abandoning him. He'd always know where she was. She'd call him once a week. And one day he, too, would swim away.

The bag was heavy on her lap. It would be a long time until anyone else would know what her favorite foods were. As the bus put distance between them, Delores thought about her mother differently. She thought about how she'd hugged her tight at the bus stop. "Honestly, ho << less