Page 116 of Small Town Swoo
“It really did.” I wanted to die. Not only did I not get the role of my dreams, I was a fucking birthday party clown.
“I’m so sorry. I did talk to several different people at the agency, but I thought I was clear about what the job was. Oh, dear.” She glanced toward the back of the house and looked at me again, her eyes tearing up. “Katherine will be so upset with me if I messed this up. Her niece is so important to her.”
“It’s okay. I can do it. I just—thought this was something else.”
“Thank you!” Olivia threw her arms around me. “Thank you so much! The girls are just going to be so happy. And so will Katherine.”
“Is she here?”
“Not yet. But she will be.” Olivia checked her phone. “Okay, it’s just about time. Do you have your suit?”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
“Oh shoot!”
Olivia looked so distraught, I held up a hand. “You know what? I have some clean red shorts in my gym bag that look kind of like the suits Bulge wore. I can put them on.”
“God, you’re the best, Dash. I don’t know how to thank you.”
I thought about asking to meet Katherine, then realized I’d have to do it dressed in nothing but my red gym shorts.That wasn’t the impression I wanted to make. “It’s fine. I’m glad to help out.”
As I headed back outside to where my car was parked in the drive, I considered just jumping in it and speeding away from this house, this town, this industry, the dream I’d had since I was small.
But then I thought about what Ari would say if she were here.You never know what opportunity is around the next corner. One moment can change everything.
I grabbed my gym bag and headed back inside the house.
Twenty minutes later, barefoot, bare-chested, and barely hanging on to the last remaining shred of my dignity, I walked out onto Katherine Carroll’s pool deck, where a bunch of adolescent girls were lounging around in bikinis. The decibel level when they spotted me was like the whine Ari’s car made when you turned right, times one billion. I wasn’t sure my ears would ever recover.
After the screaming subsided, the girls all introduced themselves—they had names like Plum and Eddie and Scribble—and wanted a million pictures. After the photo shoot was over, I was sort of hoping to leave, but the girls begged me to show off the back flip Bulge always did off the swimming dock on the show. They’d written it in because I could actually do it, but eventually the show runners had gotten too nervous about injuries.
“That was mostly a stunt double,” I explained.
“So you can’t do a back flip off the diving board?” Scribble challenged me with a look.
“I can do one,” I said, eyeballing the diving board. It had been a while, but this day had already delivered several punches to my ego. I couldn’t take another one.
“Show us!” shouted a tall, skinny girl holding her phone. Her name was a state, but not one you’d expect like Montana or Dakota. Maine? Oregon?
“I guess I could,” I said, heading for the deep end of the pool. The girls cheered as I stepped onto the board and walked out on it. When I reached the edge, I turned around and let my heels hang off the back. I bounced a few times, saying a quick prayer that I could actually still execute this trick. “Here goes,” I muttered under my breath.
With one final bounce, I jumped into the air, tucked my knees into my chest, and launched myself back over the water. My feet went in first, and I let myself sink to the bottom, pushing off and rising to break the surface while my audience cheered.
“Did you get it on video, Alaska?” Eddie shouted.
“Got it!”
“Do it again!”
“Can you do a front flip?”
“Do a cannonball!”
“Throw me in the pool!”
“Me first, it’s my birthday!”
Giving in to the reality of the afternoon, I hauled myself out of the water and got back on the diving board. Then I spent the next hour performing flips and cannonballs, letting them rate my splashes, throwing them into the water, and having tea parties at the bottom of the pool.
