The Fine Art of Holding Your Breath

Prologue

March 2003

I DON’T REMEMBER what woke me the night the second Iraq war started. The volume on the television barely reached the threshold of the den. How I heard it in my room is anyone’s guess. But something—a vibration in the air, maybe—woke me and led me to Dad.

He stood in the middle of the room like a man on sentry, a silent vigil for the nearly silent battle on the screen. Explosions lit the angles of his face, the stripe in his plaid pajama bottoms, the yellow Ranger emblem on his T-shirt.

I don’t know how long I stood there. My feet ached, and I was vaguely aware we’d slipped from late night into early morning. I needed to go back to bed, to sleep—a pop quiz in algebra was inevitable.

But leaving him alone? With nothing but the flashing light and endless brown expanse on the television? With nothing I really recognized in his face?

I knew so little about his time in the First Gulf War, except that he came home and my mom didn’t. We never talked about the war. We never talked about my mom. I don’t remember ever asking how she died, but I could hear Grandma Adele’s words, her voice a soft, sad echo in my head.

It was a Humvee accident.

For years, the phrase remained a mystery, a secret only Dad and Grandma Adele knew. I pieced together what I could. Location: Kuwait. Date: Sometime in March, Year: 1991. I never dared ask for more. Seeing my dad now, I understood why I never did.

A line of tanks and Humvees rolled across the screen. Dad had the heat cranked. I felt weighed down by it, my lips dry, my skin hot.

I should be there, he said.

I jumped, startled by the sound of his voice, startled that he wasn’t speaking to me, that he didn’t even know I was there.

He blinked several times, swiped his fingers across his eyes, and left a damp trail across his cheek. I’m not sure I understood what the Army had meant to Dad, how big a piece of him it was. But in watching him now, it was like there was a piece of him missing. I’d always known things weren’t quite right, especially during March, but I didn’t know how … fragile Dad was—how wanting something so badly could stretch your soul so thin it threatened to snap.

Dad? I said at last.

Nothing. Wherever he was, my voice couldn’t reach him.

Daddy?

He jerked. All I could see were the angles and planes of his face, lit by explosions. He didn’t say a word.

Can we watch cartoons?

Sure, princess. He blinked a few more times, as if he was coming back from somewhere far away. Then he shook his head, like he was shaking water—or possibly sand—from his ears. Sure.

It’d been a while since I’d called him Daddy. But then, it’d been a while since we’d watched endless cartoons together. Cartoons, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Hercules, and my favorite, Xena. Back then, I was MacKenna, Warrior Princess. If I’d learned anything over the years, it was this: Warrior princesses didn’t cry.

Dad aimed the remote and the Road Runner filled the screen where a tank had been. Oddly, things looked almost the same—harsh sun, endless desert, occasional explosions.

I remember thinking to myself that if Dad couldn’t go then someday I would. I’d pick up where he left off. Sons did that all the time. Why couldn’t daughters? On the screen, the Road Runner zipped by. Then the coyote was falling, falling, falling.

I don’t remember if he ever hit bottom.

Chapter 1

March 2007

Thee seconds after I pulled the front door closed, I heard the sound of helicopters in the den. They weren’t real helicopters, of course. But it meant Dad was home early, on a Friday. It meant he’d listened to that particular playlist, with that particular song, at least once. It meant he was in one of those moods.

Billy Joel was singing about Vietnam. I’d peeked at the playlist once, and Goodnight Saigon was seven minutes worth of song. Back when I was dumb enough to ask Dad questions about it, he’d say, It reminds me that some guys had it a lot worse. But that was all he ever said.

It was early March, which meant things weren’t normal in the Meyers household. For us, March wasn’t in like a lion, out like a lamb. Even on days when the sky was clear, March meant low-hanging clouds. If there were an obvious path through the whole mess of this month, I was sure to miss it. It was like crossing a minefield.

It hadn’t always been like this. When I was in grade school, when Dad got sad (how I thought of it back then), I’d dash for my electric pink CD player with the built-in radio. My fingers would fumble on the dial until I landed on the all-80s-all-the-time station.

A blast of heavy metal or—even better—techno pop could clear the clouds from Dad’s eyes.

I can’t believe you like these old songs, princess. The crinkles deepened around his eyes when he added, They make me feel old.

But he’d pull me into the center of the room, and then, we’d dance. And Dad could dance—not in a flailing-chicken-make-it-stop kind of way either. If I wished hard and held my breath, the station would play one of the magic songs, one that would make Dad pause and say, This was one of your mom’s favorites…

When he trailed off, I’d pull him back with, Dance, Daddy! They want us to dance!

I still can’t believe you like this old music, he’d say.

I loved that music. And in those moments, he never looked younger.

But that was before the second Iraq War. Something about it—and not Afghanistan—changed him. After that, his black moods went deeper, lasted longer, and the stormy March clouds threatened to stay until June.

Today, I went for a calculated move, letting my backpack slip off my shoulder. The textbooks thudded against the floor, but he had the volume cranked. The bass, and helicopters, vibrated the soles of my feet. When the music softened at the end, and before Billy Joel morphed into Billie Joe Armstrong—not that I had anything against Green Day—I pulled open the door and slammed it.

The music cut off, and a flash of warmth washed across my face. If silence could be guilty, then this was it. Still, that was better than hitting the end of the playlist and U2’s All I Want Is You. I knew what that song could do to Dad’s mood. There was never a time I was young enough or dumb enough to ask him about it.

I crept through the kitchen and poked my head into the den. Dad was sitting up, one leg sprawled along the length of the couch. The remote for the stereo was still in his hand. On the TV, Iraq, or maybe Afghanistan, the view brown, dismal, and heartbreaking.

Hey, princess, he said. Didn’t expect you home so early.

Obviously.

No swim practice?

Friday, I said. We get a break before the all-day torment. If there was a perk to being on the synchronized swim team, this was it. No Friday practice. Saturday, though? That was a different story. My muscles ached at the thought of non-stop dry-land drills and endless ballet legs across the length of the pool.

Right. Forgot. He looked like a kid caught skipping school, his thick hair spiky from a close encounter with the couch cushion. Everyone says we look alike, same wheat-colored hair, same brown eyes, his more amber, mine closer to black. Only Grandma Adele says I look like my mom.

And she only says it when Dad isn’t around.

Hungry? I asked, going for normal. Sure, Dad blowing off work wasn’t normal, but then March never was.

I ate, he said.

Most months, we split the cooking fifty-fifty, after stuffing the freezer with all those easy express dinners and ground beef for Hamburger Helper. But not in March. If Dad got hungry, if he remembered to eat at all, he’d nuke something. Hot Pockets were his favorite.

Dad on Hot Pockets: Beats an MRE.

Because something over-processed and covered with freezer burn had to be so much better.

I headed for the kitchen, chucking my coat over one of the breakfast bar chairs. With and index finger and thumb, I rooted around in the garbage, trying to determine whether I ate meant I ate dinner or I ate sometime today. The winner? Sometime today.

MacKenna? This from the den.

Yeah?

How does make-your-own pizza sound?

That was standard operating procedure—as Dad might say—for nights like this. Pizza, with whatever we wanted on top. Once, I’d asked for, and got, chocolate chips. This wasn’t a chocolate chip kind of night. Still, we needed something. Maybe artichoke hearts and extra cheese. Or barbecue chicken.

Sure, I said.

We could suck barbecue sauce from our fingers and pretend it was spring.

We could pretend things were normal.

In March, Monday mornings meant escaping the house. I didn’t even mind the two inches of slushy snow or the crappy parking space in the overflow lot—next to some jerk who insisted on parking his almost-but-not-quite vintage Corvette across two slots.

Maybe it was a bit of swimmer's ear, but once inside I totally missed the warning signs. A hum of excitement reverberated down the hall, a crowd gathering in the lobby. Banners fluttered. Girls squealed. Between Friday afternoon and now, prom fever had somehow infected Black Earth High School.

I so didn’t want to deal with this. Not prom. Not after a weekend full of sullen Dad. Prom was too light. Too fluffy. And I was too … on the outside of things. I backed toward the double doors, groping for the handle. Instead, I ended up with a fistful of letter jacket.

Hey, babe, is there more where that came from?

The guy behind me was one of those jocks everyone knew, if only by reputation. I wanted to say, Bite me. Or introduce him to my middle finger. Or simply ask what sort of Neanderthal still used babe. But another voice joined the conversation and all my comebacks got caught in my throat.

Cut it out, the other voice said.

The voice stopped the jock mid-insult. It also stopped me. Its owner was someone I knew, or at least, had known a long time ago. Even so, I didn't turn around to thank him. I didn't even want to look at him. Maybe that sounds harsh, but I had my reasons. I decided a prom-crazed crowd was a better option than obnoxious jocks and the boys who distracted them.

Brad Stanley, Student Council President extraordinaire, stood at the center of the lobby. He was giving a rousing speech on the merits of prom with co-captain of the synchronized swim team, Kayla Hanson, attached to his hip. She’d corralled some other synchro girls into a makeshift group around him, including my best friend, Nissa Jenkins.

Even though Nissa was on the prom committee, she threw me a pleading glance. Her hands gripped a pink and purple cash box so tightly, the contents rattled above the din in the lobby and Brad’s exaltations on prom. With as much stealth as possible, I slipped in next to her and swallowed my sigh. It wasn’t that I had anything against prom, I just didn’t have anything for it, either.

When at last Brad, Kayla, and the prom committee moved on, Nissa hung back and clutched my elbow.

Don’t look now, she whispered.

Which, of course, was exactly what I tried to do. She whirled me around so my back was to the gym.

He’s by the trophy cases, she said, talking to the cheerleaders.

Some people might refer to cheerleaders with disdain or contempt—Nissa made them sound contagious. That had more to do with who was talking to them—the same boy who defended me minutes before, the same boy whose name we hadn’t spoken since he arrived in Black Earth, Minnesota after a five-year absence.

Five years. And then, there he was, in the lobby—like now—on the first day after winter break, talking—like now—to the cheerleaders.

If you stripped those years away, magically turned us into seventh graders again, we would’ve dropped our backpacks and raced to him. We’d hug him, shake him, alternately threaten to punch or kiss him, until he told us where he’d been and why he left. And why he never said a word to either of us.

But we weren’t twelve. And five years was a long time, long enough to build up walls—the sort that protect—long enough to convince yourself you didn’t care anymore.

So, these days, I mostly pretended that the boy, Landon Scott, didn’t exist, that he wasn’t in my English class, that he hadn’t sprouted from a puny seventh grader into some sort of lanky It Boy for the cheerleaders to squeal over.

The expression on Nissa’s face shifted, less disgust, more surprise. I stole a glance over my shoulder. Landon still stood in his little fan-girl circle, but he wasn’t really looking at any of them. He nodded occasionally, but held us in his sights.

I contemplated crossing that divide. The lobby wasn’t that big, not really. But it felt that way. Maybe if we’d said something that first day after winter break, things would be different.

I turned from him, tugged Nissa down the hall, toward the vending area and her morning Diet Coke. I glanced at her, and she at me, and we silently agreed not to look back.

But when we reached the hall and rounded the corner, I could’ve sworn that Nissa did.

Something (possibly prom fever) or someone (probably Landon Scott) knocked my morning off kilter. Blame the fluff or the fact I couldn’t imagine myself at prom—alone or with someone else. By lunch, I wasn’t in the mood for the cafeteria. I sank a little lower in my Chuck Taylor All Stars, feeling stealthy in black jeans, a British Military sweater—one of Dad’s—and his old camouflaged BDU cap with all my hair tucked up underneath.

Dad on his old clothes: About time they were put to good use.

I think it was his way of turning swords into ploughshares, or in this case, camo into couture. I stood by the door, not moving, figuring I could slip away without anyone noticing.

Hey. Nissa doubled back and tugged my elbow. Come on.

Well, except Nissa.

I don’t think— I never got to say what I didn’t think. Just then, a couple of senior jocks eased past us, Lukas Jakobitz and his wingman, Tim McPherson.

Nissa batted her eyes at them; she was the only girl I knew who really could bat her eyes and not look like she had something on her contact lens. If there were such a thing as Honors Flirting, she’d wreck the curve for the rest of us. She had crushed hard on Lukas during all of ninth grade; although to be honest, she’d crushed on Tim, too. So her reaction now? Force of habit.

It got her noticed. Lukas stopped, gave us both the once over. Instead of batting my eyes, I decided to roll them.

You girls swimming this year? he asked, like the scent of eau d’chlorine didn’t give us away.

You know it, Nissa said. Coming to the show?

Wouldn’t miss it, he tossed over his shoulder, his attention fractured between us and a gaggle of varsity cheerleaders near the senior lockers.

The synchronized swimming team put on a show every year, but if Lukas had ever attended one that was news to me.

Nissa headed for a table where most of the girls from the Dolphins—Black Earth High’s synchronized swim team—sat. The team was a clique of necessity. We weren’t girl jocks. Just ask any girl who played softball, or ran track, or those on the gymnastics team. They’d tell you exactly what they thought of us: Not much.

Thing was, a typical synchro routine took the same amount of strength and stamina as running a mile—while holding your breath. No one could get past the costumes, the makeup, our hair shellacked with Knox gelatin, the whole performance aspect.

The synchro table looked crowded, nothing but elbows and interlocking chair legs, and squealing over some hottie of the week. Not that I had anything against hotties. I just didn’t feel the need to squee over them.

Nissa glanced over her shoulder as if to say, You coming?

I shook my head and took a step back. If I hurried, I could grab my coat and race across the parking lot to the burger place. But this was Minnesota. In March. Fat, wet snowflakes splattered the cafeteria windows. My Chucks were camouflage and cute, but not very substantial. Canvas and icy puddles didn’t mix.

I could pull up a square of linoleum in the lobby. Me, a power bar, and the odor of guy sweat—all to the sound of the thump, thump, thump from open gym. You couldn’t buy that kind of ambiance. Plus, Nissa would join me eventually, if only for the jockerific view. I took another step back and bumped against someone. That was what? Twice in one day.

MacKenna?

That voice again. If it was deeper than I remembered, I still recognized the boy I once called my playground savior. Nissa’s mouth froze mid-word, her eyes frantic.

Can I talk to you? Landon asked.

I still hadn’t looked at him, so I wondered which you he meant—me, Nissa, or both of us. I shook my head at the same moment Nissa nodded.

I made a tactical decision to head for the library. I’d regret it later, of course, at swim practice. Starvation or Landon Scott? Maybe the choice wasn’t obvious for Nissa, but it was for me. I made it to the second floor landing when the sound of footsteps echoed above. Technically, I should’ve been anywhere but here—the cafeteria, the library, the lobby, or open gym. By the time those punctuated, teacher footfalls faded, Landon brushed past me and blocked my path up the stairs.

He stared at me hard. Then, with his index fingers, he drew a rectangle in the air. He wiped the space with what had to be an imaginary eraser.

Clean slate, he said to the obviously confused look on my face.

What? I had no idea what he meant.

I want to talk to you.

I wasn’t buying it. Three months and now you want to talk to us? Three months? Try five years. If he wanted to erase the past, he’d have to work a whole lot harder than this.

You. I want to talk to you. I want to, you know. He shrugged and erased his imaginary chalkboard again, as if that explained everything. Can we go somewhere after school?

I’m busy.

Landon cocked his head, raised an eyebrow. His eyes were expressive as ever, a hazel shot through with green and blue. He still had those ridiculous calf eyelashes, light in color, but thick and feathery. It took everything I had to ignore the way they rested against his cheekbones when he shut his eyes.

Busy doing what? he asked when I didn’t elaborate.

Swim practice.

Isn’t girls’ swimming in the fall?

"Synchronized swimming is in the spring, and we practice because we put on a show each year and—" And it sounded dorky just talking about it.

But Landon’s expression sparked with interest. That eyebrow went a notch higher and his eyes wouldn’t leave my face. Of course, it might have been disbelief. When you were on the most ridiculed sports team in school, you tended to view any interest with caution.

So, it’s like what? he said. Dance team in the water.

Oh. Yeah. It was that. Exactly. Never mind, I said. It’s not important.

I think it is. That’s why you don’t want to talk about it.

"No. I don’t want to talk to you. There’s a difference." With that, I pushed past him and headed up the stairs to the library.

I stood on the third floor landing, my breath echoing in my ears. A flight and a half of stairs shouldn’t wind me, but I panted, felt a pulse in my throat. Snowflakes pattered against a high window. When a clump of snow hit the pane, I mistook it for a footstep, and my heart leaped.

I peered down the stairs, but Landon hadn’t followed me. Of course, I’d been pretty rude. Maybe this was it—whatever this was. Landon would go back to being Black Earth High’s own golden boy and I could resume my life, free of him—like I had for the past five years.

Chapter 2

Even upside down it wasn’t that hard to hold my breath. I was in the pool, working on my support scull, elbows locked at my waist, face submerged and warm, calves and feet goose bumping in the air. I sculled harder until the water hit below my knees. Or rather, above. I think. Either way, I was getting some serious height. I kept my form tight, legs steady, and toes pointed.

Like everyone else, I complained about the long Saturday practices. Secretly? I loved them. Early in the season, when groups were still choreographing routines and doing land drills, the pool sometimes went empty. And that was too tempting to resist.

Through my goggles, I saw fractured light and shadows floating along the pool deck. The distorted images of legs, wide and wavy, broke through the shadows. A moment later, a muffled shriek penetrated the water, so I did a tuck and broke the surface.

Half the synchronized swimming team crowded the stands, with the other half headed in that direction. One girl, in her damp suit, slithered up and over the divider that separated the pool from the bleachers. The divider was tile, about five feet tall, without a break for steps down to the pool. You had two choices: go through the locker room and take the long way around (and past the boys’ locker room—no thank you) or up and over. But if you hit the edge the wrong way? Ouch.

I kicked to the far side of the pool where Nissa sat, her legs dangling in the water. My arms were braced on the edge when she whispered, "Oh, my God. It’s Landon."

I fell backward into the pool.

What? I shoved the goggles to my forehead, but stayed in the water.

Shit. She crossed one leg over the other, then stuck her hands in her armpits. I haven’t shaved in a week. I look like a gorilla.

Winter in Minnesota could do that to a girl. Although in Nissa’s case—with her hair more platinum than gold—she could give up shaving for Lent and no one would notice.

I blinked water from my eyes. Even with the goggles, I’d been in the pool long enough that things looked blurry. I caught little rainbows at the edge of my vision, which wasn’t a bad way to see the world, except for the slightly fuzzy Landon standing near the pool entrance. His hands gripped the handles of large paper bags, the logo of the local bagel place emblazoned across the sides.

What’s going on? Nissa scowled, then ran a finger across her lips, a futile attempt at a lip gloss check.

Chlorine stung my eyes and Landon was as fuzzy as his