Free Swim to Me by Betsy Carter Page B

pushpins. But the curly girl’s personal pictures were much more to Gail’s taste. She particularly liked the one of a little girl sitting on the beach. The little girl wore only a diaper, which stuck up in the rear like a duck’s tail. She had tight blonde curls and small dark eyes. In another, the same little girl was sitting on the woman’s lap, their cheeks pressed together, their profiles obviously cut from the same template. Gail figured these were pictures of the curly girl and her mom. She couldn’t imagine Delores putting up a picture of her anywhere. This Curly Girl, as Gail came to think of her, seemed to have a life that was filled with love and adventure, and sometimes when it was dark and empty outside, and chilly and airless inside, Gail would stare at those pictures so long and hard that, for a few moments at least, she could pour herself into them.
    She’d let Delores go to Florida because she was broke and scared, and now her daughter was gone. Delores was on her own, and doing fine, it seemed. Gail knew she ought to be proud of that, but the only feelings she had were jagged, resentful ones. She stared again at the smiling woman in the photograph.
That woman would be repelled by me,
she thought.
    One evening, as she wheeled her broom and trash can around the magazine’s offices, she heard some shouting coming from Curly Girl’s desk. She looked through a space in one of the partitions and saw a tall woman wearing leather pants and green glasses standing over the curly young blonde. The woman was screaming: “Do you have any idea what you are doing to our bottom line?” she yelled. “You fashionettes with your fancy degrees, what do you know about running a magazine? This isn’t shopping. This is the real world, for chrissakes!”
    The woman shook her head and walked away. Gail waited a fewmoments before she came toward Curly Girl’s desk. “May I?” she asked, reaching down to pick up her garbage can.
    â€œI’m so sorry, it’s quite a horrid mess around here,” said Curly Girl, bending down to scoop up a piece of paper that had missed the trash can.
    Gail bent down at the same time. “It’s okay, I can get it,” she said, finding herself face-to-face with the girl under the desk.
    â€œI might as well do something useful around here,” said the girl, wiping tears from her cheeks. “Apparently I’m a failure at everything else.”
    They stood up again. Gail pointed to the pictures on Curly Girl’s desk. “Judging from these,” she said, “I’d say just the opposite is true.” Curly Girl smiled a grateful smile, and Gail continued with her cleaning.
    It gradually became a routine. On the evenings that Curly Girl worked late, which seemed to happen more and more, Gail would come by and they would say hello and exchange small talk about the weather or new stains on the carpet. “Red wine,” said Curly Girl one night, pointing to a brownish-gray blob in the shape of an owl.
    â€œI know a little something about food stains,” said Gail, trying to sound professional. She bent down and began scrubbing.
    On another night, as Gail dusted around Curly Girl’s desk, she accidentally knocked over one of the framed photographs. “I’m so sorry,” she said, righting it. At the same time, both of them stared at the photo of the little girl playing in the sand at the beach. “Is that you?” asked Gail pointing to the baby in the diaper.
    â€œYup. That’s me,” said Curly Girl.
    Gail studied the picture more closely and pointed to the woman. “She’s really pretty. Is that your mom?”
    â€œMmmm. She was really beautiful,” said Curly Girl, staring past the picture. “She died when I was six.”
    Gail let out an involuntary groan. “Oh God. That’s terrible. I’m so sorry.”
    Curly Girl waved her hand in front of