.II.

I didn’t see Chelsea at all Thursday. Assuming that she was trying to skip school so that “Friday would come faster”, I checked her house after school, knocking and waiting for a few minutes at her front door. Since her parents weren’t there, I even tossed a few pebbles at her bedroom window. Nothing. I’d gone through the Check Chelsea’s House routine every time she’d played hooky, which was quite often, and she was always either at her house or hitting baseballs at the old diamond (or she would have, if I hadn’t lost her bat). I decided to head out and look for her, following clues and asking like a detective on Law and Order, a show that my mother had been watching religiously lately. Since I was quite responsible for a twelve-year-old kid, she’d know that if I came home late it was probably for something important.

Not that it took too long to find Chelsea; she had simple routines all revolving around athletics, not counting her visits to the creek, and since our town was pretty small there were only a few places I had to look: the old diamond and the new diamond, even though she didn’t like the new one, the tennis court, which was overgrown with ivy and weeds but had clean asphalt and a new net, and the public swimming pool. Chelsea wasn’t present at any of those places, and apparently she hadn’t even visited them that day according to lifeguards and frequent visitors.

Everyone seemed to know who Chelsea was. Whenever I would ask about her, a look would come over their faces like ‘Oh, Chelsea, that poor girl’. Always serious and concerned, or even a bit hostile, never a smile. I was very annoyed by the time the sun started setting. It wasn’t as hot as the day before, but I was getting tired of walking and irritated at Chelsea and the people I asked about her. A few minutes after I gave up was when I found her.

I was walking over a chalked, too-perfect OCD hopscotch and avoiding messing up the clear green lines (it was that good), situated on a sidewalk outside an intimidating “keep out” kind of fence when Chelsea popped her head over the dark wood and yelled at the top of her lungs, “HI SEBASTIAN!!”. Shocked, I fell on my scrawny ass.

“Where were you?” I stammered, trying to make my lisping little voice sound patronizing. Chelsea giggled, long lengths of her black hair shaking with her laughter...it was wet. Her face was wet, too, and her shoulders were bare. From my vantage all I could see was her wet smiling face and bare shoulders...a quick idea ran through my mind that she was naked, but I knew better. Especially when she said...

“Come on in, Seb! Mr. Lam will let you swim, too,” she enunciated, as if I knew who “Mr. Lam” was. Too excited to answer my question, Chelsea climbed down from what sounded like a footstool and beckoned me through the slats of the fence to follow her along it. I got up, mourned the death of the perfect hopscotch as I wiped its green chalk blood off my butt, and met Chelsea at the edge of the fence where she let me in.

Naturally I was suspicious of this “Mr. Lam”. Chelsea was wet and said that this guy would let me swim too, which implied that she’d been swimming in a pool. She didn’t know any Mr. Lams. If she did, I would have known, since I kind of looked after her that way. “Chelsea,” I sighed when she opened the door, preparing myself to ask her a barrage of questions; instead I looked on the most beautiful lawn I had ever seen.

“Hurry up, Mr. Lam wants to meet you,” Chelsea commanded. She was in a strapless one-piece, hugging her hips and what passed as her chest. I might have drooled a little, but I don’t remember much anything besides following the image of a taut butt as Chelsea pulled me along by the wrist, insisting that I would like “Mr. Lam”. “He says his name is Jesus,” she snickered, “but I thought that was weird so I call him ‘Mr. Lam’...you’ll like him though Seb, he’s all zone-y like you can be sometimes,” she told me. I was only half-listening, marveling from the lawn to her amazing butt in that swimsuit.

A man whom I assumed was Jesus Lam exited the large, modestly beautiful house. I eyed him; tall and lanky, a little taller than the white guys around town. He had pitch black hair that was slicked back in a natural, tasteful way. His skin was pale, and he had high cheekbones beneath his very oriental black eyes, the kind that kids in the schoolyard mimicked though intense and familiar. The hands of Jesus Lam were large, but in a long, graceful, feminine way. He was an overall statuesque figure, and I got a sort of distant, relaxed vibe from him, which caused me to envy this man. I imagined that he could be great with women when I saw that he had no rings on his fingers. The sort of guy who had a naturally mysterious air.

“Welcome, Seb...astian?” he asked in a deep, cool voice with a very subtle Chinese lilt, and I nodded. Chelsea must have referred to me only as ‘Seb’ and not by my full name. I shook his hand; it was a relaxed grip, inviting but at the same time quite formal. Not the break-your-fingers handshake I was used to from other men in town. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Lam,” I replied, and he laughed.

“Call me Jesus if you want to,” Jesus offered, “Chelsea here doesn’t, because she thinks of my name as being pretty bizarre.” Chelsea smiled shyly, right on cue. I was impressed at the way he spoke, which implied his education and worldliness. Jesus Lam was at once my envy and my new role model, something I’d been lacking everywhere except Law and Order. With that, Jesus motioned towards his pool in the distance.

“Chelsea and I should show you around,” he decided quietly, almost to himself. I followed behind Chelsea again, my wrist free this time. “I haven’t gotten any company since several weeks ago when my nephew and his friend came over. He’s about your age,” Jesus said to me. I wasn’t sure how to reply.

“See, I told you he was quiet,” Chelsea said all admiringly. Jesus laughed again, genuine, surprisingly. This guy wasn’t a phony. “Well, I’m sure that you’ve heard silence is golden?” he asked no one in particular. Chelsea wore a puzzled expression for a split-second until we came up to the pool, where she promptly jumped in.

“I’ve got quite a few pairs of trunks that I never wear,” Jesus offered, and I declined out of politeness. It was hot, and the water looked conditioned. Plus there was the temptation of Chelsea. She bobbed to the surface suddenly. “Take a piss first,” she said bluntly.

Jesus nodded. “I’d prefer you not urinate in there, since I don’t use chemicals to clean it.” I looked at the pool; instead of being bright blue and rectangular, it was a very natural oblong shape, and the water was black; instead of being lined with concrete or similar material, it was made from what looked like black rock of different sizes. The only unnatural thing about it was small lights lined along the very bottom...for night swims? Otherwise, the pool looked like it could have been there before the house was even built. Chelsea was doing laps around the irregular edge.

“Wow, beautiful,” I murmured. Jesus nodded modestly. “My sister gave me the idea of this pool. I only go swimming at night, though, which is why I had lights installed,” he motioned toward the very lights I’d been curious about. “Come in Seb!” Chelsea called. Jesus smiled. “Are you sure you don’t want to borrow...?”

I reconsidered. “Well...okay, if it wouldn’t bother you,” I said. He showed me to the back door, stepped inside, and reappeared with several pairs of swim trunks. “You can change over there,” he said, and motioned toward a very classy screen. I went over and changed; they all fit in one way or another, and all seemed spendy for swimwear. Choosing a dark blue pair, I stepped out from behind the screen, carrying my folded clothes and extra trunks.

“Thank you, Mr. Lam,” I said, handing the trunks back to him. “No problem,” he replied, “these are all Sam’s anyway...er, my nephew. He isn’t big on swimming, but I’ve tried, as you can see.” I nodded, and was again suspicious. Why was this guy being so generous? Was he some kind of pedophile, or was he just lonely? He didn’t look old enough to be lonely and didn’t look like he molested children to get his kicks...in fact, Jesus Lam didn’t seem to be concerned with sexual matters at all. He was the dreamy type, and seemed quite spiritual to boot. Maybe he really was lonely.

“I’ll be inside if either of you need me,” Jesus said, and left me and Chelsea with the setting sun. I was immediately suspicious of cameras, despite my instincts telling me that this guy was okay, that I must know him from somewhere. “Oh wait!” I called to him before he shut the door. Jesus turned. “I need to call my mom, she must be wondering where I am.”

“Sure. I’ll get you a phone.”

“Thanks.” My suspicion dissipated.

“Seb! Come swim with me!”

“Coming...”

Jesus entered and promptly came back out with a sleek cell phone, with which I called my mother, who asked where I was. I answered honestly. Jesus Lam went back inside his house, telling me to leave the phone somewhere where it wouldn’t get wet. “Oh, Jesus Lam? That oriental-looking fellow down the street?” Mom asked. I grunted yes. “I know his sister,” she went on. “We play mah jongg together every now and then. Tell him I said hi...and make sure to bring Chelsea home okay. Love you hon.” I told her I loved her back. Chelsea laughed and teased me from the pool. “Bye, Sebastian, be polite...come back before eight, please.” I agreed. We hung up.

--

It was late, and stars were starting to appear. I re-dressed and stood at the back door; “I should get home now, Mr. Lam,” I called into the house. He was in the livingroom, reading. “Sure. Come back anytime, okay? Get Chelsea home alright and say hi to your mother for me.”

“She told me to say hi to you.”

“Oh,” Jesus muttered and smiled, again genuine, “that’s great. She’s a good friend to my sister. Ask her to visit sometime.”

“I will. Thank you again sir...here are your trunks back,” I said, and held out the blue trunks which I had dried as best I could with a towel. He shook his head. “Keep them, Sebastian. I don’t need all those pairs anyway.”

I was kind of shocked by his generosity. “But they look...well, expensive,” I said, and Jesus chuckled. “Expensive to a young man like yourself and expensive to me are two different things. I can spare a pair of swim pants.”

“Thank you, Mr. Lam,” I said. He nodded. I was kind of trying to impress him with my politeness, but he seemed to expect it from me. I figured maybe all Chinese guys were like that. I’m sure if I’d been a little asshole, Jesus Lam would have had the same reaction anyway. He just seemed to accept life as it moved along.

“I’ll go now. See you later.”

“Goodbye, Seb.”

Chelsea burst in, fully dressed. “Do I go home now too? Okay. Bye, Mr. Lam!” he waved goodbye to her and returned to his book, our cue to leave him alone. Chelsea insisted that she go home alone, which probably meant that her parents were home again and they might not have been so happy to see her come home wet and after dark. I left the yard as well, locked the door of the fence, and wandered solemnly back to my house, on the lookout for people to jump out at me.

“Bye, Seb, see you tomorrow,” called Chelsea down the street. I turned around.

“No skipping school, okay? I need to know where you are.” This time, I unintentionally sounded like a parent. It was weird.

“Okay Seb, I promise. Bye!” And with that, Chelsea ran off with a patent flip of her tiny skirt, carrying her one-piece in her left hand and waving with her right. I wondered if she bought the swimsuit herself or if Jesus Lam had lent it to her, perhaps the suit of his nephew’s unmentioned sister? Whatever, I thought, deciding to think in the morning. Swimming for a long time takes a lot out of you.