We Were the Drowners

The following is from Josie Sigler’s short story, "We Were The Drowners." Sigler is the author of The Galaxie and Other Rides and living must bury, which won the Motherwell Prize and was published by Fence Books. She completed a PEN Northwest Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Residency and has received a NEA Literature Fellowship and an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant. The draft of her first novel recently won the James Jones First Novel Fellowship.

It was every Dolphin’s loftiest goal: to be chosen by Jim Yablonski, director of the Downriver Municipal Outdoor Pool, as one of his Drowners. From June to August, Monday through Saturday, we, the ten swimmingest members of the girls’ recreational team, climbed onto our banana-seated bicycles in the first morning heat. We pedaled, streamers flowing, toward the pool at the edge of our neighborhood. We entered the beige brick building that smelled of chlorine and mildew. Tucked behind our locker doors, we undressed. In the showers, we shouted the best songs on the radio, our voices echoing, our suits sucking quick and wet against our new bodies, the dents and swells we hadn’t shown to anyone yet. We reported for duty poolside at seven...Read more here