In Case of Emergency Read Online Free PDF Page B

one shoulder. The save-the-world-and-look-sexy-at-the-same-time stance, at least according to my prepubescent brain, was to lower the gaze, bring the feet together, bend one knee, and rest one hand on the propped-up hip.
    Ruth says there are four steps to effective mapping.
    Step one: know where you are. Find your exact location on the map page and point to it with one finger .
    The pool is an unremarkable cement rectangle, and its deep end is a mere eight feet. But the light shining through the clear, still water is a luminescent invitation. I pad barefoot to the edge, toss my towel over a lounge chair, and set the goggles over my eyes, feeling the suction as they seal onto my face.
    I close my eyes when I first pierce the water. There’s a familiar rush as my body registers the cold against my skin. The initial contact overwhelms my senses, but then I open my eyes and start to kick. It’s too damn small, this pool. I flip-turn at the shallow end and I’m more than halfway across before my first stroke.
    Step two: know where you’re going. Make sure you are looking at the correct map page and grid, and find not just the street of the address but the cross streets as well. When you’ve got the exact block of the destination, place a second finger there.
    Already I’m working too hard, wasting motion, forgetful of my limbs’ ability to be efficient. When I get into the water I always want to go as fast as I possibly can. Switching to the breaststroke, I remember how one of my coaches used to remind me that speed isn’t everything. If you get shipwrecked you’ll want to conserve energy—it might be days before you see land.
    Step three: figure out your route. Work backward from the second finger to the first, like when you solved mazes as a kid, working from the heart of the labyrinth to the entrance instead of the other way around.
    I cut to the surface with a gasp when I realize I don’t remember the fourth step. A two-vehicle incident. A Santa hat. Dad turning on the television, Ryan in his room, working on some project or another. He was always the creative one—the musician, the mechanic, the tinkerer. The car usually wins. And then there was me—I did nothing for that dying woman. I would have forgotten all about her if being so useless on my first day hadn’t reminded me. Grabbing the cement lip at the deep end’s edge, I hold on with one hand and look out at the rippling water, dangerously close to crying.
    Step one: know where you are.
    Step two: know where you’re going.
    My legs sway in the current I created. What have I done with my life since graduation? My postcollege years led to ambiguous goals. And to learning things that had nothing to do with what I learned in school. And to Jared. My ex-boyfriend: a lovely, attractive human being right up until he wasn’t. We met at a glassblowing workshop he taught, and he didn’t act like I wouldn’t know how to use tools because I was a girl. I thought he was exotic and artistic, with eyes like flat black stones and a sly smile. He had unusual arm sleeves tattooed in heavy black ink, the lines, curves, and circles molded perfectly to the shape of his muscles and joints. I used to trace the lines after we had sex—but only then, because otherwise he found it ticklish.
    We dated for four years, lived together for about two; one night we threw a party at our apartment and I walked in on my friend Elizabeth giving him head in our bathroom. I’d never made a speech before but I made one that night; I turned down the music and clinked a fork against a beer bottle and announced to about thirty of our friends that Elizabeth was a filthy whore; she was giving my boyfriend a blow job in the next room; maybe it was a good time for everyone to leave and thanks so much for coming. I moved out in hysterics that same night, leaving my CDs and potted fern behind, staying with Ryan and Malcolm at their place in Culver City for a while. Ryan tried to take care of me;