Bliss, Remembered (5 page)

That’s what they call a no-brainer today. “Umm, the backstroke,” I said, playing dumb, you understand.

Exactly, Teddy. So Carl nodded, and the starter said, “All right, what say we make it four laps—two hundred yards? Is that okay?” I said sure, and Carl agreed, all smug, and everybody moved closer to the pool. I mean, I guarantee you, nobody was leaving. Well, maybe Edna had gone. I’d lost interest in her by now, so I don’t know.

Never so calm in all my life. I knew I should beat him, and if somehow his pride got his adrenaline up and he beat me, then it didn’t really matter, ’cause everybody’d say I was just a girl and so what? I knew all the pressure was on him. And just before we jumped into the pool—you know, you start the backstroke in the pool—Frankie called out, “If he beats you, Trixie, he gets to kiss you.”

And everybody cheered some more, but I was really feelin’ my oats now. I’d never been in a spotlight before, and I’d found I enjoyed it. So I called over, “And suppose I beat him?”

And Frankie called back, “Then you get to kiss me.” Oh, he was fresh, that Frankie. They don’t say “fresh” anymore, do they?

So, let us say Frankie could be inappropriate. Unfortunately, that’s what they say now. Inappropriate. Awful word.

But like I said, I was feelin’ my oats, and I called back, “In a pig’s eye!” And everybody roared.

And so we jumped in, and the gun went off, and I just lay out on my back and pretended like I was on the river, with nobody around, and I just started moving my arms in that windmill way and kicking my feet nice and easy, taking my breaths, and it was such a breeze, Teddy, just me skimming along, looking up at the blue sky.

It was a year or so later when I first met Eleanor Holm, and she told me how there wasn’t anything as grand as moving through the water on your back. She told me, “Yeah, I like to be on my back in the water and on top in bed,” but I was so young, I really didn’t know what she meant. I just said something foolish like “yeah.” That Eleanor Holm, she was a piece of work, lemme tell you . . .

But there you go again, lettin’ me wander. Poor Carl. I got ahead of him halfway through the first lap, and it was all over but the shoutin’, because then he began to panic, flailin’ his arms and chop-pin’ his legs too hard, so he started to wobble and even weave outside his lane. It was like with Edna earlier. I actually began to feel sorry for him. But I didn’t let up, Teddy. I wasn’t gonna go easy on any boy—especially one as stuck up as Carl. I beat him better’n a whole lap.

Yes, indeed. He could barely bring himself to shake my hand. The people were cheering. Some of the little girls jumped right into the water with me. This girl had beaten a boy, and they were all simply ecstatic. Now remember, Teddy, this is a million years before Billie Jean beat Bobby Riggs. I was one big heroine. Yes sir, on the Eastern Shore anyway, the women’s movement began that day.

But, best of all, as Mom and I were leaving, this bald man came up to me. He said he was the coach at the country club. Honestly, I think he was more like some kinda glorified lifeguard, but he was awfully nice. He said, “Trixie, how much coaching have you had?” and I told him none, and he said he thought that was the case, but he just couldn’t believe how good I was. He told me, “If you ever get coaching, you could be really good.”

I said, “Really?” And he said, “Yeah, really. You’re a natural, Trixie.” A natural. Is there anything better anybody can tell you but that you’re a natural? I don’t think so.

He asked if I knew that there was an indoor pool at Washington College, which was in Chestertown. I told him, no, I didn’t, but he told me there was. He also said there was an old guy named Wallace Foster who had been a real good swimmer himself, who swam at the pool up there, and he was gonna call Wallace Foster long distance and get him to start coaching me some. Which he did. Mr. Foster started to teach me what he knew. I mean, he wasn’t a real coach, but in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, so I swam all that winter indoors, and I got faster and faster, and I knew I was good. It’s an amazing thing to be sixteen years old and realize you’re truly outstanding at one thing in the world.

Well, you can turn that off now. A girl’s gotta get her beauty rest.

Yes, he most certainly did. I told you: I was pretty pert then, easy on the eyes. And he came up from Easton in his father’s very stylish Pontiac. Remember now, he was one of the country-club boys. Frankie’s family was doin’ all right, even in the Depression. He picked me up in that Pontiac, and he was cute as a button and a barrel of fun. But all Frankie wanted to do was monkey around with my bazooms, and I wasn’t ready for that sort of thing yet. In fact, he’s the only boy I ever slapped. I mean actually hauled off and slapped him right across his face.

No, Frankie wasn’t used to bein’ told no. Just so full of himself, so fresh.

He was killed at the Battle of the Bulge. I was living in Missoula by then, and my mother mailed me the obituary. But even if he was fresh, I thought about him fondly. To tell you the truth, Teddy, if I was going to start letting boys feel me up, I think I would’ve begun with Frankie, but I was getting into swimming at the time, and I didn’t want any physical distractions of that nature.

Poor Frankie. Just his luck.

The next morning, Mom came to breakfast dressed up in a printed silk dress that Helen had given her for her birthday. “You going out?” I asked. She still drove, even though I wished she wouldn’t.

“I’m just gonna get something.” And, anticipating me, she said, “And, no, I can get it by myself quite well enough. I’m not dead yet.” I didn’t rise to the bait, but just kept eating my eggs and bacon. “Well, you don’t know what day it is, do you?”

I knew August 23rd couldn’t be the complete answer, so I had to say no.

“Well, this is the day Jimmy died. Seven years ago.”

“Yes, ma’am.” She didn’t correct me when I said ma’am. “I’m sorry I’ve forgotten.”

“No, I didn’t mean to chastise you, Teddy. It wasn’t a test of your love. We remember the days when people were born, not when they die, and that’s the way it should be.”

“It doesn’t seem like it’s been seven years,” I said.

“I know. Once you’re gone, it’s amazing how fast everything moves on. You miss a lot very quickly when you die.”

I had to chuckle. “I never quite thought about it that way.”

“Well, I’m dying, so it occurred to me.” She rose from the table. “But, of course, I’d rather remember all the wonderful things your father and I shared. You remember, I dragged him to the Olympics in Los Angeles in ’84.”

“He liked it, didn’t he?”

“Oh yes, but I made him sit through all the swimming. He would’ve preferred a more varied fare.”

“Well, Daddy was always very agreeable.”

“Yes, indeed he was. He was the sweetest husband a woman could ever want.”

“Sweetest father, too,” I added. And for just a moment, I thought Mom might cry, but she kissed me on the forehead and moved on with dispatch, snapping up the car keys. As she approached the door, though, she suddenly swung around and looked directly at me. “How much do you think you could do for love?”

That came right out of the blue, and I was completely taken aback. “You mean me in particular?”

“Well, anybody.”

“What in the world made you ask that, Mom?”

“It just occurred to me.”

“It’s awfully hypothetical.”

“So that’s your escape clause?”

“Well, all right. People have made the supreme sacrifice for love. They’ve died to save someone they love. That’s the answer, isn’t it?” I was still rather puzzled by the whole exchange.

“Yes, I suppose. Or if we do something completely out of character—” She paused. “Even something illegal . . . We do that to help someone we love, maybe that’s an even greater sacrifice.”

“A greater sacrifice than dying?”

“Under some circumstances, I think.”

“You have anything particular in mind?”

She shook her head. “Well, Teddy, let’s just say: not right now.”

“Okay, Mom, I’m sorry, but I just never really gave the subject much thought. You have a habit, you know, of springing things on people.”

“Well, keep it in mind, and we can talk about it some other time.”

“All right,” I said, if only to be done with the matter.

But it seemed to satisfy her enough and, promptly turning the conversation back a ways, she said, “Now, speaking of your father, I’m gonna get some flowers, Teddy. I feel guilty that I can’t put ’em on his grave—”

“Come on, Mom, it’s back in Missoula, so you can’t very well—”

“Exactly. So I’ll get some flowers in honor of Jimmy, and we can look at ’em here.”

“What’re you gonna get?”

“Oh just some cheap bunch at the supermarket. Your father never cared much for flora. I don’t think he could tell a gladiola from a gardenia, so there’s no sense going whole hog on a bouquet that wouldn’t impress him, anyway. Is it?”

“No, we should be consistent. On the other hand, if we raise a toast to Daddy tonight, it better be a good bottle of wine, or he’ll be ticked off.”

“A point well taken, Teddy. I will stop by the grog shop too.”

And off she went. I must say, times like this, when all the medications were working, it was absolutely impossible to tell that she was dying. She was thinner, yes, but all her hair had fallen out during the chemo, so she had a very nice wig on, and what with her lovely new dress and her usual cheerful demeanor, it all seemed so out of joint. I called up Helen then and gave her an update on Mom’s condition, and reminded her to call in the evening. “Do you know what day this is?”

“No.”

“It’s the day Daddy died, seven years ago.”

“Oh my god, Teddy. Who ever remembers the day when people died?”

“Yeah, I agree with you, but if you call up Mom tonight and mention it, it’ll make a big hit with her, and then she’ll go to her grave loving you much more than she does me.”

“All right,” Helen said. “Under those circumstances, I’ll certainly do it.”

We always got along well, Helen and me. We shared much the same outlook and had quite the same wry sense of humor. Curiously, I, the male, looked more like Mother, while she, lighter in coloring, favored Dad, but it was not pronounced in either case. As a family, right along into the next generation of our own children, we’re not much into spittin’ images. In terms of personality, though, Helen is more of a risk taker than I’ve been, and in that sense, she took more after Mom. She went back East to college, while I stayed close to home—Montana State, down in Bozeman. Then after college, she flew for Pan Am as a stewardess—that’s what you called them then: stews—so she saw the world for several years. She was libertine and married a pilot who had the look of eagles and a voice of authority when he assured passengers that the turbulance was nothing at all to fret about—only “some chop.”

That helped our relationship, too. We both liked each other’s spouses. As a matter of fact, I liked all of Helen’s husbands, and never could understand why she kept changing them. After the pilot, there was a plastic surgeon, and then the one now, whom I’m pretty sure is the finale. He’s a retired stock brokerage president, which means that he is, at the least, “well heeled.” Certainly, from all outward appearances, Helen and Buck live a very well-heeled life in Rancho Santa Fe.

Helen likes Jeanne, my wife, a lot. “She’s very good for you, Teddy,” is what she said from the beginning—although I’ve always been a bit dubious about that analysis. I like to think that you want someone who’s good with you, rather than for you. But then, maybe I’m splitting hairs. In the event, Jeanne and I do get along absolutely wonderfully, just as Mom and Dad always did.

I’m a school teacher. I’ve been that all my life. I taught English in high school and was in charge of dramatics, as well. Theater’s been my passion. I always directed as many plays in school as I possibly could, and now that I’m retired from teaching, I still work with a little theater group in Great Falls. I started teaching in Butte right out of college, but I went to a high school in Great Falls three years later, strictly because I could run the dramatics. And I’ve been there ever since. Jeanne was a teacher, too, and we met there. History was her subject. And she coached the girls’ tennis. Sounds terribly dull, doesn’t it? But I’ve just never been the sort to move around or change when things seem to be going reasonably well, and Jeanne, being good for me (as well you know), went happily along. We had three children, all grown now, all healthy, all spread to the winds, the way Americans are supposed to.