Fight Song (28 page)

But apparently he’s already screwed it up. It’s not half an hour later and Gotthorm comes out to where he’s hiding, sort of wedged under a chaise lounge.

“What’s that?” Bob asks, pointing at the big taxidermied fish in Gotthorm’s hands.

“It’s an African pompano.”

“But why do you have it?”

“A mermaid has the upper body of a human and the tail of a fish.”

“Thanks for refreshing my memory.”

“Jane needs to be supported by both her land family and those family members from under the sea.”

“And that stuffed fish is like an aquatic cousin?”

“I’m going to let you stay and watch us from out here,” Gotthorm says. “But you can’t come inside and Jane won’t know you’re present.”

“Why can’t I come in and cheer her on?”

“No one cheers on a piece of sea grass, being bandied by the tide.”

“Right, but she’s … ”

“Nobody applauds a jellyfish feeding on plankton.”

“That’s my human wife in there.”

“Jane is transcending human endurance. She is of two worlds right now. And her mind needs to be like this fish’s mind.” He moves the taxidermied thing in an arcing motion. “You pollute her state of nothingness.”

Gotthorm turns and starts walking back toward the indoor pool, leaving Bob and his binoculars all by their lonesome.

About 4:00
AM
something sort of beautiful happens. Gotthorm gets into the pool with a bottle of Gatorade and an energy bar. He approaches Jane. Slowly, she seems to emerge from her trance, her nothingness, and she slowly drinks the whole Gatorade, eats the snack. Then she shuts her eyes again and returns to her puckered breathing.

Coffen climbs into the empty lifeguard chair, the perch giving him a better view. He watches Jane in awe. Watches and feels washed with affection.

Tuesday looks a lot like Monday. Besides intermittent trips into the locker room to relieve himself, Coffen stays fixed to the outdoor pool deck, spying with grave intensity, snacking on his stash of Mexican lasagnas.

If Coffen’s calculations are correct, she’s been treading water for twenty-nine hours now.

And while he can’t see her legs working in the pool, he can see her face, her arms, her cohesive motions. Gotthorm is right—there is something otherworldly in the way her body moves.

Erma, Margot, and Brent are back.

Apparently, the judges rotate to stay alert. The woman who was there the day before is now gone. A small
gentleman is positioned close to the pool, scrutinizing each of Jane’s strokes, clutching a clipboard of his very own.

Bob texts his kids the same message:
How’s our girl doing?

Margot:
fine

Brent:
you mean mom?

Bob:
Think good thoughts for her!

Neither of them knows he’s out there, hiding with the masses on the congested pool deck. He figures it’s better to keep them in the dark about his distant attendance, so they don’t accidentally tell Erma, who would probably call the cops on him. Or worse, buy a stun gun and handle things herself.

Gotthorm comes out again to chat with Coffen late Tuesday, around 11:00
PM
. The health club is closed. He’s not carrying the African pompano this time, but instead is eating a banana.

“Aren’t you cold?” Bob says, pointing at his Speedo.

“I’m Nordic.”

“Don’t remind me. How’s she doing?”

“She is accepting the ocean as another home. And it is accepting her.”

Bob fights back laughter. Why is it that the first thing through Coffen’s stupid mind is a wisecrack? Here his wife is going on forty hours straight of treading water and all he wants to do is say something snide to Gotthorm: How is a heated indoor pool anything like the open ocean?

He stops himself, embarrassed. Why can’t he focus on
what’s important? He catches himself, composes himself, then says to Gotthorm, “She’s going to do it this time.”

The coach snorts. “Too soon to know. She’s made it this far before.”

“This time’s different. I can tell.”

“Fish swim forever,” Gotthorm says.

Wednesday looks a lot like Tuesday. It’s a bit after high noon. Coffen has run into the locker room to shower, shit, and brush his teeth, and then flees back to the pool deck to eat another Mexican lasagna—a snack that doesn’t age well. Each bite a chore. Each bite probable food poisoning.

Jane’s just crossed the fifty-hour plateau, which puts her nine hours away from her personal best. Nine hours away from uncharted waters.

That night, Gotthorm doesn’t come out to talk to Bob, which he takes as a bad sign. Coffen’s up on the lifeguard chair, peering in at them. The coach looks worried, leaning down and talking a lot to Jane as she treads. The African pompano has been thrust to the side. This can’t be good.

Erma, Margot, and Brent have gone home to get some sleep. The same judge is there, alert as always, clipboard in his hands.

Coffen channels his inner Gotthorm, thinking to himself,
Why would a fish need any words of encouragement to keep on swimming?

Through the binoculars, Jane appears no different. Her
eyes are closed. She paddles and sways her limbs with the same nimble fluidity. She breathes her puckered breaths.

But Gotthorm’s shift in demeanor has Bob flustered, and a flustered Bob Coffen isn’t known for shrewd decision-making. Pretty soon, he’s creeping up toward the window. Pretty soon, he’s pantomiming a big thumbs-up with a simultaneous shrug of the shoulders to Gotthorm, who responds only with pursed lips and a shaking head.

At 5:00
AM
on Thursday, Jane’s been treading for sixty-seven hours, and this is the moment when her eyes pop open. The skin tone changes, going pale. Her rhythmic, puckering breaths go into shallower, almost panic-stricken sucks of air. Her head slips a bit under the water. She catches herself, rights her stroke, but it’s the first slip she’s made.

Coffen sees all this through the window. Face pressed right up to the glass.

Coffen sees this and wants so badly to whisper in her ear:
You’ve come this fa
r.
You can do it. You can do anything in the world you put your mind to
.

Gotthorm comes out to the crowded pool deck at 10:00
AM
. He has the exhausted look of a surgeon who’s been doing his best to keep a patient alive, but whose tireless efforts might be in vain.

“Have you gotten any sleep?” Bob asks.

“We’re at seventy-two hours.”

“She’s really struggling, it looks like.”

“She’s exhausted.”

“Will she make it?”

“I worry she’ll cramp soon.”

“And that’s it?”

“Fish swim until they die,” says Gotthorm.

“Before you said that fish swim forever.”

“Nobody can wiggle a mackerel’s tail but that very fish.”

“Is there any way to help her?”

“You are in your own competition, like Jane and me,” Gotthorm says. “You’ve been here as many hours as us. You’ve been competing. I’m impressed. You are stronger than you look.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“She needs more strength. She’s used up all her dedication to me, used up all her personal willpower. She’s drawn all the fuel she can from having your children present. Now it’s up to Jane to keep her humanness shut off. She has to stay aquatic or she’ll give in to fatigue.”