The Sea of Light (13 page)

Not a peep,
schatze.
Not a sound.

But I stand instead, put my stuff in my own basket and then, seeing that she has been so kind as to leave it, take the last copy of the book that started everything and tuck it under my arm. The front cover’s bent backwards from the spill, a bunch of page corners twisted down. Maybe they’ll give me a discount.

* * *

Karen Potalia whispers that she has something to tell me. I rub her back gently and say I already know. There are tears in her eyes. I like Karen-—another hard worker, from a big family down in Boston—she does a pretty decent 200 breaststroke and fly. Always puts on perfect makeup before and after a meet. Last year she got engaged to this guy who goes to school in Rhode Island and wants to be a teacher.

Our locker room has been steamed, scraped, repainted. Every locker a fresh-coated shining white. Even the showers are drip-less, the walls sharp and dry, the only smells clean gusts of chlorine and pH factor, pine disinfectant, Windex.

“You may ask yourselves, What’s in it for me?”

Brenna Allen is stalking. Each year, a different theme. Back and forth in front of the benches. Eyeballing every face to make sure we are all riveted, simply riveted.

“What’s in it for me if I help my team win—if I help even one other person win—at a cost to myself? What if I do so many relays there’s nothing left in me for my own
individual
race? Or I work, and I work, and I cheer on everybody else, maybe I get thrown into a new distance, a new event, and I just don’t seem to improve? Now, where is
that
at?”

I gaze at her, wide-eyed, as serious as possible, kissing my last chance for a reprieve good-bye because I know exactly who this particular speech is aimed at. Then when her eyes fix on the next tensely eager face I zone out a little, let my glance wander sideways.

She is here. That girl from the bookstore. Looking taller than ever, ill at ease. Drops of sweat on her chin. Extremely familiar. But the name slips away—disturbing, almost there—and I try to catch her eyes without even wanting to, still embarrassed about the bookstore scene.

She doesn’t look my way, doesn’t seem to know I exist at all. And even though she’s sitting on a bench with other girls, it seems as if the others are not even there, that she’s all alone, big and uncomfortable in this clean white place. The place itself seems much too small for her.

“—Or you might ask yourselves: Who cares if I miss a couple of workouts? It isn’t exactly a sin, is it? Certainly,
God
doesn’t care—”

No, Coach, you’re right about that. God doesn’t.

“—about me—little me all alone in the water here—” This gets a big laugh “—trying to make good time, trying to win, trying to make the next repeat—”

Despite myself, I feel my face crack. Then the thing I hate worst begins—a violet blush, what Danny calls my scarlet letter. From the tits up, until my forehead pops out in a bright red sweat.
Next repeat.
She said that for me. I always do make it. Sometimes with half a second to spare—my trademark.
Hammerhead Marks, Make It Or Drown Trying,
some of them wrote once, in indelible ink, on the T-shirt I used for drag-weight. And we all had a chuckle. But I never wore it again.

“—Or maybe just trying to get out of bed in the morning when your alarm rings. But what I want you to begin thinking about is this: The caring, the will, has to come—not from the outside, not even from supernatural forces, no—it has to come from you. From some place deep inside you—from a place inside every one of you.” She’s in good form this year. I watch her move. Strong. Graceful. Her torso is looking great now—must be the weights. “How do we get to this place? For one thing, we
train.
See, when the chips are down, you must learn to preserve yourselves. To stabilize. To concentrate on what you know—on your form, and on your strength. We maintain self-integrity by maintaining the integrity of our mental and physical effort. We learn how to do this by training—training hard. That means practice. Because, eventually, you will find that no matter what it is you’re going through, as long as you are alive in this world the truth of any experience is expressed in the body—and the body tells no lies.”

Now she does that thing she does each September when she’s giving the first speech: swivels around with her shoulders, head and eyes following—suddenly, dramatically, focusing in on one person at random to make sure they’re listening. Because what she truly, truly despises is when you don’t even
look
like you are. She shoots daggers around—but everyone is.

Aye-aye, Captain.

Still, she’s a little tired or something. When her eyes flicker over my face briefly, then on to the next one again, they look bloodshot and weary.

“You will find your balance, you will learn how to maintain your mental and physical integrity, and sooner or later you will find that you’re not necessarily alone. Someone else is there in the water with you, struggling towards the same goal. You’re part of something much bigger than yourself. We just don’t generally see all the ties that bind us, because they’re invisible, they’re more or less psychological. But, believe me: On this team, in this program—in
my
program! on
our
team!—they exist, just as surely as
this
exists.” She picks up a towel from the stack. Laundered, folded, red lettering across it, waiting. “And sooner or later, when you’re holding on to something for dear life—a dream, a hope, a goal—you will discover that others are there at the opposite end of whatever you’re holding on to. You will find that training, learning the proper techniques for your own self-preservation, understanding the elements that make up your integrity of body and mind, automatically leads you to give your best effort
consistently.
But not just for yourself. It leads you to do your very best
for everyone else on this team.
Let up, or stop caring, and you let someone else down. Let up, or stop caring, and it’s not just yourself you watch go under—it’s others, too. So when you work for yourself—in
this
program—on
our
team—you must automatically work for everyone else. That means cooperation. Encouragement. That means team effort. That means we hold on to each other mentally, during a meet, when things get tough, and we just do not let go.”

Okay, I say, silently. Enough already.

“Now. We have a lot of work ahead of us. There’s a big, big prize that I want you to keep in sight—”

Zone-out time again. I look at the faces. Especially at the one that refuses to know I am here. Recognizing, now, the essential form of her: shoulders, thighs, flexible ankles, arms for days—strip the blubber away and she’s some kind of swimmer. The kind I used to dream of being, but never ever would be. Because I had no talent. No breeding.

So, Big Weird Girl. Who the hell are you, anyway?

Because, for sure, you are someone.

Someone, anyone,
Zischa used to tell me. It had to be someone. It could have been anyone. I lost two daughters and a wife, your mother, a son and husband. We met, we had a task to accomplish. Unite in defiance. Procreate. But we did not expect to succeed.

Unite?
I wanted to ask.
Against what, Zischa?
But never did.

He’d go on then, talking the way he always does, about
them
—fascists, overseers, bureaucrats. Those people, he’d say, the
gray
people, who would turn this whole world the color of birdshit—if you let them.

Then:
Ellie, my child. You must not let them.

Brenna Allen introduces me as team captain. I stand, take a bow. Around me, they’re all laughing and applauding. Then she introduces some freshman, a new scholarship kid, does a really good 200 freestyle and butterfly. And another girl, a walk-on, I should listen for their names, but don’t. We can get around to all the Welcome Wagon stuff later.

“—someone who we’re very glad and very fortunate to have swimming with us this year—”

Someone,
my child.
Anyone.

“—
Delgado.”

And then I know.

Record holder, 100 and 200 breaststroke. National team. World-class kind I fantasized about being myself, until reality set in. Like, Mission Viejo, Foxcatcher type. Stanford, Michigan, Indiana. UCLA. Southern. Pan Am Games. The Olympic Trials. A perfect contender. Then that thing happened—the whole team. It was, like, totally grotesque. All those champions, the big big boys and big big girls. All the U.S. Olympic hopefuls, practically, down the tube at once. Didn’t even wait for the East Germans to decimate them.

You are waving faintly, Big Girl. Waving feebly from your seat on the bench. Not standing to take a bow. As if you are, for some reason, ashamed. Avoiding everyone’s eyes. But you can’t banish remnants of recognizability from that face—the years of color photos beaming artificially back from the pages of swimming magazines—once, I think, even
Sports Illustrated
—at all of us high school and college nobodies.

But what is she doing in this division?

“Christ,” Potalia mutters next to me. “Guess I’m dead meat now. The game sure has changed around here.”

But our Coach is judging everyone, eyes daring us. For a moment, the eyes have settled on me. Captain Hammerhead Marks. I am expected to do something—something appropriate.

I stand, grinning. Daring her back somehow. Most of all, daring Babe Delgado to look up, and look at me, and recognize my face, too—I want this very badly, although I don’t know why. But I put my hands together and clap, vigorously.

“All
right,”
I say, with enthusiasm. “Watch
out!”

I do my job: Stand and lead them all, applauding.

But Babe Delgado remains sitting as if she is more or less frozen there, big hands laced nervously together in her lap, pale face turned down, eyes fixed on the concrete ground.

*

In the hallway there’s an almost continual scuffing of feet, basketballs echoing against hidden surfaces, barbells slamming on rubberized mats. I lean against the wall near a water fountain.

Babe Delgado takes some time getting her things together. In fact, she’s the last one out of the locker room, and when she steps into the hallway I’m waiting. Then we’re face to face. I think I can see something aside from glazed tiredness in her expression: something shrewd, almost friendly, flashing back at me momentarily from the big dark eyes webbed with red. I feel myself grin nervously.

“Hey.”

“Ah-hah.”

There’s a wry tone to her voice.

But at least she has noticed me. Whether she remembers the bookstore, though, remains to be seen. In an embarrassing, needy way that is new to me, I want her to.

People jostle around us in the hallway. The doors at one end open and heat blows through, touched with a smell of something—the beginning of crushed leaves, maybe, and a faint odor of sweat. It seems like she might want to talk. I see her mouth form words once or twice, then the lips purse in a kind of exasperation. She looks frightened. I blurt out something to save her.

“Which way are you going?”

She shrugs. But when I head down the hall she walks alongside me, a good five inches taller, and for a moment I feel like I’m much, much younger.

And I’m trying now—very hard—to think of things to say. A passing sleeve snags the spiral binding of my notebook. She bumps into me and mumbles an apology. Then words are tumbling out of her quickly, as if they’re very important.

“You’re on the swim team, you’re the captain.”

“Yes, I’m on the swim team. But not exactly in the same
league
as you.”

“What,” she says faintly, blushing.

“My name is Ellie. Ellie Marks.” I maneuver a hand from bookbag straps and offer it. She stops to shake it, her grip very firm—this surprises me.

“Babe Delgado.”

“I know. I know that’s who you are.”

The hallway has ended, glass doors swinging in towards us. Babe Delgado’s blush fades, leaving in its wake a sheet of sweat across a forehead that still looks all wrong being so pale. Nervously, she wipes it off. Something warns me to continue with the innocuous chat.

“Coming on the team retreat this weekend?”

“I guess so. She requires it, doesn’t she.”

It’s not a question.

“Tell me something—did everyone always call you Babe? Or does it cover up some deep dark secret?”

This, however, goes over about as well as toxic shock. She starts to look strained. So, even though there is something repugnant and frightening about it, I grab her arm for a moment in a kind of pity, and squeeze it gently before releasing. Thick forearms. My fingers don’t circle all the way around.

“Hey!” I say, “just kidding! Listen, do you have a class or anything now? We could go get some coffee—there’s this cheap little place I’ll show you where everybody hangs out.”

“Um—some other time.”

“Come on,” I urge. Not because I particularly
want
to spend any more time with her if I can help it—especially at the present ratio of work to social results—but because I am suddenly flooded with the urge to be nice, to fulfill my designated role. “Come on, I’ll even tell you
my
nickname. Now that’s a horror story, for sure.”