The Sea of Light (3 page)

What she said, I must not tell. But I know that after she’d said it the heaviness burst out of me like fever, so I was covered with sweat. I lay there pushing tubes aside and held her. Our heads rested together on the pillow, calmly, easily.

Did I say I held her? That’s wrong. Because the tubes held her, held her up, and she held me. She was so light, hardly there at all. When I opened my eyes things looked different for a moment—like they were dissolving, losing shape and form, and beneath the shape and form they were losing was a bright white heat that burned.

*

Turn off Route 3, continue along past the stadium and you arrive at what Kay used to refer to as Bleaker Land: government-sponsored project areas, the buildings fenced off, access granted only to people with security clearance. And there are other places, places where they do things to animals.

But all that is out in the sticks. From central campus, it’s impossible to believe anything exists except the morning. The sun’s always splendid when it shows, a sudden light over tree tops that obliterates dawn. Pure, sweet, wet-hot. Sometimes it brings tears to your eyes.

It would be nice to believe that there’s only this: leaves not quite ready to turn, lush hills to the west, fonts of knowledge overflowing, handsome young people playing to win.

Defeated whimpers sound somewhere else altogether. At least that’s what most of the kids seem to think. Which is just as well. They don’t know what they’re in for later—and why should they? Give them a few years to agonize over midterms, or over how to pull off a good 200-freestyle. It’s all practice for when the shit really hits the fan.

For now, no Terror 101. Just research papers, final exams. Football tickets. Swimming meets.

The Department of Athletics and Physical Education has been renamed several times. They keep renaming the Phys Ed degrees, too, to make them sound more scholarly, and the buildings are all set apart from the centers of academic research.

It’s the mind/body split, sweetheart,
Kay said once.

I resented that a little. Wordlessly, of course.

To get there I turn west, skirting central campus and the graduate library where she’d had a fifth-floor study booth reserved, its table spilling over with books about Hawthorne and Melville, pass early-morning joggers along the road to the natatorium complex, and park in my spot, queasy at the thought of running into any of the kids I coach. As if I’d owe them an explanation.

The building’s angular, clean, new. There’s something vaguely cruel about it, as if it could swallow you whole and alive—mash you up thoroughly, send pieces of you whirling into the pool, the diving tank, the sauna, weight rooms and equipment rooms and first-aid rooms with training tables—like that big white whale Kay was always going into philosophical rhapsodies about.

This interview is at half past ten.

Serendipity. But I’ll believe it when I see it.

*

There are unopened envelopes everywhere, letters requiring my signature, folders unfiled, a mug emblazoned with the name of the university that tips over when I sit, spilling pens and a chain of rusting paper clips onto the desk blotter. The lamp’s working, anyway—one of those full-spectrum things recommended for relieving competitive stress. Which is fine as long as you stay near the source of light. But I forgot to lock the door, and McMullen’s head is a ruddy, balding egg poking into the office, his eyes blinking cheerfully like twin beacons of primitive mischief.

“Heard about your coup, woman. When do I get a peek?”

I wonder what it is about him that makes me want to stuff an air conditioner up his nose.

He settles into my swivel chair, grinning. “Don’t hold out on me, Bren, for Christ’s sake, I deserve some good news. These kids are a bunch of maniacs. You know the headaches I’ve got? Remember Canelli, my sophomore, All-American last year? Well, he decided to do some spelunking in New Mexico this summer. Great idea, huh?
Spelunking,
for Christ’s sake. Anyway, he broke both his arms and gained forty pounds. So after serious discussion with yours truly he decided to redshirt the year, and that’s swell, but it leaves me shoveling shit up an alleyway when it comes to my medley relay.” He plants both elbows in a pile of memos. “You girls have all the luck. Delgado—she could’ve made the national team.”

“Could
have.”

“Look, when they’re good they’re good. You’re going to have to steal a free ride from somewhere, aren’t you?” The tiny eyes glitter. McMullen makes no bones about his nosiness. But, like an infant, he lacks perception—and this, the cornerstone of our relationship, is a saving grace. I still hate lying to him, though. Makes me feel like an ingrate. On the other hand, I was the one who came along and saved his butt. When I give him the nod his big face lights with triumph. “I knew it! Take my advice and buy her a damned
Rolls-Royce
if she wants one, never mind what kind of shape she’s in. You’ll have to come up with some dough, lady.”

“I know.”

“Lots of dough.”

“Okay, Pete. But promise me you’ll try to be a little low-key, all right? She’s been through a lot.”

“No kidding.” For some reason we’re out of my office now, heading down the hall, and I can feet the comfort of the specially recommended stress-relieving light fade away. I’ve let him take my arm and lead me along, like he’s got somewhere important to lead me to. McMullen is a salesman at heart—someone who gives you the feeling that he’s comfortable around snakeskin, bad real estate, phony ID’s. But exposure to genuine quality unnerves him. “Hear anything about the other kid, Hedenmeyer? Now
he
was a big animal, that boy would’ve dark-horsed it at the Trials. They say nowadays he can blink okay as long as they don’t unplug him. If you ask me it’s a crime they kept him alive in the first place. They removed a lot of that kid, just to keep him going on some fucking machine.” At the water fountain he drinks, splashing his chin and shirt front, talking all the time. “But the girl pulled through okay, didn’t she? Or is that what we’re waiting to find out?”

“We?”

“Well excuse
me
! Look, Bren, I’d have given my left molar for Kenny Hedenmeyer. Shit, I’d have given my jaw bone for either one of them. But if I’d done that I’d be in a different division, and I wouldn’t be able to talk the ears off these fucking delinquents I’ve got swimming for me here. Anyway, let me know how it goes.”

“I will.”

“Do that, girl. Let me know.”

He storms down the hall, pounds on doors to annoy people. Out of one flies a paper airplane, aimed perfectly at the bald spot on his head.

*

I duck through an exit, sit on the landing that smells unused, faintly damp with leftover summer and sweat. An image of Boz mouthing silent yelps against the living room window as I drive away rises up inside so that, for a moment, I want to say it out loud:
May I stop now, please?
But there’s this interview. I head down a flight.

Bob Lewison’s door is open, the walls trophy-cluttered, Lewison himself sunk deep into some text propped amid the mess on his desk. Everything in the room is askew. Not like the neat and orderly lines of an obsessive-compulsive’s office. Everything’s a little too large for the space—unlike Lewison, who is slight and rail-thin. An economy model, McMullen calls him, snickering. An economy model of man, old Bob.

They’ve never really liked each other.

“You look tired, Bren.”

“Thanks. That’s the nicest thing I’ve heard all day.”

“Rough summer?”

“Something like that.”

He closes the book, pats it like a shoulder. “Tell me about it. My cross-country squad’s in leg casts. Last month I missed an alimony payment. My kids aren’t talking to me. And MasterCard wants five thousand bucks. That’s the good news.”

Our hands meet across the desk, squeeze. I mumble the thing I always mumble with him: Poor Bob. Ah, business as usual, he tells me, what about you? and then I’m stuck. Hoisted on my own petard of lying secrecy—
privacy,
Kay called it, but that was a euphemism.

It’s been a hell of a time, I say vaguely. Family business.

“Anything I can do? Just let me know.”

But I shake my head. Then grin the weary, wary grin that lets him off whatever hook is always swinging there between us, the grin Kay told me was handsome and bright and full of warning.

“You know, you’re a good-looking woman. You’re good-looking even when you’re tired.” It’s shy, kind. Ancient discomfort, a mix of regret and panic, makes me pull my hand away. Say something diplomatic now. For all the boys and men in my life—well-meaning, virile, clumsy—whom I could not and would not love. Spilled beer suds, graceless dancing. Kisses and caresses that, after a while, I no longer even attempted. He’s trapped there in the too-long silence. Again I set him free of the hook, saying, Well,
that
is definitely the nicest thing I’ve heard all day.

Bob lands with alacrity. On his feet, and smiling.

“Since I’m scoring so many points, then, would you mind me making a suggestion?”

“Go ahead.”

“Before this girl shows up, gag McMullen and shove him in a closet somewhere.”

“Does
everyone
know?”

“Pete’s been intercepting your mail for weeks. But I’m rooting for you. And another thing.”

“What, Bob?”

“Get some rest,” he says, so gently it’s a surprise. “Get some rest, quit driving yourself. None of this stuff is that important. You’re on a roll around here, enjoy it. Don’t you think there’s a critical point to it all? Winning maxes out after a while, you know. It does. Then you’ve got to say, Well, fuck the whole bunch of you, I guess I’ve won enough. And you sit back a little, you smell the daisies.”

He reaches for my hand again when we stand, presses it with affection. We’re about the same height. Our eyes meet perfectly. I decide to avoid him from now on—a shame, because he’s been an ally, almost a friend. For now, though, I will just shake hands.

“Good going, Bren. The girl—”

“Delgado.”

“Right. Well, listen, there’s money around here somewhere. I’ll back you up all the way.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. Just ghost-write a couple of proposals for me later on this term. And good luck. Good luck raising the dead.” He pales slightly, then blushes. “I mean the idiots in Budget Accounting—not the kid.”

Back upstairs I pass McMullen’s office on the way to mine. Luckily, he’s on the phone. Haranguing. Someone else is getting it now and, despite myself, I smile. His voice booms down the hallway.

“I don’t mind telling you, pal, this place is going to hell in a handbasket! They keep pouring money down these kids’ throats and it keeps coming out their rear ends! And guess who has the honor of mopping it up? Yours
truly.”

*

The girl is prompt. McMullen’s secretary buzzes me at twenty-five past and I head out to meet her. She’s the kind we don’t see much of around here: big-framed, five foot ten, once lean but carrying too much weight around now. Taller than me, when she stands she comes close to taking over the room. We shake hands.

“Ms. Delgado.”

“Um—Babe.”

“Bren Allen. How was your trip?”

“Okay. I mean, fine.”

“You didn’t have any trouble finding us, I hope?”

“No!”

It sounds like panic. The kid’s very pale—there’s something vaguely upsetting about her presence when we head for my office—an awkwardness of the body. Nice-looking face, a little puffy yet ragged somehow. Like a thoroughbred beaten and lamed—maybe the bone sets, but the animal never runs the same.

Then I’m ashamed to evaluate her so coldly. Even though it’s part of my job, to evaluate coldly—it seems inappropriate now. I take her along a couple of detouring hallways to avoid McMullen, go around to my office and we both sit inside. Now I can meet her eyes directly. They’re large, dark eyes that don’t blink. There are tiny streaks of red across each cornea. It makes me feel the weariness acutely in my own self, and for a second I can almost swear that some kind of sigh passes between us, sounds somewhere close by in the world.

“You know, Babe, I was impressed by the honesty of your letter. I thought it took courage to write that. But I think you were a little rough on yourself. A certain amount of physical potential can stay with you, you know. It can. The rest is all in the mind.” This gets no reaction, not even a blink. Only tension and pallor, and a pain that the fixed, nervous smile cannot hide. “Tell me, how have things been for you this year?”

“Lousy.”

“That’s not surprising. We aren’t machines, after all. Sometimes our bodies seem to be—machines, I mean—but because our emotions are inseparable from what we do physically, we can’t ever function as predictably as machines.”

It’s all come out fluidly, perfectly. I tell myself: Coach, you’re
good.

“Everything really has to be in balance for excellent performance. But when we go through something traumatic it can throw the system way off, right? Different emotions cause different levels of hormones to be secreted, and this makes you feel lousy. You try to pull out the good times, the right splits, the extra effort—but it’s just not there to give.”

The kid breathes, her lips tremble a little. “I don’t want to lie about anything. I told you—I told you how bad I am now.”