Chapter 31

Willie and Mom cut the meeting about my future short since he still had to get Cameron back to his car. Even with that, I was groggy when my alarm went off the next morning. Chef had me come in for early morning training before the lunch rush instead of after, and picked me up on the way to the Sunday farmer market, which meant I was seriously sleep-deprived. Not that I complained to him. He was already doing me a favor with all the training and now he was doing me another one by altering his schedule so I could go to Kat’s swim meet.

It was a lot more conditioning today, since he had to keep going inside to deal with preparing the day’s specials. He did have me walk him through what happened on Saturday. Once he was convinced I hadn’t tried to actually get involved in the fight beyond getting Cameron out of danger, he focused on the specifics of what I’d done, going through the motions several times.

He made a point to show me multiple places I’d made mistakes and how much I could have been hurt had the person not been so drunk. I didn’t have enough leverage on the arm control, I wasn’t aware of my surroundings and didn’t check for any other dangers until after the one guy was on the ground, despite the fact that there was an all-out brawl happening. Despite Mom’s displeasure, I’d been feeling good about how I’d managed, so it was a humbling moment. He then proceeded to put me through my paces hard, just to make sure I learned my lesson. I got the message, being barely able to move by the time we called it a day.

Maybe as a way to counter kicking my ass, Chef did arrange for one of the busboys to give me a ride to the school, although I was on my own getting back up to the Blue Ridge afterward for music practice. I took what I could get. If worst came to worst, it was within walking distance, barely. Although the five-ish miles between the school and the Blue Ridge after a day of conditioning would be hell. I’d made sure to bring my guitar that morning and leave it in Chef’s apartment, along with the rest of my stuff, so at least I wouldn’t have to carry anything.

Walking into the pool inside the school, I was a little amazed. One, I hadn’t realized it was heated until that moment. We had a swimming section of Gym class, but it wasn’t until the second semester, so I’d just assumed it was outdoor. Wellville wasn’t a particularly well-off town and the school was far from new, so what looked like a pretty modern indoor pool seemed a little out of place.

There was a pretty good crowd here; some wore shirts from one of the other small towns along I-26. I wasn’t sure where this one was, but I think it might have been off to the north of Wellville. Someone had put strings of multi-colored triangles from one end of the pool to the other and swimmers were gathered at one end in two groups, apparently the different schools, although there weren’t uniforms like you’d see in football to tell who was who.

The girls were all wearing swimming caps, which really changed the way they looked, making it hard to tell which girl was Kat at first. I found a seat on the far end of the bleachers and waiting for things to start when one of the girls broke off and half-jogged over towards me. It wasn’t until she was almost right in front of me that I realized it was Kat.

“You came,” she said, practically bouncing on her toes.

“Of course I came,” I said standing up.

I hadn’t really considered how Kat looked before and I was surprised with how absolutely ripped she was, which now that I thought about it, was kind of weird. She didn’t dress modestly, although considering it, she didn’t show a whole lot of skin. It was mostly tight clothes and low necklines. It was almost like she dressed in a way that made it seem revealing without actually being revealing.

I was sure I’d have noticed how muscular she was before, although maybe it was because of how she was built. Although she had really good definition along her legs that looked like they could break a man in half, it was wiry muscle, built for speed more than power.

I realized I’d stared a moment too long and shook myself mentally, making sure to make eye contact. I know she caught me looking and she seemed almost scared instead of annoyed or pissed I’d been checking her out.

“Sorry, I was just thinking I didn’t realize you were in such good shape,” I said, deciding to be honest. “I better make sure not to get any wrong answers next time we have a session, or you might rip me in half.”

It was a lame joke, but it seemed to work. I could visibly see her relax.

“I wouldn’t do that,” she said, looking down to the floor.

“I’ve never been to a swimming competition before, so I don’t know how this works. Can I cheer or whatever?”

“Yeah, absolutely. I’m swimming the one-hundred and two-hundred freestyle, plus I’m in the relay.”

“You don’t do any of the other types?”

“I sometimes do breaststroke in relays, but I’m trying for juniors again, and I always do freestyle there since my breaststroke isn’t good enough, so I told coach I wanted to stay focused on just this form this year. If things go well, I might be able to swim in the Pan-Am games in the spring.”

“So you’re really good?”

“I don’t know,” she said, looking at her foot as she drew small circles with her big toe.

“Kat,” one of the girls still huddled up by the pool called out to her.

“Either way, I’ll be over here cheering for you. Good luck.”

“Thanks,” she said, giving me a bright smile and running back to her friends.

I took my seat again. The place was humid and warm, probably because of the heated water, and everything smelled like chlorine. It took about another twenty minutes before anything actually got started, with swimmers and coaches walking around talking to each other.

They started with a couple of men’s races, which helped me figure out how this all went. The fifty-meter race was fast, basically just from one end of the pool to the other, while in the others the swimmers had to turn around in the water a couple of times. It looked like they did an underwater somersault or twist or something, and then they’d plant their feet on the back wall of the pool and push off, popping back up to the surface ten feet further down.

The boys finished the fifty, one-hundred, and two hundred in each style before the girls got to go, starting with their fifty. They seemed to be letting multiple groups go in each race, but I wasn’t sure if this was some kind of semi-final and the winners would swim in a final race later or some kind of qualifying thing. There wasn’t much in the way of explanation, just a guy on the side calling out for swimmers for the next race, after which everyone seemed to know what they were doing.

It was probably thirty minutes before the girl’s one-hundred freestyle, which was Kat’s first race. I didn’t see her in the first group and I thought maybe I didn’t recognize her again, but I saw her in the second group. It turned out there not being a uniform swimsuit came in handy, since there was enough difference between each swimmer I was able to follow one person.

She stepped up on the platform and kind of knelt down almost holding her toes, just like the guys did. A buzzer sounded and she exploded off the platform, knifing into the water. My assessment that she was good turned out to be an understatement as she proceeded to smoke the rest of the girls in the pool. She was almost a full body length ahead of the next closest girl when they hit the wall for the turn, and she stayed under afterward way longer than anyone else. She was underwater long enough I could kind of make out what she was doing.

As she moved off the wall she’d put her hands together in front of her and had her legs tight together, moving them almost like she was wearing flippers or a mermaid tail. When she finally came up to the surface, it was all in one motion, starting the arm motions as she got to the surface in a single, fluid action. She was pretty graceful, actually.

When she finally reached out and slapped the wall at the other end, the race wasn’t even close. She was more than two body lengths ahead of everyone else. She was absolutely beaming when the race finished and they all climbed out of the pool, and she headed to the benches set aside for players to cheer on her teammates.

They went through each of the other three styles, breaststroke, butterfly, and backstroke for the one-hundred meters before getting to her next race. The backstroke was interesting, since the swimmers couldn’t see the wall approaching. It turned out that was what the little triangles stretched above the length of the pool were for. Each divided a lane and it looked like the color-coding might tell them where in the pool they were. I could make out several of the swimmers eying the little pieces of fabric or whatever as they swam, at least it seemed like that’s what they were using them for, I could have been wrong. Kat probably knew, so I made a note to ask her about it some time.

After they cycled through everyone, Kat was back up, swimming the two-hundred-meter race this time. With more room to go, she beat everyone by an even larger margin. A lot of the kids seemed to start fading out in the last fifty, but Kat looked like she picked up speed. Maybe she was holding something back for a final sprint. By the time she touched the wall, she was almost a third of the pool ahead of the next person.

By the time I watched her relay, it was clear she was just in a different class than everyone else here. Of course, that kind of made sense. It seemed unlikely they’d get two kids able to swim at a national level from such an underpopulated area of the country. If I had to guess, swimming was one of those sports that, to get good, usually required money. The person had to have regular access to a pool, for instance. It was possible for an underprivileged kid in a big city to get that, but there weren’t a lot of public pools in this area, at least not that I had seen.

When it all wrapped up, I wasn’t clear on who, if anyone, had won. There wasn’t any kind of scoreboard or ceremony. The teams just packed up and headed off to their locker rooms. As her team headed back Kat said something to her teammates before running over towards me.

“I need to get a shower and stuff. Will you wait?”

“Sure. I need to make a call and see if Hanna can come get me and take me back to the Blue Ridge. I have practice and then I play tonight.”

“I can take you. Wait, okay?”

“Sure, and way to go. You were amazing.”

Her face looked like it was going to break, she was smiling so hard.

“Thanks. I won’t be long,” she said, giving one last smile before running back to the dressing room her team had gone through.

As people started to file out, except for a few families or friends waiting on contestants, it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen Aaron or any of his minions. He was territorial enough that it seemed unlikely he wouldn’t have at least made threats after seeing me talking to Kat. I guess it was possible that his parents were keeping him at home after the incident at the Blue Ridge, but that seemed unlikely. Considering the kind of person they’d raised, I didn’t think they put much value in disciplining him, even when the cops brought him home. I could be wrong of course and he turned out bad despite their efforts, but I doubted it. It did, however, raise something I didn’t consider.

I was looking into the pool, thinking it over, when Kat came jogging over, her long brown hair still wet.

“You waited,” she said, smiling.

“I said I would.”

“So you wanted a ride to the Blue Ridge?”

“If it’s okay.”

“Yeah, it’s great.”

“You’re in a really good mood,” I said as we walked out to the parking lot.

“Swimming always makes me feel amazing. I get into the zone and everything kind of disappears. For that little bit I’m not worried or scared or anything. I’m just swimming.”

“I actually know what you mean. I feel exactly the same when I’m playing. The whole world drops away.”

“Exactly. Man, no one seems to know what I mean when I say that,” she said, beaming at me.

She stopped in front of a little black convertible, probably the nicest car in the parking lot.

“Wow, nice car.”

“Thanks. Dad bought it for me when I was sixteen.”

“Really? This is a really nice car for a sixteen-year-old.”

“I know, but that’s Dad. He likes to spoil me.”

“I can see that,” I said, getting in. “Not to ruin your good mood, but it occurred to me while I was waiting, what happens when Aaron hears you’re hanging out with me. Tutoring is one thing, you’re assigned to people, but this is different. He really, really hates me and he’s never struck me as the kind of person who shares well.”