Anyhoo, Dylan was pretty perfect, in every way. And he was coming to our pool.
I fought the really, really stupid urge to ask Peter how I looked. Or to try to see my reflection in the pool. It did not matter, at all. But, just in case:
“I don’t have anything in my teeth, do I?” I bared them like a lion to Peter.
“Nope.” He raised his eyebrows as I ran my hand over my head to smooth back the loose hair coming out of my ponytail. “You’re not going to do some crazy fangirl thing, are you?”
“Peter, please!” I scoffed. Yes. “Should we start practice, or wait for him?”
He looked at the clock again. “Let’s get them in the water.”
So we were observing a 100 IM kick set when Dylan McKenzie walked in. At first I didn’t see him, because I was kneeling down trying to help Hannah with her goggles. They never seemed to stay over her eyes. Then I noticed Peter walking away from the pool, and a big stir of interest in the parents in the bleachers.
“Julia?”
Hannah was looking up at me from the water, and I realized that I was holding her goggles just out of reach.
“Sorry, here you go, Hannah Banana. Hang out at the wall, I think we’re going to take a break.”
Her eyes caught sight of Dylan too, and got as big as plates. “He’s here!”
That he was. Wearing a swim coat, which meant that he really did plan to go in.
“Julia, come on over!” Peter called to me. I slowly got up and made my legs walk over to them. “Dylan, this is our assistant coach, Julia Laine. Do you remember her?”
My cheeks burned. Dylan stared at me impassively. “No,” he said. Then his eyes flicked past me to the water. All the kids were either hanging on the lane lines or at the end of the pool, watching him intently. I couldn’t speak.
“You were on the team together, but Julia’s a little younger. Let’s meet the kids!” He looked at the pool. “Get off the lane lines!” Peter slapped Dylan on the back, his broad back, and led him over to the blocks.
The kids swam faster than I’d ever seen them go over to the wall and hopped out to meet the hometown Olympian. They surrounded him, looking like little insects next to his 6’5” frame. And they were all talking at the same time, so they sounded like insects, too.
“Pups! Quiet down,” Peter called, and I held up my hand to make the “quiet coyote” signal. I caught Dylan staring at me, so I put my hand down. It took a moment, but finally they settled.
“Dylan, do you want to address them first?”
He looked a little startled, then cleared his throat. “I’m glad to be back here. I remember swimming in this pool, just like you guys. I brought something to show you.” He pulled something heavy out of the pocket of his swim parka.
Holy heck, it was one of his gold medals! He just carried it around in his pocket? “I won this in Copenhagen. It was my first medal.” He casually handed it to seven-year-old Colin, who looked like he might faint from the excitement.
“Take a look and pass it along,” Peter said, flexing his fingers and kind of reaching for the medal. He wanted to hold it too. Dylan looked at him, clearly done with the speechifying. “Ok, does anyone have a question for Dylan?”
Almost every hand shot up.
“How long can you hold your breath?”
“Did your swimsuit ever fall off when you dove? Mine did.”
“What’s your favorite color?”
“Does eating eggs really make you swim faster? My mom makes me eat them for breakfast when we have a meet.”
“Do you ever drink the NRG+Lyfe drink? I never have but my dad says it’s poison. Is it really poison?”
To his credit, Dylan answered as best he could, if a little succinctly.
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
My ears perked up. Oh, please, Julia! As if.
“No,” he answered.
“So you play the field? That’s what my grandma says my dad does,” Gaby explained. “Dylan has lots of women,” she explained to the other Pups.
“He’s like a cat,” John called out.
“How am I like a cat?” Dylan asked, sounding confused.
“You know, you have nine wives!”
I found my voice. “I think you’re thinking of nine lives, bud,” I told John.
“My cat has nine wives!” someone else called.
“He plays the field,” Gaby corrected him.
“It’s a myth that cats have nine lives, not nine wives,” I explained. “Dylan doesn’t have any wives.”
Dylan was staring at us all with his mouth slightly open.
“How about you show us some swimming?” Peter suggested, and Dylan looked very relieved. He took off his swim coat, then looked around for a place to hang it.
“I’ll take it,” I said, my voice rough. He handed me his coat, then his t-shirt, and shorts. I clutched it all to my chest as he silently walked to the blocks.
Many people saw swimmers on TV, like in the Olympics, and they thought, “I could do that! I know how to swim.” Watching from afar, it may have seemed like it was just a matter of taking some lessons, or working on turns, or something. If those same people saw Dylan McKenzie in the flesh, they never would have thought that. Swimmers’ bodies, Dylan’s body, were honed in every way. Shoulders, abs, arms, every part of him was perfectly cut.
And it wasn’t just working out. There was something that he had that just made him fast. Talent. You couldn’t teach it, or learn it, no matter how hard you tried. As I knew from personal experience.
Dylan bent and splashed some water on his chest, just like he did before every race. Then he got up on the block.
“You can do the honors, Julia,” Peter told me, but I shook my head, so he said, “Take your mark. Go!”
Dylan reacted faster than I’d ever seen anyone do it in person, flew off the block, and dolphin kicked in tight streamline under the water. “Will he ever come up?” I heard one of our swimmers whisper.
“His head has to come up before that mark. See? That’s fifteen meters,” Peter told him.
I hugged his clothes tighter. His stroke was so incredible. It was actually an honor to watch him swim. The parents in the bleachers were all standing up, recording him with their phones, and I hoped our swimmers would be able to remember this and appreciate it.
I realized I was nuzzling my face in Dylan’s t-shirt and jerked my head up. It just smelled so good! I glanced around guiltily, but no one had seen. Their eyes were all glued to the pool, where Dylan was racing through the water. I could tell that he wasn’t pushing it at all, but his “not pushing it” was faster than most people could even imagine.
He finished a fifty fly in about nine seconds and everyone burst into applause. Dylan pulled off his goggles and shook his head, like a dog, then hoisted himself up out of the pool. Water streamed off him, rivulets running down his washboard stomach and down his legs. I watched it, in a kind of perverted way, then caught myself and looked back down at my flipflops. Knock it off, Julia!
Hannah rushed over and handed him her pink butterfly towel, and for the first time, I saw him smile a little. He draped it over his shoulders, where it looked about as big as a napkin. I stepped forward and handed him his parka. He nodded at me, smile long gone. I nodded back.
“Does anyone have any other questions? Only about swimming?” Peter said.
They had a few more, then the kids lined up and showed Dylan how they could swim. He was pretty quiet, but he did give a few of them pointers. I took a bunch of pictures for our social media pages. Then he let the kids take pictures with him, either kneeling down next to them, or for some of the smallest swimmers, picking them up to sit on his strong arm. It was the cutest thing.
Everyone was reluctant to leave, but finally we kicked everyone out, even Ruby the lifeguard, who suddenly found a lot of things she had to keep doing around the pool rather than taking off when her shift was over. I cleaned up around the pool deck, then slowly walked over to
where Peter and Dylan were talking.
“Stay,” Peter was saying to him. “Julia is going to do some laps too, and she can lock up after you’re done.” He waved me closer. “Jules, Dylan needs to get in some practice. Didn’t you say that you were swimming today before your lessons?”
My heart was about to beat out of my chest, and I nodded at them. Talk! “Yes, I was going to stay.” They were both staring at me. “I can lock up.”
Dylan sighed. “Good,” he said flatly.
I noticed something. “Um, Peter?” I pointed to his hand.
He was still holding the gold medal. “Oh! Here you go,” he said, grinning ruefully. “I never thought I’d see one of those in person.”
Dylan took it, and carelessly dropped it on the pile of his clothes that I had neatly folded and put on a chair. “Can I come in tonight, too?”
“I can check with the lifeguards to see if they can let you in,” Peter said.
“I can do it. I can let him in,” I said to my flipflops. “After I’m done teaching my lessons.” I peeked up.
Both men stared at me. “Thanks, Julia!” Peter said. “I’ll leave you two to figure out timing. Great to see you, Dylan. If I don’t run into you again, good luck at the Continental Championships.” They shook hands, and Peter waved to me over his shoulder as he hurried out. He had two little kids, and he and his wife, a large animal vet, ran a tight schedule of splitting the childcare duties so they could both work.
I walked over to the double doors and locked them behind him.
“I’m doing about five thousand yards,” Dylan advised me.
“Ok, sounds good,” I said back.
“What?”
“Sounds good!” I made myself yell. I was facing away from him, messing with my swim bag. I turned back around when I heard a splash and knew he was back in the water. Then I quickly took off my clothes, pulled on my cap and goggles, and also got in.
One thing about swimming, it cleared my mind. Some people meditated or prayed; I swam. I went back and forth, starting with freestyle, moving to breaststroke. I switched to two kicks, one pull, slow and easy. I closed my eyes behind my goggles, just feeling the water.
“Your hands are going down,” a deep voice told me, very close to my head.
I flailed, sucked in some water, and started coughing.
Dylan was hanging on the lane line, goggles pushed up on his forehead. “You’re pointing your hands down.”
I grabbed the lane line too, and tried to clear my lungs. “I am?” I had been three lanes over from him. How had we ended up next to each other?
He nodded at me. “Watch. This is you.” He did a few strokes, and I could clearly see the mistake.
“Ok. I get it. Thank you.”
“Your pulldown sucks, too,” he said, then continued down the pool.
I couldn’t say anything. I remembered Dylan as a kid. I remembered him comforting me after I had gotten my first (and only) breaststroke DQ when I was nine. Where was that guy?
Because this guy? He was kind of a jerk.
FIND IT ON AMAZON
Preview of Tuck
“Did you hear about Tuck Whitaker?”
I froze.
“The dude caused an international incident!” the late-night host continued. “You hear about this?”
I had the TV volume on low with the baby’s face turned away from the flickering light. When she snuffled against my collarbone, I remembered to continue to rock from side to side, hoping she would finally nod back off.
“What happened to Tuck Whitaker?” the TV sidekick asked.
“So you know Mexico…”
“Not personally,” the bandleader chimed in, and the drummer clanged the cymbal.
Janie took this moment to spit up. “Shit!” I whispered, then remembered that I wasn’t going to swear around the baby. “MF-er!” I hissed, as the white gunk slid down my neck into the V of my t-shirt. I shifted her around and managed to get her on my other shoulder while still maintaining my hip-sway motion and not dropping the bottle. Ta-da! I had this parenting thing down pat.
By the time I got a cloth to wipe us up, the talk show had moved onto other topics. I missed the story about Tuck Whitaker. Out of the edge of my vision, no direct eye contact, I watched as Janie’s grey-blue eyes got sleepier and sleepier. “Shh, shhh,” I crooned, as they finally closed. I didn’t stop my hips: she would pop those eyes back open the second the movement ceased. I knew that fun fact from many, many a night rocking this little bundle of joy—and fool me once, shame on me, fool me nightly, I’m a real idiot. I softly put down the bottle, and slowly eased my phone out of my back pocket.
It was the top story on every news site:
Tucker “Tuck” Whitaker, former U.S. Baseball Confederation MVP, triggered a diplomatic crisis today while on a goodwill baseball tour of Mexico with his team, the California Redwoods.
According to unnamed Mexican officials, during a trip to the Palacio Presidencial, or Presidential Palace, in Mexico City, Whitaker removed a precious Aztec artifact from an unlocked display case. When Mexican authorities discovered the theft and reviewed security camera footage, they allegedly saw Whitaker pocket an ancient rubber ball and then leave the Palacio with it on his person. Sources report that Mexican National Security forces later recovered the artifact from Whitaker’s luggage at the team’s hotel.
Whitaker is believed to be with American personnel in the U.S. embassy, although this information is unconfirmed. Meanwhile, some Mexican officials are angrily and publicly demanding his surrender to them in order to respond to the charges. The serious nature of the purported theft has reportedly prompted calls from Mexican President Gabriel Alfranca to the White House.
The missing ball dates from the time of the Spanish conquest of Mesoamerica, and Mexican representatives described it as both ‘one-of-a-kind’ and ‘priceless.’ One source who asked not to be named wondered why such a valuable item would be left unguarded with a tour group, but added that no one would expect professional baseball players to appropriate historical items from the Presidential Palace.
At this time neither the Redwoods’ team spokesperson nor Whitaker’s representatives have issued any statements and have not responded to our repeated requests for comments.
MF-er again! Well, didn’t this just take the GD cake?
I looked down at Janie. “Well, nugget, your daddy is going to Mexican jail,” I whispered. “What the H are we going to do now?”
Not surprisingly, she had no response. Babies were terrible conversationalists.
∞
My mom eyed me doubtfully. “We always put cereal in the bottle for you and your brother,” she told me, as I tried to spoon the disgusting pap into Janie’s uncooperative mouth.
“The books say not to.” Having been born without maternal instinct, I was relying heavily on the books. “And the pediatrician said it too, Mom.”
“I never listened to all that. I just listened to my mother,” she told me pointedly.
“Yeah, Grandma Joann gave you great advice. What was that thing again about how it’s ok to smoke while you’re pregnant if you only do it at night?”
“It wasn’t smoking. It was drinking,” she clarified. She put a toaster waffle down in front of me, and I thanked her and grabbed it off the plate as I continued the cereal struggle. Since Janie had come into my life, eating had become a one-handed experience. “And I think that’s why she’s waking up so much at night,” my mom continued. “The poor thing is hungry! She needs a full tummy to go to sleep.”
I shoved the rest of the waffle into my mouth as Janie started to fuss. “Dr. Van Dam said she was the perfect weight at her last checkup,” I told my mom through waffle. “Exactly where she should be.”
She mumbled something else about people who don’t listen and turned back to the toaster. I smiled at Janie. “You’ll listen to me, won’t you, sweetie pie? You’re my little nugget and I love you so much!” She did her gummy smile back at me
and the cereal slid out. I sighed and tried to scrape it back in. Her gums looked a little red. That was it!
“I think she’s starting teething,” I told my mom confidently. “That’s why she’s back to waking up all the time.”
“That or you’re starving her,” my mom commented, and I stuck out my tongue at her back. “Both you and your brother had teeth already. And slept through the night.”
“Probably Will was also reading,” I mentioned. “I have an idea. You can come to Janie’s next appointment with the pediatrician and fight with Dr. Van Dam instead of me.”
She turned to me, face the picture of shock. “I’m not fighting with you! I’m helping you!”
“How are you helping Caroline?” my dad asked, as he came in with the newspaper. My parents were the last two people in the nation who read the print edition. He opened the oven door and hung up the sections to dry, as he did every day, as the newspaper invariably landed in the sprinklers. The oven’s primary function in the kitchen was as a newspaper drying rack.
“I’m just telling her how we used to take care of her and her brother,” my mom explained to him. “We would put them to bed with a bottle of formula with cereal mixed in, and both of them slept through the night beginning at two months. I think even at one month. You remember, don’t you, Jim?”
My dad was patting around his body for his glasses. “Mmhmm,” he agreed. It was usually easier to agree with my mom. “That’s right, Edie.”
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