by Anne Leigh
“Bee, you working this weekend?” He asked as he sat on the couch after having dried the plates and storing them in the cabinets above the top of the sink.
“No, why?” I asked, now sitting across from him, leafing through my newest issue of Elle magazine. My best friend, Ava, had gifted me a five-year subscription.
“You wanna watch an action movie? Leif and I are going.” He stretched himself out, planted his legs on the dark brown ottoman in front of him. I bought the ottoman at Ava’s advice. She claimed it was modern and hip.
“Actually, Ava’s visiting over the weekend so I’ve got girl plans with her,” I answered and looked directly at him.
The light in his green eyes dimmed. “I don’t know how you stay friends with her. She’s just slutty and high maintenance.”
I threw the couch pillow at his face. He barely dodged the pillow, which flew over his black as ink head of hair.
“Stop calling her slutty. She is not slutty. High maintenance, yes. But, not slutty.” I constantly had to defend her from Milo. She was far from the ‘slutty’ persona that he was thinking of, she was actually the ‘virgin’ out of the two of us.
“Whatever,” he snickered, his expression bereft of any praise towards my best friend. “I cannot believe that after all these years, you stuck with Miss Las Vegas.”
Milo called her “Miss Las Vegas” because she really was Miss Las Vegas. She was the daughter of Las Vegas’s number one promoter and co-owner of various successful entertainment ventures. In the society pages, she was often depicted as “spoiled, bratty, and slutty.” She was spoiled because she was the only daughter. She was bratty to other people, but never to me, and gave me everything she could. She was painted as slutty because she dressed like a model. She usually wore the skimpiest, tightest outfits but that was because she had a body for them and she liked to feel good.
“Milo, she will always be my best friend. From the moment she grabbed Lisa Letter’s hair in first grade because she teased me about my freckles, Ava will be my front, back, and sidekick,” I reminded him. This was getting exhausting. I never understood why Milo was always annoyed and irritated with Ava. She was nice to him, sometimes.
He stared at the TV, which was presently showing Food Network’s The Next Iron Chef. “You’re ditching me for her.” He pouted, actually pouted.
I threw a throw pillow, and this time, it caught him right on his face.
“I didn’t even know you were going to ask me to go to a movie with you and Leif.” Leif was his training partner and they had been friends since college. They had both attended University of Connecticut. Milo attended UConn after receiving a full ride scholarship. At first, he didn’t want to go because he didn’t want to leave me in Nevada. It was only after I was able to reassure him that I would be fine, that it would be dumb to turn down the scholarship, and that it was part of the steps to achieving his Olympic dreams that he relented. He did call every day, though. I had missed him a lot.
On the upside, I was able to date a few guys in college. Most of them were good guys and we became friends in the end. There was always something missing with them – the spark in a kiss, the tingle from a hug, the longing to be with that person. None of those ever happened with any of them. Now I was refraining from dating until I felt at least something that would make me want to actually be with that guy for a period of time.
“C’mere, Bee.” He patted the sofa cushion next to him, his eyes imploring me to sit.
I pouted my lips then frowned, but sat down beside him. He wrapped his long arm around my shoulder and said, “I missed having you with me. Thanks for taking the traveling nurse position here.” I accepted the hospital’s offer mainly because of him. I did my internship at New York State University, and they had actually offered me a job. I could have chosen to be thousands of miles away from him but I knew he wanted me to be here. He trained in Arizona, and after spending years away from each other due to college, I wanted to be close to my brother.
I smiled and leaned against his shoulder. “You know this means you get to treat me every night, right?”
He laughed loudly, replied, “Nursey, you’re the one making the big bucks,” and then pulled on my hair.
I slapped his hand away. He liked to tease me by pulling on my hair. “Big bucks? You’re the one with the sponsorships here and there. I make a hundredth of what you pull in with those underwear commercials and energy drinks.”
He barked in laughter, “Shit, Bee. Those are not underwear commercials. Those are for the U.S. Swim Team!”
I laughed. “I know. Speaking of the U.S. Swim Team, do you know anything about Kieran Stone?”
He quickly removed his hand from my shoulder and I was forced to face him.
His green eyes looked utterly murderous. “What about him?”
I swallowed. Kieran’s dislike for my brother was obviously reciprocated. “Well, he’s your teammate, right?”
“Not my teammate,” he ground out, voice hard, “just another member of the team. Why do you ask about him?”
I swallowed again. “Remember my roommate in New York, Sedona?”
He nodded. “The hot chick with the amazing eyes. Yeah, why?” Milo had seen her photo on my phone but never met her in person. Sedona was traveling back-and-forth to Minnesota or to Zander’s away games during the few times that my brother visited me in New York.
“Well, Kieran is her best friend, and I met him in New York and in Hawaii for Sedona’s wedding.”
“Of course Stone would fucking have her as a best friend. Small fucking world,” he muttered under his breath.
I continued, “He seems like a nice guy...”
His eyes darkened and his voice was positively lethal. “He is not a fucking nice guy, Brynn! You better stay away from him. He better stay away from you.” Milo’s anger had never been directed at me, and I had only heard this tone of voice once. It was when the social worker had tried to take us away from our Aunt Margie.
I might have trembled a little inside. When Milo was angry, he was like a lion that was ready to attack and leave the remains littered across the ground. “I’m not saying anything about me knowing him. I just said that he seems like a nice guy.” I could have told him about what happened to Jeff, which by the way, Jeff had apologized for numerous times and even sent me flowers after I arrived in Arizona. I didn’t disclose the Jeff incident to Milo for the simple reason that Jeff would get his teeth knocked in if Milo found out about what happened. That Jeff became drunk and left me to my own devices was bad enough, but Kieran being the one who helped me extricate Jeff from the reception was beyond acceptable.
Milo was still on an angry tirade. “He’s not a nice guy, Brynn! And I don’t want to hear his fucking name from you again.” His eyes were now shooting daggers, flames, and missiles at me.
My brother’s temper was one of a kind. It didn’t show up often but when it did, the ugly head reared to be let out and the damage could not be undone. I knew how to calm him down. I’ve only known him all his life.
“Milo, breathe... one … “ His fists were clenching at his sides and I heard a crack in his jaw, but he was listening to me and started following my command. “Two, three, four...” He was now breathing evenly. “Everything’s okay. I won’t mention him again. I’d have no reason to. Now, let’s go outside and walk to the park. I need to burn off all the pancakes that I ate. The three pancakes I managed to steal from your plate.”
His face turned lighter, his brows started to unfurrow, and a small grin formed. “Ok Bee, race you to the door.”
I scrambled towards the door, blocking his way. It was a childhood game we had, and the last one at the door would be the loser. The winner would be able to give commands to the loser for a whole week.
We reached the door at the same time but since he was taller than I was, his foot was in the doorway a few seconds before mine.
“Oh, come on. This sucks,” I groaned in frustration. “I wish I was as ta
ll as you. Maybe I’ll find a guy who’s way shorter than me so I can be taller and beat him at this game.” He waited for me to lock the apartment door before we walked towards the elevator. My apartment was on the third floor of an 8-floor building.
He smiled and just as we were about to step inside the elevator, he pulled me into a side hug. “You’re good as you are, Bee. I don’t know about you dating a short dude…Tall, short, brown, black, or white, it doesn’t matter Bee. No guy will ever be good enough for you. You know that, right?” His words conclusive, I nodded against his chest.
Milo was right. No one would ever be “good enough” for me. I didn’t want that, either. I just wanted, wished for, that one guy who was the only one for me, and I was the only one for him.
“I wish to meet you.”
~B.P., age 5, renal disorder
After the first practice swims this morning, I found myself extremely disappointed with my performance. Smith—as I liked to call my coach, Mike Smith—had reiterated that I was in my element; I just needed an extra push. I had the urge to push myself over the deepest end of the pool and not come up for air for at least three minutes.
There was no excuse for not performing to the best of my ability. Never an excuse. My lap time was off by 0.02 seconds. I knew it the moment I surfaced for air and asked Smith. The extra kick at the last turn made the difference.
“Kieran, you’re fine. You’re doing great. Stop overdoing it,” Smith said as I pulled on my goggles annoyingly.
“I could go for another ten laps,” I disagreed. I was not overdoing it. I had to correct my earlier mistakes.
Today was such an odd day. Usually, I had other swimmers swim with me but I guessed that Smith made arrangements so it would just be me today. My swim partners varied, most of them were college kids and junior athletes. It was fun racing against them. I have become closely acquainted with Tom and Joe, members of the Arizona State University Swim Team. They were cool, but it was also nice to have the pool all to myself.
I didn’t like to share it. However, being a swimmer and having to train for the World Championships and Olympics meant training with other athletes who were at their peak performance levels, so I could gauge my record times against their best. I didn’t like to compare myself to anyone. To me, my best is my best. I competed with myself.
It was now four in the afternoon. I had an hour before Milo and his training partners came in for practice. That was another thing that sucked. I was sharing Milo’s training facility.
This was his pool. Mine was in San Francisco. Unfortunately, for me, San Francisco University’s Aquatic Center planned to do some renovations right after the swim meets in Omaha, and it just happened to coincide with my training for the World Championships. Another unfortunate fact was that Arizona has one of the premiere swimming training facilities in the nation. I could have gone back to Santa Monica, where I trained the most during my high school days, but Smith and I had agreed that Arizona’s altitude and excellent resources were better. Smith had a long talk with Milo’s coach, Chuck Trevails, and the rest of the other coaches to schedule our practice times. We could, technically, practice together but Chuck and Smith agreed that it would be best not to, since we compete against each other.
“I need to cut down on the kick time. Maybe my reaction time was off by a millisecond,” I voiced out my analysis to Smith. My head was above the surface and I was pushing water out of my mouth.
He shook his head, “Stone, just do what you’ve been doing. Reaction time’s good. Great, as a matter of fact.” He called me “Stone” when he wanted to tell me to get my head out of my ass. “Come on, come up on deck. Dry land.”
Dry land was an hour of cardio, flexibility, strength, and conditioning exercises. Miles, Smith’s assistant coach, oversaw this part of my training. We were in the first phase, which mainly consisted of running, jumping, and stair-climbing routines. It helped me endure intense swim competitions, and perfect fine muscle development required to perform a variety of swim strokes. The next phase was strength for eight weeks, power training for four, and then tapering off for the last few weeks.
I jumped on deck, stretched for a few minutes, and pulled on the top right side of suit by my hip to straighten it. My sponsor, SwimFit, had improved my suit numerous times. It was a far cry from the ones I wore during my early days in swimming. Before, my suits were stretched out and when I stretched, my ass had a gaping hole after only using them for a few times. Now my suits were hydro-repellent and made of compression fabrics that molded to my body and streamlined my swim. My racing suits, the ones I could only wear during main meets, were even better. They were made of more buoyant, less permeable material. My cap, goggles, and suits were engineered with the latest technology to keep me at optimal hydrodynamic form in the water. They helped me perform at my best by reducing drag and resistance from the water, but I still had to do my job–that is to swim my best, every single time.
“Okay, two more laps and that’s it,” Smith acquiesced. He has been my coach for ten years now. He knew that I was itching to do more laps. I could count on one hand the number of times he relented, and this was one of them, so I pulled on my waterproof headphones and jacked up the volume on Beethoven’s Zur Namensfeier overture on my iPod.
I stepped on the block, waited for Smith’s customary headshake, and jumped off.
Off-the-block reaction time. Excellent.
The smell of chlorine was the first thing that hit me every time I entered the water. Ocean water smell was always best, but for me, chlorine comes second. It was where I found home. It has been my home since I was five years old. Other kids played with their friends or on the computer. The pool was my toy kingdom. The ocean was my LEGOLAND.
Good turn, Kieran.
With the loud music still blaring in my ears, I saw Smith’s thumbs up sign as I moved up to take a breath, keeping half of my goggles in the water. The bow wave created by my head as I moved through the water pushed the water away from my mouth and allowed me to take a good breath, slicing through the water while breathing easy.
Two more laps. This was nothing. It just had to be better than the previous laps. I knew I should believe Smith when he said I was doing fine. I was fine. But fine was not my goal.
Greatness was. Always was. Always will be.
I viewed my life in eight lanes. Eight lanes of surging adrenaline. A race to the finish line. The one with the first touch wins. The one with the last touch loses.
After completing two laps of breaststroke, I felt a pain in my left shoulder. I must have pulled my rotator cuff again. I powered through my strokes, felt another twinge of pain, but kept going. Lenny, my physio, would have to loosen me up later, but I was fine. I finished the swim and sat on the edge of the pool before dry land.
“Kieran, I saw your shoulders tighten up. Is your left shoulder bugging you again?” Smith would not have missed that tiny pause, stall, in my swim. That was why he was my coach.
I nodded, wringing my head with a small towel to dry off a bit. “A little. I felt it tighten as I was completing the stroke.”
His face slowly turned to a frown. “You should have it looked at again. Schedule an appointment with our medical team right away. I won’t have you practice while you’re hurting.”
I walked towards the locker, choosing to let his words fly. “Yeah I will.”
“Stone, look at me.” His voice was stern, employing a father figure stance. He was my second father. With all the time that my actual father spent away from his own children when I was young because of his job, Smith was actually a real version of a father to me.
I looked at his short, stocky stature. He always wore the same thing—blue shirt and brown khakis. His wife, Marjorie, had once joked that she stockpiled on the shirts whenever Costco had a sale.
“I will schedule an appointment with Dr. Freehand, ok?” He was not going to let me get to Miles for dry land without securing a promise from me. From the look on his face, he w
as ready to call the team physician right then.
I reassured him, “I’m fine.”
He gave me a long look. “If you don’t call him by tomorrow, and I see anything when you do weights, I will personally deliver him to your doorstep.”
I nodded. “Fine. I’ll catch up with Lenny, see if physio can loosen it up and relieve it, but I will call the doctor.”
Smith had a date tonight with his wife. He was skipping his normal routine of watching over my dry land exercises with Miles. He had to pick her up from the airport since she was coming in from San Francisco, their home base.
“Ok. Tomorrow, Kirk’s coming over to make some changes on your weight training. I think this will benefit you greatly on your breaststroke.” Kirk Levitz, a strength and conditioning coach for the world’s best swimmers, became a friend of Smith when I competed at the Sarasota Pan-Am Championships. He was coming over tomorrow as a special favor to Smith.
Breaststroke was my weakness, if I had any. In my mind, it was my best stroke because I constantly wanted to improve on it. Leif Sturgen, Milo’s buddy of German descent but represented USA Swimming since he became a U.S. Citizen four years ago, was the master of the breaststroke. He only had that reign for a short time because I would soon be master of it.
All in good time, Kieran.
I nodded at Smith and walked towards the locker room. I had enough time to dry off, check with Lenny, and then Miles.
I stepped inside the locker room and heard voices. Great. Milo’s swim buddies were inside the room. I walked straight to my locker, nodding at Leif, and Darnell Baker, an African-American swimmer that specialized in the 50-meter freestyle.
Leif’s green eyes smiled. “Wazzup, Stone? How was practice?” He was actually friendly. He sensed that there was a lingering animosity between Milo and I, but he was civil with me.
I replied, “Ok, same old.”
Darnell chuckled. “Same old means you were burning through your laps, Stone.” I had seen him at many swim meets and he was a force to be reckoned with in the short relays.
