Coming Up for Air Page 4

  “But what if I’ve never even thought of doing other things because swimming always comes first? I mean, I haven’t even been to a school dance.”

  “I’ll take you to Winter Wonderland, but I’m not sure it’ll impress you,” Hunter says, licking powdered sugar from his donut off his thumb. “Last year as a joke, somebody put Crisco on the gym floor and a bunch of people fell down doing the Chicken Dance. That was the most exciting thing that happened.”

  Instead of going to that dance, I passed out at eight o’clock.

  That’s my life. When I was younger, I only swam three to four times a week for an hour, but when I turned thirteen, my swim coach, Josh, told me I had what it took to make it big, but if I wanted to do that I had to swim all the time. Lap after lap after lap. Up to ten practices a week. Plus weight lifting. This routine exhausts my body, which means I usually need ten hours of sleep a night. My hard work has paid off—I won a spot at one of the best swimming schools in the country—but it leaves little time for anything else.

  “I’m about to graduate,” I tell my little group of friends. “And when I look back on high school, sometimes I worry I won’t remember anything but swimming and eating.”

  “Two very worthy endeavors,” Levi says, toasting me with his orange juice.

  “Maybe you just need to carve out some time for you before college starts,” Hunter suggests. “Skip a few practices here and there.”

  “She can’t skip practice,” Levi says. “We have the state championship in a month. And then the big races start.”

  I nod. I love swimming. This is my life. I accepted it a long time ago. But then I picture Roxy flirting with that lacrosse player. She manages to be a champion, but still appears to take time for herself too. I mean, she clearly knew how to flirt with that guy.

  Hunter says, “If you want to go to a dance so bad, go to a dance.”

  “It’s not that I’m obsessed with going to a dance, guys. I just want a little more life experience.”

  Levi throws an arm around my shoulders. “But how many people can say they’ve been to the Olympic Trials? Just a couple more months and we’ll be able to say that.”

  “If I qualify, you mean.”

  He squeezes my shoulder. “You will.”

  “I have an idea,” Georgia announces, slapping her hand on the wobbly café table. “You should make a list of things you want to do before you graduate.”

  “Like a bucket list?” Hunter asks. “My grandfather has one of those, but when he read it aloud to my family, Gram just about killed him ’cause it included stuff like, ‘Get a lap dance from a Vegas stripper.’”

  “Your grandpa rocks,” Levi says, bumping fists with Hunter.

  “Boys. Stop,” Georgia says. “I’m being serious. If Mags thinks she’s missing out on high school, we should come up with stuff for her to try.”

  I furrow my eyebrows, and Levi gives me an anxious look. “George, let’s not distract her from the pool.”

  “Levi’s right,” I say. “It’s not that I want to do lots of stuff.” I just want to make out.

  Ignoring me, Hunter reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pen. He fishes a napkin out of the dispenser. “I am scribe of the bucket list.”

  “The scribe,” Levi mutters, rolling his eyes.

  Hunter ignores Levi and starts writing. Steal a car. Get a tattoo. Swim with sharks. Skinny dip. Develop a gambling addiction. Get a lap dance from a Vegas stripper.

  Nothing he writes down appeals to me as much as being in the water.

  By the time Hunter’s done with his silly list, which makes him crack up big time, I know three things for sure:

  1. My friends cheered me up after my Horrible Hookup from Hell

  2. There is no way on earth I’m doing Hunter’s list—swimming is much more important to me

  3. After what happened with Dylan, I know there’s one thing I need to do

  One thing I should accomplish before college.

  The one item on my solo bucket list?

  Learn to hook up.

  New Wave

  Levi honks his horn from the driveway.

  We live twenty-five minutes from the Centennial Sportsplex in Nashville where we work out, so we carpool every day to save gas and to keep each other company. Plus, ever since my first driving lesson when I accidentally put the gear in drive instead of reverse and floored Mom’s car into the garage door, I supply Levi’s breakfast in exchange for a ride.

  Dad stands by the front door with his eyes closed, still half asleep in his bathrobe. As an event planner, he works late and has never been a morning person. Not that 4:30 a.m. is morning. To most people, it’s the middle of the night.

  “Have a good practice, Tadpole,” he says, passing me a bag of bagels and chocolate milks, one for me and one for Levi. Neither of us likes eating before we get in the pool, but we’ll need calories as soon as our laps are finished. Chocolate milk is our go-to.

  I give Dad a kiss and jog out to the truck, my backpack bouncing against my shoulder. It’s about thirty-five degrees out, but Levi the gentleman is standing there to open my door.

  “Morning!” I tell him with a smile, and he grunts in response. For him, it’s way too early for speech.

  We’ve been swimming with the New Wave team at Nashville Aquatic Club, or NAC, since we were about two years old. That’s where our families met. Levi had a very similar experience to mine: he jumped off his Opa’s boat into the lake and started paddling around. He had a life jacket on but didn’t need it. By the time we entered kindergarten, we were both swimming with eight-year-olds.

  Over the years, many of our teammates quit because club practice affected their social lives. But being at the pool with Levi was my social life. He was the only person from school also on my swim club.

  But when we were twelve, professionals in the sport started saying Levi was “the real deal” and that he should move from Tennessee to a “real” swimming state like California, Florida, or Texas. To get to the next level in swimming, I knew he was going to move to Texas. I just knew it. That’s where his dad lives. He doesn’t really like his father, but he’s always wanted to spend more time with his younger half brother and half sister, twins who just turned thirteen.

  I wanted to be an independent girl, but I wasn’t sure if I could handle swim club without him. Roxy was gone. At school, these girls Leslie and Maria made fun of my broad shoulders, wondering if I could ever fit in a dress.

  Levi would say, “I don’t even know who these girls are. Your shoulders look good. They’re strong.”

  He was my one true friend. I cried myself to sleep at the idea of losing him to Texas and sighed with relief when he made a decision to stay in Tennessee because he couldn’t leave his mother. We’ve been fierce teammates ever since.

  He and I are different, though. No matter how hard I try to keep a measured pace in the pool, I race against other people. He races against himself. I wish I could be more like him. He’s like that person who runs marathons just to finish. I would never run one because I wouldn’t win. And I want the win.

  Levi’s so good, he could swim just about anywhere in college, but he chose Texas because it’s one of the best swimming schools for guys. Selfishly I wish he’d come with me to Cal, but I know how much he wants to be near the other half of his family. He only sees his brother and sister once a year at most, generally at holidays, and always feels guilty about leaving his mom and Oma and Opa on Thanksgiving or Christmas. I can’t imagine what going to college near his father will be like for him.

  When we get to the pool, it’s still too early for Levi to talk. We spend about ten silent minutes stretching in the yoga studio, then take showers before starting our laps. Coach Josh has three rules. Number one is always take a shower before we get in the pool. It helps keep the water—and our skin—clean. It’s the worst
when your nose runs during a workout—that’s the chlorine mixing with the germs that wash off your body into the water.

  Number two is never swim alone. It doesn’t matter how good a swimmer you are, you should always make sure there’s a coach or lifeguard nearby.

  Rule number three is the hardest to follow: try to improve a little each day.

  After my shower, I meet up with the other thirty-five swimmers who do laps before school. Some kids are in elementary school, some are in junior high, and nine of us are in high school and are considered elite and compete on a national level. Levi’s the only one with an Olympic trial cut though.

  Coach Josh is in his usual shorts, T-shirt, and visor that he wears even when it’s snowing. It’s still dark outside, and sun won’t pour through the windows for at least another hour, but the loud rap music playing over the speakers wakes me up. I put on my blue New Wave cap, pull my goggles down, and slide into the water next to Levi. He’s been wearing a black cap with the orange Texas Longhorn logo on it. He’s proud he signed with them.

  With so many swimmers here, we have to share lanes. I’m always with Levi and Susannah. She’s my main competition on New Wave, but I consider her a friend. She is a junior at Harpeth Hall, a super ritzy private school in Nashville where everybody reeks of money. I’ll be up against her at conferences this weekend when I swim for Hundred Oaks High. It’s kind of funny that we’re teammates during morning practices but competitors in the afternoon when we practice with our schools. As soon as high school state championships are over, we’ll be teammates 100 percent of the time.

  The other six elite swimmers are all guys, and while they’re friendly, the competition between them is fierce. They take up the next two lanes.

  Coach wrote our workout on a giant whiteboard. Today we’re swimming 4,500 yards, which is kind of easy. We’re tapering for conferences on Saturday.

  “Let’s go, Lucassen!” Coach yells at Levi as he does sprints designed to increase speed. “Fewer strokes, kick harder.”

  Sports announcers love his name. Levi Lucassen. It sounds very worldly and mysterious. That definitely describes him at races. He’s super serious before, during, and after every meet. He saves his smiles for when we win. At practices, though, he’s a little more relaxed.

  Since we’re tapering, everyone has lots of energy, and there’s some goofing around. Normally we’d be dragging by now.

  People think swimming is this boring, solitary sport, but really there’s no privacy or quiet at all. When I’m waiting to practice my starts—my dive into the pool—my teammate Jason smacks me on the butt with a kickboard. He’s a junior who rocks freestyle, but has always been a bit of a slacker and is the kind of guy who doesn’t bother putting pants on when he stops for a snack on the way home. He said his Speedo made an old lady faint one time.

  While in line to practice diving, Susannah starts dancing on the pool deck to the blaring music. Levi is serious as ever during his laps, but on a two-minute rest break when Coach isn’t looking, he throws himself my way and dunks me. I pop up from under the water with an “Asshole!” and Levi cracks up at my grouchy face.

  The team swims for about two hours, until 7:15 a.m. As I’m pulling myself out of the pool, I glance over at the guys toweling off in their suits that leave little to the imagination. Truth be told, it was weird in middle school noticing the guys getting bigger. We girl swimmers whispered about it and giggled, but then one day I realized I had gotten used to it. The boys and their junk: it’s just there.

  That’s when I think about my vow to learn to hook up. Maybe one of them might be a possibility? The cutest one is Jason, but as he’s wrapping a beach towel around his waist he complains about a problem he’s having with a rash.

  I cringe. Never mind.

  I towel off, then race to the showers. My first class starts at 8:00 back in Franklin so I need to be quick. Without bothering to dry my hair, I throw it back into a ponytail and pull on sweats over clean underwear and a T-shirt. My favorite accessory is a chunky beige headband that smooths my frizz.

  It surprises me when I find Coach Josh outside the locker room, waiting for me along with Levi, who’s already dressed for the cold in his puffy coat and knit cap.

  “A word?” Coach says to me.

  “I’ll be right there,” I tell Levi, who nods and slips on his headphones and opens his battered copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. He’s reading the series for like, the sixth time.

  I will be late to school, but whatever Coach has to say is more important than whatever I’ll learn in my Tennessee history class.

  Coach leads me to his office, which is full of shiny trophies and pictures of athletes on the walls. His desk is covered by a massive swim calendar that covers the entire year. A large red circle is drawn around March 26th, the date of the Junior Nationals Club Championship in Huntsville, the first long course meet. That’s when our season gets serious. The other two long course meets prior to the Olympic Trials, the Atlantic Classic in April and the Spring Spotlight in May, are also circled. Those three meets are my final chances to get an Olympic trial cut.

  I take a seat in the cushy chair across from Coach’s desk. “What’s up?”

  Coach clicks his pen on and clicks it off. “Levi told me you saw Roxy this weekend.”

  “Shit,” I say under my breath.

  “Were you going to tell me?”

  “I handled it fine,” I say, but I can tell he doesn’t believe that, thanks to his quizzical look. He knows me probably as well as my parents and Levi.

  Coach slips his pen behind his ear. “So you’ll be going to college with her?”

  “Looks like it. Ugh.” I bury my face in my hands.

  “It’s not surprising,” Coach says. “You’re both good enough to get into the best swimming school in the country.”

  “I wish I’d known before I signed with them.”

  “Did Roxy bother you?” Coach asks.

  “No, not really. She didn’t seem to want to talk to me.”

  Coach sighs and adjusts his visor. “Just remember, you’re a better swimmer than her. Your record’s stronger. Don’t let her get to you.”

  I always try to maintain a strong and steady pace, but when I see Roxy going faster than me out of the corner of my eye, I go too fast and burn myself out early in the race. Coach keeps telling me my times are better than hers. And he’s right. When I’m not up against her, I swim faster. So I know it’s all in my head.

  I guess we’ll find out for sure next month at the high school state championships.

  • • •

  I’ve been giving Levi the silent treatment all day.

  Normally he and I are fine with quiet, but it’s been hours since I’ve spoken to him, and he totally knows something’s up. During study hall in our corner of the library, he side-eyes me as he reads his Harry Potter book.

  “What gives?” he finally asks.

  “Why’d you tell Coach about Roxy?” I complain.

  “Because I knew you wouldn’t.”

  “God!” I snap.

  The librarian points a finger at me and goes, “Shhhhhhh!” like air leaking from a tire. Levi gives her a little wave, and she smiles because he’s her best customer in the library.

  “See, this is exactly why I told Coach,” Levi says. “She spins you all out of shape. Last year you lost the damn high school championship to Roxy in 200 back, which is nothing compared to those long course races you won last summer.”

  I grumble. It’s true. Roxy had a strained shoulder most of last summer and took some time off. Meanwhile I swam the best meets of my life. I set the Tennessee record for 200 back at the Summer Sizzler. Coach Josh and Levi are right to be worried, but their concern makes it feel like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

  Levi drops me off at my parents’ business after weight lifting. I go insi
de King’s Royal Engagements, the party planning business Mom started right out of college. The company is located in this fancy Victorian house down the street from where I live. Mom and Dad had massive kitchens built out back, so it’s a full-fledged catering operation, and they do almost everything in-house. Their pastry chef even bakes wedding cakes.

  When you first walk inside, there’s a chic waiting room filled with books of fabric samples and suggested menus. A TV plays videos from weddings and anniversary parties. The flower arrangements are fake, but it mysteriously smells like roses in here.

  I say hi to the receptionist and continue back to where Mom sits, passing by the offices of the junior event coordinators. Mom has a staff of six event designers, a director of marketing, an executive chef who we all call Chef, and a ton of kitchen staff. They cater two to three events every night of the week. Mom’s the brains and the logistics behind the operation, while Dad is the creative arm.

  He loves coming up with party themes and weird names for foods. For instance, he just planned a Broadway themed wedding. The programs looked like Playbills, and the wedding cake featured a red and gold marquee with the bride and groom’s names. He even set up a photo area where guests could pretend they were walking the red carpet.

  I’m glad my parents are able to do what they love, even if it is stressful at times, like when one of our ovens broke the day of a wedding with two hundred guests. My parents’ hard work has allowed me to do what I love—to pay for expensive pool time and my coach so I could become the swimmer I am today.

  I walk into Mom’s office and plop down in a chair. She’s typing on her computer and talking on her headset at the same time. “It’s not too late to change the place settings,” she says cheerfully, but I can see the horror in her eyes.

  Clients are always making last-minute switches. One time a bride switched menus three days before her wedding, and somehow Mom and Dad made it work.

  “Thank you,” Mom tells the person on the phone. “We can’t wait to see you on Saturday.” As soon as she hangs up the phone, she drops her headset on the desk and rubs her eyes.