Breath Like Water

by Anna Jarzab

  I square my shoulders. “Not until you tell us what’s going on with Beth.”

  “It’s a family thing,” Dave says, suddenly focused on the whiteboard where he’s been writing today’s sets. The way he refuses to look at us doesn’t inspire much confidence.

  “You’re lying,” I say. Maybe it’s stupid to push him, but I’m fed up with this garbage. I got zero sleep, my shoulder hurts, I have my period and I’m exhausted—body, mind and spirit. I have reached the frayed end of a very long rope.

  Dave fixes me with an expression that’s not so much angry as astonished. It’s unnerving, but then this whole thing is. The second I noticed Beth was missing, I knew that, whatever the reason, it wasn’t going to be good.

  “That’s quite a thing to say to the person who’s trying to protect you,” Dave says in a low voice.

  “Protect me from what?”

  “The fact that your coach has abandoned you,” Dave says. He drops the marker he’s holding into the whiteboard’s silver tray. “Beth’s not coming, Susannah. She doesn’t work here anymore. Now get in the pool—you’re five hundred yards behind everybody else.”

  “That’s it? She’s gone? With no explanation.” My panic level is skyrocketing. I can’t do this without Beth. “She wouldn’t do that!”

  “Maybe you didn’t know her as well as you thought you did.”

  I know he’s saying that to hurt me, for whatever reason he feels compelled to do so, but it works. My relationship with Beth has always revolved around me. I’ve learned some things about her past, and once I knew who she really was I found out other things by Googling, but as for who she is now... I’ve never made much of an effort to find out.

  Dave lifts his eyes to take in the group of swimmers behind me, twisting their goggles in their hands and shooting each other looks of discomfort.

  “Time for practice,” he says, and it’s clear to everyone he’s talking to them, not to me. They nod and hop in the pool without further protest. I’m the only one still standing on the deck.

  It’s not like this situation is new to them. We’ve lost several assistant coaches in the years I’ve been with GAC because they “weren’t working out”—meaning they wouldn’t bow to Dave’s every whim. It’s shocking he kept Beth around this long; I’ve never seen anyone stand up to him the way she did. But I’m not going to cave like the others. I head for the locker room.

  “Hey!” Dave shouts. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

  “To call Beth.” She wouldn’t voluntarily leave, not now. Not when there’s so much at stake. I need to find out what’s going on.

  “Don’t you dare,” Dave says. “You step off this deck, you don’t come back. You have fifteen seconds to get in the water, or you’re off this team for good. Do you understand me?”

  I stare at him. “Insofar as I speak English, yes.”

  “Then why are you still standing here?”

  “Maybe I don’t want to be on this team,” I say. It’s not smart to tempt Dave. Right now, GAC is my only path to the Olympics. But still I say, “Maybe you’d be doing me a favor.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, forget Trials, then. I’d like to see you swim in Omaha without a coach.”

  Trials are two weeks away. He’s right—I can’t go that long without coaching if I want to perform well. I can’t go two days without coaching. Even if Beth was willing to work with me privately, we’d be handicapped without GAC’s resources and facilities. Where could we even get pool time? That isn’t the experience Beth would want for me. I don’t want it for myself, either.

  “Come on, Soos,” Jessa pleads. “Don’t be stupid.”

  She’s looking up at me from the water. The nickname startles me. The night of Nash’s party notwithstanding, Jessa hasn’t been much of a friend to me lately. My already wavering resolve continues to crumble.

  “But I need her,” I tell Jessa.

  “What you need is to get in the water and swim,” Dave says. He starts counting off on his fingers. “Five. Four. Three. Two...”

  I jump into the pool before he can finish. I’m angry at myself for folding, but that’s what Beth would want me to do. I swim to the other end of the pool underwater, pushing off the wall and shooting beneath the lane lines as my teammates finish their warm-up overhead.

  My chest feels hollow and achy, like I’m one of those children’s puzzles with a giant piece missing. It occurs to me that the saying When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose is total horseshit. There’s always something left to lose.

  * * *

  After practice, I text Beth and she agrees to meet me at the diner. I can’t take Dave’s word for it that she quit GAC without warning. I have to hear it from her. To my utter lack of surprise, his story is not the full one.

  “He got sick of me challenging him, I guess,” Beth says, pouring cream in her coffee. “We were arguing a lot, you know that. We’re from different generations, different schools of thought. He’s been in the sport for a long time, and he’s so traditional...”

  Beth shakes her head. “Traditions aren’t all bad. Sometimes, accepted wisdom does bear out. I respect that. But that doesn’t mean you should shut yourself off from any experimentation or new ways of thinking. Look at what changing your strategy did for you.”

  “How do we convince him to hire you back?”

  Beth frowns. “I don’t want to be hired back.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m good at what I do,” Beth tells me, “and I don’t think I should settle for being someone’s assistant when I could have my own program somewhere, do things my own way without being dismissed and berated all the time.”

  “Do you have a new job?” I ask, feeling hurt. Was she going to leave me, Dave or no Dave?

  “No,” Beth says with a sigh. “But that’s what I’m looking for. A place I can run according to my own philosophies, without interference. I believe in the importance of debate, but I don’t want someone treating me as though my experience and opinions have no value.”

  Even though I’m terrified of losing her, I can’t blame her. After all, isn’t that what we all want? To do what makes us happy without apology or shame?

  Every day, I wish it was just swimming I loved, but I have to admit, to myself if to nobody else, that the race is an important part of that love. If I only wanted to swim, I could do that alone, and no one could make me feel worthless or contemptible over it. But I want to be part of something bigger than myself. I want to compete, to win, to demonstrate the skills that I’m so proud of. To do that, I have to open myself up to the censure of the world, which will judge me according to its standards, not mine.

  That censure, when it comes, has to go somewhere. So, it goes into me, and because of that I’m never swimming alone. It’s always there, with me, living in my heart and mind like an unwanted guest who has long overstayed his welcome.

  “I hope you find what you’re looking for,” I tell Beth. “I’m just not sure it’s out there, not quite the way you imagine. This sport hates change.”

  She smiles—not in a condescending way, like I’ve said something adorably naive, which is sort of how I feel, but like she’s had the same thought many times herself and refuses to accept it. “What institution doesn’t?”

  I take a deep breath. “I don’t know how to do this without you.”

  Beth fixes her gaze on me. “Susannah, you were always doing it without me. I’m not some crutch that’s been propping you up, and you weren’t some unformed lump of clay that I molded. You are an excellent swimmer—you were when I met you. Yes, I taught you some important things, and I hope you’ll keep training as we have been because I think it’s what’s right for you. But I’m pretty sure the most important thing I did was give you permission to believe in yourself by believing in you first.”

  “Thank you for tha
t,” I say. “For all of it.”

  “You are going to do amazing things,” Beth says, leaning in and putting her hand over mine. “Whatever competition you find in Omaha, remember that you are equal to it. And whatever happens at Trials, believe that you have a promising career ahead of you. That is the best advice that I can give you. No amount of coaching can help you if you don’t have faith in yourself. But if you ever falter in that faith, I hope you know that lots of people believe in you. Perhaps more than even you know.”

  * * *

  That night, I lie sleepless in my bed, turning my phone over in my hand and listening to Frick and Frack purring three inches from my head. I’m desperate to text Harry, or call him. I miss the sound of his voice. We haven’t spoken at all since the party, and the only thing that’s done even the slightest good at distracting me is swimming. But I’ve started my taper, which means less time in the water and more time to think. To worry.

  I wonder about Harry all the time. What he’s doing. How he’s feeling. I keep thinking, Just one text, but he told me to focus on winning my race. I owe it to both of us to try.

  Still, there’s no one I’d rather talk to about Beth leaving than Harry. He’s not the only one who’ll understand. Amber certainly does. But he’s the person I tell things to in order to make them feel real.

  A rustling sound surprises me, and I flinch, thinking someone is in the room, but it’s Frida moving around in her cage. When I was younger, I was afraid of the dark; Dad enjoys telling scary stories, and I like them well enough in the light, but at night my imagination would spin out ghastly fantasies about vampires entering through open windows and witches flying out of closets.

  I’m embarrassed to admit I never got over it, the dread the darkness brings. It’s the unknown I can’t stand. The inability to see. And the loneliness of lying there, waiting for dawn.

  I climb out of my bed and cross the hall to Nina’s room. Moonlight filtering through the blinds paints stripes across her sleeping body. The floor creaks underfoot as I make my way to her bed. She wakes, confused but calm, and peers at me through bleary eyes.

  “Susannah?” She flips a piece of hair out of her face. “What’s wrong?”

  “Can I sleep in here tonight?” I whisper.

  When we were little, I would come into her room all the time, fleeing the nightmares my own mind kicked up like dust clouds, and we would squeeze together in her twin bed. Only then, with the comfort of another person in the room, could I sleep. After we got bigger and no longer fit, she would surrender the bed to me and take a pillow and blanket to the floor.

  Nina has a double bed now; we’re both tall, so it’ll be tight, but she lifts the corner of her comforter and I slide in beside her.

  “What’s wrong, baby sister?” Nina asks sleepily.

  “I don’t know what’s going to happen in Omaha,” I tell her. “I’m afraid.”

  She puts her arm around me and hugs me close.

  “Don’t worry,” she says. “Win or lose, you’re still our Susannah. We’ll love you just the same.”

  Exhaustion cascades through me, dragging me away from the shores of wakefulness. As I drift off to sleep, I wonder if what my sister said is true. Will I be the same person after Trials? Or will it change me, in some fundamental way that can only be seen by someone else if they look hard for it?

  When your biggest fear and your greatest dream are one and the same, once you face it, can you ever go back to the way you were before? And more important, will I even want to?

  FOOLFORTHEPOOL.COM

  The #1 Source for Swimming News on the Web

  Countdown to Olympic Trials: Can This Former World Champion Rise from the Ashes and Fly to a First-Place Finish?

  By Kris McNamara

  Posted June 9

  So much has been written (on this site in particular) about those swimmers whose names we know well. Darby Phillips, Zachariah Nelson, Maya Chen, Rodrigo Garza. You’ve watched them for years now, you know their times by heart. But what about the dark horses poised on the edge of something magnificent—who is writing about them?

  We think there’s something to be said about those swimmers who make it to Trials by the skin of their teeth, grasping for the golden ring, the ones who nobody’s watching. One such swimmer is seventeen-year-old World Champion Susannah Ramos of the Gilcrest Aqualions Club in Gilcrest, Illinois. Many of you in the comments have wondered for years now if her gold in Budapest was a fluke.

  There’s no denying it—Ramos has a steep hill to climb. For those of us who remember her dramatic in-pool injury at the Pro Swim Series meet in Des Moines, it seems there’s no coming back from that. A torn labrum is nothing we haven’t seen before, and it has felled better swimmers in much less competitive times.

  But the facts are these: Ramos’s slowdown didn’t sink her. Before her shoulder gave out, she was clocking some of her best times, out-racing some of the most promising names in the sport. She won’t be the youngest female swimmer at Trials, but she’s younger than most of the people we consider safe bets, and the fact that she’s coming to Trials at all means she thinks she has a shot at making the team.

  Unpopular opinion, but we think she’s got a shot, too. If she’s recovered enough, if she can swim her best and if her first time at Trials gives her a little dose of magic we’ve seen many times in this pool, she just might make it. So watch your shoe-ins, your two-time Olympians, your NCAA favorites. We’ll be watching people like Ramos, who defied all odds to be here.

  No matter what, it’s sure to be an interesting show.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  2 days until US Olympic Team Trials

  MOM TAPS HER water glass with a butter knife. Raising her voice, she says, “Quiet, please! I would like to give a toast.”

  “No, Mom, this really isn’t necessary,” I groan, covering my face with my hands.

  My parents insisted on having a celebration before I leave for Omaha, even though—as I pointed out several times—we don’t have anything to celebrate yet. I don’t like being the center of attention. I’m not into birthdays, and I despise being fussed over. Plus, it feels like tempting fate. But when Mom puts her mind to something, she can’t be deterred, and everyone else thought it was a fantastic idea, so I was outnumbered.

  “You made it to the Olympic Trials!” Nina said when I balked. “How many people can say that?”

  “Hundreds,” I replied. “There will literally be over eighteen hundred swimmers competing for a handful of spots on the team.”

  “Handful?” Nina scoffed. “There’s like fifty people on the roster.”

  “Not quite fifty. And half of them are guys.”

  “Boy, Susannah, you really know how to take the fun out of everything,” Nina shot back.

  That hit close enough to home that I agreed to let Mom throw me this celebratory dinner, but only if we had it at Miguel’s restaurant. The food is good, and I know we’ll get a family discount, which is important because Mom invited pretty much everyone we know. She even asked me, tentatively, if it was okay to invite Harry, but I didn’t want to put him in the position of having to say no. I wish he were here, though.

  Mom turns to me now with a big smile on her face. “I was in labor with you for twenty-one hours, Susannah, and by God, you are going to listen to this speech, you’re going to be inspired and you’re going to applaud at the end. Okay?”

  I put up my hands. “Okay, okay. I surrender. The childbirth card trumps all.”

  “That’s right.” She stands, and I’m grateful beyond words that Miguel gave us the entire back room tonight. “I always wanted to be a mother, but when I was pregnant for the first time, and I found out we were having a girl—”

  Nina wolf whistles from down the table where she’s sitting with Amber. Mom tips her glass in my sister’s direction.

  “When I found out we were h
aving a girl, I was nervous. As anyone who knows me can tell you, I’m not a religious person, but I prayed to a god I’m not even sure I believe in that I would be the sort of mother a little girl could look up to. I wanted to inspire my children, to make them believe, through my example and my love, that they could do anything they set their minds and hearts to.”

  Tears prick the back of my eyes. I have the best parents in the world, but Mom in particular inspires me every day. She works hard to give us everything we could ever want, and she never loses sight of herself. If I grow up to be half the person she is, I think that’d be an amazing accomplishment.

  “It’s not easy to be a brown girl in this world,” she continues. “Nobody’s lining up to give you anything. Nobody’s inclined to cut you any slack. You have to earn every single inch on the road to success, and even then, there are people and circumstances waiting around every corner to tear you down and make you feel like you don’t deserve what you want most. So that was my wish for myself, and for my girls. Make me the sort of mother who gives her daughters something to believe in.”

  She pauses to collect herself, then says, “It never crossed my mind that my girls would be the ones to inspire me.”

  Mom turns to face me. “Dad and I got you something.”

  “You didn’t have to do that,” I say, thinking of all the money they’ve spent to get me here, how much they’ve sacrificed so I could have a shot.

  Mom winks at me and says, “I know.”

  Dad pulls a box wrapped in silver paper out of his pocket and hands it to me.

  “Congratulations, mija,” he whispers. “We love you.”

  Mom gestures for me to open the gift. Inside is a small honeycomb pendant on a delicate gold chain. It’s so pretty and perfect my breath catches in my throat.

  “Thank you,” I croak as Dad fastens it around my neck. “I love it.”