Bliss, Remembered (4 page)

But she knew what she was doing; we had much more fun this way.

That evening, Natalie Coughlin did win her heat, which absolutely invigorated Mother; she so wanted an American to take the gold in her old event. “Actually,” she explained, “I think the two-hundred was my better distance, but they didn’t have that in the Olympics then.”

“Why not?”

“Because the asinine Olympic pooh-bahs thought women were dainty little vessels who were too fragile to endure two hundred meters. Ridiculous! The first time I raced Eleanor Holm was the two hundred yards. And I wasn’t even tired.” As if to relive that moment, she raised herself up out of her chair energetically and cried out, “Well, hooray for Natalie. This calls for a drink. Will you have a drink with me, Teddy, or are you an old stick in the mud?”

“I’m on, Mother.”

“That’s the stuff. Fix me a G and T, and don’t go light on the G, mister. You make me a good stiff one, and I’ll tell you about that time I went down to Easton to swim.”

So I made two gin and tonics, and after we both took a swallow, upon her direction, we raised our glasses high and Mom cried out: “To Natalie Coughlin and the old red-white-and-blue!” Then she settled back. “Where did I get us to in Easton?”

“Not very far. You just told me you whipped all their asses.”

She chuckled. “That’s the God’s truth, Teddy. Those gals from Easton were Custer, and I was the Injuns.” She sipped her drink again. “You make a good G and T, Teddy. Just like your father.”

“Well, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree,” I said.

Mom smiled at that and began again.

For a kid who’d never even seen a swimming meet before, it was pretty exciting. There were maybe a hundred people watching—course, most of ’em were just parents—and lotsa swimmers. It was age divisions. I was in the oldest—senior division. There was even a little stand where you could buy lemonade and hot dogs. Let me tell you, Teddy, I was mightily impressed.

There was a table where you signed in, and the man in charge there asked me my age and where I was from. That got a rise outta him. “All the way from Chestertown?” he asked.

I said, “Yes, sir.”

And then he said, “Well, you understand now, the swimmers from Talbot County come first.”

So I asked him, “So, what races are still open for me?”

He looked at his papers, and he told me, “Well right now, there’s a spot in all the races in your division except the hundred-yard freestyle. That one’s filled up.”

So I asked, “So exactly what all’s left?”

He said, “Which races do you want, young lady?”

I turned to Mother and shrugged. It was all foreign to me. I said, “I guess you can put me down for all of ’em.”

“All right,” the man said. “Unless you get bumped, you’ll be in the hundred-yard breaststroke and the hundred-yard backstroke and the five-hundred-yard freestyle. That’s the girls’ longest race of the day. You sure you can do that?”

I shrugged. I thought I could. I knew I must’ve swam that far regularly in the Chester River. But just so I understood what an absolute marathon I was getting into, he said, “It’s ten lengths of the pool.”

“I can do that,” I told him.

So he wrote me down for all those races, and Mom and I found a place to sit, and we waited. Pretty soon, the races started—the little kids first. The first one for girls in my division was the hundred-yard freestyle, which was the one I couldn’t get in, but I stepped closer to watch—you know, Teddy, to check out my competition.

The gals from the country club looked very impressive. They all, the boys and girls alike, had these very snappy maroon suits with white piping, and the girls had maroon caps that matched. I didn’t even have a swimming cap, my hair flowed all out, and my suit was white—well, more kind of cream—with red roses on it. And those roses had seen better days. As a package, I don’t imagine I looked especially imposing.

Well, I was standing there, watching, and the girls lined up. There were four of them from the country club and three others, which meant one lane was open. When I saw that, I looked around, and when I saw nobody else was approaching, I ran over to the man at the table and asked if I could fill in.

He said, “I don’t see why not,” so I ran back and took the empty lane, which was the one by the side of the pool. We didn’t have starter’s blocks or anything, just divin’ in from the edge of the pool, and the starter raised his pistol and said, “Take your marks.” I was kinda lookin’ to the side at this girl next to me, to see the proper way to take my mark, when the gun went off. It took me a moment to collect myself, and by the time I dove in, everybody was ahead of me.

So I just started swimming, Teddy. As fast as I could. Like I told you, I was in the last lane over, and when I breathed I was looking away from all the other swimmers, and so when I got to the end of the lap I had no idea where anybody was. I was amazed to see that I was way ahead. I didn’t really know how to turn around properly, so I lost some of my lead there, but then, that second lap, I just aired it out and won goin’ away. The four country-club girls all came in after me, second, third, fourth and fifth, and you could tell they were really PO’ed. The best one was named Edna, and she was downright furious.

I hopped out of the pool and was standing there in my cream bathing suit with the faded roses when Edna and this man who I suppose was her father went over to the table and carried on some. After a while, the man behind the table called me over and said, “How old are you, young lady?”

I said, “I’m sixteen.”

And Edna, who was fuming, said, “Well, can you prove it?” I mean, the whole thing was ridiculous, Teddy. The senior division was fifteen through eighteen, and there was no way in the world I looked nineteen, but I said, “As a matter of fact, I can,” because I had passed my drivers test a few weeks before, and my mother had my wallet, so she showed them the license.

The man behind the table examined it and said, “Earl, she’s fine. She’s only just sixteen.”

But Edna and her father still weren’t mollified. He said, “It’s like a ringer, someone comin’ down here all the way from Chestertown.”

But the man behind the table, who was sort of getting annoyed at all this nonsense even though he was obviously from Talbot County himself, said, “Earl, there aint no geographical limits here. We had that boy come up from Salisbury two years ago.”

Earl just shook his head. “Well, it just doesn’t seem right,” he said. But there wasn’t anything he could do. I was perfectly legit, and so the starter called out, “The winner is Trixie Stringfellow, all the way from Chestertown.”

That did not endear me to the crowd, Teddy. That is, the part about “all the way from Chestertown.” I would say I got only scattered applause when he gave me the blue ribbon. Extremely scattered.

But you know, I didn’t give a hoot. I was so excited to win that blue ribbon. I’d never gotten anything like that before, and I was downright exhilarated. It was the first time I’d really felt good about things since Daddy got killed. Plus, I was pretty irritated, let me tell you, about Edna and her father trying to get me disqualified. So, by the time my next race came, which was the breaststroke, I had developed what you might call a killer instinct, as well.

Destroyed them, kiddo. Left them in my wake. Watch my smoke. I won from here to yesterday. I’d watched the senior boys race to see how you made a turn, so I was better at that. Poor old Edna didn’t know what hit her.

Even better, when I climbed out of the pool, the senior boys were coming over for their race, and the cutest one, who I’d certainly taken note of—he made a point of going over to me and saying, “Nice race, Trixie.” And I could see that PO’ed Edna even more.

And trust me, Teddy, I could tell he wasn’t just interested in my athletic prowess. I wasn’t bad to look at then, Teddy. You know, girls grow up fast, and I was full grown, and if I must say so myself, I had developed a very nice pair of bosoms inside that cream bathing suit with the faded red roses. Boys called them “bazooms” in those days.

No, smarty pants, they called everybody’s bosoms “bazooms” then. Boobs didn’t come in until later. A boob then was just a dopey person. Whaddya call ’em now?

Boobs.

Nothing new? You men usually have a new one.

Rack?

I never heard that one, Teddy. And it’s usually in the plural. I’m just not up on the new lexicon. But I must say, it’s not unexpected. It’s amazing how you men always keep coming up with a new way just to say “tits.”

I don’t know if that’s a good analogy, Teddy. The Eskimos are surrounded by snow. You men just wish you were surrounded by tits.

But, anyway, keeping with that train of thought, it was obvious that Frankie had an eye for mine, whatsoever you might call them. Neither did I particularly try to discourage these attentions. Somebody even called over, “Come on, Frankie, stop flirting with Chesty-town and take your mark.” Oh, it was very obvious. I was reveling in it. Reveling.

Yeah, that made me blush, but tell you the truth, I kinda liked it.

Reveling.

No, no, just the cutest. And he could be comical, too. The best was a big, strong, tall boy named Carl. He won all the boys’ races, like I won all the girls’. And he was full of himself, Carl was. I won the backstroke next. And, you know, that was my best. That was an absolute rout. After the boys raced, Frankie asked me if I wanted a lemonade, and so we chatted awhile, and he said if ever I came back to Easton, he’d love to go out with me. And I said, well that was unlikely, but why didn’t he make the effort to come up to Chestertown sometime?

It was all very flattering, and then came the grand finale, the long one, the ten laps freestyle. To be honest with you, Teddy, when I got goin’ in that, I was so far ahead, I eased up. I mean, by this point, I even showed some mercy to that awful Edna.

So I got my fourth blue ribbon, and Mom was ready to leave, but I said I wanted to see the boys’ long race, too, although actually I was only interested in maybe having a little more of a tête-à-tête with Frankie.

I don’t think I was fooling Mom any, but she was so proud of me, and she was so happy to see me happy again, so she let me stick around. Of course, Carl won the race, but when he got his blue ribbon, standing there all full of himself, Frankie called out, “Hey Carl, I’ll bet you can’t beat the girl.” And everybody looked over at me, and I blushed, but people began to clap and say, “Yeah, yeah,” and Carl got his dander up.

“I’m not racing any girl,” he said, but Frankie came right back and called out, “You’re scared of her, aren’t you?” and all his friends hooted at him. “Carl’s scared of the girl!”—that sort of teen-age stuff. So Carl was a rat caught in a trap.

The starter called out, “Shall we have a match race of champions?” And everybody cheered. Now nobody’d even asked me anything, and so Mother whispered, “Do you wanna do this, Trixie?” and I said, “Sure,” and Carl cried out, “I’ll give her a head start,” and that really frosted me, and so I stepped forward and said, “I don’t need any head start,” and everybody cheered some more. Carl might’ve been the hometown boy, but I was the underdog, and everybody roots for underdogs, even if, as in this case, they’re from faraway Chestertown.

The starter said, “Well, we’ll give the young lady the choice of weapons. What stroke do you wanna swim, Trixie?”