Playing the Field: Getting Wet

Chapter 2

One morning the year he turned thirteen, Rory got to the pool super early. None of his friends would be there, he knew—Bobby and Tommy were on a Boy Scout camping trip, Matt had vacation Bible school, and Joel was preparing for his bar mitzvah. Rory didn’t care; his goal for the day would be bettering his speed by sprinting the length of the pool. For his birthday, his parents had given him a very expensive diving watch with a stop watch feature he planned to use to improve his time. Without the distractions of his friends, he hoped to maybe even beat the world record. It was a long shot, he knew, but at least he could give it a go.

Usually when he arrived at the pool, he was so early, he had to wait for the lifeguard on duty to open up. But this day, though, the gate already stood open, and he could hear men’s laughter beyond. As Rory reached the gate, a shrill whistle sounded, startling him. Suddenly the air was filled with splashing, and a chorus of enthusiastic calls echoed off the concrete walls of the buildings surrounding the pool, hiding it from view.

Cautiously Rory stepped inside the gate and peered around the side of the women’s locker room.

The water in the pool roiled from a half-dozen swimmers whose long, bare arms arched above the surface with a dolphin’s grace. Heads encased in caps bobbed up for air, then disappeared into the water, over and over again. Mesmerized, Rory ventured farther in, his gaze locked on the swimmers. He felt as if he’d fallen asleep in his average, everyday life and woke up at the Olympics. That’s going to be me someday, he thought.

It would be, he knew it.

He drifted closer to the pool, close enough to get splashed when the swimmer in the lane nearest to him turned against the wall and headed back to the shallow end.

“Hey, kid!” a man yelled, angry. “Get away from there!”

Rory glanced down at the other end of the pool and saw more swimmers milling around. All young men, maybe high schoolers, maybe college kids. Older than he was, at any rate. Their chests were bare and tanned and muscled, beaded with drying water. But instead of the loose swim trunks Rory and his friends all wore, these guys had on skin-tight Speedos, dark against pale skin. Form-fitting Spandex hugged every ass, outlined every c**k and balls. Rory stared, feeling his face flush with color as his own baggy trunks suddenly seemed two sizes too tight.

Who needed girls in bikinis? Where had these guys been his whole life?

He heard footsteps and looked up as an older man approached. This guy wore long khakis and a polo shirt, and the whistle dangling around his neck made him look like a lifeguard, though Rory doubted he’d be jumping into the pool since he wore so many clothes. “Go on, get out,” the man hollered, his voice booming louder as he came closer to Rory. “Pool’s closed!”

Confused, Rory frowned up at the man. “Why?”

“Swim practice,” the man snapped. “Now get.”

“But I want to swim, too,” Rory told him. “I come here every day—”

“Well, come back at noon.” The man stopped an intimidating few inches from Rory, forcing him to take an involuntary step back. With his hands on his hips, he towered over the gangly teen. “You can swim then. Right now the pool’s closed to the public.”

Rory could feel his eyes tear up, and he blinked rapidly. He didn’t want to leave! “But…”

Water splashed Rory’s legs; the swimmer was back, and this time, instead of turning, he pulled himself up onto the side of the pool and pinched his nose to blow out the water in it. He had a tiny pair of goggles over his eyes, so Rory didn’t know quite who he was looking at, but his head was upturned in their direction. “Hey, coach, don’t be so hard on the kid,” the swimmer said with a smile, water dripping from his cheeks and neck. “He might be on your team one day. You any good?”

This last was directed at Rory, who shuffled his feet with embarrassment. “I’m not too bad,” he mumbled.

“What’s that mean?” the coach snapped. “Ever time yourself?”

Rory held up his wrist to show off his new watch. “That’s what I wanted to do today. I—”

“How long’s it take you to do one lap?” the coach asked.

“From one end to the other?” Rory asked.

The coach shook his head. “One end to the other and back.”

There was a large clock on the wall above the lifeguard station. A few times Rory had tried to time himself using it, but he didn’t think that was very accurate, which was why he wanted the watch. The coach saw him glance at the clock, though, so Rory couldn’t back down now. “If I jump in when the little hand’s on the twelve,” Rory said, “it’s on the two when I climb back out.”

“The second hand?” the coach asked, squinting at him. “Ten seconds?”

From the pool, the swimmer laughed. “That’s damn good time.”

The coach gave a grudging grunt. “He’ll probably grow out of it.”

“He might not,” the swimmer shot back. “I didn’t. You like to swim, kid?”

“I love it,” Rory cried, eager to prove himself. Was ten seconds really that good? He knew Olympic records but this was just a public pool. He didn’t know how to do the math to figure out how his time might stack up against the greats.

The swimmer grinned. “Then jump on in. I’ll race you to the other—”

Without further prompting, Rory dove into the pool, already swimming as fast as he could when he hit the water. He got a full body length ahead before the older boy overtook him. When he reached the shallow end, the rest of the swim team cheered as he breeched the surface. “You’re fast, all right,” the swimmer he’d raced told him. “Keep it up and Coach Banks won’t want to keep you out of the pool.”

* * * *

In less than a year, Rory was on the team, the youngest ever, competing against boys three to five years older than he was at the time. His high school years were a blur of hallways and homework and pool lanes—he didn’t waste time partying like other students, didn’t go to football games or dances. Didn’t even date. The first—and only—guy he kissed was another swimmer from a rival team. They met through church, of all places, and bonded instantly over their love of the water. They had one date, dinner at the mall then a movie, where they groped each other blindly in the darkened theater while pretending to watch the film. To this day, Rory can’t remember what it was they went to see. Afterwards, the guy took him home and they sat in Rory’s driveway, sharing tender kisses until Rory’s mother flicked the porch light to tell him to come inside.

There was no mention of teams or clubs or competitive swimming, so Rory was surprised to find himself facing off against the guy at his swim meet the next day. Rory won, of course, which wasn’t unusual—he was fast in the water, and could outswim anyone on his own team in the short races. But his win also lost him any chance of a second date.

It didn’t matter. Rory didn’t need any distractions anyway. He wanted to race competitively on a worldwide level. In championships, in the Olympics. There would be time enough for fooling around once he had that gold medal hanging around his neck.