Bliss, Remembered Read Online Free PDF Page B

lost interest in her by now, so I don’t know.
    “How’d you feel, Mom?”
    Never so calm in all my life. I knew I should beat him, and if somehow his pride got his adrenaline up and he beat me, then it didn’t really matter, ’cause everybody’d say I was just a girl and so what? I knew all the pressure was on him. And just before we jumped into the pool—you know, you start the backstroke in the pool—Frankie called out, “If he beats you, Trixie, he gets to kiss you.”
    And everybody cheered some more, but I was really feelin’ my oats now. I’d never been in a spotlight before, and I’d found I enjoyed it. So I called over, “And suppose I beat him?”
    And Frankie called back, “Then you get to kiss me.” Oh, he was fresh, that Frankie. They don’t say “fresh” anymore, do they?
    “No, they stopped that awhile ago.”
    So, let us say Frankie could be inappropriate. Unfortunately, that’s what they say now. Inappropriate. Awful word.
    But like I said, I was feelin’ my oats, and I called back, “In a pig’s eye!” And everybody roared.
    And so we jumped in, and the gun went off, and I just lay out on my back and pretended like I was on the river, with nobody around, and I just started moving my arms in that windmill way and kicking my feet nice and easy, taking my breaths, and it was such a breeze, Teddy, just me skimming along, looking up at the blue sky.
    She stopped and smiled, cocked her head, remembering.
    It was a year or so later when I first met Eleanor Holm, and she told me how there wasn’t anything as grand as moving through the water on your back. She told me, “Yeah, I like to be on my back in the water and on top in bed,” but I was so young, I really didn’t know what she meant. I just said something foolish like “yeah.” That Eleanor Holm, she was a piece of work, lemme tell you . . .
    But there you go again, lettin’ me wander. Poor Carl. I got ahead of him halfway through the first lap, and it was all over but the shoutin’, because then he began to panic, flailin’ his arms and chop-pin’ his legs too hard, so he started to wobble and even weave outside his lane. It was like with Edna earlier. I actually began to feel sorry for him. But I didn’t let up, Teddy. I wasn’t gonna go easy on any boy—especially one as stuck up as Carl. I beat him better’n a whole lap.
    “You whipped his ass.”
    Yes, indeed. He could barely bring himself to shake my hand. The people were cheering. Some of the little girls jumped right into the water with me. This girl had beaten a boy, and they were all simply ecstatic. Now remember, Teddy, this is a million years before Billie Jean beat Bobby Riggs. I was one big heroine. Yes sir, on the Eastern Shore anyway, the women’s movement began that day.
    But, best of all, as Mom and I were leaving, this bald man came up to me. He said he was the coach at the country club. Honestly, I think he was more like some kinda glorified lifeguard, but he was awfully nice. He said, “Trixie, how much coaching have you had?” and I told him none, and he said he thought that was the case, but he just couldn’t believe how good I was. He told me, “If you ever get coaching, you could be really good.”
    I said, “Really?” And he said, “Yeah, really. You’re a natural, Trixie.” A natural. Is there anything better anybody can tell you but that you’re a natural? I don’t think so.
    He asked if I knew that there was an indoor pool at Washington College, which was in Chestertown. I told him, no, I didn’t, but he told me there was. He also said there was an old guy named Wallace Foster who had been a real good swimmer himself, who swam at the pool up there, and he was gonna call Wallace Foster long distance and get him to start coaching me some. Which he did. Mr. Foster started to teach me what he knew. I mean, he wasn’t a real coach, but in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, so I swam all that winter indoors, and I got