The Sea of Light Read Online Free PDF Page A

don’t show it. Then Super Coach kicks in again.
    “If you decide to enroll, we’ll try to make sure you get into any courses you like. I don’t require the women on my team to room together, socialize together, eat together or anything like that. I do expect them to make practice—and most of the time that’s doubles, a.m. and p.m. unless you’re tapering—but again, what you do outside of practice is your business. I won’t expect you to win all the time and I won’t expect any records. But I’ll want you to participate in all aspects of the program, and to encourage everyone else, and to expect no special treatment, even though you’re head and shoulders above them. Also, I will build a medley relay around you. That’s all.” I toss another paper clip and it hits the rim of the mug, bounces in perfectly.
    “My own room,” she whispers, blushing. But the eyes never blink, stare straight in at mine. “I need my own room. A single. In the best dorm, okay? But not with all the jocks.”
    I toss another clip. So easy. God. I dare not breathe.
    Basket.
    “Okay, Babe. Let’s take a walk. I’ll show you the facilities. Then we can have lunch.”
    We stand and the tense face seems to shiver for a second, and I see it’s covered with sweat.
    “Jesus. I can’t do them any more, you know. I mean I just cannot deal.”
    “What,” I urge gently. “What can’t you do?”
    “Flips.”
    “Well, I guess you’ll have to do open turns then.”
    It sounds right: brisk, matter-of-fact. I motion for her to follow. Another door, loss of the calming, clarifying light. Down many halls, past weight rooms and whirlpool and sauna. Recruiting, you spend time sussing out what each kid wants and figuring how to deliver it up to them on the spot. Some of them want to be entertained, some just to feel at home, some to be ordered around a little and have all the limits set from day one. Some are withholding, push their luck. Few ask for nothing but the contract, though. And because it’s so rare, I tend to disbelieve that it’s happening now.
    Still, I will do what it takes for those extra points between first place and second. Improvise. Steal. This girl’s got plenty of problems, but so do I. First place—cold, bright, accessible, final—is the only home I want now. One national-class kid and it’s in the bag.
    The pool’s empty, glinting a clean pastel blue, lanes sharply delineated. We stop to look through unbreakable glass windows on the observation deck. Babe Delgado looms next to me. Taller. Bigger. Something I recognize now in her: a fear of the water. We both glance sideways at the same time and our eyes meet. Then there’s this silent question I read in the puffy damp face, honest, searching, not a plea but a query: Are you going to help me?
    I let Super Coach speak through my own eyes and say: Yes, sure, you help me and I’ll help you. For those few extra points.
    I smile calmly. “It used to terrify me.”
    “What?”
    “Competing. Even thinking about my race sometimes. I’d throw up.”
    She laughs. “Really?”
    “Sure. No matter who you are, the pressure is there.”
    That strikes some chord. She sweeps hair impatiently behind an ear, glances down at the pool again and back at me and then smiles. The pallor lifts a little.
    “Okay. I think I can deal, I’ll do it.”
    “Good.”
    “But I have to lose some weight. I mean before I get in the water—”
    “I don’t want you to worry about that now, Babe. We’ll set up something with our nutritionist, okay?”
    “Oh. I’m a vegetarian.”
    “Really? Well, to each her own. You’ll be doing some running anyway, and some swim bench and medicine bag—everybody’s going to be working pretty hard around here to get rid of a few extra pounds, including me.” I pat my abdominals, risk a wink and breathe an internal sigh of relief when the kid smiles again. “September’s dry-land month, anyway. Now let me show you around downstairs. Let me show