The Sea of Light Read Online Free PDF

you the Nautilus.”
    *
    I stay late, clearing up all the paperwork I can. There will be hell to pay later on in the week. Another rickety bridge to cross in a flood. Free rides don’t rain down from heaven, and this particular one will have to come out of some other coach’s hide.
    Toward evening I pass a free-weights room, hear the clink of dumbbells, plates, bars, a female voice I recognize, a young man’s I do not:
    “Ah, shit, Danny!”
    “Get it up, goddammit! Get it up like a dick!”
    “Ten!”
    “There! There you go—here, I’ll take it, Miss Macho Deltoids—”
    “Oh shut up.”
    “Ellie, you did it.”
    “I don’t believe it.”
    The two of them spill out, towels around their necks, T-shirts damp with sweat. An uncommonly handsome boy in his early twenties, short, muscular, definitely gay. The girl medium-built, with tenacious fists gripping the towel, a pretty Semitic face that looks hurt and swollen now around cheeks and mouth. She sees me and blushes violently. I nod.
    “Ms. Marks.”
    “Hi!”
    “Welcome back. We’ll talk about it later, but I want you to do the four hundred IM this year. That means the long warm-up.”
    “What? Do I have to?”
    “Yes.”
    “How come?”
    “Because, I’m the coach and you’re not.”
    On my way down the hall, I hear gagging sounds. Then footsteps and the slap of damp towel on skin and cloth.
    “Coach? Excuse me,” The girl’s eyes sparkle, embarrassed but shrewd. “Do you have any time maybe? I mean, can I talk to you?”
    I tell her why not, and we head back to my office. There she perches on the edge of the chair Babe Delgado sat in earlier, looking much smaller. She keeps pulling at her sweaty shirt, twisting the towel with nervous hands. Pain pounds out the back of my head. I think lovingly of aspirin.
    “What happened to your face, Ellie?”
    “Oh, nothing. I mean, I got these two wisdom teeth pulled.”
    “If there’s still some bleeding you should not lift weights.”
    “I’m okay.”
    “Well, then. What’s up?”
    “I have to talk to you.” The voice starts out breathy, gets hoarse with nerves, then faster and faster. “Listen, maybe you were being a little too hard on us last year. I mean, it’s like, basically everyone really wants to work really hard for you and to just win, you know? So I thought that you could sort of give us a break. Not, like, expect any less from us or anything like that. But more encouragement sometimes. I mean—you know what I mean.”
    The pain becomes an obstacle in my throat, and I clear it. There’s a silence you can sink back into, always waiting like the fear, but waiting to hold you up instead and comfort you. I sink into it now, realize how long I’ve wanted that, just that: to sink back into something. Then I look at Ellie Marks and wait for her eyes to stop darting around and meet my own. When they do she blushes—suddenly, a deep scarlet.
    I lean forward and speak softly. “I’ll take your advice under consideration.”
    “You will?”
    “Of course. It’s possible I was a little out of touch with everyone’s needs last year, and that’s why we came up short at the end. But this year will be better. I think I can promise that.”
    Yes, Coach. I bet you can.
    She stands mumbling thanks, thanks for listening. Thank you, I tell her, calmly, with mastery, thank you for bringing these concerns to my attention. It is part of your job, after all.
    When she leaves I sink back again, thinking that I like the kid—my team captain and a hard worker, with mediocre but consistent times in the 100 and 200 breaststroke, an honors student most semesters. Comes from a difficult family background, racks up points by being a real team workhorse. Has a scholarship. And a crush on the Coach, which, like all such things, the Coach will pointedly ignore.
    *
    Later, I change into sweats myself. The place has pretty much cleared out, I’ve managed to avoid McMullen all day, and one of the weight rooms is