Geese Are Never Swans Read online

  “I need to talk to you,” I say.

  “Now?”

  “Yeah. I mean, if that’s cool?”

  He nods, still visibly flustered. Turns and yells something to his swimmers, then gestures for me to follow him away from the water into the shade of the pool house. Here he sets his clipboard down, blows air through his cheeks, then offers me his full attention, something those bleacher parents would no doubt kill for. “It’s good to see you, Gus.”

  “Thanks. You too.”

  “How’s your mom doing?”

  “Not great.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  I shrug. Look away.

  “At the funeral,” Coach Marks says. “We didn’t get a chance to talk, you and I.”

  “I know.”

  “Well, I wanted to tell you that I understand a little of what you’re going through. Losing a brother, no matter when it happens, it’s . . . it’s not easy.”

  “I really don’t want to talk about the funeral,” I say quickly. “That’s not why I’m here.”

  Coach Marks frowns. “It’s not?”

  “No. And hey, look, it wasn’t your fault what happened to Danny. It had nothing to do with you. Seriously. Okay?”

  This last bit I genuinely intend as kindness, words offered as balm, but I’ve miscalculated somehow. The coach’s jaw tightens. He lifts his chin. “What’s up, then? How can I help you?”

  “I want to swim for you,” I say.

  “What?”

  “I’m good enough. Hell, I’m better than good. I’ve been swimming at Acalanes High for the past two years. All-state for both. Multiple school records. You can check out my times. Figure if I come here, I can get on the national circuit for you in the fall. Then I’ll make the national team, qualify for the Olympics. Swim for the US in Tokyo next year. Just like, you know, he wanted to.”

  Coach Marks says nothing. He just stares at me.

  Give it to me, I think. Come on. Please. Just give me this one goddamn thing.

  I brace myself, prepared to argue my worth. But what he finally says is: “Why?”

  My nose wrinkles. “Why what?”

  “Why do you want to swim for me?”

  What kind of question is that? “Same reason as everybody. You’re the best. You almost got Danny to the top.”

  “But I didn’t.”

  “But I’ll get there. I know I will.”

  “So you think you’re better than Danny?”

  “I will be.”

  Skepticism lines the coach’s face, a shadowed ridging of doubt. “Acalanes, you say?”

  “Yup. I swim free. Got school records in both the two hundred and the five. Plus the individual medley and the relay. But I mean, I can swim anything you need me to.”

  “Uh-huh. And how old are you, Gus?”

  “Sixteen. Almost seventeen.”

  “Danny came to me when he was twelve.”

  “Okay.”

  “Well, if you’re so good, why’d you wait five years?”

  Why indeed? I roll my shoulders. Meet his gaze. “There’s only room for one champion in a household.”

  Coach Marks is incredulous. “Is that really what you believe?”

  “No.” I snort. “But it’s what Danny told me.”

  7.

  My brother used to say there were three things that separated good athletes from the great ones. But Danny being Danny, he never told me what they were.

  The first isn’t hard to figure out. It had to be something like Never stop to help anyone who’s drowning; otherwise no one will ever bother learning to swim. Or maybe it was Survival of the fittest; because they’ve fucking earned it. Pragmatic, I suppose, but also cruel—which is a pretty apt description of Danny’s philosophy toward just about anything. What the other two were is anyone’s guess. Although given the recent choice he made in the face of failure, it’s safe to say he got at least one of them wrong.

  Personally, I’ve got my own ideas of what does and doesn’t make greatness, and seeing as I’m still around to prove my point, I’ve got no problem sharing what they are. Maybe that makes me a hypocrite or whatever because I value autonomy more than listening to the bullshit other people come up with, but the most impor­tant thing I’ve learned in my sixteen years on earth is this: don’t ever let anyone tell you what you can’t do.

  And yeah, I know that sounds like some dippy inspirational message, the kind you’re supposed to tape to your bathroom mirror and read out loud every morning so you don’t forget that your shitty life circumstances are all your own fucking fault. But see, that’s the thing about personal responsibility; it’s sold as empowerment, a means of transcendence or the true path to righteousness. But from what I can tell, what people really mean when they use that phrase has a lot less to do with taking ownership of their own lives than it does with justifying why they’re not bothering to care about anyone else’s.

  Anyway, that’s not the kind of shit I’m talking about. I’m just done letting other people tell me what they think is best for me. Or worse, that I shouldn’t want the things I need. That’s something I’ve thought about a lot over the past six weeks. How people only tell you your dreams are impossible when they’re scared you might reach them.

  So it’s a vote of confidence, really.

  Danny was a good example of this. He was barely thirteen when he qualified for his first junior national event. It was held out in Philadelphia and they ended up televising it, on account of his age. And the thing is, Danny had earned his spot. He’d fought for it, and against all biological and predictive odds, he won. Yet every single person he met that weekend—coaches, older swimmers, parents, even league reps—worked hard to put him in his place. One by one, they made a point of coming over and telling him the same damn thing: that he was lucky to be there. You know, for the experience.

  Well, most people in the swimming world can remember what happened next—how my brother didn’t give a shit about luck. How he got in that pool and smoked his events. Ended up ranked in the top twenty by the end of the year and was on university recruitment lists before he’d even finished middle school. He was set for life, at that point. Glory bound. Destined for gold and the record books. Destined to be a legend.

  He never looked back after that.

  Until, you know, he did.

  8.

  I stand up tall, stick out my chest, and this, this is the moment I came for. A moment of wrong-righting and redemption. Of reckoning, even. Because like the fault lines running beneath this shaky California town, putting us at the whim of friction and fate, the aftermath of my family’s own tectonic crumbling has fundamentally redrawn our boundaries.

  And not always for the worse.

  So I smile broadly at Coach Marks as he appraises me, as he soaks me in. I don’t mind being judged when I know where I stand; I can back up every claim I’ve made. And in terms of sheer genetic potential, I’m practically the gift horse he’s already owned and lost.

  There’s only one answer he can give, clearly, which is why I don’t understand when I hear him utter the words “I’m sorry.”

  “Wait, what?” I ask.

  Coach Marks bends for his clipboard, strokes his chin, and looks back at the girls. The attention I commanded is dissolving into a froth of nothingness. “I’m sorry,” he says again, and the worst part is that his tone is sincere. He means what he says. “I’m not looking for another swimmer right now, Gus. I’m just not. But best of luck to you.”

  I’m speechless. My cheeks blaze, and I mean, this is some serious bullshit. Who the fuck does he think he is? There’s nothing I want to do more than grab that stupid whistle and wring his neck with the goddamn cord. But as he turns to walk away—to dismiss me—that’s when he really does it. Coach Marks has the nerve to reach out with one hand and actually sq
ueeze my shoulder. Like he’s my dad or something. Like he wants me to believe he gives a damn about my feelings.

  Flesh to flame. I jerk my shoulder back with a snarl. Coach Marks looks up at me and I know what he sees in my eyes. And I know he knows he’s wrong about this. Rejecting me out of some misguided loyalty to the swimmer who rejected him only perpetuates the same fucked-up shit that got us here in the first place. Not to mention, it’s also bad judgment. He’s the one who lost Danny. The ultimate rejection: my brother ditched him for his college coach a year before he died. So the issue isn’t whether Coach Marks is the answer to all my problems—it’s that we both know I could be the answer to his.

  9.

  Screw it. Whatever the fuck that was, it’s over. Coach Marks tries saying something else, some words of condolence or empty blathering meant to excuse his shitty choices and piss-poor reasoning. Well, he’s an idiot if he thinks I have any intention of sticking around to hear what he has to say.

  I turn on my heel and go. A rash of pettiness runs through me, and as I pass the shallow end of the pool, I dig deep, scraping the bottom of my lungs and spitting straight into the water. A group of masters swimmers glare at me through their goggles, but I must appear adequately murderous because no one says a word.

  Then I’m out of there. Kick-slamming my way through the pool gate, I march toward the club entrance, that gate I had to use my brother’s name to get through. My long legs carry me over the grounds quickly, away from this hellish cesspool, and as I make my escape, I tell myself all the things I need to hear:

  That Coach Marks is a flaccid dick.

  That I’ll find another, better way without him.

  That he’s going to regret what he’s done, I’ll make damn sure of that.

  And see, this is the dark truth about coaching. The part that really pisses me off because it’s the part us swimmers aren’t meant to know: this whole enterprise is built on smoke and mirrors. It’s less delusion than illusion, perhaps, but coaching’s a field founded on superstition and rumor far more than skill and methodology.

  Like the Bible, swimming has its own lore, its stories and reverence and articles of faith that have been handed down, year after year, team after team, and lap after lap. The impact of this is as telling as the tides, witnessed in the swift, seasonal murmuration of glory-eyed swimmers, all breaking to chase the same fad, the same coach, the same legend, the same answer. Whatever it is they’ve been told they need in order to make it where others have gone.

  What they don’t know, however, is that you can’t win by following in someone else’s wake. By definition, you’ve already lost. My wanting to train with Coach Marks has nothing to do with chasing what worked for Danny. It’s about sparking the glorious blaze of energy our pairing would inspire. Seeing me, the younger brother, rising from the flames of tragedy in order to join with Danny’s grieving and guilt-ridden coach is pure myth in the making.

  It’s a story that would have every crowd on their feet, cheering for my victory, and that’s the shit that matters. I’m talking on a spiritual level. Last year I watched When We Were Kings, the film about Foreman and Ali and the Rumble in the Jungle, and you can actually see that force in action. It was everything sport can be. Not just winning a boxing match or even mastery of physical prowess. It was about more, about Muhammad Ali leaving nothing to chance. He flew to Zaire and he gave the people who came to watch everything, every piece of himself. They absorbed his passion until they wanted to be a part of his story. So it was transcendent, heroic, even, the way these gifts came back to him tenfold when he needed them.

  The way that crowd carried him home.

  The thing is, no matter who I train with, I’ll have some of that mythology with me just by the nature of who I am and where I come from. The shadow of my brother’s death will make people want to love me, want to light the fire that guides my flame.

  I’ll let them, of course. I have no qualms about exploiting Danny’s legacy, and I plan on doing it with or without Coach Marks. But he could’ve come with me. It would’ve been special—that’s why I was willing to offer him a piece of my gilded destiny in the first place. But his rejection is proof positive that beneath that stoicism and mystery, there’s nothing to him at all, just a sad old man standing behind a curtain who doesn’t even know when to pull the right strings anymore.

  That’s the other dirty secret of coaching. The one they better hope like hell our superstition and delusion will drown out and wash away. Because the truth is, they’re all cowards. More status quo than revolutionary. More false patriot than rebel. They don’t seek out what they don’t know—like the kid who’s circumvented private lessons and country club training to come up on his own by swimming for his public high school—because they don’t want anything about this system to change. Sameness is their lifeblood. Their living. Which means Coach Marks not taking me on isn’t because he’s afraid he’ll fail.

  He’s afraid he won’t.

  10.

  “Gus! Hey, Gus!”

  I’m nearing the top of the hill when I hear someone call my name. It’s a distant voice and I spin around, confused, only to see a group of well-dressed people lingering outside on the flagstone patio of one of the club’s ivy-covered outbuildings. I squint but can’t figure out what’s going on. It looks they’re having a business meeting. Or a baby christening. Or who the hell knows? I mean, it’s Wednesday morning and these people are wearing pastels and sport coats and drinking what looks like champagne out of fluted glasses. Whatever it is that’s going on, it’s safe to say I don’t know anyone who’d be at an event like this. So I turn back around.

  Keep walking.

  “Gus!” The voice goes up an octave and it’s more urgent now. Less warm. Maybe that Escalade driver found out who I am and put a bounty on my head. But when I turn to look again, that’s when I see her. It’s a girl—Ashley Browning, to be precise—and she’s walking in my direction. Ashley goes to my school and we’re in the same grade, so we know each other, obviously, but it’s not like we’re friends. At all.

  So why is she coming toward me?

  Well, despite appearances to the contrary, I do have some fucking manners, so I stop, shove my hands in my pockets, and try my best not to look pissed off. She draws closer and I guess whatever’s happening on the patio isn’t a business event, since trust me, Ashley Browning doesn’t need a summer job and even if she did, she still wouldn’t get one, which probably tells you something about the Brownings. They’re not only the type who would’ve liked it when the band kept playing after the Titanic hit that iceberg; they would’ve complained to the management if they hadn’t. Anyway, at the moment, Ashley’s got on this shiny turquoise dress and heels that are absolutely not made for wet grass. They keep sinking and she ends up having to hop her way over to me.

  She actually laughs while she does this, which gets me to relax a little. As a rule I don’t like people talking to me, but as a rule, people usually don’t. This mostly goes double for girls, with some rare exceptions.

  “Hey,” she says when she reaches me. “I didn’t know you were coming. My mom didn’t mention it.”

  “Mention what?” I ask, and I can’t help but stare at her bare shoulders, at the line of sweat beading along her clavicle.

  Ashley doesn’t bother answering. Instead she grabs my hand and pulls me with her, dragging me back across the lawn in the direction she just came from.

  For a few steps, I let her do this. The air’s ripe with eucalyptus oil, the scent of gardenias, and no, I don’t like Ashley, but there’s something in her touch, that vital press of skin on skin. It’s alluring, undeniably so, and while my brain may not, the rest of me wants it, these feelings that are bubbling to the surface—the breathless wash of heat, that bright rush of desire, all followed by a dizzying flood of memories, not of the girl who’s currently touching me, but of her.

  I stop wa
lking.

  “Ashley,” I say as she turns to look at me, her brown eyes wide and her glossed lips pursed tight in an obvious expression of what the fuck are you doing?

  “I need to go,” I tell her.

  “What?”

  I pull my hand free. “I can’t be here.”

  “Then why’d you come?”

  “I didn’t.” I gesture at the patio. “I don’t even know what this is.”

  “My parents’ anniversary brunch.”

  “Oh.”

  “They said they wanted to see you. It’d mean a lot to them.” She looks over her shoulder, her hair swaying in a unified grace that mystifies me. “Plus Lainey’s coming later.”

  Now I feel weak. Ashley’s sister Lainey is different than the rest of the Brownings, and for as close as we were at one point in time, I’ve always wished we were closer. I’ve always wished for what I couldn’t have. “She is?”

  Ashley nods. “She keeps saying she’s going to call you about the scholarship. I know she wants you involved.”

  “What scholarship?”

  “The one my parents are setting up in Danny’s name. You don’t know about it?”

  “No.”

  “It’s for here at the club. Ten grand a year to a young swimmer with promise. They’re going to announce later in the summer, I guess, at some big event. Pretty sure your mom knows the details.”

  I’m confused. “But you aren’t swimmers. Why would your family do that?”

  “What do you mean why?” Ashley shoots another look over her shoulder. Like she’s hoping someone will come and rescue her. “Because they care about Danny?”

  “Well, they shouldn’t bother,” I say. “It’ll be a total fucking waste.”

  “You could be a little more grateful about it. My family’s done a lot for yours over the years.”

  “Oh yeah? And what, exactly, have they done for me?”

  Ashley’s lip curls. “They don’t need to do anything!”