Chapter 35

Nao and I were standing behind the blocks in lanes three and six, leaving a two-lane gap between us. We had alternated turns ducking into the staff changing rooms to put on our swimsuits, while the other supervised the rowdy crowd of hyped-up teenagers.

Peter, who was acting as race marshal called it. He was using our starting megaphone - a shoulder-sling bullhorn with a CB-radio style mic you could shout through and a tone button we used as a race starter.

“Step up!”

I glanced over at Nao as we stepped up onto the blocks. I’d not seen her in a swimsuit since the Olympics. She looked so good. She was wearing a racing one piece in club colours; slashes of varying shades of purple over a deep plum background. She’d tucked her hair up into a dark rubber swim cap. As she hitched one leg up onto the block, I caught a glimpse of her taut, toned inner thigh, the slight rounding of her pubis outlined and contrasted by the dark of her swimsuit against her smooth skin. As she stepped up with her other leg, I couldn’t help but appreciate the tight curve of her bum, flattened with her world-champion swimmer’s conditioning but still undeniably attractive.

Thank God I wasn’t a horny hormone-laden adolescent anymore, or I’d be putting on a display in my own swimwear - one that would probably scar some of the onlooking junior squad members for life. Still, I had to forcibly redirect my attention elsewhere. I had a race to win.

Nao and I stood on the blocks, preparing to face off against each other. Me, distracted by her gorgeous form and her laser focused on the race at hand.

Talk about déjà vu. I pulled my goggles down and seated them against my eyes, then stood up straight and shook my arms one last time, trying to loosen them and get the blood flowing a little quicker.

“Take your marks!”

At least the kids had the good graces to fall into something resembling silence. Focusing on my entry point into the water, I curled the toes of my right foot around the front lip of the block and crouched down. I set my left foot towards the back of the block, hooked my fingers to the front and arched my back, waiting for the buzzer. I took a breath.

The buzzer sounded and I hurled myself forward and out, adrenaline coursing through my body. My entry was textbook perfect, I could tell. I shimmied and flicked my legs out in a single dolphin kick as I began to pull great handfuls of water around under my chest. My head broke the surface just enough to suck in a replacement for the lungful of the air I had breathed out under the water, and I dropped back down into the familiar rhythm of the breaststroke. I resisted the urge to try a sideways glance to gauge Nao’s progress - the thought flashed through my mind that this race was even more important to me than the Olympics had been. It was quickly replaced by another thought that was definitely more surprising, but I silenced my brain to focus on the race. Even still, some part of me was trying to analyse the sound of the shouting junior squad members that I could faintly hear as I powered through the water.

As I passed the tiled lane-end marker, made my turn, and kicked off from the wall, I could feel my legs starting to go a little wobbly. It had been months since I’d even tried approaching the international level I used to swim at, gradually accepting the position my rheumatoid arthritis had put me in. But this race was different. As I came out of my turn, I noticed from the very corner of my eye that Nao was just approaching the wall I had just kicked off of. I was in the lead! I felt a new burst of adrenaline surging through me - I was actually going to win! And maybe Nao getting stuck with cleaning the change rooms would soften her up a little. Perhaps after the kids left, I would go and volunteer to help her and she might be less cold to me.