“So they train their whole lives just so they can train for three years just so they can swim for two minutes, and the majority of the people who get to swim for two minutes will be deemed failures? This, my dear, is where depression comes from.”
“Wait, Alison Schmidt is six-foot-one?”
“I see we’re taking different revelations from the Olympics.”
“Six-foot-one?”
“It’s fine, Lita. I’m sure you could take her in judo.”
“I’m six-foot-one!”
“Sure, but you have more practice at judo.”
“That’s too tall to swim.”
“According to whom? Not the Olympic committee.”
“According to my swim coach who said you had to be slim and elegant!”
“You should take him at judo.”
“Wait, what did the guy say? Missy Franklin’s wingspan is wider than she is tall?”
“Is that rare?”
“Yes. Measure my arms.”
“Can’t I measure something else?”
“You’re never touching anything else if you don’t measure them right now.”
“What the lady wants, the lady gets. You hold this end of the measure, though. We’re not all giants like you… swimmers.”
“I can’t believe this! All I wanted to do when I was a kid was swim. You couldn’t get me out of the water.”
“Certainly your pipsqueak dad couldn’t.”
“Dad. All he wanted me to do was bake.”
“You’re an awesome cook! It’s why I’m wider than I am tall. But not so much wingspan.”
“So? How wide is it?”
“I don’t want to say.”
“Say it.”
“This feels too much like when Jack Nicholson asks the surgeon for the mirror.”
“God damn it!”
“Seventy-four-ish. That’s, you know. That’s close to your height.”
“I could have been an Olympian!”
“What if they made an Olympic event for cakes? You could get the Gold Medal for flour. Well, I guess that’s already a thing, but—”
“Dad paid off that coach. I know it.”
“Maybe they were just dumb back then. I’m pretty sure when you were eleven, they still thought egg yellows were good for you.”
“If he was alive, I’d set his toupee on fire.”
“You could try out now.”
“I can’t try out now! These girls are, like, sixteen. That’s half… half my…”
“Please don’t give me that look like I’m supposed to finish your sentence. If I do, you’ll hurt me.”
“I had so much fun swimming. I wanted to do it more than anything, it was like flying in warm air. Do you even know how much I loved it?”
“No, because every time I go near water it’s for hydrotherapy. My leg makes the dream of the 200-meter backstroke a little harder to fathom.”
“I… hey, I didn’t… I just didn’t realize how much I missed it.”
“There’s a pool at the center. I think it’s ten bucks to mess around until closing time, if you want to do more than miss it.”
“You think?”
“I think ten dollars less sweets for me would do us both some good.”
Counter est. March 2, 2008