Light Lifting by Alexander Macleod

Author:Alexander Macleod
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: FIC019000, FIC029000, FIC048000, Short Stories, Fiction
ISBN: 9781926845210
Publisher: Biblioasis
Published: 2010-09-15T04:00:00+00:00

“This is how it is supposed to be. Don’t you feel it? We’ve been on our way to this since the very beginning. Like a collision.”

They were on the floor at Vertigo, dancing in the strobe light, flashing in and out, a series of still photographs.

“I know,” she said.

“You remember the first day? When you were tossed in there with everybody else? I didn’t know what to do. Couldn’t figure you out.”

“Yes,” she said. “I remember it. Of course I do. But it was different for me. You wouldn’t understand. You couldn’t.”

THE FIRST CLASS was the second Tuesday after Labour Day. He checked her name off his clipboard list and she felt the way his eyes slid up and then down over the tight black contours of her new suit. It had been there from the beginning.

“You sure you’re in the right place?” he asked.

She wanted to keep it light. That had always been the plan. Treat it like nothing and get through.

“Think so,” she said. “I mean this is the first level, right? Adult Beginner I?”

She showed him the receipt.

“See? Seven-thirty to eight-fifteen. The Rec-Guide says this is the place to start. The place for people who don’t swim at all. The first class. For people who don’t go in over their heads.”

His eyes wavered and he shook his hand like he needed her to stop talking.

“My fault,” he said. “Sorry. My fault. Adult Beginner I. Yes. Right place. Totally fine. No problem. My mistake.”

He told her later, weeks afterward, when everything was different, that she didn’t look right. Not like one of his normal students. The others in the class were older ladies, senior citizens taking advantage of their discounts. Some were regulars, back for their fourth or fifth session with Brad.

“He’s the absolute best.” A lady with a thick blue bathing cap embossed with flowers told her that early on.

“So patient and so kind and so nice. He tries to make it fun for us.”

The women in the class were the other kind of elderly. Spunky, silver-haired adventurers. Takers of tango lessons and passengers on European tour buses. They wore waterproof makeup in the pool and their bathing suits came in the cruise colours – citrus yellow and orange and lime green – with tropical prints of toucans and palm trees and extra frilly layers of fabric stitched around the middle.

Brad’s every movement sent vibrations through their bodies. Whenever he dove in or pulled himself back onto the deck – picture a slick performing dolphin at Marineland – the girls gasped and turned to each other, bubbling and giggling. Stace could imagine them sixty-five years ago, in braids and pig tails, passing folded notes at the back of a one-room school house.

They would do anything he asked. Whenever he called or waved his hands, another one pushed away from the side and went lustily flopping out to join him in the middle of the deep end. Stace didn’t like these women. She thought they lacked solid convictions and reliable stick-to-itiveness.

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