could make his own vegetarian with a gluten-free crust, but if he was indulging that wouldn’t do it. The way he grew up, he still longed for those things he couldn’t have and pizza and beer were a couple of those things.
His second day home he woke up too early, blended up one of his protein drinks, stretched out, dragged on a wet suit and hit the bay. It was eight-thirty but the sun wasn’t quite up, given all that sea fog, and the water felt icy. He didn’t know the exact distance across the bay but after a fifty-minute swim he’d have an idea. He had already measured a couple of cycling and running routes before making an offer on the house.
He loved the house. He’d looked at a hundred of them, at least, in a lot of places, including Hawaii. Hawaii was tempting; the lifestyle was alluring. But he thought most of his future work would be in the US, and while he didn’t mind travel, he’d like to be able to have a base less than ten hours away. If work took him to Chicago or New York or Los Angeles he could get home to Thunder Point in six hours or less. Boulder, being in the center of the country, was practical but wasn’t as tempting as this unpretentious little fishing village on the ocean. There was a house on Cape Cod he liked but the East Coast beyond the cape wasn’t as peaceful or traffic friendly as Oregon. He remembered asking Cooper, Doesn’t anyone know about this place yet? The freeways weren’t clogged, the air was clean, there were some wide-open spaces... When he was ten years old, the idea that he could live wherever he wished had never occurred to him. But then, when he was ten his most urgent concern was eating and staying warm.
He set the timer on his watch, walked into the water, dove, swam out past the haystack rocks and began swimming from end to end across the bay. When the timer went off he’d made seven trips across the bay—he judged the distance across the beach as slightly more than a quarter of a mile. Maybe four-tenths of a mile. He had a laser measuring tool and later he’d check to see how close he’d been, but even those devices weren’t perfect. By the time he exited the water, the sun was shining. He’d ride for a few hours today; tomorrow he’d go for a run. He’d do one test triathlon before the next competition, only one.
There was a kid sitting on the beach stairs to the house next door to his. He had a laptop balanced on his knees and wore black-framed glasses. Blake shook off the excess water and pulled off his hood and goggles. He walked up to the kid. “Hey,” he said, a little breathless.
“Hey,” the kid said. “You came in second in Sydney.”
Blake smiled. “I had a good race.”
“Your times were good but McGill beat you. He beats you pretty regular.”
“You stalking me, kid?”
“Nah, just looked you up. So, what made it a good race?”
“First, what’s your name?”
“I’m Charlie,” he said, sticking out a hand. And with one finger on the other hand he pushed his glasses up on his nose.
“Nice to meet you, Charlie. I guess you know me already.”
“I asked Cooper who you were and he said you were racing in Australia and I looked you up.” He shrugged. “You have a pretty good record.”
“Thanks,” Blake said, raising a brow in question. In fact, he had a great record. “What else did you find out about me?”
“Well...you had to teach yourself to swim.”
“That’s right.”
“How’d you do that?”
“The same way I learned almost everything— survival. I fell in a pool. Or maybe I got pushed in, I can’t remember. And I couldn’t swim. Went down like a rock.”
“Did you have to get rescued?”
“Nope. It was in college and I was at a pool party. I don’t think anyone was paying attention. I held my breath and walked out. My lungs just about exploded.”
“You walked out?” Charlie asked, astonished.
“That was my only option at the time. I was an expert on depth because I couldn’t swim. Every time I was near a pool I made sure I knew where the shallow and deep ends where. I fell in the middle, eyeballed the shallow end and walked. It was slow. Nobody knows the depth and contour of a pool like a kid who can’t swim. Then I taught myself to swim because walking out in water over your head isn’t a good experience. I read about swimming, practiced it. I watched some video of little kids taking lessons.”
“That pool you walked out of wasn’t that big, I guess.”
“Any pool when you’re in over your head is big. After that I learned to tread water and then, since I knew nothing, teaching me to swim was kind of easy—there were no bad habits to unlearn.”
“They start you out with a life jacket?” Charlie asked.
“Nah, that’s not the best way to learn to swim. Best way to stay alive if you have an accident, though. Even experienced swimmers will wear flotation jackets under certain circumstances. The best way is to learn to respect the water, learn the moves, breathe right, understand buoyancy. They teach babies, you know. They don’t use any flotation devices. They teach them to hold their breath, fan the water, to kick, to roll over on their backs to breathe, to... Hey, you swim, right?”
Charlie shook his head.
“You live on a beach and don’t swim?”
He shook his head again. “I don’t live here. My mom works for Mrs. Banks. Since I come with her to work every day, I’m going to go to school here in town but we live... We live a few miles away.”
“And you don’t swim,” Blake said again.
Charlie shook his head. “That never came up before.”
Blake laughed. He understood that completely. “So, what’s up with Mrs. Banks?”
“ALS. She’s doing good. She’s not end stage,” Charlie said, as if he understood such things. “She still walks a little bit but never alone and my mom is optimistic. But she needs a nurse and it’s not my mom’s first ALS patient. I’m really sorry she has ALS but I think I’m going to like the school... Well, for as long as my mom works for Mrs. Banks.”
“Hopefully a long time,” Blake said.
“Yeah, for her sake, for sure. So what made it a good race? You got beat.”
“Gimme a break, will you? I came in second—that’s a damn good show. Like you said, McGill beats me regularly. This time, though, he announced his retirement.” Blake made a face. “Gonna really miss that guy.” Then he laughed. “Seriously, I had good times. I was close to my personal-best swimming and, in case you haven’t figured it out, that’s not my easiest sport. But I run like the wind.”
Charlie just grinned at him.
“I guess I better come next door and introduce myself to Mrs. Banks, huh? After I clean up, of course. What’s her schedule like?”
“After her nap, right before dinner, everyone is usually around. And she’s downright perky.”
“Everyone?” Blake asked.
