Learning To Swim For Real

Chapter 3: Different Strokes

Jack huffed out a deep breath and looked around his new home.

Well. That could've gone better.

He hadn't intended to actually laugh at her. He knew that most of the world didn't spend most of their waking hours in the water, smelling of chlorine, seeing lane lines and water reflecting off of the backs of their eyelids when their eyes were closed. He'd gotten used to the looks he got from regular people when he went out with kids from the team; pasty, soft people with oddly smooth hair and no tan lines, people who ate minuscule quantities of food and didn't shave their bodies.

This girl, however, Kristen? No, that wasn't right. Kelly? No. Kelsey. Kelsey Carlisle. How could he forget? She was famous. She was in that sci-fi movie he'd seen in the spring. Anyway. Kelsey. How could she possibly think she was going to train to play Marian Lowell in a bikini? With her hair down? With no goggles? And in that pool? It didn't even have real lanes.

Jack ran a hand through his hair, which was crunchy from the chlorine. Maybe he wasn't the right person for this job. Maybe Kristen--no--Kelsey--needed a woman coach. Or at least someone who was more of an extrovert, better at talking to people.

But he needed this job. It was perfect. It kept him in LA, it gave him a place to live, it paid very well, and it gave him time to work out. Hell, maybe Kelsey wasn't so prickly after you got to know her. After all, it took different methods to get to different people, right? Coach came off so taciturn and mean, for example, but he was a teddy bear after you got to know him.

Jack took another deep breath, rose, and went to look for prickly Kelsey.

He knocked on the patio door, peering earnestly through the glass at the dim interior. He could see her, sitting on an expensive looking sofa, legs tucked under her. She'd donned a cabana coat that set off her hair and tan, and was looking at her lap top. She looked up at his knock, expression darkening as she rose.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"I wanted to apologize for what happened back there," Jack began. "We just got off on the wrong foot, I think." He gestured toward the sofa. "We should talk about what we need to do, the work we need to accomplish before your filming begins in September, don't you think?"

Kelsey nodded unwillingly, and they sat on opposite ends of the sofa.

"Okay, so first, how about if you tell me a little about yourself?" Jack asked. "Where you're from, how old you are?"

"Really?" Kelsey was surprised into speaking normally, her anger forgotten. Everyone knew who she was, no one ever asked her about herself.

"I'm Kelsey Carlisle, and I'm twenty three," she began. "I'm from Des Moines, Iowa, and I'm an actress." She shrugged. "I fought really hard to get this part, so I have to really nail it, or I am so busted, you know?" She glanced away, then back at Jack, gray eyes serious. "I know I got the part because I'm popular right now, and I look kind of like Marian Lowell, but I really have to make it mine, and I'm ready to do whatever I have to do." She gestured toward Jack.

"Okay, well, I'm Jack, Jack LaGuardia, and I'm twenty-one, and I'm from a small town in central California called Warren," he began. "I've been swimming on a team since I was four, along with my three brothers. I'm at UCSM on a swimming scholarship, but I'm pre-law, so I have a heavy academic load." He smiled and looked down. "Because of the swimming, maybe, or because of being the youngest of a really loud bunch, I'm pretty quiet. I'm not very social, I don't talk much, and I'm not a super good communicator, I've been told." He looked at Kelsey with a little smile. "So if I say the wrong thing or whatever, I apologize in advance, okay?"