Still Waters

© 1986

One

Maddy Gordon knew she must be having a nightmare. She'd gone to sleep unawares in San Ramon, California, and awakened in Munchkinland. It was the only explanation. All around her were little heads, ranging in color from palest flaxen to glossy black, and not one of them came more than two inches above her kneecaps. She felt as conspicuous as a giraffe in a pygmy village.

It wasn't too late. She could still change her mind. Furtively, she looked around the huge, murky room, breathing the pungent smell of chlorine while she considered the possibility of escape. She'd managed to put off fulfilling her New Year's resolution until June-no reason why she couldn't put it off a little longer. Like… until the next New Year.

But no. Maddy took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, resolutely avoiding looking at the glittering expanse of water. She'd made up her mind. No matter what, come hell or high water, this was going to be the year she learned to swim.

She'd been meaning to do it for years, but somehow she always managed to find a very good reason why it wasn't the right time. But now she was twenty-five, beginning her second quarter-century. It was the kind of milestone that couldn't be ignored. This, she was determined, would be the year she finally faced her unreasoning terror of water and conquered it.

Way back in early spring, when the resolve had been fresh and the reality remote, she had gone down to the San Ramon Parks and Recreation Department to inquire about swimming lessons. The girl at the desk had been accommodating. There were, the girl told her, classes for beginners, advanced beginners, and intermediates; classes in advanced life-saving, synchronized swimming, and scuba diving; classes for moms and babies; and classes for the physically handicapped. Maddy had thanked her and signed up for the beginners' class, at twelve-thirty. The girl hadn't asked about age or thought to tell her that, except for Maddy, the class would consist almost entirely of five-year-olds.

Now Maddy made the mistake of looking out over the gently undulating, iridescent expanse of water. She felt an instantaneous wave of giddiness. She thought that if she could only sit down, she wouldn't feel so huge and ungainly.

Feeling large and awkward wasn't new to her. She was five ten and had achieved most of that height very early. And to make matters worse, height wasn't the only thing she'd acquired early. Some of her most painful memories had to do with her sixth-grade dance class, when most of her partners had been precisely at eye level with her newly emerging bosom. Now, of course, neither her height, proportions, nor Nordic coloring could be considered very remarkable. In this Southern California town she was just another California "golden girl." But only on the outside. On the inside she was still that gawky little girl, embarrassed and dismayed by her own body.

There seemed to be no place to sit except on the edge of the pool. As much as she yearned to sit down, she wasn't ready for that yet. The thought of it made her shiver and break out in goose bumps, a condition that only intensified her self-consciousness by making her nipples harden and stand out like buttons under the form-fitting racing-style bathing suit she'd bought especially for the coming ordeal. Steady, she told herself, clamping her jaw on chattering teeth. She was going to go through with this if it killed her.

To take her mind off what was coming, she looked around at the other members of the class. They were all girls, except for one pale little boy with flaxen hair who was sucking his thumb and looking reproachfully into space through luminous, tear-filled eyes. Obviously Maddy wasn't the only one suffering from the jitters. Several other children were clutching brightly colored towels like security blankets and trying to look brave. Only one child, a plump little girl with stubby black pigtails, actually seemed to be happy with the situation. She kept waving to her mother in the observation balcony, and receiving the requisite nods and waves in return. With that reassurance she strutted to the pool's edge, plunked herself down, and began energetically slapping the water with her feet. How Maddy envied her.

She just wished the instructor would hurry up! This suspense was awful. She wondered which one it would be-that nice, stocky young Oriental boy who had taken her registration card at the desk, or the girl with the long blond braid and the red, lifeguard's T-shirt over her bathing suit who was hosing down the far end of the deck.

And then suddenly she stopped speculating. Her heart took a sickening dive that landed it somewhere in the vicinity of her knees. Oh, Lord, she fervently prayed, please, please don't let it be that one…

The man who had just come out of the office and had paused to talk to the Oriental lifeguard was wearing a T-shirt over his red, lifeguard's trunks too. A white shirt with the Parks and Rec logo on it. Below the trunks his legs were long and very muscular- swimmer's legs. And that T-shirt couldn't begin to hide the thickness of his neck and bicepses, or the width of his shoulders, or the depth of his chest, or the trimness of his waistline. The man was definitely a swimmer. World-class, if perfection of body was any indication. But that wasn't the only reason Maddy's knees had turned to jelly. He was carrying a clipboard, to which were clipped the familiar blue registration slips, and he kept turning his head to glance at the small, ragged assembly waiting on the pool deck. And now he was moving toward them with a frown corrugating his brow. God had obviously not seen fit to answer her prayers.

The man was absolutely gorgeous-or would have been if he hadn't been looking so stern and forbidding. His hair was brown-thick, wavy, and tousled, as if he'd climbed out of the water, combed it with uncaring fingers, and allowed it to dry that way. It was highlighted with the rusty gold that comes of almost constant exposure to sun and pool chemicals. His face was made rugged by a nose that had come in second best in at least one encounter with an immovable object, and a chin with a slightly off-center dimple. His forehead was wide and sunburned, his eyes close-set beneath sun-bleached brows. His mouth, though set in lines that looked harsh and hostile, was nicely shaped. And, for some reason, he seemed familiar. Although she couldn't imagine where or when, Maddy felt certain she'd seen him before…

She suddenly became aware of furtive movements all around her. The children, awed and intimidated by the instructor's scowl, were gathering close to her, recognizing and moving instinctively toward the closest thing to maternal protection available. Something touched Maddy's leg, tickling. One child, a frail little dark-haired girl, had edged so close that the sleeve of the T-shirt the child wore over her bathing suit was brushing Maddy's leg.

Without thinking, Maddy dropped her hand to the thin, bony shoulder. With a quick, fearful movement the child looked up, and Maddy found herself gazing into a pair of huge, apprehensive brown eyes. And for just a moment she forgot her own fears. That look- she'd seen it too many times before. She swallowed a lump in her throat and with a warm, reassuring smile, opened her hand. The girl's small brown one crept into it like a hunted animal seeking refuge.

"I'm sorry," the instructor said, stopping directly in front of Maddy. He sounded like an impatient and beleaguered man trying very hard to be polite. "If you must stay, you'll have to wait on the observation deck with the other mothers. But it really would be better-"

"I beg your pardon?" Maddy's voice emerged as a low and completely bewildered croak.

The man frowned at his clipboard. "No moms allowed in this class-sorry. The mothers-and-kids class meets in the mornings."

"But I'm not-"

"If there's a mistake, I'm sure the office can help you straighten it out. Maybe they can move her into a morning class." His gaze dropped to the child beside Maddy, and suddenly softened. "Or she can stay-see how it works out…" He dropped to one knee. Balancing the clipboard on the other knee, he held out a large, tanned hand. The girl flinched, and shrank against Maddy's legs.

The man smiled. Without warning, Maddy felt a curious little squeezing sensation in her heart; at the same moment, she experienced another wave of deja vu.

"Hey," the instructor said, "my name's Zack. What's yours?"

"Theresa," the child whispered. She stared warily at the offered hand, but didn't relinquish her death grip on Maddy's. After a moment's hesitation the man reached out and gave the tail of the little girl's T-shirt a friendly tug.

"You look pretty tough to me," he said. "I'll bet you could handle this class all by yourself. What do you say you let your mom go over there with the other moms while we give it a try?"

In a barely audible voice Theresa said, "She's not my mother."

"Sister?"

A solemn head-shake rejected that. The instructor glanced up at Maddy, who was beginning to wish passionately that the concrete deck would open up and swallow her. He did a double take, then let his gaze travel slowly upward, taking in every single inch of Maddy's body, lingering on the place where her breasts made generous hemispheres and the nipples still stood out in merciless relief under the sleek black suit.

"Baby-sitter?" he ventured, frowning again.

"No," Maddy said miserably, and cleared her throat. "I'm not-I'm… uh… I think I'm in this class. You should have my registration card there someplace. Maddy Gordon?" She faltered in the face of the man's silence. "I signed up last winter… spring. I'm sorry, nobody told me. I did put down my birth date-right there on the card-and no one said a thing. I'm sorry. I'll-"

"You're… a student?" That wonderful smile was only a rapidly fading memory. The eyes that had flamed for one moment were a dark, smoky blue. "Are you sure you're a beginner?"

"Oh, yes," Maddy said, laughing nervously. "Absolutely." There wasn't a glimmer of response. Oh, Lord, she thought, why couldn't it have been someone jolly and friendly, like that boy in the office, or someone who might understand, like the girl with the braid? Why, oh, why did she have the bad luck to get stuck with Aquaman?

And why did he look so familiar? It didn't seem likely she'd have met him in the course of her job. On the one side, all the men she knew were either district attorneys, public defenders, or social workers- earnest, harried individuals with permanent worry wrinkles and paunches. And on the other… Well, no, certainly not. It was true that the people she faced every day came from all levels of society, but most of them had the characteristics she'd learned to recognize, the unmistakable signs of underlying anger and tension. No, she would stake her professional reputation that, for all his powerful build and forbidding expression, this man had no capacity for violence.

Admittedly, she'd arrived at that conclusion by completely subjective and unscientific means. She'd watched his hands. She'd watched him when he stood up, noticing the way he'd first placed a calm, reassuring hand on Theresa's shoulder, as if he understood instinctively that a sudden, violent movement would frighten her.

"Okay," he said now, raising his voice and turning to the other children as if Maddy had ceased to exist. "First thing we're all going to do is… drop everything. Right. Drop it right down on the ground, just like this." The clipboard clattered to the deck. The thumb-sucker stared at him with round, startled eyes. The two with towels dropped them and giggled nervously. Theresa clutched a handful of her T-shirt and glanced up at Maddy.

"Next thing we're all going to do is this." Zack raised his arms above his head and placed one hand over the other. Four pairs of childish arms followed suit readily, while Theresa gave Maddy a questioning look.

"Go on," Maddy whispered, squeezing the damp little hand. "Try it." Another pair of arms went up. Maddy started to lift hers, too, and then, feeling indescribably foolish, lowered them and cleared her throat. "Mr… Zack-"

"Okay," the instructor said, ignoring the interruption, "now we're all ready to dive right into the pool! Ready, set-"

Five pairs of eyes got big and round. One by one the arms came down. The thumb-sucker looked ready to cry again, and even the plump, happy girl looked uncertainly at that huge, empty expanse of water.

"Smart kids," Zack said solemnly, nodding his head. "You guys are absolutely right. You know you aren't ready to jump into the pool, don't you?" Five little heads moved slowly back and forth. "Okay, I want you to remember that. Rule number one is: Nobody gets into the water unless I, or one of the other lifeguards, is right here. Got it? Great. My name's Zack. Nice and easy. Now your turn. Your name is…"