A P&P Short Story, Part 5

Happy Friday! It’s been a busy week for me, so I’m afraid I still haven’t finished this story…and this installment feels a bit raw and rushed. In other words, thanks for hanging in there with me!

(If you’re new to this story and are brave enough to read the previous installments, here are parts one, two, three, and four.)

I foresee two or three more scenes. For now, here’s our “Ramsgate” moment.

Before reading further, please know that this installment contains implied but non-graphic references to sexual assault.

If you have any questions, concerns, or thoughts to share, please don’t hesitate to comment or email me.

Over the years, Liz had developed a hypothesis about coaching: where coaches stood during warm ups hinted at their overall approach to the sport. There were those coaches who put their feet up in the coaches’ lounge, sending an assistant or a team captain to the pool deck to supervise. Then there were the coaches who stood at the very edge of the pool, shouting incessant instructions at their swimmers.

Initially, she had assumed the loungers were less likely to win. Then she had wondered if the shouters were hurting their chances by damaging team morale. In fact, there seemed to be no correlation between winning, losing, lounging, and shouting—at least, not that she could tell. But she did observe a pattern in the swimmers’ attitudes: those with lounging coaches seemed more likely to leave trash in the locker rooms and grab for their phones the moment they were out of the pool; those with shouting coaches often snapped at officials and berated each other for mistakes.

So naturally, Liz and Charlotte chose to position themselves along one of the walls of the pool deck—far enough away from the water to give the swimmers their space, but close enough to remind them that there were, in fact, adults present. This location also gave Liz a good view of the audience milling about the observation deck—not that she was looking for anyone in particular, of course.

“Anne seems in good spirits for once,” Charlotte noted, as the girls trooped out of the locker room and began diving into the pool.

Liz tore her gaze from the observation deck and watched Anne bump Georgi playfully on the shoulder just before jumping into the water. Usually, Anne was their most morose swimmer at a meet, always worrying she was going to make a fool of herself.

“Perhaps her spirits are too good,” Charlotte muttered, when Anne began laughing and splashing her teammates. “This isn’t a pool party. At least the other girls seemed focused.”

Liz glanced at each of her swimmers in turn, but it was Georgi she studied longest. Was she focused—or was she trying to keep herself calm? She was moving slowly, hands clenched by her side as she walked toward the pool. Even when a teammate called out to her, she stared fixedly at the water. And when she climbed onto the starting block, she went completely still.

“Hey, Georgi, coming in?” shouted Anne.

Georgi didn’t move except to breathe, and each breath seemed too quick, too shallow to be the kind of meditative breathing some athletes practiced before an event.

Liz glanced at Charlotte, wondering if her assistant was seeing the same signs of panic. But Charlotte had turned to talk to Caroline (or Louisa), who was whining about how badly her new goggles fit.

Heart pounding, Liz strode toward the pool—not to the side where Georgi stood, but to the opposite end. Placing herself in Georgi’s line of sight, Liz met the girl’s eyes and waited until she saw something like recognition there. All at once, the girl’s frame loosened and she gave a curt nod—a version of “I’m okay,” or so Liz hoped. Only when Georgi dived into the pool and began slicing through the water, each arm performing a sharp, angry stroke, did Liz breathe easier.

“She’s going to tire herself out,” said a voice from behind.

Yelping, Liz spun around to see George Wickham grinning at her.

“Oh! You scared the hell out of me, George!”

He winked. “That’s not quite the reaction I aim for with lovely ladies such as yourself.”

“Ha, ha,” said Liz weakly. She turned away, musing at how much could change in a year. Last February, she’d spent a good thirty minutes flirting with him while they waited for their teams’ respective turns to use the pool for warm ups. Now she just wanted him to go away so she could focus on her swimmers—and perhaps glance, once more, at the observation deck to see if there was, among the spectators, a certain dark-haired devil wearing a knit Meryton Academy hat. No luck. Had he been unable to make it to the meet, after all?

“Is she new to your team?” George asked, sidling up to Liz and nodding toward Georgi, who continued to swim as if her life depended on completing each lap in record time. Much as she hated to admit it, George was right: Georgi was going to exhaust herself.

“She looks a undisciplined,” continued George. “Warm ups are a time to—”

“She’s not undisciplined,” Liz interrupted. “She’s just—”

“Seriously, Liz, tell her to slow down.”

“What are you doing on the pool deck, anyway? Didn’t Philips already have its warm up period?”

George tapped the letters embroidered onto the breast of his polo shirt. “Not at Philips anymore.”

Liz narrowed her eyes, studying the logo. “GA? Which school is— ”

“Ah, Liz! I’m so hurt! It’s my swimming consulting group, Growth in Adversity—you know, the one I told you about last year?”

Growth in Adversity? A great topic for an essay or story, perhaps—but as the name for a consulting group? Eek.

“I quit Philips and decided to dedicate myself to freelance work,” he said, puffing out his chest.

Oh, right. What she had remembered as thirty minutes of flirtation had in fact been approximately eight minutes of flattery and twenty-two minutes of George describing how unhappy he was at The Philips School, how they didn’t give him the respect he (a former Olympian-hopeful) deserved, how if he could only get the funds, he’d take his part-time consulting gig full time.

What had she been thinking? Sure, he was good looking (if you liked the tanned, muscular type) and charming (if you liked the fawning type), but had she really found anything remotely attractive about him?

(Are men who insult you through email, send wacky letters by mail, and have artisanal fries delivered via Uber Eats attractive? asked her inner-cynic. Hell yes, responded her head and heart in unison.)

“I now offer private coaching services,” said George, “and help connect high school swimmers with college recruiters. Do you remember Mary King?”

“Er…wasn’t she the swimmer who won nearly half the events at New Englands last winter?”

“That’s the one.” George smirked. “I got her into Harvard.”

“That’s great,” she said, wondering just how much one really had to do to “convince” a college recruiter that a top-notch swimmer from a top-notch prep school would be a good fit for Harvard. “Look, I really ought to…” Liz nodded toward the pool and started to move away.

“If you think any of your swimmers could use a little help,” he said, grabbing her by the arm, “give me a call, okay?”

She glared at him. “What are you doing?”

“I can text you my contact info,” he added, smiling.

“Let go of my arm, George.”

“What’s your number?” His fingers crawled up her skin, his thumb rubbing hard circles into her biceps. “We can talk about swimming—or any other topic you find…attractive.”

And then, with sickening clarity, she understood.

Yanking her arm free, she asked, “Last year, when you were still coaching at Philips but ‘consulting’ on the side, did you work with any of my current students?”

His gaze flicked toward the pool. “Listen, whatever you’ve heard— ”

“Oh, I haven’t heard anything,” she said, taking a step back. “But you’ve just told me everything I need to know.”

A buzzer sounded, indicating her swimmers had three more minutes before the next team’s warm-up period. Glancing anxiously toward the water, she saw Georgi and the other girls concentrating on their drills, none of them paying her any mind. Thank God. The best thing she could do now was get George Wickham off the pool deck before Georgi exited the pool.

She looked over at the east wall, hoping she’d see Charlotte. Though they didn’t have a signal for “Abusive A-Hole on Deck,” she figured a desperate waving of her arms would do the trick. Charlotte, however, was no longer there.

“You know, Liz,” said George, “I thought you of all people would understand how this game works.”

Looking around frantically—where was Charlotte?—she told herself to ignore whatever idiocy came out of his mouth. She just had to get him away from Georgi…

“Both of us, public school kids,” he continued, stepping closer to her, “both of us, outsiders in this world of privilege. They use their money to do whatever they want while we—”

“Wait,” she said, unable to stop herself. “You said last year that you graduated from Meryton Academy.” That was how they’d started talking. He’d seen the logo on her school polo shirt and told her he was an alum. “What about you?” he’d asked, with that winning smile of his. “Maybe we were there at the same time?” But no: she’d been a public school kid from kindergarten through university.

“Well, I was a public school kid,” he said now, “at least until I went to MA on scholarship, but that’s not the point, Liz. I’m saying we both know how these people operate, how—”

She turned to look him full in the face. “You never answered my question, George: what are you doing on the pool deck if you don’t have a team here?”

His mouth hardened. “I’m friends with Forster, one of the organizers. At least he understands how important it is that I be allowed to do my job, even if certain families attempt to abuse their power.”

How dare he talk about abuse of power?

These words were on the tip of her tongue, but—no. She had no right to speak about Georgi, nor would it do any good, not here, not now.

But oh, she was furious! No one knew better than she how some families used their money to wield undue influence. She saw it in every aspect of her job: parents who complained about grades, parents who angled for a better room in the dorm, parents who thought their child deserved more coaching attention. While it wasn’t just the wealthy parents who complained (almost everyone thought their kid deserved the best), the wealthy parents were more likely to get their way.

And then there were those amazing students without family connections, the ones who were hard-working and talented but who struggled to fit in from the day they stepped on campus because they hadn’t attended the same junior boarding school or gone to a prized lacrosse camp or vacationed on that exclusive Caribbean island like a number of their classmates.

Maybe George Wickham had been one of the kids on the outside. God knows it couldn’t have been easy for him, but now he was the abuser, and Liz wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all.

But she didn’t; she couldn’t. Georgi was all that mattered right now. Liz glanced at the clock, then at the pool. Her swimmers would be finishing their last laps in less than a minute. Think, Liz, think!

So instead of ranting, or better yet, pushing George into the pool, she took a deep breath and asked, “See those security guards?”

George looked over his shoulder. The two guards were blocking the doors to the pool deck, trying to keep someone from entering—no doubt a parent trying to bring a swimmer some piece of gear or a good-luck charm they’d forgotten.

“If you’re trying to threaten me, Liz—”

“I’m not threatening you. I’m just advising you, George: get the hell off this pool deck, now.”

“I told you, Forster—”

“You may be friends with Forster, but it just so happens I’m good friends with the Colonel.”

George went still. “The Colonel?”

“Indeed.”

Actually, the Colonel was not a friend so much as a friendly acquaintance. Colonel Richard (whose first name no one seemed to know, despite the fact that he’d been the lead organizer at Ramsgate for over a decade) was one of those ex-army officers who somehow managed to be authentically affable and scary as hell at the same time. Rumor was, if you angered the Colonel, you could forget about booking a spot at Ramsgate in the future—and it just so happened a good number of college recruiters came to Ramsgate.

“If he knew you were harassing my swimmers…” said Liz, shrugging.

“I am not harassing—”

“You will be if you’re on this pool deck when they get out of the water, George. If you so much as look at any of them, I’ll call security over—and they’ll call the Colonel.”

He held up his hands. “Whoa. Fine. Major overreaction!” Then, just as he he turned away, he muttered, “Bitch.”

Saved by the buzzer. If it hadn’t sounded again, signaling the end of their warm up period, Liz really would have pushed him into the pool.

“All right, girls!” she called, her voice steady despite how badly the rest of her was shaking. “Good work! Find your towel. Put on your sweats! You know the drill…”

“Warmth is winning!” some of the girls chanted dutifully—not Liz’s favorite mantra, by any stretch of the imagination, but it was true: keeping those muscles warm and primed was crucial.

Almost as crucial as having a healthy mindset. Georgi—had she seen Wickham? Was that why she had frozen in place on the starting block? Liz glanced around, searching for her, hoping she wouldn’t spot Wickham on his way out. The jerk sure was taking his time leaving. When he finally reached the far end of the pool, he paused, dropped his bag, and bent to “fix” the in-tact strap of his swim sandal, meeting Liz’s glower with a sneer and a wink.

“Hey, here are towels for the girls on this side of the pool,” said Charlotte, coming up behind her. “If you can hand them out, I’ll head to the locker room and round up everyone who’s already dressed.”

“Right, thanks. I don’t know what I’d do without you,” Liz added, thinking that it really ought to be Charlotte who was the head coach. Liz had become too involved in one swimmer’s (and that swimmer’s brother’s) life; she needed to focus on the entire team.

So that’s what she tried to do, giving a word of encouragement to each girl who grabbed a towel, forcing herself to look only at her swimmers, not in George’s direction (had he left yet?) or up at the observation deck (was Will going to make it in time?).

Oh hell. What if he had arrived already and she’d missed him? What if he’d seen Wickham from above? What if that person by the door, the one the security guards had been trying to keep out was—

Suddenly, the din of the natatorium split into three, distinct sets of sounds:

1.) by the main doors, a scuffle between a pair of security guards exclaiming, “Stop! We told you! The pool deck is for swimmers only!” and a man in a—oh good god—knit cap shouting, “Let me through, now!”

2.) exiting the locker room, a chorus of laughter and chatter, as the next team emerged onto the pool deck; and,

3.) at the far end of the pool, words, so quiet, but somehow audible (or perhaps Liz only imagined them): Get away from me, get away from me, get away from me.

Liz had once read that, in a crisis, people tended to experience two opposing versions of time: a version that contracted, so that everything seemed to happen in the blink of an eye; and a version that expanded, so that each sound, sight, and sensation imprinted itself firmly on the mind.

For Liz, time didn’t contract or expand; it exploded. The moment she spotted Georgi, leaning away from Wickham, she had room in her brain for only one sight (Georgi), one sound (Will’s voice, shouting Georgi’s name), and one thought (she had to do something, now).   

But what? Liz didn’t have time to decide; she just did.

It was Charlotte who, afterwards, in a frantic whisper, told her exactly what she’d done:

“I was just going into the locker room when I heard a shout, and I turned to see you running across the pool deck—and you never run on a pool deck! I mean, no one should ever run on a pool deck, but you especially don’t run because you’re such a safety freak. Anyway, you were barreling toward this guy who was just sort of looming over Georgi—why was he talking to Georgi?—and it looked like you were going to plow right into him. But you skidded to a stop, and I thought, Oh, thank God, but then—and this is the part I swear I must have imagined because it’s so unlike you—you grabbed this guy’s bag and lobbed into the pool. Are you sure you don’t remember any of this? No? You just…threw into the pool! And then he rounded on you, and he was like, ‘My phone was in there! You’ve ruined my phone!’ And you just stepped around him and took Georgi by the arm and then I thought, Shit, what just happened? Except it wasn’t over because you said—I could hear you because almost no one on the pool deck was talking then; everyone was staring staring— you just looked at that guy and said, ‘Oops!'”

There was one thing Liz did clearly remember about those few frantic moments: meeting Will’s eyes as she and Georgi passed him on the way to the locker room. He stood between the security guards, staring at her as if—well, she couldn’t say what he thought of her. She had only enough time to mouth, “I’m sorry,” before shepherding Georgi into the locker room with the other girls.

The rest of the meet—well, she didn’t get to attend the rest of the meet. Most of the other girls had gone into the locker room just before “the incident,” so thankfully, they had not seen her cause a scene and damage personal property. But they were there when the Colonel, sporting his scary-as-hell face, met her outside the locker room doors a few minutes later.

“Is it true that you, Bennet, that you threw another coach’s bag into the pool?”

“He’s not a coach,” was all Liz was willing to say in front of her team.

“What the hell?” the Colonel demanded, when they were alone in his office. “You know I can’t condone that kind of behavior at Ramsgate!”

Liz hung her head. “I know, I’m sorry, but…Sir, don’t blame my team. Don’t punish them for my rash behavior. I’ll leave, and Charlotte Lucas, my assistant, can take over.” She looked up at him—he was at least 6’5”, part of what made him so scary—and said, “Please.”

“That’s it? You’re not even going to try and explain why you did this?”

“I can’t, not without speaking about matters that…” She shook her head. “Let’s just say that George Wickham is…”

“He’s a slimy S.O.B., that’s what he is,” the Colonel filled in, when she couldn’t bring herself to tell a story that wasn’t hers to tell—a story she didn’t fully know, even if she could guess at enough details to make her sick at heart.

“I’ve heard rumors about him,” the Colonel continued, “and I know for certain that his contract at Philips wasn’t renewed. But he wasn’t fired for cause, and there’s nothing I’ve heard that allows me to bar him from these events. You, however—throwing personal property into the pool? What am I supposed to do with that?”

Liz shrugged, trying not to imagine just what Cathy deBourgh would say about this latest, shining example of her lack of professionalism. Maybe she just wasn’t meant to be a teacher.

“The thing is,” said the Colonel, his voice softening, “I didn’t actually see it happen.”

“You weren’t there?”

“Nope. I was here, in the office, talking through the last-minute changes in timing procedures with the officials. So, yeah, I’ve only heard about what happened. And I’ve heard such different accounts of the incident, Bennet. Puzzles me exceedingly, in fact.”

“Exceedingly, eh?” Despite everything, Liz managed a wobbly smile. “Is this standard military jargon, or do I detect a secret love of nineteenth literature in you, Colonel?”

His lips quirked. “What can I say? My boyfriend and I watch a lot of Masterpiece Theater. The point is, I don’t know all the particulars of the situation. One of the other coaches told me he thought it was all an accident—a misunderstanding of some kind. And who knows? Maybe it was. Maybe you slipped on the wet pool deck and Wickham’s bag ended up in the water.”

Though she’d been too angry, too anxious to remember exactly what had happened, she knew enough to be sure that no, it hadn’t been an accident.

“Actually, Colonel, the truth is—”

“The truth is messy as hell, Liz.” The Colonel sighed. “But so is publicity. And I can’t just let you waltz back to the meet and go about the day as if nothing happened. I have to take some kind of action.”

“Right.”

“So, you need to sit this one out, but your team—they can stay.”

“Thank you.” She was embarrassed to find herself blinking back tears. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

  “You’ll probably have to pay for Wickham’s phone,” the Colonel warned, as he led her into the lobby of the natatorium.

She made a face. “Fine.”

“And I can keep him off the pool deck, but I can’t make him leave the event. He’s already threatened to sue, and while I’m usually all for a good fight, I can’t waste the organization’s funds on a losing case.”

“Yeah, I get it. I just wish—”

“Believe me, so do I.”

Liz glanced toward the large windows framing the main entrance of the natatorium. While it wasn’t snowing, it was windy with temperatures around 10° F (because units mattered). She didn’t know where the team’s bus was, and she had no idea how to order an Uber — but none of that mattered, as she’d left her bag in the coaches’ lounge.

“Look, if you can just send out my belongings…”

“I’m not kicking you out of the building, Bennet. Just stay under the radar.” The Colonel pointed to an alcove in the lobby. “There’s a comfy seating area. Grab some nachos at the snack bar and find a good show to watch on your phone for a few hours.”

Given her current status as a troublemaker, Liz decided it was probably best not to remind him that she didn’t have any means of buying snacks or watching shows (not that she’d know how to watch a show on her phone, anyway).

Still, as he headed back to the pool, she did ask for one last favor:  “The swimmer I accompanied into the locker room…is she okay? Can you have Charlotte Lucas let me know if she needs anything or—”

Liz stopped abruptly, realizing she and the Colonel were no longer alone. Across the lobby stood Georgi, clutching her brother’s hand.

Colonel Richard glanced over at them, then back at Liz, eyebrows raised.

“I’m all set Colonel,” she said quietly. “Thanks.”

In the echo of the Colonel’s departure, she, Georgi, and Will stood in silence. Then, before she could manage to articulate questions she most wanted to ask (“How are you? What can I do? Can you forgive me?”), Georgi raced across the lobby and threw her arms around Liz.

Thanks for reading! Again, I welcome any feedback you’d like to share. I’ll be traveling next week, so I plan to post again in two weeks, on August 4.