"I'm sorry, " the voice on the phone said. "Abby said to call you and tell you she couldn't make it today. She's got the flu and she's been barfing all night. She's laying on the bed with a bucket beside her . . . oh, shit, there she goes again." There was a distinct click as the phone hung up.

"Well, that tears that," Erica Pearson said, realizing she was holding the dead phone in her hand. There was a lot of flu going around the Northern Michigan University campus, and Abby was the third member of the women's swim team to have to skip this afternoon's meet.

Someone apparently had a distinct lack of imagination when they named the building she was in the "Physical Education Instructional Facility". Everyone referred to it as the "Peif", but it had often seemed to Erica that they should have been able to hit up some donor for enough money to put their name on it. As it was, the Peif, while it was a nice facility for a small college, it had its limitations. The coach's office near the pool in the Peif was small, but there was enough room for some of the team members to hang out. Often there were several girls hanging out there, shooting the bull and talking about boys and swimming, but only one was here, now. "More trouble, coach?" the tall blond girl leaning in the doorway asked.

"Afraid so," Erica nodded, putting the phone down and looking at Michelle, who was as much as any her star swimmer. Women's swimming was not a big sport at Northern -- it was first and foremost a hockey school -- but Michelle was a good swimmer for a small state school. She might not have made the team at some place like U of M, but she was good enough to be one of the top swimmers in what was really a pretty small-bore league, scattered around the northern Great Lakes, where it was now the depths of winter, with an ice-covered Lake Superior only a few blocks away from where she sat. The odd juxtaposition of swimming and snow hip-deep on a tall moose just didn't quite fit, and that may have accounted at least partly for no one taking it seriously. "Abby's got it now."

Michelle shook her head. "That means we don't have enough people to swim relays, right?"

The coach nodded, mentally categorizing who she had left and what their specialties were. "Unless we can come up with a last minute replacement," she said. "We'll probably do all right as long as you and Andrea and Leesa hold out, but I sure hate to lose the relay points. Even if we come in last in the relays, we'll get more points than we would in a forfeit. You know anybody?"

Michelle shook her head again; long blonde hair swung in a shimmering wave. The coach had long wished she'd crop her hair -- it might save a few hundredths of a second -- but there was a limit to what she could ask of a student. Michelle liked her hair long, and thought it make her look sexier. She was probably right. "Not really," she sighed, thinking hard about it. "There's a girl in my dorm that said she swam in high school, but she said she wasn't very good. Besides, she may have taken off for the weekend."

"Take the phone and see if you can track her down," Erica suggested. "She may be our only hope. Call Andrea and Leesa. See if they know anyone. I'll go over to the pool and see if there's anyone that looks like they can swim."

"I doubt it," Michelle said doubtfully, with a hint of disgust. "There was only a handful of people there when I came through, and half of them were rolling kayaks."

"Damn, I wish they wouldn't do that," the coach snorted as she got to her feet. "I know those boats are supposed to be kept washed out, but they get all sorts of crap in the water." She headed for the door, while Michelle headed for the phone.

It was probably a hopeless mission, Erica thought as she headed for the pool. But, she might be able to find someone that could swim four laps. Or, at least one. That would help a little.

Her first look at the handful of people in the pool proved her pretty much right about the hopelessness, but it was good to get out of the office and steal away from the worries for a moment. There were a few people screwing around, but no one was really trying to swim a lap. There was one girl that was swimming across the pool, but slowly, without any apparent skill. Erica walked down to the middle of the pool, then sat in a chair to watch, anyway. Even though there was no chance of any help here, it was nice to watch people in the water having fun. Down at the far end of the pool, there were three or four whitewater kayaks, from the University's Outdoor Club, which was headquartered in the Peif, and stored boats and gear in a back room there. The Outdoor Club was a big deal at Northern, given that it was surrounded by a lot of wild country of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and the big lake. Though much of it had been cut over for timber a century before, and iron and copper mining had ravaged the landscape, what was left was some of the wilder country in the midwest. That drew a lot of students from out of the area to Northern, students that were interested in the wild country and the recreational opportunities like skiing and snowboarding in the nearly endless winters, whitewater and sea kayaking, climbing, and other outdoor activities in the spring, which seemed hopelessly far off in the middle of a February that was frozen worse than normal. That was a big plus for a college in the shabby old iron mining town that mostly looked like it had seen better days; the railroad ramp up to the big iron ore loading dock over Main Street just underlined that higher education was distinctly a secondary priority in Marquette.

"Hip snap, hip snap! Give it a hip snap!" she heard a female voice break through the babble. Erica glanced across the pool to where the kayakers were messing around. Apparently someone was teaching someone to roll, and after a moment, she realized that the voice belonged to a tall girl in a conservative bikini top, who was standing waist deep in the shallow end of the pool, wearing a black kayak spray skirt on her waist, the neoprene rubber tube top of it clingling tightly around her. She was hanging onto the nose of one of the short whitewater boats, which was most of the way upside down. She grabbed the bow toggle of the boat and reefed into it, but the leverage was bad and before she could get it upright, the guy in the boat popped the skirt and wet exited.

"All right, I'll show you again," the girl said as the guy popped to the surface and stood up. Without anything better to do, Erica watched as the girl lifted the nose of the kayak, dumped some of the water out, then picked it up by the cockpit to drain it some more. Then, leaving it lay on the water upside down, she submerged, rolled herself upside down with a catlike grace and pushed her feet and her butt up into the inverted kayak. The boat hung there for a few seconds, and Erica got a little concerned until she noticed that the girl was calmly fastening the spray skirt to the cockpit coaming. She watched with a slight amazement as the girl reached out, arched her body, and handrolled back up, water dripping out of her short, sandy hair. That kid is at home in the water, the swim coach thought, realizing that she was a little bit familiar.

"OK, give me the paddle," the girl in the kayak said. "This is just a simple sweep roll, but you've got to get the sweep going to support yourself, and then you come back up with the hip snap, not trying to muscle the paddle. Technique, Randy! I'll do this slowly, but watch me."

Erica watched as well. Even though the girl was the right age to be a student, she was evidently an instructor and knew what she was talking about. Erica remembered seeing her around the Peif occasionally before. If she were teaching rolling, that would be the reason why, even though she'd never particularly taken notice of her. That proved absolutely nothing to Erica. Since she was only part-time, she didn't hang around the campus or the Peif much except during practice sessions, so it would have been easy for her to overlook a non-swimmer, even for years.

The girl rolled the boat over, hung upside down, hung the paddle out to the side, swept it back, and s-l-o-w-l-y rolled it about a quarter of the way upright. Then when the paddle was about halfway back, the boat snapped upright. "It's all in the hip snap," she said, looking the guy straight in the face. He was smaller than she, slender, but muscular, but didn't look like a swimmer -- even looking through the water, Erica could see that he didn't have the thighs for it. "Even if you're doing a handroll, it's the hips that do the work," The girl went on in a firm voice. "Once you have that, everything else follows."

She did another roll, then another, much the same way, then one quickly. "You see?" she said to the guy.

The guy was facing the other way, and Erica didn't hear what he said, but he saw the girl roll the boat over, wet exit, and pop to the surface. "OK," she told him. "Dump it out, get back over to the wall and get back in, and we'll try it again. I need to loosen up. I'm going to do a lap while you get set." She peeled off the spray skirt -- the swim coach wondered how she managed peeling off the tight neoprene band around her waist without taking her bikini bottom along with it -- tossed it over to the deck, and started from midwater for the far end.

That's what really caught the coach's attention. She had a nice looking stroke, graceful but powerful, and she was fast. There was no waste motion -- she just went, and went hard. Erica had watched a lot of swimming for many years; she'd swum competitively since grade school down in Chicago, and even though she was now long past the prime years for a swimmer, she still raced occasionally when the chance arose. To her practiced eye, it was clear that this girl knew how to swim -- so much so that Erica pulled the stop watch from its normal position of dangling around the neck. She punched it as the girl in the water executed a pretty good turn -- not perfect, but pretty good, she judged -- and started back, with the stopwatch running against her. Figuring the girl would be heading over to the kayak student, Erica only took a half-length split, then let out a low whistle. It was three or four seconds over what Michelle might have managed, but this girl wasn't racing, just stretching out her muscles. "Holy shit," Erica thought. "How in hell did you get missed?"

Intrigued, the coach walked down the deck for a closer look as the girl worked with the guy in the kayak, oblivious to her watching. "I'm going to hold your hand," the girl in the bikini said as she stood up next to him, not out of breath in the slightest. "We're going to work on that hip snap, and I'll be able to tell if you're trying to muscle it."

Erica sat down and watched, interested in the process but more interested in the instructor. She was a big girl, five-nine, maybe five-ten, and big-boned. Not slender, but lean, with not an ounce of fat on her; well muscled -- not like a body builder, but you could see the muscles working, and obviously strong, and muscle tone at least as good as most female jocks, maybe better. A bigger bust than you'd expect on a swimmer, but not that big. Skin a touch on the dark side, not from a tanning booth, either. In any case, an impressive athlete, sort of like she'd been twenty years before, when she'd been a nationally ranked swimmer.

"All right, let's try it again" the girl said. "I'll get on the bow, but give it a good hip snap." This time, looking very clumsy and probably with a little help from the girl twisting the boat, the guy managed to bring it upright, with a big grin and perhaps a little look of astonishment on his face. "That's the way!" she smiled, yanking the boat down to where she could reach him. She gave him a quick hug of encouragement, then said, "Let's try it again."

He managed it three or four more times, a little more smoothly with each repetition. The last couple of times, the girl stand stood there in the water in front of the kayak with her hands on her hips, not giving him any help at all. "You're getting it," she said, stepping back as he did it again.

After another roll, the girl put her hands behind her on the deck, gave a little spring, and sat there on the edge watching casually. Erica got up and squatted down next to her. "He seems to be getting it," she said conversationally.

"Nailing the first one is always the hardest," the girl said, not taking her eyes off the guy in the boat, obviously ready to spring into action if there was any sign of trouble. "Once you get that and prove it to yourself you can do it, it gets easier."

"Are you an instructor?" Erica asked.

"No, I'm just in the Outdoor Club," the girl said, keeping her eyes on the guy in the boat. "Randy was having a little trouble figuring it out, and I told him I'd help him. I'm not really that good. I first got a roll at Adventure Camp, while I was in high school, but I didn't really nail it down bombproof until I had some good instruction at OLTA. I can do most of the regular rolls pretty good, but I've never worked on the trick stuff much."

"OLTA?"

"Outdoor Leadership Training Academy," the girl explained. "Instead of asking for a car, I leaned on my parents real hard to send me there for the summer when I got out of high school."

Now that she spelled out the acronym, Erica realized that she'd heard the name. It was a special school out west, that taught people how to lead outdoor groups, and helped them develop various outdoor skills, like hiking, climbing, and kayaking. It had a reputation as being a tough school, almost an outdoor boot camp, but it did a good job of turning out people that were competent in almost any backcountry situation, and their graduates had a reputation as being pretty hardcore outdoor people. From what Erica remembered, though, it was more of an adult school, so the girl must have been pretty dedicated to want to attend right out of high school. "You're a student, then?" Erica asked.

"A junior," the girl said noncommittally. "Secondary ed, English and Phys. Ed. minors."

"You're a very strong swimmer," Erica complemented her, again wondering how such talent right here on campus could have been missed. "You ever swim in competition?"

"Only pool class in high school," the girl in the bikini replied, only glancing at the coach. "I was pretty good, and they wanted me to go out for the team, but I had other things I liked to do better."

Not surprising, the coach thought. A girl like her could choose from a lot of sports. Swimmers had to be pretty dedicated to swimming to not get entranced off into other, easier, more fun things. Many did, and apparently here, too. What a shame. "You swim a lot?"

"Not really," the girl said. "I get over here oh, once or twice a week, usually pretty late in the evening, but I try to get in a mile or two when I do. It's a little tough to stay in shape up here in the winter."

"Any idea of your times?"

"No idea," she said, shaking her head. "I don't time myself, but I move along pretty good." She raised her voice. "Hip snap, Randy! You're trying to muscle it again!"

"Look," Erica said, remembering why she was out on the deck of the pool. "I know I know I've never met you, but I'm Erica Pearson. I coach the women's swim team."

"Crystal Chladek," the girl said, not taking her eyes off the kayak. The guy in the boat had done several good rolls by now, but they were getting sloppy. He flopped over again, and managed a clumsy roll where he barely got upright. "Randy, eddy out and take five. You're getting tired," she called. "Just sit there and try to visualize what you're doing."

"Crystal," Erica said. "I know you don't know me from Adam, but I'd like to ask a favor of you."

"What?" the girl in the bikini replied.

The coach explained how the flu had left the team short-handed for the meet, scheduled to begin in a couple hours. "I need someone to fill in on the 400 and 1600 relays, just so we don't have to forfeit. I'm not concerned how we finish, but I do want someone I can be sure can swim 400 meters and get there."

"I was planning on going up to Sugar Mountain and getting in some snowboarding this afternoon," Crystal said with a frown. "Look, Erica, I don't usually do competition stuff, and especially not team stuff."

"Look, I know there's nothing much I can offer you," she began, feeling flustered. Potential like that, wasted. It was irritating. From what little she'd seen this girl swim, with any kind of training, she'd be better than Michelle. With the right kind of training, well, she could go to nationals, maybe even farther. Erica was used to working with kids that were at least used to competing, if not eager, and she knew how to inspire them, motivate them, and work to the best of their ability, but this was different. How to approach someone like this? Well, try being honest. "If I weren't desperate, I wouldn't be asking."

Crystal turned and looked at her; Erica could almost see the boredom in it, if not pure disgust, and hoped that maybe Crystal could see the desperation her face. "Oh, hell," the big girl in the bikini said, finally. "They say the snow is pretty crappy up there anyway. Just this once. Don't try to talk me into getting on the team."

There was a huge crowd for the meet -- maybe 50 people were in the stands surrounding the pool in the Peif, not counting the athletes. Erica shook her head, and wished again that people in "da U.P." took swimming seriously, or even took women's sports seriously. Now hockey, they could take seriously, a bunch of bruisers with missing teeth body-slamming each other around the ice and calling it sport. A pure sport with pure athleticism, like swimming, seemed to leave them cold.

Mostly, though, Erica's attention was on the third leg of the 400 relay, which the Chladek girl was swimming. It had turned out that she was bigger than the other girls, so they'd had trouble finding a team Speedo big enough for her, but good grief, she was moving. Leesa had finished the second leg just about neck and neck for the lead with the girl from Michigan Tech, but Leesa was a good sprinter, and Erica figured that they'd lose the lead in the third leg. It wasn't without hope, since with Michelle anchoring the fourth, they might be able to gain some back.

But, that wasn't what was happening. Despite the obvious need for some coaching -- her entry was bad, and her turn, while adequate, could clearly have been better -- Crystal was opening up a pretty good lead on the Techie, just on raw power. She glanced at the stopwatch -- Crystal's half-lap split was better than she would have expected out of Michelle! What an impressive swimmer! Again she thought how this kid could go far if she wanted to. She had a three body length lead when she touched, and Michelle sprang from the blocks to swim the anchor leg.

It was a close race. Michelle had a couple body lengths at the turn, and went hard all the way back, but the Techie on anchor was faster and closed steadily. It wasn't until the last ten meters that Erica realized that the girls were going to actually win this thing!

She shook her head. Three hours ago she'd have been happy to finish, period, and now they were winning. If Crystal hadn't handed Michelle a big lead, they wouldn't have been close. She glanced at her stopwatch -- Crystal's leg was two seconds faster than Michelle's PR! Good grief . . . it was the first time they'd won a 400 relay all season, and if Abby hadn't have gotten the flu, they wouldn't have won it this time, either. Where had that girl been hiding? Erica shook her head in disgust again. Out on a snowboard, someplace, obviously. What a waste.

The girls didn't particularly know the newcomer, either -- she apparently didn't live in the jock dorm -- but they knew who had won the relay for them. There was some hugging and some smiles going on. There hadn't been enough winning this season, and to pull a surprise like that off against the strong Tech team in the home pool made the victory more sweet.

But, once things settled down, Erica got together with the girls and received more bad news. "Coach," Michelle said, hanging her head. "I'm sorry I was so slow on that last leg. I'm not feeling real good. I think I'm coming down with it, too. Maybe I'd better skip the 1600."

Erica looked at the blonde. She did look pale and wan; and she wasn't one to give up easily. If she had to sit it out, there went having enough girls to do the relay. "Do you think you can do a leg of the 400 relay?" she asked hopefully.

"I can try," Michelle said, looking more hopeful than confident.

Erica nodded; she had to support what spirit the girl had left; there was no other choice. "I'll pencil you in for the first leg," she said, then added the obvious thing, under the circumstances "Crystal, I'd like you to anchor." After all, she was clearly the fastest swimmer on the team today.

"No problem," she shrugged indifferently, as if she didn't much care one way or the other. And, Erica realized, she probably didn't.

"Also, do you think you'd be up to the 1600 individual?" Erica asked, shooting the moon. "I could ask someone else, but with Michelle off her pace and everyone else having to fill in for her and the girls that are gone, well, it's going to poop someone else out to have to do that too."

"I guess," Crystal replied, either unconcerned, or at least without any enthusiasm. "Put me where you want in the free style events, but I've never tried that racing backstroke, and I'm not real good at a butterfly."

Yes, Erica thought, she'd need some coaching, but she had the potential, but was anyone ever going to get it out of her? "Works for me," she replied, relieved at the response. "OK, Andrea, that means you're up next for the 100 butterfly, then the 1600 individual after that for you, Crystal."

"Right, coach," Andrea said with a big smile. "Hey, thanks, Crystal."

Andrea was not normally a lead swimmer, but she came through under the pressure, managing a third in the butterfly, and was just a couple hundredths off a PR; for the moment, the points were in good shape. Once the 1600 was under way, though, and Crystal swimming well, Erica went over and sat down in a chair on the deck. There wasn't much point in standing and yelling at the swimmer, trying to coach her -- she'd either do it or she wouldn't. None of the normal things she'd do to motivate a swimmer would work, and it seemed clear to the coach that pushing the girl too much would lead to a quick "Fuck you" and a quicker view of her backside as she headed for the locker room.

Dennis Shaffer, the sports guy from the Mining Journal, came over and sat down next to her, camera dangling from his neck. "How did you get Killer Chladek to swim for you today?" He asked.

Erica turned and stared at him. "Killer?"

"That's what the guys on the hockey team call her," he grinned. "I wouldn't say it to her face, though. Back when she was a freshman, she was at a party, and some of the hockey guys were there and pretty drunk. One of tried to hit on her, muscle her a bit. She cold-cocked him and knocked out a couple more teeth. Turns out she's a black belt, karate, I think. The word on the hockey team is, 'Don't hit on her. She might hurt you, even if she said yes.' So, how did you get her to swim for you today?"

"I'll be honest. Begging was involved."

A big grin crossed Shaffer's face. "You must beg pretty good. It didn't work for Mykkanen, out at Suicide Hill."

"Huh?" She looked out at the pool. They were on the fourth lap, now; Crystal -- 'Killer Chladek?' was doing well, in second, obviously drafting the Techie that was in the lead. The coach wondered where she'd learned that little trick; it wasn't something you'd expect from a rank novice. The others were definitely falling back. "She ski jumps, too?" She'd been out to Suicide Hill in Ishpeming, fifteen miles west of town. The ski jump was a big deal in the area, which is probably the American hotbed of ski jumping. There was an Olympic training center at Northern, mostly for cross-country skiing and ski jumping, and there were kids around the school that had both the dream and good prospects of going to the Olympics one day. The thought made cold chills run up her spine.

Shaffer didn't appear to notice her discomfort at the thought of Suicide Hill. It was scary to even think of walking to the top of the big ramp, much less shoving off and racing down it at -- what was it, 50 or 60 miles an hour, then flinging yourself over a hill? "Apparently she just took it up this winter for the hell of it," he explained. "She went out a couple weeks ago, when they had a local warmup meet on. She wanted to jump a little, so she signed up for the meet. Took sixth on the 90-meter. There were some kids from the Olympic team there, just for practice. She beat several of them. Mykkanen said that with a little training and practice, she could go to the Olympics. She turned him down."

"A little training and practice, and she could have a good chance to go to the Olympics as a swimmer," Erica told him. "She could be better than I was, and I only missed them by a couple of tenths."

"Dream on," Shaffer smiled as Crystal made a turn, still dogging the Techie's wake. "She marches to her own drummer. Big outdoor girl, very ballsy. You remember back in November, and we had that big nor'easter, and we had a picture of a kid out surfing in that stuff?"

Erica blinked in surprise. "Her?"

"Yeah, I took the picture," he grinned, letting a little awe of his own show through. "I was standing out there on the beach, wind blowing like hell, cold as hell, and she comes trotting up wearing a wetsuit with a surfboard under her arm, just like this was Malibu, not Marquette. She said 'Hi. I was hoping it'd be up,' flashed me a smile, and headed for the shore. She threw it in the water and paddled out on it. I didn't know whether to take a picture or call 911, and the next thing I know she's out there, just having a blast. She was there till it was getting pretty close to being too dark to see. Finally she came in, picked up the board, came over by the car and said, 'Hey, that was pretty good,' and went trotting up the street. I had a heck of a time getting her name, but it turns out that's probably the only surfboard in the U.P. One of the kayakers told me she stores it in with the kayaks here in the Peif."

Erica just shook her head. This was not your typical undergrad. She was beginning to wonder if this kid was your typical anything, from what Shaffer was saying.

As the race progressed, the Techie gal couldn't seem to open more than half a body length on Crystal, and that was all on the turns -- they'd come into the wall just about even, but the Chladek girl would fall back on the turn, and make it back up going down the pool. By the time they reached the bell lap, the two were half the pool ahead of the rest of the field. The times were incredible, Erica thought with pure amazement. It was going to be close. If Crystal could close on the Techie going down the pool the way she had the last several laps, she might stand a chance to win by a touch.

The two swimmers came into the last turn neck and neck, and as before, Crystal lost a little on the turn -- but when she came off the turn, it was clear that she'd just been toying with the Techie. Erica could almost hear the gears shift -- she came off the wall like she had an outboard attached, surged past the Techie in the first quarter of the pool, and with the handful of people in the crowd, the kids on the team, coaches and kids from other teams yelling and screaming, kept the power on, and wound up winning, going away by maybe four lengths.

Although wound up by the thrilling finish, Erica's neck was getting sore from shaking her head. According to her, this was the first time she'd ever swam in competition outside of a phys. ed. class, and she'd just humiliated last year's regional champion. What an emergency fill-in!

There were several events to go before the 1600 relay, and Erica had to give attention to Andrea and Leesa. Their times were good, for them, if not spectacular. Still, when it came down to the final event, the NMU team was in a close second place behind Tech, and a win would pull out a victory overall. Was there any chance?

Michelle didn't look good now, but she was a game girl, and Erica stuck with putting her on the opening leg. It was far from the best swim that the coach had ever seen her make, swimming against the weakest swimmers on the other teams, but she managed to give the Northern girls a little bit of a lead at the end of the first relay. She shot everything she had to do it, and had to be helped from the pool; in a way, it may have been the best the coach had ever seen her swim, husbanding her energy to get absolutely everything out of what was available. Leesa, who was normally a backstroke specialist, lost the lead, but only by a length or so and Andrea put on a heck of a performance for her to not lose any more. It looked like it was going to come down to a battle between the Techie girl and Chladek, a rerun of the 1600. But now, the Techie knew what sort of competition she was up against, and managed to keep the lead through the first two laps, although Crystal was sneaking up on her, making up the distance that the previous two girls had lost. The third lap really proved to be the race -- the Techie opened up with everything she had, but too soon. Crystal stayed right with her, then passed her easily on the final lap as the Techie faded fast, exhausted, and swimming so slowly that two other girls came from far down the pool to finish ahead of her.

Michelle by now was dazed and out of it, just sitting in a chair on the deck with her head down between her knees, but Andrea and Leesa and their coach were there to greet Crystal as she clambered out of the pool. "Great race," Erica exulted. "That's the first meet we've actually won this year, and you set a school record in the process. Thanks a bunch!"

"Glad I could help," Crystal nodded, apparently about as excited as she would have been to been to hear that the meat loaf had been marked down ten cents in the cafeteria. "That all you need me for?"

"Well, I thought I'd take everyone out for pizza to celebrate," Erica smiled, still beaming at the success.

"I'll take a pass," Crystal said distantly. "Since the afternoon is shot in the ass for snowboarding, I guess I'll change and work on my off-side roll a bit." She turned, and headed for the locker room. Erica frowned, then turned to follow, motioning the other girls to stay back.

Crystal was already peeling off the Speedo when Erica reached the locker room. "What do you want me to do with this?" she asked, naked, holding the suit in her hand.

"Oh, just throw it in the laundry bag," the coach told her. "Thanks again, Crystal," she said. "I appreciate it, and the girls appreciate it. You turned what would have been a lousy day all around into a pretty good one."

"No big deal," the big, muscular girl shrugged. She reached in the locker, pulled out the bikini bottom she'd been wearing earlier, and stepped into it.

Erica took a deep breath. "I know you don't want to hear this," she began. "But you have the most potential of anyone I've ever seen. If you were to train and practice seriously, with a little coaching, you could be world class."

"Maybe, maybe not," the half-dressed girl replied, lifting her arms up to get into the bikini top. "Like I told you before, I have no real interest in competition. I mean, I like to be pretty good at the things that I do, but to get to the top you have to focus on them so much that you exclude a lot of other things." She pulled the top over her breasts and adjusted it slightly. "I don't want to do that. There's too much else to do. I'd rather be number one thousand and enjoying myself than be number ten and be pissed that I can't make it to number one. But, like I said, glad I could help."

Erica knew she was defeated, but she'd been pretty sure of that when she'd gone into the locker room in the first place. It was as Shaffer had said -- this gal marched to a different drummer. "Thank you again for helping," she smiled in gracious resignation. "I said I wouldn't ask you to be on the team and I won't. But, if you ever have a dull afternoon when there's a meet on, and you're looking for something to do, well, you're always welcome to drop by."

"You never know," Crystal smiled, and headed for the door.

A hell of an athlete, but a strange, strange girl, Erica thought as she headed back out into the pool room, passing Andrea, Leesa and a sick-looking Michelle coming in. Things were dying out around the pool; people were filing out. Shaffer was waiting for her outside; she'd promised earlier to talk with him. "Any comments?" he asked.

Erica frowned. It had definitely been one of the stranger afternoons she'd ever had as a coach, but she couldn't say it that way. "On the record," she began, "It was one of the more interesting and exciting afternoons I've ever had coaching."

Shaffer smiled, "I take that to mean you have some thoughts off the record."

She nodded slowly, trying to collect her thoughts. "Dennis," she said finally. "Are you old enough to remember watching 'The Lone Ranger' on Saturday mornings?"

"No," he smiled. "That was a little before my time."

"It was a little before my time, too," Erica smiled, looking out across the pool. Crystal came in from the storeroom on the far side, wearing a spray skirt over her bikini bottom and carrying a whitewater kayak across her shoulder. She threw the kayak in the water, tossed a paddle down beside it, dove in, and did a re-entry and roll like she'd done earlier. She grabbed the paddle, and headed out toward the center of the pool as the coach went on, "It was on reruns. My brothers and I used to like to watch it. The formula was always the same. The bad guys are raising hell with the townspeople, and then this dude in this mask and this Indian ride in, and they have some thrills, pop some silver bullets at the bad guys, kick their butts, and ride off into the sunset. Then some guy in the town would say, 'Who was that masked man?' And, someone else would say, 'That was the Lo-o-o-one Ranger.'"

"I remember hearing about that," he nodded, wondering a little what that had to do with anything.

Erica nodded her head in the pool's direction, and smiled. "That's her."