Anna’s hands shook as she went to unbutton her dress. Why ever had she thought swimming lessons would be a good idea? She was uncomfortable at the thought of standing before Stuart in nothing but a borrowed bathing suit, and she was terrified to get in the water. Surely it would have been less painful to avoid the ocean for the rest of her life. Anna pulled the dress down around her knees and stepped out of it, her back to Stuart. Then she took more care than necessary to fold the garment. When the dress was neatly put away and she’d shoved her hair into a cap, there was nothing left to do but turn around and make her way toward the pool. She kept her eyes on the pavement, not daring to make eye contact with Stuart.
“Are you nervous?” Stuart asked, forcing her to look up.
Anna let out an uncomfortable laugh. “Yes, quite.”
At the edge of the pool, she crouched down and tried, as gracefully as she could, to sit. Her legs dangled in the water, which was colder than she’d imagined.
“It’s only about three feet deep here. You can stand,” he said, extending his hand to help her into the pool.
She had no choice but to grab it and slide off the pool’s edge and into the cold water. “Oh!” she said, without meaning to. She shuddered as the water hit her skin.
“It’s not bad, right?”
Once she got used to the temperature, the water actually did feel kind of nice. It was an odd sensation, to be standing in several feet of water, much different than soaking in the tub at the apartment.
“I’m only going to teach you one thing today.”
“Oh?”
“Don’t sound so disappointed,” Stuart said, smiling at her. “You’re going to learn to float. If you can float, you can swim.”
Before Anna could say anything, Stuart fell backward and began to demonstrate. “See how my arms are extended and my chin’s up. I keep my chest out, too.”
Arms, chin, chest. It didn’t look that hard.
“The trick with floating,” said Stuart, righting himself, “is that you’ve got to relax. If you’re not relaxed, you’ll sink like—”
A rock? Florence? Anna could understand why he had abandoned the metaphor.
She grabbed hold of the pool’s edge and attempted to dip her head and shoulders into the water.
“Not that way. Come out here,” said Stuart. “I’ll hold you up.”
Anna moved toward Stuart, as if she were walking in slow motion. When she reached him, he placed his hand, gently, on the small of her back and coaxed her to lean backward until she was staring up at The Covington’s roof line and the dusky sky that peeked out between the hotel’s looming towers. She shot her arms out to the side and puffed up her chest but could do nothing about her clenched stomach muscles. The very idea that Anna might relax in this setting was laughable.
It was such a strange sensation, to feel the weight of her body resting in the palm of Stuart’s open hand, like she was a small bird instead of a girl, already grown.
“Tilt your head back more,” said Stuart, his voice garbled and far away. “Tilt your head until you can see nothing but sky.”
Was it even possible to do so? Anna lifted her chin until the hotel’s edifice disappeared from her peripheral vision and all she could see were clouds, turned pink by the sun as it sank beyond the Thorofare.
Anna didn’t feel Stuart’s hand against her back. Had he let go?
“Now breathe,” she heard him call to her.
Only then did Anna realize she’d been holding her breath. She let the air out of her chest but as she did so, she could feel herself begin to sink. The sinking feeling made her panic, and her head slipped beneath the surface as she tried to feel for the floor of the pool with her feet. Almost immediately, Stuart grabbed her under an arm and pulled her up.
“Embarrassing,” she sputtered when she’d wiped the water from her eyes.
“Why embarrassing?” Stuart asked with a grin. “No one’s born knowing how to swim.”
“I’m an adult, not a small child.”
“Children have it easy. Adults always have a much harder time learning.”
“Why is that?”
“Children believe they can swim, so they do,” said Stuart. He reached out and grazed her wool-clad stomach with the tips of his fingers. “Adults carry around all of their fears right here.” He touched her chin, briefly. “And here.”
