“Did I pass?”
“Swimming skills.”
Leesie takes off swimming her required laps before I finish explaining what she has to do.
“Take it easy.” I call as she flips at the far end and swims towards me. “This is just the beginning.”
She ignores me. I swim into the deep end where I can watch her. She seems as comfortable on the water as I am under it. My babe the mermaid. Her arms slide along the surface and then power down in perfect rhythm, propelling her forward. I submerge and watch her from underneath. She kicks from the hip, keeps her legs nice and straight. She’ll be a natural at scuba—has the form already. I watch her form until I run out of air.
I surface, let Leesie swim on, back and forth, and find myself lying on my back, breathing down for a free dive, getting ready to enjoy that feeling of total control over my body. I close my eyes and inhale with my gut, ten cycles, then fill my chest, too. I hold each breath for a beat, then blow it all out, slow and controlled. After another ten cycles, I tip back my head and suck air into my throat, mouth, and nasal passages. Ten super vents. Water laps against me, the wake from Leesie’s passing. I will myself to not let her neoprened body break my concentration. A few more cycles and my fingertips tingle total oxygen saturation. I zone into a place I haven’t been since I left Florida.
I pack for a peak vent, flip onto my stomach, and shoot down to the bottom of the pool. I’m solid enough these days to stay at the bottom without weights. There’s nothing to see at the bottom of a pool, so I close my eyes and swim lazy, searching for blued-out memories. Emerald parrotfish, a flurry of yellow-blue wrasses and tiny butterfly fish, black-striped, flitting over a reef. My mom and dad. Somehow they are always down here with me.
Leesie sits on the edge of the pool when I surface. “I thought you weren’t supposed to dive.”
“Ten feet? Get serious. This won’t hurt me.” I propel myself over to her. “You’ve been holding out on me. You are a fish.” I tug on her hand, and she slides into the water. She wants to make out, but we’ve got a lot more to do. Got to keep the teacher’s pet happy. I kiss her once and pull back. “Now you need to do your survival float.”
I demonstrate the face down technique. “When you need to breathe”—I push my arms down to show her—“just bring your arms down through the water. That’ll push your head up. Take a breath and put your face back down. You got it?”
She practices. No sweat.
“You need to demonstrate you can do the float for ten minutes.” I set my dive watch. “One, two, go.”
After five minutes of lying still on the water’s surface, conserving energy, breathing slow and calm, Leesie starts to squirm. She comes up too often. Her breathing gets sporadic. Too fast.
I swim to her side. “Close your eyes.”
She does.
“Breathe out long.”
She does.
“That’s it. Now keep your eyes closed even when you take a breath.” I float close to her. “That’s it. You’ve only got two minutes left. Take a breath. Nice and slow, calm. Nothing’s going to hurt you. No big deal. One and a half. One. Almost through. Easy now, huh? That’s my babe. You did it.”
She pulls her head up and treads water. “I’m sorry I wimped.” She wriggles, trying to shake it off.
“No prob.” I brush her arm.
“Staring at the bottom of the pool made me get weird.”
“It’s over.”
“I’m never doing that again.” She swims to the edge and climbs out. “I don’t care if I’m drowning.”
Drowning? Did she have to say that? She puts her hand over her mouth, starts to apologize. “I’m so dumb—”
“Shh.” I place my finger on her lips. “Underwater swim. 100 yards.”
As Leesie tries to swim underwater, her best feature keeps floating to the surface. It takes her three tries, but she finally keeps it under long enough. Then we don masks and snorkels and go through basic surface skills and diver rescues.
All and all, she’s doing great. “Let’s take a break.”
We climb out, and I unzip my wet suit, peel it down to my waist, fish a candy bar out of my bag, and open it. “Got to have chocolate when you dive.” I hand Leesie half, sit on the bench as close beside her as I can get. “It’s even better with salt on your tongue. Chlorine just doesn’t cut it.”
My arm goes around her waist, and she snuggles up to me. Her cheek nestles on my bare chest.
“I heard you laughing.” She licks chocolate off her fingers.
“No way. When?”
“When my fat derriere floated up.”
“It’s not fat.” My hand slips down to her hips. She moves it back to her waist, but tips her head to give me a chocolate-lipped kiss.
We make out awhile—long enough to get her way relaxed and me frustrated. Not my usual teaching style—but hey, whatever works. Then I show Leesie how to strap the buoyancy compensator, her scuba vest, on a tank and connect her regulators—the mouthpiece she breathes from and a mandatory spare. I take it apart and make her do it a couple times.
“Try it now without help.”
I walk off. She’s doesn’t need my hot breath on her neck. She gets everything upside down at first but figures it out and rigs it right.
I creep up behind her and whisper, “Perfect.”
She turns pink and throws her arms around me. “I did it! It wasn’t even that hard. I can do this.”
I love her so much at that moment that I have to tell her and then we’re making out again.
“I love you, too,” she keeps saying. “Gosh, Michael. It’s going to work. All of it. It’s going to work.” She breaks it off this time. “What’s next?”
She practices unlatching her weight belt in case she has to ditch her lead. And then I get geared up and ease Leesie into her equipment. Left arm into the vest, right arm into the vest, snug up the Velcro cummerbund, pull the straps tight.
When she stands with the weights around her waist and the scuba tank hanging off her back, it’s all so heavy she falls backwards. I catch her, get her standing steady on her feet—a bit tricky with a tank hanging off my own back, but I’m used to it.
I help her fill the B.C. with air so she’ll float when we get in. “To descend, hold the hose over your head and push the deflator button. That’s right, you’ve got it.”
She darts a look at me. Fear flashes for an instant in her eyes.
“Breathing underwater is unnatural so it’s perfectly natural to feel panic at first. Just keep breathing, and it’ll go away.”
I help her to the edge of the pool and throw her in. Giant stride—sort of. She bobs in the water, the B.C. keeping her afloat, while I step in with a splash.
“Okay, babe, let’s take this nice and slow.”
She’s having mask trouble. Hair in the seal. I help her get every last sweet smelling strand out of it. “Okay?”
She sticks her face in the water to test her mask, bobs back up, and nods.
“Reg’s up.”
Leesie holds her regulator up with her left hand.
“Reg’s in.”
She gets the reg in her mouth.
“Remember, as you descend, clear your ears early and often. ” I pinch my nose through my mask so she remembers what I taught her. “Now empty your B.C.—no that’s the inflator button.” She confuses it just like the honeymooner guy did.
Her B.C. is so full it probably makes her feel like somebody is throttling her. I reach over and move her finger to the right button, apply pressure. The air escapes with a whoosh, and we sink.
LEESIE’S MOST PRIVATE CHAPBOOK
POEM #60, DIVE ONE
I’m going to lose it.
The words jar my brain as
my teeth crunch the mouthpiece.
I suck in, blow out, suck in, blow out
bubbles wail around me.
My ears ping pain. I pinch my
nose and blow like he showed me,
pinch and blow, pinch and blow
suck in, suck in, suck in.
Crap, crap, crap, I’m going
to lose it.
I glance toward heaven and see
the water’s surface over my head.
My heart thumps crazy fast as I settle
on the bottom and breathe in and out,
in and out, in and out. My legs
want to push off, kick this
terror to the surface.
Now I’m dizzying, my reg
doesn’t seem to have enough
air to keep my brain from
total meltdown.
Michael gives me a big “okay.”
I’m wild shaking my head
no way buddy are you crazy
breathing faster and faster and faster
and getting less and less and less
air
with all that weight stuck on me and I can’t
remember
how to float—
drop something? kick? Push that
stupid button that I can’t
find?
Michael’s hand guides mine to inflate the B.C.
He follows me as I shoot to the surface
where I’m breathing heavy,
heart pounding frantic.
He gets a face full of my reg
ears full of me screaming, “It doesn’t work,
it doesn’t work, it doesn’t even work.”
His mouth wraps around the mouthpiece, air
flows in calm and steady, pours out in soft bubbles.
He passes the reg back to me.
“Long slow breaths, babe.
You can do it, babe.
Trust me, babe.”
My hands shake as I take it.
My eyes fuzz. Can’t he hear
the overwrought torture that used
to be my heart?
“Focus on me, babe.
Breathe with me, babe.
Do it for me, babe.”
How can I resist? His hands
readjust my mask, he swims
close to my shivering body, tells me
to close my eyes. He holds my arm as I
breathe on the reg at the surface, and
my face dips into the water, learning
to trust until I’m all set
to try again,
babe.
His strong fingers grasp the front of my B.C.
“Eyes on me, babe.”
Okay.
“Don’t look away, babe.”
Okay.
“Trust me, babe.”
Okay, okay, okay.
My head slips underwater. He doesn’t
let me go. His bubbles flow
around me, and I pinch
my nose like a pro.
My ears pop,
but my eyes unlock his and stray
upward,
and I’m panicking all over again.
I tear out of his safe grasp, kick
for untanked oxygen.
I splash free, spit out the reg that
hisses after me whipping in the water unleashed,