After weeks of preparation, Alex is ready for his final lesson. It’s time for him to take his Pollywog swim test.
When I knock on the door, I brace myself for the chance that Josie’s going to answer.
“You’re lucky,” he says as he opens the door. “It’s just me.”
“Hallelujah.”
Alex seems way excited. In the kitchen, he picks up a camcorder.
“What’s that for?” I ask.
He looks a little embarrassed. “I want you to tape me in the water. So I can send it to my mom. It’s been ten years and I want her to stop worrying.”
One time I read a magazine article that said the way a boy treats his mother is the same way he’ll treat a girlfriend. I don’t know if it’s true, but if so, this is just another reason to say, “Sign me up.”
When we get to the pool, he turns on the camera. He narrates as he pans across the pool. “Hi, Mom. This is Dad’s ridiculously large pool, spa, waterfall.”
He continues panning and stops at me. “And this is Jane, whom I already told you about. A state champion swimmer and licensed CPR instructor. So don’t worry. Say hello, Jane.”
I wave into the camera. “Hello, Alex’s mom.”
(Don’t think I missed the part about him already telling his mother about me. Forget floating in water—I could float on air.)
He puts the camera down on a table and walks to the edge of the pool.
“Are you ready?” I ask him.
He takes a deep breath. “Absolutely. I even got new trunks.”
I laugh. “Trunks?”
He points to his bathing suit. “Aren’t these called trunks?”
“By our grandparents, maybe,” I say, giving him a hard time. “Those are board shorts.”
He tries it out. “Board shorts. Yeah, better.”
“Let’s see how they do in the water, Pollywog.”
He gives me a defiant look. “That’s Mr. Pollywog to you.”
With that, he sheds his shirt (giving me one more reason to live) and dives into the water. Okay, “dive” is not the right word, but he starts off on the pool deck and ends up in the pool—so well call it a dive.
I get out my clipboard and checklist.
“Aren’t you coming in?”
“Only in case of an emergency,” I explain. “This is your test.” (It also means my hair scrunch might last, for a change.)
I run him through all the requirements: twenty-five yards on his stomach, twenty-fiv yards on his back, tread water for sixty seconds. Every now and then I grab the camera and shoot him in action. None of it is pretty, but all of it is swimming. He’s beaming with joy.
It gets down to the last skill.
“I want you to swim the length of the pool underwater,” I tell him.
“Underwater?” He sounds a little panicked, but I know he can do it.
“Trust me. Strike that. Trust yourself. You can do it.”
He nods.
I hope this is the right thing to do. Technically, he’s already completed what he needs for Pollywog, but I want him to build his confidence some more.
He takes a deep breath and goes underwater. For the next thirty seconds he’s not a hunk or a stud. He’s just a student and I’m his teacher. I videotape the whole thing for his mother.
My mom’s told me about students who struggle in her English class only to blossom in the end. She says it’s the reason she keeps teaching, and I can understand why.
The last ten yards are shaky, and I wonder if I’ll have to jump in. But he keeps going and when he gets there, he bursts through the surface with a goofy grin on his face.
“I did it,” he pants before sucking air. “I did it.”
I’m beyond excited and, before I know it, I put down the camera and jump right into the water with him despite the fact that I’m still wearing clothes over my swimsuit.
“You did it! You swam the whole thing.”
I throw my arms around him.
He smiles and—for the first time since I’ve met him—he’s relaxed in the water.
“Wow!” he says. “I can’t believe it. You’re a really good teacher.”
He stops for a second and looks at me. “I thought you said you would only come in the water for an emergency.”
Suddenly, I’m quite aware of the fact that I jumped in like a madwoman.
What would Bikini jane do?
“It is an emergency. I realized that you needed to kiss someone.”
I wipe my hair out of my eyes and smile.
We lean in to kiss, but he stops before our lips touch. “Wait a second,” he says. “Where’s my certificate?”
“What certificate?”
“On the first day you said I’d get a Pollywog certificate. You even took my picture for it.”
You mean the shot of you and your barechested glory that I took so I could show you off to my girlfriends.
“That certificate. Sure. I can only order it after you’ve completed the program. It’s all very official.”
Note to self: I will need to design an official-looking Pollywog certificate on my computer tonight.
He goes to kiss me and once again stops short. He’s playing with me, but I can take it.
“After work, will you come by the club so I can give you your first tennis lesson?”
“Yes,” I say. “Now, will you stop talking?”
We lean in and kiss. It’s a long, wonderful kiss right there in the deep end of the pool.