Day 5
DAY FIVE of swimming was a little rough. After the prelims and semis of the 200 breaststroke, Isaac had moved on to the finals, although he wasn’t happy with his times. After the semi, Adam found him at the warm-up pool and asked to chat for a minute.
“What’s up?” Adam said as Isaac hauled himself out of the pool.
“I don’t know. You’re the one who wants to talk.”
Adam rolled his eyes. “I swear to Mark Spitz, kid. Twenty-nine years old, and sometimes you still act like the teenager you were when we first started training for the Olympics.” Adam sighed. “You looked upset after the last race. What’s going on?”
“I should have gone faster.”
“You’re in the final. Doesn’t matter.”
“I’m tired. And I have the 400 free tonight still.”
Adam glanced at his watch. “In an hour and a half. Go see Bill.”
Bill was the Chinese medicine specialist. “Are you fucking serious?”
“If you don’t want to do any of the therapies, that’s fine. But he might be able to massage any soreness or at least give you a space to lie down quietly for a while. I don’t want you to cool down all the way, so wear your coat over there. You need to rest up somehow, and there isn’t time for you to go back to your room. But you gotta do something to get some of your strength back if you’re weak or hurting.”
Isaac toweled off and shrugged into his coat. He could feel the fatigue in his muscles. He knew he should have spent more time sleeping last night instead of fooling around with Tim—that his lack of sleep was affecting him now—but he couldn’t say he regretted it that much. Or at all. He just hated that he was paying for it now, especially since four years ago, he could have partied a lot harder and still coasted to a win. He couldn’t tell if it was good or bad that he had to fight harder for it now.
When Isaac walked into the little curtained-off area where the American medical staff worked with the athletes, Bill was putting the cups on Conor, whose face lit up as Isaac approached. “You here for therapy?”
“No,” Isaac said. “Look, I’m tired, but I have one more race tonight. Adam made me come back here. I don’t want anything weird to happen to me, I’m just following Coach’s orders.”
Bill pointed to a massage table. “Take off the coat and lie on that facedown.”
“Fine.” Isaac climbed on the table.
“Which muscles are sore?” asked Bill, turning on a space heater.
“Arms,” Isaac said. “Shoulders.”
Bill nodded. “Conor, sit tight for a sec.”
Isaac turned his head and watched as Conor sat there with the cups on his shoulders, making those weird circular hickeys like big polka dots across his skin. Isaac was willing to do a lot for his sport, but he was too vain to allow that.
“Does that really help?” Isaac asked.
“Yeah, it helps with blood flow,” said Conor. “It eases some of the muscular tension.”
“Okay,” said Isaac. But Bill would put cups on Isaac over his dead body.
Bill said, “Put your head in the hole.”
Isaac moved his head. “No cups,” he said as he settled onto the table.
He was rewarded by Bill massaging his back and arms. It felt so good on his tired muscles that Isaac possibly moaned and definitely fell asleep. Bill had to wake him up a half hour before his race so that he could go warm up again.
Isaac dragged himself back to the warm-up pool, but the massage had definitely helped. He was still tired, but he had less soreness, and he thought he had enough gas left in the tank to swim another race.
Less than four minutes of swimming. Isaac could do it.
Thirty minutes later he stood up on the block to race the 400-meter freestyle final. Tim wasn’t in the audience this time because he’d promised his diving teammates he’d watch whichever diving event was happening that day—women’s springboard prelims, if Isaac was not mistaken. Isaac was kind of glad, because he would have hated to embarrass himself in front of Tim. And this race could very well be an embarrassment.
Luke was a few lanes away, swinging his arms, doing the prerace ritual. But Isaac didn’t care about Luke. He bent down and moved into starting position, focused only on his own race.
Deep breath. Set. Go.
The water felt good, at least, and it buoyed Isaac a little, both literally and figuratively. His arms didn’t start to burn until about halfway through, but he knew he was at least ahead of the swimmers in the lanes on either side of him. So he wouldn’t finish dead last.
For whatever crazy reason, he decided to all-out sprint the last length of the pool. His body screamed. His muscles were on fire. But he pushed through the fatigue and the pain, swimming with everything he had. By the twenty-five-meter mark, he thought he might throw up right there in the middle of the pool, but he kept pushing. He wanted to give this his all, to know that if he lost, it was because he was outperformed, not that he didn’t try.
No regrets. To live each day as if it was his last.
He reached out and touched the side of the pool but stayed underwater for a second, not quite ready to face it yet. Then he popped up and looked at the screen.
He’d touched third. Somehow, by some miracle, he’d touched the wall third and won a bronze medal.
“Thank Mark Spitz,” Isaac said, echoing Adam’s favorite expression.
Luke had won the gold.
Isaac swam over to Luke and gave him a loose-armed hug.
“First,” Luke said.
“Congrats, man.”
“Thanks. Holy shit, that was incredible.”
Isaac’s limbs had turned to spaghetti, and Luke had to help him out of the pool, but he at least got to his obligatory postwin interview. Mindy Somers wore a sea-green polo today. Isaac didn’t think he’d be able to say much because he still hadn’t caught his breath. Luckily Mindy shoved the mic in Luke’s face first.
Luke babbled about how honored he was to be representing America and how great that swim had felt. When Mindy got to Isaac, he mostly panted. But he managed to get out, “Hey, can’t win them all,” and “Couldn’t have lost to a better guy,” even though a Japanese swimmer Isaac didn’t know had claimed the silver. Although he was probably a good guy too.
He held it together until he got back to the warm-up pool, at which time he basically collapsed into a chair. Bill ran over and checked his vitals, but Isaac waved him off.
“I’m fine. Just tapped out.”
“Yeah. You might have overdone it a little. Your pulse is kind of thready.”
“Can I just lie here forever?”
“No,” said Adam, hovering over him. “You have to cool down properly or your muscles will seize up. Get in the pool.”
Isaac swore a blue streak.
Adam helped him out of the chair and tapped his back. “You did good, kid. I’m really proud of you.”
“I might throw up.”
“Happens,” said Adam. “Now get in the pool.”
Isaac took a deep breath and hopped into the water.
WHEN TIM woke up from his afternoon nap, he looked around. Jason sat on the other bed, staring at his phone. Tim sat up, felt pretty well rested, and was about to get up to shower when he heard Jason say, “Oh no.”
“What?”
Jason shot Tim a sidelong glance. “You are not going to like this.”
“What is it?”
“There’s an article on some news site. A straight reporter put a gay hookup app on his phone and turned it on in the Olympic Village. He found a bunch of guys looking to hook up and recognized a few of their profile pictures.”
Tim’s stomach flopped. “Oh no.”
“Yup. He called out a bunch of athletes, although none by name. Still, you could read between the lines and guess who he’s talking about. He says he messaged an American fencer and a Dutch gymnast, among others. And holy shit, an archer from Iran.”
Tim broke out in a cold sweat. Not so much for himself, since he was out and didn’t have any hookup apps on his phone, but for all the athletes in the village who only wanted a good time during their Olympic experience but didn’t need to be in the center of a controversy. Then the fear flipped to anger. Tim sat up and said, “Fuck that guy. What an asshole. Does he not get that some of these people live in countries where being outed can get them arrested or killed? That even the American fencer has a lot to lose if he wasn’t out publicly? I hate shit like this. Do you know why gay apps are even a thing? So we have a safe space to talk to each other without this bullshit. Goddamn, I can’t believe that happened.”
“I know. It gets worse. Because then he says, ‘It’s interesting that all these athletes are hiding on the app, but out athletes like Timothy Swan are nowhere to be seen on it.’”
Tim wanted to throw up. “He could have left my name out of it.”
Jason sat quietly for a moment. “It’s a brave thing you did,” he said softly.
“I just want to dive,” Tim said, getting out of bed, throwing his covers onto the floor with some force. The sheets fluttered down in an unsatisfying way.
“I’m sorry, Tim. I didn’t mean to piss you off.”
“No, it’s not your fault. But this is why I didn’t want to talk to that reporter who showed up at the pool. Nobody wants to talk to me about diving. That woman would have talked to you about platforms and springboards and back three-and-a-half pikes, but she only wanted to talk to me about my sex life, and I am fucking sick of it.”
“I know. It’s not fair. I wish it was different.”
“Dave’s wife came out here to see him dive. I caught part of the American broadcast of the semifinals. The camera kept panning to Dave’s wife and daughter, and the kid is cute and all, but it was like Dave’s worth was being determined by the fact that he’d succeeded in life. He has a bronze medal from the last Olympics and now he has a wife and daughter, and his life is complete.” Tim sighed. “And it’s the nature of the beast. Olympics coverage has been like this forever. They’re trying to appeal to female viewers or whatever the fuck. But do you think that if I got married, they’d pan to the audience to show off my husband? Doubtful.”
“I know. It sucks.”
“And Isaac, poor crazy Isaac, doesn’t really care who knows about us, and I guess I don’t either, but what happens if it does get out? Are we gonna be able to do cutesy stories about our Olympic love during any of the broadcasts?”
“Tim, sorry, I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
“No, it’s okay.” Tim sighed. He shook out his shoulders, trying to calm down. “I didn’t mean to get so angry. This bullshit gets to me sometimes, but I’ll shower and shake it off. You coming with me to watch the women’s team dive tonight?”
“Yeah. I’ll get dressed.”