Making Waves. Chris Epting

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      If we win, will the coaches and officials and media finally open their damned eyes and start looking into this team of so-called women that look and sound like men?

      Okay, Jill is getting closer. One thing that used to frustrate me was watching how swimmers would wait to wind up for the take-off until their teammates actually touched the edge of the pool. That’s a lot of time wasted. If you start your wind-up early and then dive in the air, timing the other swimmers touch perfectly, you can pick up a good deal of time.

      Of course, a good deal of time is a relative term. We’re talking about a sport in which a tenth of a second and a hundredth of a second actually matter. But executed perfectly, there was definitely a chunk of time to be made on the start.

      I’m not going to wait for her to touch before winding up. I’ve got to watch her closely, just like we all talked about last night, just like we play-acted in our dorm room, as we were living out the race over and over and over in preparation for this moment. Was that really just last night? It seems so long ago. I never thought those positive thinking courses they wanted us all to take would ever come in handy, but last night, they sort of did. Lying there on the bunk bed, zoning out and imagining that we were all swimming the race at the same time, it really was sort of interesting. I think it helped. And at this point, what did we have to lose?

      We were using anything we could get. Even those matching rainbow suspenders we all bought. Sure, maybe it was just a gimmick, but for us, it was fun and it made us look and feel like more of a team. Walking out on that deck, everybody seemed to notice it too. So maybe it was a good idea after all.

      When you’re going up against a demon team like this, never know what’s going to work. You have to try everything.

      Okay, I’m focused. The crowd is beginning to fade away, and the tunnel in my mind is starting to tighten and narrow. The moment is at hand.

      Jill, you are amazing. I almost can’t believe you’ve taken the lead like this. Of the many teams I’ve swam with over the years, all over the world in hundreds of competitions, I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder than I am of the three girls I walked out on the deck with today.

      I’m the last in this relay. If I can hold this lead, then we will achieve what many considered to be impossible.

      Here she comes. Okay, Shirley. Don’t leave early, be careful, and don’t be too anxious.

      Winding up, I see Jill’s final stroke as she’s about to touch the wall, and I explode into the air. I’ve never left with such force in my life. Every ounce of my body, every muscle in my system is dialed into this moment. It’s never felt better.

      But in the back of my head, something is wrong. The second I hit the water, I think to myself, I left too early. In my zeal to achieve the perfect start, I cheated the clock just a bit.

      Her fingernail.

      My toenail.

      My entire world now comes down to whether or not I waited long enough for her fingernail to touch that wall before taking off.

      But as I hit the water, I also think to myself, it doesn’t matter. They’re not going to stop the race. If I did in fact leave early, then once I finish the race and look up, I will see the little red dot by my name on the scoreboard. That will mean I’ve been flagged for an early start.

      But that’s not important right now. All that’s important right now is that I just put my head down and go. Just go, go, go, go, go, go. Everything else will sort itself out in the end.

      Right now, I’m in the water and I need to hold this lead. Almost instantly, upon impact, the roar of the crowd is back in my head.

      Only now, it’s louder. My start has caused the crowd to erupt even further, and I can hear them with each breath—thousands of people screaming like maniacs for me to hold that lead. Thousands of people who seem to know that there’s been something very wrong at these Olympics. Thousands of people who want me to finish this thing the right way.

      It’s so weird where life takes you. I was a skinny little girl that no swim team ever wanted. My mother would actually use me as a bargaining chip when teams wanted my brothers instead. You have to take Shirley, too, she would tell them. And so, begrudgingly, they did.

      I wonder if any of those coaches remember me?

      Are they watching me on television right now?

      Are they here, cheering for me?

      You will never have another moment like this, I keep thinking to myself. This is a sprint, one length down and one length back. This is what I’ve worked for. I can do this. God, I can do this. I have to do this.

      Swim, Shirley, swim.

      Listen to that crowd and let them feel you.

      You know how to do this. You can do this.

      You’re going to beat these cheaters.

      You have to.

       CHAPTER ONE

       Growing Up

      I can still smell that old army tent in the backyard. My father, who had taught swimming while in the army in Hawaii, had rigged one of his old tents into a makeshift swimming pool behind our modest house in the Los Angeles suburb of Norwalk. It was musty and oily and really sort of rank. Its odor was distinctive, especially when the tent was filled with water. It could hardly be called a swimming pool. It was just a place where my two brothers and I splashed around.

      Our house in Norwalk was located in a fairly typical blue-collar neighborhood for the 1950s—a three-bedroom, one-bathroom, single-story suburban dwelling. Any person coming up the walk to the front door would see the dining room table with open bibles and a Russian samovar. The people living here must have been moral and upstanding, right? Wrong. At least, not the parents.

      My brothers and I rode a bus to school, which wasn’t that far from the house, but there was a busy street and two cow pastures to pass by. The house was in a relatively rural area (today, like a lot of Southern California communities, the area around the neighborhood has been heavily developed).

      I always hung around my two brothers—Jack, one and a half years older than me, and Bill, two years younger. I always felt like Bill was a burden, but I’m sure Jack thought the same of me. We would mostly explore the neighborhood, riding bikes, skateboarding, digging in the dirt, and, of course, fighting. But our parents fought a lot, too, and we were terrified that they would get a divorce. At night, Jack would say, “If they get a divorce, we’re all going to have to go live in a foster home and those places are next to hell.” So we would huddle together, scared, and ride out the storm of their arguments.

      Given how gray and shapeless our family life was, I suppose that little pool in the backyard was actually pretty important. It was a chance for us to have a little fun at home, a respite from the usual dreariness and sometimes outright misery that defined my earliest years.

      My parents, Jack and Vera Babashoff, were of Russian heritage, and they were true to the stereotype. They were cold and stoic and never really communicated with me or my brothers. It was not СКАЧАТЬ