Modified Raptures

Modified-Raptures-(Spencer)-2

Her firm voice and obvious expertise and her evident familiarity both with track’s touch demands and Hosmer’s intricate social customs won her instant respect. Then too there was her firm, slender body with its graceful curves, and a fall of stunning gold hair, features that had drawn the guys’ instant attention. Their gazes would start with her face, move to her hair, and then, a good many, slide down for a fuller appreciation of the complete woman. As she stood that day at ease in the center of the room, with her hair bunched in a tight pony-tail, the gazing was even more concentrated.

And not just by the guys. It’s true that Shell had seen the coach / alumna / woman at practices; and, yes, she’d “listened up” when Astrid, making her rounds on the rare mild days, would spend her attentive two minutes with each member of the various women’s squads—relay, dash, mile. What had first impressed Shell was the coach’s professional expertise. On her own initiative Astrid had bought a videotape camera–to record, assess, and then review each runner’s performance one-to-one, face-to-face. Shell respected such close attention; she thought it both concerned and objective.

She’d also noticed the calm voice and the air that seemed to glow around the woman, even on dark, blustery early March days. But Shell did not as a rule retain impressions: her revolving enthusiasms kept her at a continual but unfocused simmer, looking here, glancing there. So that Friday she heard and saw the woman up close, garbed now in her loose tee-shirt and snug shorts, not the baggy cold-weather sweatpants and hooded sweat-shirt worn outdoors. Shell hadn’t picked up on how lithe, slender, and well-put-together she was. Nor on how deep were her hazel eyes. That day it was all registering; it beckoned her close attention.

A young woman of normal, though maybe more than usually catholic tastes, Shell typically found hot studs hot, women only rarely. She appreciated good-looking women, naturally, but they rarely aroused her. She’d begun dating her sophomore year and, a quick learner, soon grew adventurous in her physical explorations. She found she enjoyed giving and receiving equally. And frequent compliments from two or three fellows assured her that she had an exceptionally daring and considerate tongue. It was a talent that held out great promise and for a wide swath of future partners.

Her sudden attraction to Astrid was unusual, but Shell took it, as she took most new things, in stride. As the coach delivered her remarks, her body, sensuous and tightly muscled, swayed gently–one hand now resting on a hip, now darting out to illustrate key points in her lesson with a vibrant alto voice, directions about pacing, timing, breathing. Within two minutes, Shell was doing more than appreciating her.

“So here’s the deal. This is primarily for you l.d.’s…. Long distance people? You fellows—sorry, guys: men” (her careful split-second pause won an appreciative laugh) “if you call your honeys (sweetie-pies, babes, whatever, going to school out of town) you try to use those monthly cell-phone minutes with care, right? I see a few nods. You pace yourself? Same for you ladies, am I right? When it’s your dime—sorry, it’s a phrase my grandpa used (something about pay-phones?)–when you phone your favorite man on campus or he’s here and you’re on vacation on Padre Island? And, oh yes, I almost forgot Jeff”– she paused to point to the team’s self-proclaimed “stud” and (to be fair) emerging athlete. He displayed a wide range of gifts (shot-put and 400 meter) and, as he never failed to point out, he managed to land a new woman, weekly and from a different school. “You too, Jeff. Your favorite man. Right?”

The room got it. A trickle of fake-soprano laughter grew into a boisterous torrent. Jeff balled his fist and thumbed his nose at her, but sported a broad grin.

She resumed with a straight face. “Now listen up! Breath’s like money; if you use it up all at once in an event, it won’t come back. No time to recover. So, all of you: you gotta keep that big picture, your total air supply, in view.

“It’s called pacing. Now. Sprinters. You go in bursts. I know. You should. No time to pace. But for you distance folks. We don’t want ‘slow and steady’ like for our friend the tortoise. No. But ‘steady’ we do want. No need to fly out of those blocks in a blur. Timing. Timing is the key.

Astrid’s developing pedagogical principle was, whenever possible, to call on young women in the newly-coordinated school program. (Hosmer had been all-girls for its first century.)

“Now. Is Jean here? My miler?”

Jean looks down.

“I hear they call you ‘Roadrunner’?” (A popular cartoon of the day about a lightning fast bird.)

A smile revives her face. She lifts her eyes into a firm stare. “That’s right, ma’am. Roadrunner.”

The room exhaled a quieter laugh. Shelley, standing near Jean, poked her in the ribs.

“Well, Jean. And all of you, track’s no cartoon. Don’t treat it that way. You—even you, Jean–just can’t keep it up. And relax: there’s no Mr. Coyote chasing you.” (Another raft of laughs.) “It’s you versus you, remember...Oh and oh yeah, Jean?”

“Ma’am?”

“No. The name is Astrid. Not ‘ma’am’. Got it?”

Jean saluted and mouthed the name. Astrid took a step toward her. “Now. Let’s see a leg—”

Shell instinctively reached an arm out for Jean to grasp as she raised her leg to a perfect 90 degrees, and then some.

“—She’s lucky. The DNA goddess has given Jean some gifts. Now, that leg. Might work for short bursts. But it’s her shoulders that hold l.d. promise: this woman’s made for endurance.” The guys may have glanced briefly at Jean, but soon enough shifted their eyes back to Astrid. “Surprise, guys: We’re not built all that different. So treat your gifts with respect. All of you.”

“Say, Miss Perot,” interrupted Coach Winters. “Astrid. Tell ‘em about State. Three years ago. The mile. How you outfoxed all those runners?”

“You won? You took it?” several voices near Shelley wanted to know.

“Did she?” Shelley whispered, half to herself.

“Sure did,” Jean overheard and whispered back. “Her name’s on that plaque in the Alumnae Room.”

“Really?”

“You should. God she’s neat.”

Shell nodded and gazed.

Astrid saluted her boss and colleague. “You’re right, sir. Jeff City. Late May. Hot. The men were in charge, so they scheduled the women’s mile event for—what else, ladies?—four p.m. We’re always last, right?”

The ladies breathed a chorus of “Oh, yeah”s. Shell found herself nodding.

“Well, we all started off together at the gun, but I knew—listen up here, folks. I knew I should–” she paused in good teacherly fashion. “Should what, fellas?”

A distressing silence. “Today’s lesson?” She began to tap her foot.

“Guys?”

Embarrassed silence.

“Okay, ladies. Fill the guys in. Should what?”

Soprano and alto notes of “pace” “pace” “pace” echoed through the room. “Ah, yes. The women to the rescue. Pace. Believe me, Coach Winter saw to it I’d learned that lesson.” She threw him a wink and put her hand to her heart. (Shell’s heart took a bonus beat.) “So when the others moved ahead, second circuit, it didn’t faze me. Some b***h—I mean, some runner from Pem-Day, and, oh yeah, then another”– she kept talking through the titter that was bubbling through the room—“they both went past me, muttering ‘Loser’. ‘Can’t hack it?’

“Well, long story short: third lap now. I’m sixth, but closing in. Going steady, see? Pacing? They can’t keep their ‘roadrunner’ speed, got it Jean? Half way through the final lap I’m easing past ‘em—three of ‘em now. They’re fading. Next I pass the one who was second, then the leader. I hear each of ‘em gasp as I stride past; steady, firm.”

Each new stage of the tale wound the room tighter. “Took it by a half-second.” Soprano whoops matched baritone grunts (“Go, Hosmer!” “Coach Astrid!”). Shell simply stood and gazed, her usually busy eyes at a stand-still, fixed on Astrid.

“Cool name,” she thought to herself. “Cool woman.”

Spring Training

That night at dinner with Ben (dad); Averill (step-mom); her daughters, Ashley and Angie, (Shell loved to call them her “sweet steps”), she enlivened the table with what would prove to be her first “tale of Astrid.” “She’s so neat. Fantastic athlete, tells great stories. They say she’s an alum–two years ahead of me, don’t recall her. Guess I wasn’t noticing. Darn.”

“Oh, you silly,” piped up Ashley. “Ang’ and me have some yearbooks dad Ben gave us our first year in lower school. Bet she’d be in there, don’t you think?” Shelley wasn’t a collector of school traditions either, nor the annual printed accounts. When something appealed to her, she’d try it out but then it was as if something urged her to draw back. “Steer clear of that. Stay busy.”

“So, Big Step–” Ashley took over from her younger sister. “Do some, what’s dad Ben’s word? Research?”

“Mouths of babes,” she winked at her step-mom. Dinner over, she scooted down the corridor to paw through her step-sisters’ shelves. She grabbed the yearbook from two years before and, sure enough, there she was. Astrid. She flipped another page. And there. Kept flipping. Oh. That’s a nice one—Astrid, sleeveless, her bare arms gleaming, hefting a glinting metal pole. Happening upon them one by one made the series of amazed delights even more intense.)

Astrid’s many awards and activities littered her senior page—Honor Society, Service Project, winner of the mile, team winners in the 800 meter relay. Honorable mention in two “non-distance” events: hurdles and pole vault. “What can’t she do?” From those still scattered snaps, Shelley began to compose a full-length feature—Astrid’s face indistinct in a crowd of sophomores, then the girl suddenly catching fire like a comet nearing the sun, junior year. Then, the senior blazed like a nova. “How could I have missed her?” It was as if the senior’s image had skimmed off the sophomore’s eyes like a svelte stone skittering off a pond.

* * * * * *

That first inspection ignited an explosion of vitality. It kept radiating next day. On that first day of Spring Break, while many of her classmates were tanning on distant beaches, she recalled out of the blue a water fall in Forest Park. She’d always shivered when she drove by it; the height put her off. But now a novel idea swept her up. Just the place to build strength, develop endurance. “That’ll impress her.”

So Sunday, with sweat pants and only a thin Hosmer tee shirt, she drove to the Park, meandered through its winding lanes til she came upon the fall. She assumed her position at the foot the of the path, and breathed deep. She charged up the incline. Shell proved a fallible disciple, however; she failed to pace herself, barely made it barely half-way up. The initial drill lasted only fifteen minutes. But she returned later in the day and twice a day thereafter. By vacation’s end her determination built her up to a full hour daily. Ten complete ascents.

* * * * *

The first day after vacation, Shelley got out to the track early and undertook a deceptively leisurely run, hoping she might cross paths with her coach. No luck that afternoon, but she adopted the same strategy next day. Astrid was already at the first turn, striding purposefully. Shell poured some steam into the second lap of her mile. For those crucial moments, she abandoned pacing for a higher goal and brought herself, yard by determined yard, into sync with Astrid. (An observer from the field house announcer’s booth would have seen the two women’s elliptical orbits sliding ever so gradually into conjunction.)

For five seconds, Shell paced with her in perfect tandem: two pairs of pumping legs,