Hyperventilated Underwater Blues

By Bob Calverley

Rick Short is short. His life’s a mess. Hana, his long gone, much taller girlfriend, has suddenly returned. And carrying dangerous baggage. Did she dump him? Find somebody richer and taller? What about those scars? Then Rick finds a young woman’s body in the Dunbar University swimming pool. Drowned on her 18th birthday. No, murdered. Soon Rick’s in over his head. Right where he wants to be—underwater. Because Rick likes it underwater. It’s cool, silent and when he hyperventilates, he can stay under a long time. And it doesn’t matter if you’re not tall.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bob Calverley
• Release date: Sep 13, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370677184

Bob Calverley

Bob Calverley has worked as a writer, editor, marketer and public relations consultant.He was born in rural northern Ontario and moved to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan when he was 16. He graduated from Soo High School in Sault Ste. Marie Michigan, attended Michigan Technological University, Soo Branch (now Lake Superior State University) and graduated with a BA in Journalism from Michigan State University in 1967.Calverley was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1967 and served a year with the 187th Assault Helicopter Company in Tay Ninh, Vietnam. During that period, the 187th suffered heavy casualties and earned a Presidential Unit Citation. By the end of the war, it was one of that war’s most decorated helicopter units. Calverley, however, spent most his tour in Vietnam as company clerk, and occasionally flew as a door gunner.For most of the 1970’s, Calverley worked as a newspaper reporter, first at the Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and then at the Detroit Free Press where he was the recipient of several awards for stories on a large environmental accident. His journalism career included stints as a medical writer, general assignment reporting, coverage of local governments and police reporting. He also reviewed books and records.Since leaving newspapers, he has worked in public relations and communications, mostly for nonprofit organizations including the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, the Los Angeles County Medical Association and the University of Southern California. He retired as Executive Director of Marketing and Public Relations at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. After retiring, he has continued to work as a consultant and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the nonprofit 187th Assault Helicopter Company Association. The main activity of the association is to stage reunions where the war stories get better every year.Calverley lives in Southern California with his wife, youngest daughter and Lab mix squirrel predator.

Book preview

Bernadine Kutzenov’s killer walked slowly across the concrete deck of the Dunbar University swimming pool. Bernadine treaded water about five feet from the edge of the big 50-meter pool, her head visible in the narrow space between two of the floating tarpaulins.

Her eyes, heavy and sleepy, stung from the chlorine as she paddled her arms and legs in big, slow bicycling circles, squeezing water comfortably between her thighs and past her biceps, feeling like she was dancing underwater. And she was naked. Naked? She remembered dancing naked. She remembered learning to tread water. But she did not remember how she came to be in the pool. It must be a dream, and not a good dream either. Her mind felt disconnected from her body, like it was off to the side observing. Something irritating and scratchy kept scraping her neck and face. Pool covers. Why was she swimming in a pool with pool covers? Why dream about pool covers? And her head felt cold. With sudden awareness, she heard the howling wind in little sonic bursts as her ears bobbed in and out of the water. But it was dark and cold. And loud. It must be a dream. She struggled with dream thoughts.

Relieved, she recognized the man walking to the edge of the pool and stretched out one arm so he could help her. He bent and his hand slid past hers pushing the top of her head under the water just as she started to take a breath. When her mouth, nose and throat filled with water, her larynx suddenly constricted. Her throat locked up, though she could still cough. She coughed. Bubbles burst out her mouth but her breathing response remained locked. She wanted to breathe but couldn’t so she grabbed the tile pool edge with her outstretched hand and braced her feet against the side of the pool. But the hand grasped her hair and held her under the water. She couldn’t pull away. Kicking her legs hard and turning her head in a vain attempt to escape the hand wrapped in her hair, she tried to pull herself up with her other hand still on the concrete pool deck. Something smashed her fingers. Under the water, she shrieked, a few more bubbles sputtering from her mouth, surprising because she thought she’d already coughed everything out of her lungs. Now she panicked, muscles churning arms, legs and torso wildly, burning the remaining oxygen in her blood. But the hand held her under. Her last jumbled thought as awareness faded was the utter conviction that she was having a nightmare. Pushed by the hand on her head, she slid into cold darkness.

1

Warmup – (100 free, 100 back, 100 breast) x2

Kick – 12x25 w/boards, 1st 6 alt up/down, 2nd 6 tombstone (5/rest)

Pull – 300/200/100 (70%/80%/90%) (15/10/5 rest) Every 3rd 25 stroke x2

Main – 300/200/100 (free/IM/reverse IM) x2

Warmdown – 4x50 easy

Total = 3500

(Written on a large whiteboard propped against a barrel of kickboards on the pool deck)

It’s five-thirty and a windy 34 degrees on a Southern California November morning. Maybe Julio Rodrigues is right and global warming is another fucking liberal myth. Feels like I’m back in the Upper Peninsula on the shores of Lake Superior, but no, I’m standing at the edge of the Dunbar University pool clad in a thin black Speedo and TYR Racetech swim goggles with scavenged Speedo straps. The cold, sour odor of chlorine creeps into my nose triggering a sneeze. The warmer-than-air pool water generates a mist whipping across the dark rippling surface. Plastic backstroke flags flapping in the wind send a shrill death rattle through the frigid air. Frozen in place, I’m thinking about the slow decay of my life when Hana Balboa, arms wrapped around herself, crouches next to me like a ghost materializing in the gloom. I don’t believe it. Is my mind playing tricks? Slowly, my head turns to take in her face, which is mostly covered by a thatch of dark brown hair plastered to her cheeks by the wind.

Is it cold? Hana asks. Then she straightens. I catch a tentative smile through the shadows. Hopeful dark brown eyes trigger an unexpected, but not unwelcome, hot flash.

You first, she coaxes, her soft voice barely audible through the wind’s howl and staccato scream of the flags.

Then Julio brays from behind. Look at that sweet booty. Hana babe, we have missed your ass!

Am I dreaming? Is this real? A swimsuit covers her from neck to knees. Looks like an expensive tech racing suit, the kind that nobody wears for workouts because getting into one is like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube. Besides, Hana always favored two-piece suits, and on the skimpy side too. A lingerie model, she had the body for it. And two years ago, she and I were girlfriend-boyfriend, or so I thought. She spent most nights at my place with our relationship heating up like an August heat wave, the happiest time of my life. Then she disappeared, abruptly dropped out of sight. I heard nothing and no one knew where she’d gone. Figured I’d been dumped. No surprise there. I am not good looking, successful or wealthy. Definitely no match for someone like her. She could do better, and probably had. She’d probably found a professional athlete, a tech mogul or a rap star. Or maybe she was spooning oatmeal into the quivering lips of an aging billionaire as he circled the drain.

She hadn’t missed my lack of ambition and shaky social skills. I drive an old pickup, snack on carrots, and work nights. But the biggest thing is my small size and big attitude about it. At five foot ten and a half inches, maybe more, Hana towers over me. She never mentioned my size, but she couldn’t have missed the Mutt-and-Jeff gawkers when we were together. I tell myself that I like the night shift, that I’m not working it to avoid my fat-assed idiot boss. And I happen to like carrots, especially in the 50-pound bags that I’m pretty sure most other people buy for their horses. And my old truck is going to make a tidy profit when I sell it to a wealthy collector just as soon as I put the finishing touches on the restoration.

I sure had missed Hana though, and an ache builds up as I stand shivering beside her, paralyzed and unable to speak.

Really, where had she been? Why was she back as I tried to force myself to deal with abandonment? Glancing behind me, past the still leering Julio, I take in Judy Highsmith and Betty Cochran, sneaking looks. They’d been Hana’s best girlfriends on the team. Did they know where she’d been? They always claimed that they hadn’t heard from her either. But now she’s standing right beside me, looking at me, waiting, and I can’t speak. Finally, I end the dilemma by diving into the water, telling myself it’s to get out of the cold. I crank out a fast 50 yards. Well, fast for me. Thirteen strokes get me across the pool before flipping off the wall. Usually, 13 or 14 strokes get me back. I’m a better swimmer than when I started masters four years ago. But no way will I ever catch up to teammates like Judy and her dickhead husband Gary, or Betty, and half the rest of the team, most of whom swam in college. And I’m younger than most of them. While they learned all that subtle swim technique, I played hockey, maybe not the best choice for someone my size, but still my best shot at a professional sports career. Who was I kidding, right? But I was always a good athlete, just a small one. I dreamed of becoming the shortest goalie in the National Hockey League. But what the hell, if the pool froze over, which seemed a distinct possibility, I could probably outskate everyone here.

Halfway back on the return lap, Hana’s churning toward me in the next lane so I slow to check out her underwater form close up as she glides past. I like it underwater. My favorite place. You can’t talk to people and swim goggles let you get away with rudely staring at them close up. Wherever Hana had been, she hadn’t become a world-class swimmer who’d benefit from a tech suit. She was, however, still world-class luscious even if she was covered up like a nun. Way out of my league. Who was I kidding when I thought I had a chance? Did she come back to torture me?

I’m starting my next stroke, when something out of place hits the periphery of my vision. It’s a leg, hanging down and unmoving a couple of lanes over in the dark shadows where the pool is still covered by heavy plastic tarps. With about 20 regulars for the 5:30 a.m. workouts, we only pull half the covers off the big pool. In the winter, we swim short course, which is the pool’s 25-yard width, not the 50-meter length.

I duck dive to investigate. Two lanes over, in those shadows under the cover, I see the woman dangling the leg that caught my attention. I grab the ankle, and yank her toward the uncovered lane half expecting the owner of the leg to jerk it out of my grip. But there’s no movement. I surface at the edge of the tarp, which is when I see she’s naked. Then Hana bumps into me and splashes to a stop.

Who’s that? she gasps. She hasn’t got a suit!

Help me get her to the deck. I think she might have drowned.

With one of us on each arm, we swim her to the side of the pool. I try clumsily to give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation as we swim, remembering a course I took as a teenager in the hopes that I could practice mouth-to-mouth on a girl in my high school history class who was almost my size save for an outsized chest. Now I shudder at the unmoving cold lips and an airway full of water instead of air.

Stryker! Stryker! Over here, I shout. Wayne Stryker is the coach running the workout. Dressed in a long blue swim parka with the hood up and cradling a big cardboard container of steaming coffee, he ambles toward us. But when he sees we’re holding up somebody in the water he quick-steps the last five yards spilling his coffee.

With one arm holding onto the pool gutter, I get the woman’s arm up to where Stryker can grab it. As he pulls the stiff arm up, the woman’s breast pushes into my face. I shudder at the touch of flesh that feels like a gaffed fish. Am I imagining a bluish caste to her skin? It’s hard to tell in the dim light.

But I think she’s dead.

Holy shit, says Stryker as he jerks her out of the water and onto the cement. He feels for a pulse on her neck. By the time I pull myself out, Stryker is giving her chest compressions and looking at her fearfully as water runs out her mouth and nose. The lifeguard, a female undergraduate student in a bulky parka, runs up, pulling a CPR mask out of a bag inside the parka. She kneels and starts placing the mask on the woman’s face.

The 34-degree wind-driven air slams my body but I hardly notice. I run to my swim bag, grab my cell phone and punch in 911.

I think we have a drowning at the Dunbar University pool. I just pulled a woman out of the water, I say interrupting the 911 operator as she answers. I rattle off the address for the pool entrance telling the operator the best gate to use entering the campus. I give my name and identify myself as campus security.

No, she’s not breathing, and there’s no pulse, I add when questioned.

Hana is out of the pool now and bent over beside Stryker and the lifeguard, a look of utter despair on her face. But as the rest of the team crowds around, she leaves.

Examining the drowned woman, I see a petite blonde, with a very good figure. She looks young, like a high school girl, but I am guessing she’s a female undergraduate at Dunbar. Then Hana returns to drape an old swim parka over the girl’s bottom half. I am not sure whether she is motivated by the cold air or modesty. It’s probably the latter because the girl’s looking deader all the time.

I think she’s gone, Stryker says as he pumps on her chest, but I’m gonna keep going till the paramedics get here.

We hear sirens approaching. I use my cell phone to call the campus security office and tell Edie Salapaiga, the only one there, what has happened.

Whoa, that’s bad. What should we do?

Better call the president. He’ll want to know about this right away.

Salapaiga doesn’t say anything and I can hear her breathing over the phone line despite the wind noise.

I don’t know. I’ve never even spoken to him before, she says finally. Shouldn’t we talk to Grimson first?

Salapaiga, like me, is an assistant director while Blake Grimson directs Dunbar Campus Security. I get along well enough with Salapaiga, but Salapaiga isn’t the most decisive person in the world. Grimson is a former cop about 60 years old. He is massively overweight, drinks too much, and he is also on vacation. Lately, he and I don’t agree on much. For the past three years, he’s given me poor performance reviews, so I haven’t had a raise.

I get the president’s home number from Salapaiga.

I’ll call him, and I hear a sigh of relief from Salapaiga.

I punch in the number for Acting President Costas Myrrine. Myrrine is a professor of finance and business management who had been provost when the president, Arthur Montclef Carter III, passed away from an ill-timed heart attack. Ill-timed because his ticker gave out while he was counseling a young woman, probably a student, in the bedroom of his official Dunbar University residence. Few know the circumstances of his death, and I wouldn’t be one of the enlightened save for the fact that I answered the initial call from the girl. She has never been identified. Instead of 911, she called Campus Security when Carter died in the middle of, or shortly after finishing having sex with her. Then she left. In six years as president, Carter’s greatest achievement had been to build a very nice swimming pool, or aquatics center as the university likes to call it. I guess there are worse ways to die, but I wonder what happened to the girl. It could have been a woman, but I’ve always felt it was a girl, and likely a Dunbar student. Whoever it was, it could not have been easy for her.

Myrrine has spent seven months as acting president while the Dunbar Board of Trustees conducts an interminable nationwide search for a new president complicated by the university’s budget problems. Myrrine is a candidate for the job, probably the leading candidate. Most faculty support him, but he lacks lead dog experience. I met him for all of 30 seconds when he strode out of Grimson’s office one morning during an acting-presidential tour. He was meeting everyone of consequence at Dunbar, and that didn’t include me, Assistant Director of Security Rick Short. Since then, I’d see him around the campus and we usually nodded to each other, or sometimes exchanged hellos. He’s a gregarious, energetic and tubby man about 50. Streaks of grey run through his dark hair adding some gravitas. He likes to eat ice cream in the Student Union with students, which perhaps explains the tubbiness, and I like him.

This is Rick Short. He’s in charge of our shop at night, Grimson told him, unnecessarily adding he’s not very big, but he used to be a hockey player if you can believe that.

Myrrine said hello, looked me up and down–mostly down–and shook my hand.

Now he answers his phone on the third ring.

This is Rick Short from Campus Security and I’m sorry to disturb you President Myrrine…

He cuts in right away. It’s okay. I’m on my second cup of coffee. You’re the night security supervisor, the hockey player, he says. Born in Greece, he has a strong accent. He speaks meticulously, pronouncing every syllable, often dragging out the last consonant in a word so it’s sounds like eetsa. He gets a lot of inflections wrong.

I remember you, he says.

I’m also a swimmer, I add. Listen, it looks like we’ve had a drowning at the pool. There’s a masters swim team workout mornings at five thirty, and we just found a body under the pool covers. We’re doing CPR, and the paramedics are on the way. But the victim looks dead to me.

What! Is it a student? His voice kicks up an octave.

Don’t know who she is, but she could be a student. She’s a young woman.

I’m coming over. I’ll be there in a few minutes. The call ends.

The paramedics continue working on the girl. One of them, a man, is shaking his head as he looks at his female companion and Stryker. She’s placing paddles against the victim’s chest. The body jerks as they shock her and the man immediately resumes the chest compressions. Out in the parking lot, a police cruiser with lights flashing and a blaring siren skids to a stop. Two policemen run up to us. I recognize Bob Prentice who works nights like I do. Most of the time when I call the police, it’s Prentice who responds. I don’t recognize the other policeman but he’s African American and a sergeant. His nametag says Asner. They go right past me to the paramedics and the girl. I’m hanging back a little, watching for the president until Prentice calls me over.

You the first one to see her? Asner asks in a tone that’s both confusing and a little belligerent. Asner’s big with wide shoulders and a big blocky face. There’s no introduction, no offer to shake hands and Prentice looks uncomfortable. Maybe I’m not the only one short on social niceties.

Yeah, I was the first one to see her, I say. I dove in first this morning. Saw her leg hanging down when I was swimming back on my first lap.

You didn’t see her when you first went in? he asks. Again, there’s some tension and an edge to his voice. And it’s a stupid question.

I shrug, suddenly a lot more aware of the wind and the cold. My shivering’s out of control. I close my eyes when I dive, even with the goggles.

I turn around and start walking back to my swim bag to get my towel.

Hey! he shouts. I didn’t say you could leave.

I walk the last few steps, pick up my towel and wrap it around myself as I turn around, still cold. Old and thin, my towel barely blocks the wind. Asner stands with one hand on the butt of a big pistol, thick legs straining the uniform fabric, up on his toes slightly like he’s getting ready to jump. It’s scary enough that my teammates on either side edge away. But I see Prentice reaching over to grasp Asner’s arm.

You going to shoot an unarmed man in a Speedo? I say, my heart pounding. I glare at him and force a smile. Shaking his head, he looks confused. His hand pops off the pistol like it just gave him a shock. He takes off his hat with one hand and with the other scratches the bristles on a head probably shaved a few days ago.

Then Prentice steps in.

Anyone recognize her? he asks loudly. That sounds like a good question.

No one answers right away but I see Judy Highsmith whispering to her husband Gary. He looks pale, though who knows in the dim light, and then he looks away. She takes a step forward and tries to look past Asner and the paramedics at the girl.

Asner looks around at everyone, takes a deep breath and hitches up his belt. He’s thick all over, and as far as I’m concerned, that includes his brain. Boney eyebrows under a square forehead, and a big flat nose seem to squeeze his eyes together. He licks his rubbery lips as he turns back to me. He appears to be about my age and I’m almost 31. Prentice is five years older, and now the poor slob is working with someone younger who outranks him. Someone who seems to be a jerk.

She’s Bernadine Kutzenov, says Stryker, and he sounds very sure. Behind him, Judy nods her head slightly and clutches her husband’s arm. Bernie was on my swim team when I coached in a city program a few years ago. She must be about seventeen or eighteen now.

Is she a student here? a voice behind me asks. I turn to see that President Myrrine has arrived.

I don’t know, says Stryker. He’s shaken, a sadness in his eyes as he looks at the paramedics, and a wariness with the police. Stryker’s in his mid-forties, though he looks younger with his jet-black hair and no hint of grey. Once an excellent athlete who barely missed making an Olympic swim team, he no longer swims much and has put on weight. He’s a building contractor who began coaching swimming for extra income when the economy tanked. That’s when he started the masters team. He’s only on campus for workouts, and the swimmers on the team are adults, older than the Dunbar students, who are also technically adults, though that’s open to debate. The masters swim team is a business for Stryker and he rents pool time from the university for the workouts.

The paramedics load the girl onto a gurney and wheel her away, still pumping her chest. Stryker comes over to me and shrugs out of his swim parka. He’s wearing a sweat suit underneath.

Here, he says handing me the parka, put this on and stop shivering for chrissakes.

Thanks. The coat’s so big it drags on the deck as I walk to the edge of the pool with Prentice, Asner and Myrrine. I don’t see Hana, which is probably just as well. I point to where I found the woman.

She was ten or fifteen feet out from the edge where it’s about six feet deep. She was underneath that pool cover.

What time did you get here? asks Prentice.

I think about it.

About five fifteen. Maybe a few minutes earlier, but not any later. I remember the five fifteen alarm on my phone went off just after we opened the gate. Took us about ten minutes to take the covers off. The gate was locked, and it was locked at ten-thirty last night. I checked it after the water polo team left. They put all the pool covers on after their practice, which was eight-thirty to ten. Kinda late for those guys.

There is something else that I should tell them, but don’t. Somewhere around 2:30 a.m., I swam the entire 50-meter length of the pool and almost halfway back, underwater. I did not see anyone then, and don’t believe the girl was in the pool at that time, though it is very dark under the tarps. But I must have swum right through the area where I later found her body. I don’t say anything because what I did, what I have been doing three or four times a week since the summer, is stupid. Swimming alone in the dark is bad enough. Staying underwater for as long as you can is crazy because you could black out and drown with virtually no warning. My boss Grimson would almost certainly fire me if he knew. I do not know why I have been doing this. Maybe at first I wanted to prove that I could swim 50 meters underwater. Then I wanted to swim farther. A few times, I’ve done 75 meters, which is halfway back. Maybe I actually want to be fired. Or it could be a kind of suicidal act. A few years ago my half brother killed himself, and suicide is contagious.

My night shift runs from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. I unlock the pool gate for whoever is running the morning workout, which is usually Stryker. I have an agreement with Grimson that I can participate in the workouts. Shift supervisors come in early for transition and Salapaiga usually arrives between 4:45 and 5 a.m. Most nights, not much happens. After busy nights, I skip the swim workout to take more time briefing Salapaiga. Most weeknights I’m the entire campus security with a couple of people on standby. Weekends, when it’s party time for the students, or weeknights when there’s a late event, we have extra people working, mostly students that I’ve hired. The university budget crunch thinned campus security but Dunbar University is in the City of Santa Laura, an affluent low-crime city. Grimson talks about retirement and someone younger, less experienced and cheaper will likely replace him when he pulls the plug.

I’m busy for the next couple of hours, but with less tension than expected. That’s mainly because Asner and Prentice go to the hospital, and Myrrine proves easy to work with considering the circumstances. Right after I called, Salapaiga called Grimson, who was at home on a staycation. He told Salapaiga he was sick and wouldn’t be in. Reading Salapaiga’s eyes, I knew that meant Grimson had probably gotten drunk and was either still drunk or terribly hung over. Myrrine’s presence prevents us from talking openly about it. Personally, I think Grimson’s an alcoholic in need of an intervention. Salapaiga, who comes from a hard-drinking Samoan family, thinks it’s no big deal. Maybe she needs an intervention too.

Bernadine Kutzenov was not a Dunbar student, Myrrine announces after a long session on his cell phone. He sounds relieved. She applied and was accepted, but she did not enroll.

Salapaiga and I are standing on either side of him when we receive a call from Prentice at the hospital. I press the speakerphone button to answer.

The girl’s dead, Prentice says.

Nobody says anything. I sit down depressed and suddenly very tired.

2

After dropping by Stryker’s house to return his parka, I arrive home, a small brick building with a peaked roof, formerly a three-car garage, and located at the end of a long driveway behind a much larger brick dwelling that was once a grand estate. The estate, now three apartments, and my place make up the Grand Apartments though it’s no longer very grand. It’s been for sale for a year and I am shocked to see a new sold sticker pasted on the realtor’s sign. An old but immaculate red Toyota Supra nestles in the parking space of one of the two apartments that have been vacant for weeks. Studying the sticker, I worry that my rent will be going up.

Clancy, my black and tan dachshund with the heart of a Rottweiler and the legs of a guinea pig, rockets down the driveway as I pull up. Well, it’s as rocketing as possible with those short legs. Though we have short legs in common, we’re both very quick. Clancy knows the sound of my truck and his breakfast is several hours late. But Hana Balboa walks behind him carrying two mugs of coffee. Clancy performs a brief welcome dance, or maybe it’s the similar breakfast dance. Then, his tail wagging furiously, he trots back to Hana, nipping at her ankles.

I had to see Clancy, and I thought I’d better feed him, she says handing me a mug. Clancy continues nuzzling her ankles, his tail going like a windshield wiper as she bends to scratch his ears. I missed him.

Straightening up, she reaches an arm around to hug me, like nothing has changed and she wasn’t gone for almost two years.

Missed you too, Rick, she says and when I don’t respond to the hug she bends to kiss me on the cheek. I feel like a little kid. She lets go and looks at me, anxiety spreading across her face.

I’ve got doughnuts, she says with a hopeful smile. She knows my weakness. I finally smile but this time it’s me who’s tentative.

It’s been a difficult morning, I say inspecting her. The girl’s dead.

At first Hana doesn’t say anything and just nods. Then I hear a soft, I thought so.

A big woman, I sometimes think she’s even taller than her oft-stated five-foot-ten and a half or almost five eleven. She’s wearing skin-tight gray yoga pants and a clingy black V-neck long sleeve top that’s displaying a generous swath of cleavage. Her dark brown hair seems lighter and longer than I remember, and falls untidily around her face like a partial veil. She’s a little thinner but still a goddess. Not for the first time, I try to figure out her ethnicity. She says she’s half Asian but that’s about all I know of her family background, and I don’t think she knows much more than the little she’s told me. Her smooth skin appears darker with a hint of a brightening amber tone. Honestly, she glows. Hana usually avoids the sun, saying she’s already dark enough, but now she looks like she’s not only absorbed the sunlight but is reflecting it back. Exotic ethnic looks landed her a lot of modeling jobs. I exaggerated about her lingerie modeling. She mostly did shoots for department store apparel ads before she left, but that sometimes included swimsuits and lingerie. And in fact, she claims appearing in lingerie makes her uncomfortable. But she did do a Victoria’s Secret show before I knew her. She showed me the video.

Then she turns and I’m stunned to see the other side of her face. A long crooked scar covers most of one cheek. It’s a trauma scar, not a slash from a knife or other sharp instrument, and not a burn. It is jagged, slightly depressed and bigger than any of the hastily stitched wounds I’ve ever seen on hockey players hit by 100-mile-an-hour pucks or errant sticks. Something opened up her cheek, I’d calculate more than 20 stitches worth of open. On a hockey player, it would be a major badge of honor. I realize that I missed the whole thing in the darkness at the pool earlier. Or, maybe I saw it and it didn’t register in my excitement about seeing her.

I’ve missed you too, Hana, I stammer after a long pause where we look at each other, me fixed on the scar. It’s the truth. I have missed her, and her abrupt departure has been a big problem. Hana pulled me out of the depression over my half brother’s death and the depression came back after she left. My always slow social life died. I’d even quit having breakfast with Julio, once a weekly ritual, and stopped going to the Friday night swim team gatherings at a local tavern. I hadn’t seen Prentice outside of work for months. Lately, I’d started skipping some swim workouts. I want to wrap Hana in my arms but resist. No one likes to be dumped.

But it hurt, I finally say, immediately feeling bad. Should I say something about her face? Once again, I can’t speak.

She nods and we walk back to my place. I have so many questions. Where do I stand with her? Is she changing her mind about dumping me? Do I want her back? Most likely, she’s here to make the let’s just be friends speech where she tells me about her wonderful new and much taller guy.

But what happened to her face?

Maybe she didn’t dump me. Maybe she had been called back to the Navy like Prentice speculated when she first disappeared. But why wouldn’t she have told me that?

Soon we’re sitting at my table munching doughnuts and drinking coffee. She keeps her head turned with the scar side away from me. Clancy’s draped across her feet. He’s ready to resume their former relationship and her feet were always his favorite part of Hana’s anatomy. Clancy’s not a Mensa-class canine. He hasn’t figured out Daylight Savings Time or why dogs don’t eat lunch.

Maybe because she’s so beautiful and a model, some people think that Hana’s not bright. When I first met her, I thought so, but soon changed my mind. She’s complicated. She’s beautiful, but with an incongruous crude streak. She speaks four or five languages fluently and knows a smattering of several more. She can swear like a sailor in all of them, or so she claims. How would I know? I speak English and know some hockey terms in French, Russian and Swedish. She excels at math, social media, computers and auto mechanics. God help a mechanic or computer sales rep who tries to snow her. She knows my old truck’s specs better than I do. She keeps up on current affairs and has traveled to many foreign countries. I’ve been to Canada, where I frequented hockey rinks and taverns. I barely pay attention to the news. She’s a great listener with uncanny people sense. She can act too. This makes her a stunningly good liar because she knows what people want to hear, what they’ll accept and exactly how to present it to them. Me, I’ll bluntly tell someone their idea sucks or they’ve gained weight, and it often gets me in trouble. My boss does not appreciate my suggestions or disagreements with his ideas to the point where there’s a real chance he’s going to fire me. Anyway, it’s easy to miss Hana’s formidable intelligence and intuition. I remind myself that she’s likely more aware of my thoughts than I am aware of hers. So sitting there drinking coffee, I’m nervous and wary, but not wary enough.

So where have you been? I finally ask. It comes out with some bite, and maybe I intended it to.

You always did get right to the point, she says, her tone escalating into a danger zone. Hana kept a tight rein on her emotions, so this is new.

Well, you’ve been gone almost two years and nobody’s heard from you. At least no one I know. Where the heck were you? Really, did you get tired of looking down at me and take off with somebody taller, a photographer or somebody in the industry with better career prospects than a screwed up failure of a pro athlete who’s a half-assed assistant director of security at a half-assed university? I mean all you had to do was dial my phone number, or send me a letter, or a postcard, or an email, or a text, or a damn tweet. How hard could it be?

And of course, I’m an idiot.

Wow Rick, you said ‘ass.’ Let me know when you’re ready to add ‘hole’ to your vocabulary, Hana says in a rising tenor that’s a blend of anger and hurt.

She spills coffee on the table as she drops the cup, her lips fluttering and her eyes suddenly wet. She snaps her mouth shut and swallows with a gulp. I see pressure building. I assume she was unhappy enough with me to leave, and that would have been okay, because we’re so clearly mismatched, Mutt and Jeff, Beauty and the Beast, et cetera, et cetera. But I can already sense a huge miscalculation.

Hana… I start.

Fuck you, Rick Short, she snarls.