People liked to tease Covey about the swimming. She was like lightning, some of them said. But with Bunny, they often grew quiet. Word had gotten around town. Bunny was the stuff of reverence. Bunny was a duppy conqueror. But then they turned sixteen and things began to change. People started calling them young ladies. Covey knew what some people thought about young ladies. That they ought to have more respect for the sea and what it could do. That they ought to stop courting danger by going out into the bay.
“It’s not natural,” her pa said. When Covey was still small, Covey’s father placed a couple of fortunate bets and told her he would use the money to enroll her in the swim club. Pa kept paying the fees even when he said there was nothing left for other expenses and, over the years, Covey made good on his investment by lining her bedroom shelf with swimming medals. Then Covey decided it wasn’t enough.
Because her pa was wrong, there was nothing more natural for Covey than swimming in the sea. And as long as she had Bunny, Covey felt that she could keep doing what she loved best.
“The harbor race,” Covey said to Bunny. “Let’s do it. Let’s see if we can get sponsorship to go to the capital.”
“The harbor race?” Bunny said. “You know I don’t like to race.”
“But we could win.”
“No, you could win, Covey.”
“But you could finish in the top three, I’m sure of it. It’s a good, long swim, the kind you like. Plus, some of those big-time racers from the other islands wouldn’t have the courage to come here.”
Their island was one of the smaller countries on Earth, but it had one of the world’s largest natural harbors. There were always rumors going around of what might be lurking in its waters.
Everyone on the island had a shark story. Sharks that left nothing but a man’s torso to wash ashore. Sharks that lunged when someone threw a dead dog off a cliff. Sharks seen circling a sandbar off the southern coast. But in her entire life, Covey had never seen so much as a shark fin in the water. Barracudas, yes. But she wondered if shark sightings weren’t like ghost stories, tales that you didn’t quite believe, but that left you feeling afraid all the same.
Covey would convince Bunny to enter that harbor race, she was sure of it.
“They would have boats tracking us, right?” Bunny asked.
“Right,” Covey said. “Listen, I’ll admit I get a little nervous, thinking about it. But we swim out here, so why can’t we swim there? Are you thinking you might not want to go?”
Bunny shook her head.
“Then don’t think about it, just come with me.”
Covey couldn’t imagine not going. Couldn’t imagine not feeling the froth bubble away from her skin as her arm came out of the water, the blue-green world below growing black with depth, the bright sky above, and even the salt burning her mouth. She dreamed of being invited to compete abroad. She knew it was unlikely, but it could be her ticket away from this island. Because, yes, Covey intended to leave this town someday, even if her mother never came back to get her.
“But your pa,” Bunny said. “What if he doesn’t agree?”
“I’ll think about that later,” Covey said.
Three afternoons a week, Covey pulled through the waves, pulled through her fear of sharks, pulled against lactic acid, and breathed in gulps of her future as a champion. Three afternoons a week, Bunny smeared grease on her face, pulled through the jellyfish stings, and studied a map of the island’s big harbor. Because wherever Covey went, Bunny wanted to follow.
Covey and
Gibbs
In those days, there were boys who would hack into the hulls of discarded fishing boats, shape them into flat boards, and ride the waves. Some of them went body boarding and surfing on pieces of refrigerator foam. They’d trim the polyurethane and laminate it with resin and fiberglass. They would laugh as they jumped off their boards and ran back to the sand. By the time factory-made surfboards came to Covey’s hometown, she was ready to try her luck at the sport.
Covey turned out to be a natural. She didn’t have a surfboard of her own, but Gibbs Grant did. Covey had just turned sixteen when Gibbs joined the swim club. He was one of the older boys, but fairly new in town. His family had moved to be near relatives after a mining company bought his father’s land. Covey had heard about the Grant boy but when she first saw him step out of the changing room and into the pool area, she was sure that their paths had never crossed. She was certain of it because she would have noticed if they had.