Carla grimaced at the bar and took off toward it in her loping gait, gaining speed with each step. She curved up to the bar, and at the last moment twisted, her tall, slender form curving in a graceful arch up into the air… and into the bar. She bounced back up and went back to set up again as I retrieved and replaced the bar.
This time, she narrowed her eyes to a piercing focus and dashed forward, her body soared up in an even more beautiful arch… and this time she came down on top of the pole. She winced at the impact and swore loudly at the failure.
Carla was damned tall, almost as tall as me, and her delicately muscled body was like a steel spring. She was certain that she could do this height. I agreed.
“Come on, Carla,” I said encouragingly. “Just a little harder push off and you will have it, right?”
Carla just screamed. “Who the fuck are you, man?” she added in frustration, taking me aback. She advanced on me, “Look, until this spring, you have always been this great friend, who was funny, smart, and knew your limitations. Now, you are this god-damned force of nature, who thinks he can do anything if he just decides he is going do it. You even had Peter believing in that yesterday. Kid had no business running that guy down from as far back as he was.”
“He still lost,” I replied crankily.
“He was fifty yards back and was fading when you started getting your teeth into him. He lost well.”
“There were lots of people cheering him on. Not just me.”
“Yes, Alistaire,” Carla said quietly, “but you were the only one who he was listening to.”
What was her problem, and where was Carla getting this from? “Well, if I’m Knute Rockne,” I said, putting the bar back up, “then listen to me and find a way to push off just a little harder this time.”
She stared at me. “You do realize that I’m clearing the height with every one of these jumps, right?”
“The bar I keep putting back up says otherwise.”
“No, it doesn’t. I’m making the height-I’m just doing it too soon or too late. I don’t have to fix the height, but the position of my jump. Look,” she said, turning sideways to me. Then she leaned her legs forward and her shoulders back, her long legs and slender torso bending into an incredibly flexible backward curve that looked like three-quarters of a circle. Standing there, in that arresting arch, she went on. “I just need to make sure the top of my arch forms right over the bar. When I do, I’ll roll right over.”
I realized I was staring at her, somehow holding that bend. I shook my head and said, “Got it. Thanks. So what can I do to help?”
Carla just flowed back upright and shook her head again. “And there is that change again. I tell you that you are being an ass, and you just listen, say okay, and reset.”
“I’ve always been ready to listen to you guys when we argued.”
“Yes, but before you were malleable-easily pushed into thinking differently. Now you are so self-confident, you don’t even feel threatened by being corrected. But if you still disagreed with me, you would push back now.”
“Malleable?” I didn’t know where that word had come from, but I didn’t like it.
“Accommodating. Whatever,” Carla said dismissively. “My point is that most guys do not take correction from a girl very well. Fuck, the last guy I dated didn’t even take a simple ‘no’ very well.” There was the slightest of quavers in her voice that told me instantly what she was implying there. Quickly, before she could clam up, I asked, “Just who was your last date?”
Carla just looked at me, breathing heavily. “And there. It is. Again! You are the same guy, Alistaire, but totally different.”
“Explain,” I said, already cursing myself for letting us get off the subject of this guy’s identity.
“Okay,” Carla said, being to prowl around the paved run-up apron in front of me and the huge cushion that formed the high jump pit. “First of all, I would have never felt the urge to tell the old you about that situation at all, even as obliquely as I did just now, but if I had, you’d have been understanding and supportive.”
“And now I’m not?” I objected hotly.
“No! Of course you are that. But you are not primarily that any more,” Carla said, flushing a little. She barked a short laugh, almost a cough. “Look dude, you should have seen your face just now when you asked who he was. You were like a wolf for a second there. You were ready to sally forth and literally go kick his ass.”
I was still ready to sally forth and kick his ass, if only she would tell me his name.
“It’s the before and after,” she went on. “Before, Good Old Al was comfortable and unthreatening. Now, the new Alistair makes me feel safe. No… Alistair does not make me feel safe at all, but he makes me feel safe from the rest of the world.”
“Wait, I somehow make you feel unsafe now?”
“You really don’t make me feel safe, Alistaire. No, you don’t,” Carla said quietly, eyes cast down. Then she looked up into my eyes and added, “And I really, really like that.”
So intent was I on what she had been saying, I hadn’t quite realized that her restless prowling had brought her close to me. As she finished speaking, she took a last step straight forward and I found her standing right in front of me, probably less than a foot away.
Oh boy. Was this about to get complicated?
Prior to spring break, I had basically always avoided being physically near any girl, much less this close and staring into her eyes while I was there. But since my world had warped into unrecognizability, all the girls I had been near, deliciously near, had been a little or even a lot shorter than me.
Carla was really tall for a girl, both of us were over six feet. I found myself looking into a pair of eyes at almost, well, eye level, instead of looking downward. It was a new sensation, and I felt myself responding to it. I was also responding to the things she had said about me. She had called me malleable, which I had bristled at, but also inspirational, which seemed over the top for what I deserved.
And this not safe shit was weird. I wanted to be hurt but… Oh man, was that new Male Instinct saying, Damned Straight? It was.
Then Carla rested her hand on my forearm and kissed me tentatively.