The Sea of Light Read Online Free Page A

stuff is that important. You’re on a roll around here, enjoy it. Don’t you think there’s a critical point to it all? Winning maxes out after a while, you know. It does. Then you’ve got to say, Well, fuck the whole bunch of you, I guess I’ve won enough. And you sit back a little, you smell the daisies.”
    He reaches for my hand again when we stand, presses it with affection. We’re about the same height. Our eyes meet perfectly. I decide to avoid him from now on—a shame, because he’s been an ally, almost a friend. For now, though, I will just shake hands.
    “Good going, Bren. The girl—”
    “Delgado.”
    “Right. Well, listen, there’s money around here somewhere. I’ll back you up all the way.”
    “Thanks.”
    “Don’t mention it. Just ghost-write a couple of proposals for me later on this term. And good luck. Good luck raising the dead.” He pales slightly, then blushes. “I mean the idiots in Budget Accounting—not the kid.”
    Back upstairs I pass McMullen’s office on the way to mine. Luckily, he’s on the phone. Haranguing. Someone else is getting it now and, despite myself, I smile. His voice booms down the hallway.
    “I don’t mind telling you, pal, this place is going to hell in a handbasket! They keep pouring money down these kids’ throats and it keeps coming out their rear ends! And guess who has the honor of mopping it up? Yours truly.”
    *
    The girl is prompt. McMullen’s secretary buzzes me at twenty-five past and I head out to meet her. She’s the kind we don’t see much of around here: big-framed, five foot ten, once lean but carrying too much weight around now. Taller than me, when she stands she comes close to taking over the room. We shake hands.
    “Ms. Delgado.”
    “Um—Babe.”
    “Bren Allen. How was your trip?”
    “Okay. I mean, fine.”
    “You didn’t have any trouble finding us, I hope?”
    “No!”
    It sounds like panic. The kid’s very pale—there’s something vaguely upsetting about her presence when we head for my office—an awkwardness of the body. Nice-looking face, a little puffy yet ragged somehow. Like a thoroughbred beaten and lamed—maybe the bone sets, but the animal never runs the same.
    Then I’m ashamed to evaluate her so coldly. Even though it’s part of my job, to evaluate coldly—it seems inappropriate now. I take her along a couple of detouring hallways to avoid McMullen, go around to my office and we both sit inside. Now I can meet her eyes directly. They’re large, dark eyes that don’t blink. There are tiny streaks of red across each cornea. It makes me feel the weariness acutely in my own self, and for a second I can almost swear that some kind of sigh passes between us, sounds somewhere close by in the world.
    “You know, Babe, I was impressed by the honesty of your letter. I thought it took courage to write that. But I think you were a little rough on yourself. A certain amount of physical potential can stay with you, you know. It can. The rest is all in the mind.” This gets no reaction, not even a blink. Only tension and pallor, and a pain that the fixed, nervous smile cannot hide. “Tell me, how have things been for you this year?”
    “Lousy.”
    “That’s not surprising. We aren’t machines, after all. Sometimes our bodies seem to be—machines, I mean—but because our emotions are inseparable from what we do physically, we can’t ever function as predictably as machines.”
    It’s all come out fluidly, perfectly. I tell myself: Coach, you’re good.
    “Everything really has to be in balance for excellent performance. But when we go through something traumatic it can throw the system way off, right? Different emotions cause different levels of hormones to be secreted, and this makes you feel lousy. You try to pull out the good times, the right splits, the extra effort—but it’s just not there to give.”
    The kid breathes, her lips tremble a little. “I don’t want to lie about anything. I told