Her Lover, Her Coach

Lexie could see the other diners becoming uneasy following Marc's outburst. When she started to walk out, he grabbed her arm. "Get the hell off me!" she snapped. She jerked her arm away, then headed for the lobby, Marc in pursuit.

"You fucked him, didn't you?" he yelled. "You two slept together last night, tell me the truth."

The desk clerk, a millennial-age guy with short brown hair in a blue blazer and the two middle-aged, female customers he was helping looked up. "Sir, you need to settle down," he said when Marc started to rant on. "Are you a guest here?"

"Yes I'm a guest here!" Marc yelled. He turned back to Lexie. "You lied to me!"

When Marc tried to block Lexie's path to the elevators, she did an end run around him, ran down the hall and entered the stairway. After she got to the first landing, she heard Marc behind her, yelling and screaming, pumping his legs up the stairs, two at a time. She ran faster, didn't look behind her until she reached the third floor. She was just able to swipe her card key and make it into her room before he reached her door. She slammed it shut, locked it and then made two calls, one to security on the room phone, the other to Dan on her cell. Marc sounded like a lunatic, yelling and banging on her door. In just a few hours she was due at the Convention Center to weigh in. Yet here she was, fending off an assault by her angry, out of control coach—ex-coach to be more precise. Was this really happening? Marc's behavior scared her, yet she began to laugh sardonically, feeling like some hapless character out of a bad sitcom.

Amid Marc's tantrum, she also heard the sound of people running down the carpeted hall, then the voices of security personnel. She cracked the door to see three uniformed officers, two males and a female, trying to reason with Marc. The woman, slightly overweight and wearing her red hair in a ponytail, said, "Ma'am, is this the individual who tried to assault you?"

"I didn't assault her!" Marc shot back.

Lexie said she didn't want Marc arrested; she just wanted him to leave her alone. The officers calmed him down to the point where he could talk rationally. Then Dan showed up, which sent him into a tizzy once again. Red ponytail "counseled" him again, concluding her spiel with a stern warning: "Sir, if we get another call, you're going to jail. Understand?"

Grudgingly, Marc returned to his room, walking through a gauntlet of gawking guests standing outside their doors. Dan stayed with Lexie after the officers left. Any fear she once had turned into anger. Sitting on the bed next to Dan, she said, "That idiot might have ruined my chances of medaling today."

Dan, his arm draped around her, said, "No way. In fact, he just increased them. Use that anger of yours to your advantage. Let it motivate you, not distract you. You're not here just to medal, you're here to win, and that's just what you're gonna to do. Ya hear me?"

Lexie managed a weak smile. "I like your pep talk, coach."

"Good, because today I AM your coach. Tomorrow, I'm your...well, anything you want me to be."

Lexie snuggled closer. "How about my boyfriend who I'm starting to adore, who I'm excited about traveling with to some romantic getaway. Think you can fulfill that role?"

"In spades. But first things first. Let's get your gear together, your lifting clothes, energy bars, stuff like that. Keep busy. Your goal today is to end up with a gold medal around your neck."

Lexie entered the Convention Center full of angst. Always nervous right before a competition, she had the additional worry of seeing Marc. So far, he was a no-show as she went to the warm-up room to weigh in. Dan submitted his name as her coach to Oscar Holbrook, one of the officials who he knew through the lifting grapevine. When Oscar asked what happened to Marc Boddiger, Dan answered with just two words: "He's indisposed."

However, no sooner did Dan turn to leave Oscar's table, set up in front of the stage, when Marc showed up, still wearing his blue warm-up suit. "This guy's an imposter," Marc said, leaning on the table, inches from Oscar's face. "I'm Lexie Mandel's real coach, have been for the last two years."

Oscar knew Marc. In fact, they competed against one another in the 85kg class back in the day. Oscar raised his eyebrows, looked perplexed. "So why is Dan here saying that he's her coach? He said you were indisposed."

"Oh, he did, did he?" Marc said, balling his hands up into fists.

Dan ignored Marc's menacing look, pushed his wire rim glasses against his nose and stepped closer to the table. "Look, Lexie herself will vouch for me. Want me to go get her?"

Oscar nodded and Dan went back into the warm-up room. The seven young women competing in the 69kg class stood behind a partition, waiting in line to weigh-in. Dan had to wait ten minutes for Lexie's turn and then dress in her warm-ups before he told her what was happening. She avoided eye contact with Marc when she approached Oscar. "He's my coach," she said, pointing to Dan.

Oscar thanked her, looked at Marc and shrugged. "It is what it is, Marc. I just work here."

Marc slowly shook his head, looked hard at Lexie and Dan. "You'll both be sorry you fucked with me." He then turned, jumped down from the stage, stormed up the isle between rows of chairs and left the building.

Lexie shivered. A feeling of déjà vu, sick and eerie, washed over her. Suddenly, she was back in Philly, seeing Ben threatening her, and then running to his truck where he kept his gun. To her knowledge, Marc didn't own a gun. But what terrible thing was he planning? She tried to shake it as she lined up onstage with her seven competitors for the introductions, keeping her eyes trained on the rear of the hall, looking for Marc's possible return.

"Focus, Lexie, focus," Dan ordered, standing by one of the platforms in the warm-up room, watching her work up in weight for the snatch lift. She nodded, doing her best to comply. She kept adding weight, going through her paces, while also watching her competition. Two women stood out, one from Canada, the other from Hungary. They looked strong, matching Lexie warm-up lift for warm-up lift. However, it was a different story out on the platform. Lexie turned in the performance of her life, going six for six. She snatched 103kg to their 93kg and 92kg respectively. Her confidence soared after that. In the clean and jerk, she hoisted 132kg to their 123kg and 113kg. In total weight lifted, she eclipsed the second place finisher by 20kg!

Her eyes moistened on the victory podium during the playing of the Star Spangled Banner. The mostly American audience cheered and stuck out their camera phones. Some sided up to her for a selphie. In the rear of the lifting hall, a local news crew got her attention. The camera guy trained his mini-cam on her while a female reporter interviewed her. Marc fell off her radar as she answered their questions and signed autographs for a group of admirers, mostly fawning young women harboring their own dreams of lifting glory.

Dan, respecting Lexie's moment in the spotlight, stood off to the side. Lexie, however, pointed to him and said, "And much thanks goes out to my coach here, Dan Kramer, for pulling me through a tense situation that could have derailed my performance."

It was just after the reporter asked for details that Marc, who had been listening in the hallway just outside, burst through the entrance. Looking directly into the camera, he said, "Don't believe a word she says. I'm her real coach, the same coach she's had for the last two years, the same coach who's responsible for her phenomenal progress, including her win here today. "This clown," he said, poking his finger toward Dan, "is some hack Lexie met after her boyfriend killed himself."

Sensing a dramatic twist to what would ordinarily be a sports story, the crew didn't flinch. The camera guy granted Marc the spotlight, while the reporter, microphone in hand, let him rave on. "She's an ingrate without a grain of loyalty in her entire body, a consummate opportunist who's not above trading loyalty for some nooky with a guy she barely knows. A guy, I should add, that has blood on his hands over Lexie's boyfriend killing himself. Kramer stole her from him, just like he stole her from me."

Dan, hardly a violent guy, had heard enough. After throwing off his glasses, he grabbed Marc's collar and pushed him against the wall. Then both of them went down and started tussling on the floor. The reporter uttered a muffled scream and jumped back. The camera guy moved closer to the fracas. In seconds, officials moved in to pull them apart. Regaining her professional composure, the reporter, looking into the camera, said, "Well, we certainly didn't expect this. Apparently, there's a lot more to this story than a young woman's victory in the World University Weightlifting Championships."

Uniformed guards showed up to keep distance between Marc and Dan. When Dan apologized to Lexie for snapping, she said, "No apology necessary. I was about to slug him myself before you stepped in. The man's a nut job."

*****

Dan stayed with Lexie back at the Hampton Inn. She called police, giving them a heads-up about what happened, alerting them to another possible intervention. Marc, however, kept his distance. It took some tedious communication, but Lexie managed to change her flight back to Maryland so she could fly back with Dan instead of Marc. She was even able to get a seat next to him. She held Dan's hand with one hand, while fondling her gold medal with the other, basking in the afterglow of her achievement. She planned to take some time off from lifting. Not long, a week or two, enough time to go away with Dan when the semester ended.

Dan started to fondle the medal. "I guess this proves that a coach can love his athlete and still get winning results."

Lexie looked up at him, her eyes full of dreamy affection. "I guess it does. And the reverse is also true. An athlete who loves her coach can still win. That, plus sharing a Yueungling and then having great sex with him the night before her competition." She paused to gaze out the window. She couldn't see much but clouds, thick and billowing. Turning back, she said, "So, where are you going to take me?"

"Where would you like to go?"

"Oh, some place I haven't been. Maybe some place you've been that you'd think I'd like to see. Some place beautiful and remote."

It took Dan just seconds to respond. "I know just the place, the Hebrides Islands. They're off the northern coast of Scotland. I went hiking there a few years ago. If you want remote and beautiful, you won't find better than the Hebrides."

Because Lexie had paid for Wi-Fi access, she could access pics. "Wow! You're right, Dan," she gushed, looking at the green coastline, quaint villages and deep blue fjords. "I'd love to go there with you. But, as your lover, not some chick you coach."

Dan leaned in and kissed her. "I wouldn't have it any other way."