Page 32 of The Last Five Yards

“Or of going over budget,” Maren says, straightening a chair.

The tables are arranged by graduation year, with small, printed cards marking each seat. She moves methodically, setting them in neat rows, double-checking names. When she reaches her own table, she slides a card for Jules between her and Reese’s. A small, quiet precaution, the kind of planning Maren has always done.

Reese watches, that old mix of admiration and ache curling through her. It has been years, but somehow Maren still looks like she is exactly where she is supposed to be.

The streamers flutter every time the door opens. Maren props the doors open just until the program starts. The sound of paper rustling every thirty seconds is already making her skin crawl.

The smell of cooked meat and barbecue sauce hangs heavily in the air. Tables are lined with hamburger buns, dozens of crock pots filled with sloppy joes, and bowls of chips at the end of the buffet. A hurried parent rushes across the gym with one last pot.

“Maren, can we get a sticky note on this one? The spicy batch really bites back!” She yells, setting it down before chasing after one of her kids.

Reese sets her purse down at their table and walks over to stand beside Maren. She stands there for a moment in silence, just taking it all in. Old school, old sounds, old smells. Only Coach Hensley would think sloppy joes belonged at a retirement banquet, she thinks. Talk about leaving a legacy.

“Oh God,” she says out loud, “please tell me he did not make you do the chip thing again.”

Maren looks over at the table with four different flavors of chips piled high in bowls. “Tradition,” she says. “He said the crunch builds character. We have flavor options this time.”

“Character and heartburn,” Reese mutters, grabbing a chip from the nearest bowl and crunching down.

The buffet line begins to form. Maren nudges Reese forward to grab a plate, then sits back to watch the room. Behind her, one of the guys from the swim team explains to his date, “You have to put the chips directly on the sandwich. Coach always says, ‘Crunch or it doesn’t count.’”

His date hesitates, adds a single chip.

“No, like this.” He grabs a whole handful, drops them on top of the meat, and presses the bun until it crackles. “See? It has to crunch.”

As the crowd settles with their plates, Maren finally makes her own and returns to the table, now missing only one chair. The open seat is between Jules and Reese. Her stomach dips. She checked those name cards three times; she was supposed to be between Jules and Ava. This was not part of the plan.

Coach Hensley makes his way around the room, stopping to greet each table. When he reaches her, he rests a hand on her shoulder and gives it a gentle squeeze. “Don’t let anyone touch the slideshow remote!” He warns, giving her shoulder another squeeze before moving on.

Reese smiles softly, shaking her head. “Some things never change, I see.”

“Thankfully,” Maren says, half distracted, still trying to figure out how she ended up next to Reese. She breathes in, one, two, three, four. “Not everything has to change.”

A loud screech tears through the PA system, followed by a flat, “Test, test, one, two, three.” One of the high school AV students fumbles with the microphone, then reaches back to shut off a row of lights. The projector hums to life, casting a soft golden glow across the gym floor. Dust drifts through the beam and sparkles on its own.

The slideshow begins on the far wall, thirty years of photos, both in and out of the pool. Maren laughs with her table when they reach the “Pasta Night” picture from her senior year. She and Reese are both covered in red sauce, trying to feed a spoonful to Coach Hensley, who looks like he just walked off the set of a slasher film.

Still smiling, Maren glances toward Reese and realizes she is not watching the slideshow. Reese’s eyes are on her instead.

On the wall, the photos keep coming, state meets, age-group invitationals, too many smiles to count, but all Maren can feel is the weight of Reese’s gaze.

Coach Hensley clears his throat, the microphone squealing once more before settling into a faint buzz. He looks out over the crowd, a little flushed, tie still crooked, eyes shining in the low light.

“Well,” he begins, “you’d think after thirty years I’d be ready for this.” Laughter ripples through the room. He smiles and waits for it to fade.

“I was told to keep this short, but if you’ve ever swam one of my practices, you know I’ve never been good at short.” Another round of laughter. “Thirty years of early mornings, late nights, and a lot of chlorine later, I figured I’d share one last thing.”

He glances toward the slideshow still rolling through its final photos, teams lined up on deck, swimmers mid-start, the shimmer of water catching light. “When you coach for this long, you start thinking about all the races you’ve watched. The ones we won, the ones we didn’t. And after a while, you realize most races are decided in the same place. The last five yards.”

He pauses, letting the quiet settle. “That’s where you find out what you have left. It is where the swimmers dig deep, where they decide if they are going to glide in or fight for the wall. Life is not much different. You spend a lot of it just pacing yourself, and then one day, you look up and realize you are in your own last five yards.”

He gives a small, self-deprecating chuckle. “I guess that’s where I am now. My last five yards.”

The crowd goes still. The slideshow ends on a photo of him standing on the pool deck, whistle around his neck, sun hitting the water behind him. Someone claps softly. He shakes his head.

“Don’t clap yet,” he says, voice rough around the edges. “If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that none of us ever finish this alone. You win those last yards because of the people who stayed beside you.”

He scans the tables, eyes finding Maren near the front. “And for me, that has been folks like Coach Clarke here. The ones who stayed when things got hard. The ones who showed up even when they didn’t have to.”