That Saturday was the turning point of the summer. Up until then the days were cool and polite. People sat around in courtyards and on patios looking pensive and focused, perfectly comfortable and able to keep their heads on straight.
On Saturday, things began to shift. The air grew wet and dense, and the energy became urgent and scattered. It was the first hot hot pool day of the season, and loungers were sprawled out on the grey vinyl chairs without ceremony. Just flopped open avoiding bent elbows and knees at all costs, doing their best to prevent little sweat pockets.
The heat only amplified my social butterfly tendencies, so I’d arranged to meet a crew of athletes after their morning run. According to my car’s clock—which I always set three minutes fast—I was 22 minutes late. They gave me an orange wristband at the front desk—a members-only sartorial perk—and I entered. I was one of the last to join a row of sunbathing friends and acquaintances all lined up as if to watch the sun’s every move. The color scheme of their bikinis was a romantic muted spring palette, and they all held their books out in front of them like synchronized loungers. Everyone was free, hot, and unbothered. I felt gay as a wedding bell.
I tucked the fringed end of my towel in between the chair’s vinyl straps and sat back with my espresso lemonade, now watered down from the rapidly melting ice. It was 1 p.m. and the neighborhood’s summer camp had just arrived for its daily dip so there was plenty to look at. Sunglasses are an indispensable tool for those of us who like to unabashedly observe others. I stared out from behind their dark lenses, my head propped up on the wrist of one arm bent over my head. Every now and then I’d get a stare right back at me, people taken aback by my fine figure or, more likely, my tufts of (dare I say) silky brown armpit hair.
I looked on as kids did all the weird things kids do at the pool. They flop around in the water free from self-awareness, imagining themselves as graceful as dolphins when in reality their clumsy legs barely make it out of the water for their handstand. One kid lay on his stomach for a while, his face looking down into the shallow end, as other kids stepped over him. A house sparrow pecked at fallen veggie straw. Bougie parents in coverups congregated with their babies propped on their hips to discuss the heat. The babies looked on obliviously from beneath their bucket hats.
Being at the pool always clears my head. There’s so much to look at, and such engaging physical sensations to enjoy (the heat, the water, the strawberry shortcake bars) that I’m not easily distracted by thoughts and worries like I would be elsewhere. Because of this wonderful side-effect, I feel like I’m really there on my lounge chair, watching and listening to the day like a movie. It’s my own Rear Window, an ambient, disconnected narrative unfolding in front of me.
Every hour at the top of the hour, the bored lifeguards blow their whistles from their stands, and a voice comes on over the speakers to announce that it’s time for adult swim. The children are devastated. They do their absolute best to take as long as possible exiting the pool, the water suddenly as thick as quicksand, while camp counselors and life guards stand at the edge yelling and waving them out.
As a teenager I looked old for my age, and that was never as much of an advantage as it was when this hourly spectacle occurred. I’d watch my baby-faced peers climb out of the pool and the smug adults climb in.
I am down to break rules, but I need permission. I never dared try to order alcohol or buy cigarettes when I was under age until someone told me I could get away with it. The first time I ordered a drink (a margarita from a Mexican restaurant in a strip mall) I was 20 years and nine months old.
My sister was the first to encourage my staying for adult swim. That summer, she had taught me to tread water, and we would bob up and down side-by-side in the deep end all afternoon. When the whistles blew, I looked over at her half apologizing, half asking for permission. “Kate, no one will care,” she said. “You look 18.”
(She is the only one who calls me Kate, and I love it. When anyone else calls me Kate, it’s feels like they’re trying to assign me a new personality. But when my sister calls me Kate, it comes out as a breathy, lazy urgency, like there is no time for more syllables we have so much to discuss. She writes my name as “KT.” Same principle.)
Now when the whistles blow, I am among the smug grown-ups languidly heading to the water’s edge, moving against the current of dripping, shivering children.
The water was cool but not cold, refreshing without the shock of an unheated pool. My friend and I waded aimlessly in the three to five foot depths, sunglasses on, discussing books and parks and Charlie XCX and whatever else. Some of our sunning companions sat on the edge with their feet dangling in, and we made occasional pit stops to say hello. Other young singles and pairs bopped around freely in the comparatively empty pool. In one corner, a huddle of hot, fit gay men in brief swimsuits laughed and held their drinks up out of the water. All along the sides of the shallow end, young people stood with their elbows on the concrete reading their summer books.
In between adult swims, we ate hot berries and melting gummy candies, and held our books up to our faces. I wanted badly to be reading the essays I had in my hand, but I was too captivated by the scene around me. Nothing remarkable was happening, and that’s what made it so nice to watch. A whole crowd of people stripped of their jobs and clothes and accomplishments, collectively enjoying sun and water. It’s so easy to be around, so care-free I couldn’t take my eyes and ears away.
Still I kept my book open, reading the same paragraph over and over again, looking up every two minutes to watch a stranger reapply sunscreen or adjust their towel. My friend suggested that at the next adult swim we take our books in the pool like the other childless Millennials and I thought this sounded like a good idea. We climbed carefully down the ladder, holding our library books high up and away from the water, and staked out some real estate on the pool’s edge. But reading was not in the cards because I couldn’t stop talking, yakking about how nice the day was and how sweet it was that some girl was reading Eat, Pray, Love and how anything could happen because it was a Saturday and we were young, free adults with cars. Eventually, she gave up making any earnest attempt at her Palahniuk, and started talking about driving north. She had some spontaneous notion that she ought to get into Pearl Jam, and proposed we cruise around letting Eddie Vedder serenade us.
“Why don’t we drive to Fernald?” I suggested. “I’m writing about it for an assignment, might as well go look at it.”
So it was settled. Once the adult swim was over and the kids were run-walking back to the water, we had a one-track fixation on bird watching in Hamilton, Ohio. We got to packing up our things right away, rolling up our damp towels and dressing enough to walk to our cars without provoking stares. Our sunbathing companions thought it a little odd that one minute we were lounging and the next we were rushing to drive north, but we didn’t feel the need to explain. We said goodbye and left the pool, hair still dripping wet with chlorinated water.
I loved this so much! I should have rented a house with a pool.😞