I love the community pool during the summer. I don't know how I'd get through the days without it.
It was June. I'd be twenty-five in a couple of months and I still lived at home. I didn't go to school and I didn't work. I hung around the community pool every day. They call it the Aquatic Center but it's really just a pool with loungers and lots of sun. There are four of us. We all graduated high school together six years ago. We've been friends since elementary school. There used to be six of us but two got married and one is already pregnant.
My name is Catlin and I'm spoiled rotten. My mother accepts my lifestyle. I think she wishes I'll meet someone, get married and give her grandchildren, hoping my married friends will influence me. My father, not so much. He thinks I should get a job, an apartment and move out. He's mostly responsible for spoiling me, so he doesn't have support for his position. He's not a fan of my coming home at odd hours of the night and sometimes not coming home at all. I don't know what he thinks I'm doing at night but he's probably right.
The pool opens on Memorial Day weekend and closes the day after Labor Day. After that my friends and I will have to find somewhere else to hang out. We'll probably sleep late, go out early and stay out late just like we have the last six winters.
Days at the pool are generally uneventful. The four of us, in our immodest two-piece swimwear, attract the attention of most of the other members of the pool. Mothers and older women generally look at us with scorn and hide their children's eyes, while the lifeguards and other men seem happy to let us entertain them and feed their imaginations.
There is one individual at the pool that attracts our attention but not for the reasons you might assume. He's older, easily well into his sixties. He sits in a lounger in a corner of the pool deck, in the shade, wearing shorts and a shirt, not a bathing suit, and sunglasses. He has a cap on his head with the logo of some sports team on the front. I haven't been close enough to him to determine which team.
Every day, including weekends, he's in his chair when we get to the pool in the morning and he's still there when we leave late in the afternoon. He just sits there, reading on his tablet or looking at the pool denizens with his eyes hidden behind his sunglasses. I've never noticed him leaving his lounger so I don't think he eats or pees. In just three weeks, he's piqued my curiosity and I'm determined to know more about him. After all, maybe he's looking at me.
So, one morning, I waved to him. He looked up. I couldn't see his eyes with his sunglasses but I saw the fingers of his right hand move, as if he was waving back.
A couple of days later, I walked by him and said "Hi." He looked up from his tablet, said "Hi," and returned to his reading. The logo on his hat was for the Iron Pigs. I had no idea what sport they played or if they were even a sports team.
By mid July, our exchange of "Hi's" had progressed through, "Hi." "Hi." "How are you?" to, "Hi." "Hi." "How are you?" "Fine, how are you?" "Fine." Almost a conversation.
Over the next several weeks, I would spend ten or fifteen minutes each day talking to the old man sitting in the corner of the pool deck. I didn't get too close to him, never sitting down, just standing near his lounger. I learned that his name was Stephen, with a "ph" and he was almost seventy years old. I told him my name was Catlin, Cat to my friends, and my twenty-fifth birthday was in a couple of weeks.
One day in the beginning of August, I stood in front of Stephen and said, "Hi."
"Hi," he said.
"Can I ask you a question?" I asked.
He paused for a moment. "Sure," he said.
"Why are you here?" I asked.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"I mean, you don't swim. You're not even wearing swim trunks. You don't sit in the sun. You just sit there every day, reading or whatever. You don't seem to move. Why?" I asked.
"An interesting question," he said. "Why don't you pull up a chair and we'll talk about it?"
I didn't know why but I moved a lounger closer to him and sat on the side facing him. "Okay," I said.
"I like it here," he said. "It's convenient, the environment is comfortable. I even enjoy the sounds of the children playing in the pool. Why are you here?"
I had to think about that for a second. Why was I here? "I like the pool environment like you do," I told him.
"I see," he said. "I know you're twenty-four years old. You obviously don't go to school. Don't you have a job or something to keep you busy?"
The way he said it made me ashamed. "You sound like my father," I said.
"Not your father," he responded. "More like your grandfather maybe," he added.
"Either," I said. "My father always called me his 'princess.' He never encouraged me to get a job. Until recently, that is," I told him.
"Your mother?" he asked.
"She thinks I should be married and having babies she can dote over," I shared.
"So, you're here looking for a man?" he asked.
"No," I answered quickly. "Well, yes. Maybe," I stumbled saying.
"What is it?" he asked.
"I'm not looking for a husband, if that's what you're thinking," I asserted.
"Not a husband? Then just someone you can sleep with?" he asked.
"That's personal," I dodged although he was uncomfortably close to the truth.
"You don't have to answer," he said.
"Thank you," I said.
"Can I make another observation?" he asked.
"If it doesn't get personal," I said.
"You look incredible in that bathing suit," he said.
I was wearing a black string bikini, just enough material to be within the Aquatic Center guidelines. Unexpectedly, I felt a tingle that he had noticed. "Thank you," I said.
"You're welcome," he said. "You like to be noticed, don't you?" he asked.
"I guess I do," I said.
"That's why you wear that suit, isn't it?" he pushed.
Suddenly, I was uncomfortable with my oversized breasts in my undersized bathing suit. "I have to wear something," I answered.
"You'd wear less if you could?" he asked.
"That's impertinent," I insisted.
