Late August, and one dying half hour till the rooftop pool closes up for the season. The end of summer sky is holding a fistful of rain.<\/p>\n
50-year-old Mabel, her fleshy arm like a slab of cod fillet as she hangs on the edge of the pool. The water prisms her wearing a two-piece she doesn\u2019t have the figure for anymore. Her eyes are fixed on Marty, also 50, who is doing his 20 laps.<\/p>\n
The lifeguard, high school senior this year and glad that soon he won\u2019t have to yell at old people anymore. His uncle, the building manager, told him that since no one ever drowns there, this would be the main part of the job.<\/p>\n
Mabel lets go of the edge and paddles into the center until Marty laps by, \u201cI want to talk,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
He doesn\u2019t even stop. Splashes and cuts the water like a boat motor.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love you,\u201d Mabel calls after him. \u201cI love you.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lifeguard is tweeting his whistle. He doesn\u2019t really have to with only those two in the pool. \u201cFive minutes,\u201d he holds up the fingers on his left hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh honey,\u201d Mable turns to the lifeguard. \u201cDon\u2019t you have some cute little girlfriend you could call?\u201d<\/p>\n
The lifeguard thinks about Susie, the other lifeguard who left for college last week. With her red danger lipstick and belly button ring. Maybe that\u2019s who Mabel means.<\/p>\n
The summer sky is getting darker, heavier almost. Any other night there would be thunder.<\/p>\n
Marty stops his laps right next to Mabel. \u201cListen,\u201d he says, water beading on his brow, his dark hair in strands. \u201cI don\u2019t love you. My wife was away. I was lonely.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lifeguard can hear their voices. Hears what they are saying and doesn\u2019t want to.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo you listen,\u201d Mabel says, \u201cI could stop by your apartment. Have a nice little chat with your wife\u201d<\/p>\n
The lifeguard has been trained to watch for trouble brewing in the pool. Well, not trained, exactly. Warned by his uncle. His uncle also warned him that Susie put in a complaint, said she was there to earn money for college, not be groped by some twerpy little high school senior.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou wouldn\u2019t do that. My wife is sick. You might even kill her.\u201d Marty says and goes back to his laps.<\/p>\n
The lifeguard tweets his whistle. \u201cTwo minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat would actually solve the problem,\u201d Mabel says as Marty swims by her again. With that, she swims towards the steps leading out of the pool.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo wait,\u201d Marty catches up to her, her foot on the first step. \u201cI do love you. I do.\u201d\u00a0 He wipes the water out of his eyes. \u201cChlorine,\u201d he says. \u201cMesses with my brain.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell,\u201d Mabel says, \u201cif you love me, then you\u2019ll be glad if I tell your wife.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marty dives under the water and pulls her by the ankle back into the pool. Mabel struggles to get away. They are flipping and flapping, spraying water everywhere. The lifeguard thinks how much these two look like the fish his uncle catches when they go out on his boat on Sundays.<\/p>\n
\u201cTime!\u201d the lifeguard yells. Then he tweets his whistle ten times.<\/p>\n
Mabel and Marty continue thrashing around in the water. Mabel calling out help me! help me! The lifeguard stands there, thinking not about them, but about how he should call Susie up at college and ask for another chance.<\/p>\n
He tweets again and finally gives up and begins to drain the pool. The water lowering, the two of them rising into the naked air, a drop of late summer rain about to fall out of the sky.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He says we are better off inside. Outside, he says, is made of sickness and guns and inside, we will do just fine.<\/p>\n
The living room lamp becomes our sun. We spread towels across the carpet and try to get a tan. At night, when the outside sun is going down, clamping shut the day, Father says we can make up our own minds now about when day is over, and isn\u2019t that nice?<\/p>\n
Father arranges the kitchen chairs to look like the car in the driveway. He pretend-drives us to school on his way to the job he doesn\u2019t go to anymore. He says this way we can make up our own minds about what we want to learn and he doesn\u2019t have to face his stupid mule of a boss and isn\u2019t that nice?<\/p>\n
One day, about two weeks in, Mother poses a question. What about money? What about food? She offers to get herself a waitress job, but Father won\u2019t hear of it. Instead, he nails her in the closet, just to be sure.<\/p>\n
My little brother starts to draw pictures of the sun. Not the light bulb sun, but with rays like the one in the outside sky. Father takes the drawing away and tells my little brother there will be no more food for him. My little brother reminds him that we haven\u2019t eaten in days.<\/p>\n
My older brother punches a hole in the attic, climbs out, and drives our real car away. When Father finds out, he harumphs and says that\u2019s one less nose to breathe up our air, and isn\u2019t that nice?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think it\u2019s nice. Never have, and I\u2019ve been living on sucking candies leftover from Mother\u2019s bridge club. But I\u2019m not so eager to live in a closet so when Father asks again, I tell him yes, yes, it\u2019s all very nice.<\/p>\n
Good, he nods, the two of us looking at the living room lamp, agreeing that since the sun is still up, why don\u2019t we walk into the kitchen and take ourselves a drive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Marty dives under the water and pulls her by the ankle back into the pool. Mabel struggles to get away. They are flipping and flapping, spraying water everywhere. The lifeguard thinks how much these two look like the fish his uncle catches when they go out on his boat on Sundays.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18265,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2867],"class_list":["post-17932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","tag-francinewitte-twiitter-and-instagram","writer-francine-witte"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17932"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18286,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17932\/revisions\/18286"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}