Late Night Laps

So here's how my Monday went. I taught two swim classes, argued with the front desk guy about the chlorine order, and ate a sad sandwich at the little café upstairs where the coffee is basically brown water. Then at nine PM I was still staring at my phone after her text, trying to figure out how to answer.

Wait, no. That's not how it went. She texted me first. I just want to be accurate here because if I ever tell this story out loud I'll get it wrong.

Bernice Olympia, forty-four years old, drama teacher, my ex-wife of ten years who I hadn't seen in person since we signed the papers three years ago, texted me at 8:47 on a Monday night. The message said: "Do you still swim laps at midnight? Crestwood?"

That was it. No hello. No "hey Corey, long time." Just the question, like three years was nothing.

I stared at my phone for a solid minute. Then I typed back "yes ma'am, still here. Pool's open till 1." I don't know why I said ma'am. Nerves, probably.

She replied with a single emoji, the little wave, and then: "Should I come?"

And I sat there in my kitchen going, well, do you want her to come? Do you WANT that? Because Bernice had a particular quality. We met at a pool party when I was twenty-eight and she was twenty-six. I was already lifeguarding by then, and she showed up in a red one-piece and made some joke about Baywatch that I've heard ten thousand times since but hers actually landed. We got married at thirty-one. We split at forty-one and forty-three because, honestly? We got boring at each other. Same takeout. Same couch. Same everything until it strangled us.

But boring with Bernice was still better than interesting with most people, and I've had three years to think about that.

I texted back "yes!"

Then I panicked and texted "I mean yes, come. I'll be in the water."

She sent a thumbs up. A THUMBS UP. Who is romantic about a thumbs up? This woman, apparently.

* * *

Crestwood Community Center is a squat brick box near the highway with an Olympic pool in the back half of the building. The parking lot had puddles from the rain and the air did that thing it does here, chlorine mixed with wet pavement. It was well past nine on a Monday, so the place was empty except for one kid behind the café counter who looked like he'd rather be anywhere on earth.

I got changed fast, which was stupid, because it's not a race, Corey, she hasn't even parked yet. But I got in the water anyway and started swimming because the only way I know how to handle nerves is to move.

You have to understand what my body has become in three years. I'm forty-six. I've kept the shoulders, because the shoulders are the job, but there's a softness around the middle that wasn't there when she married me. And my hair, forget it. Silver at the temples now. I caught myself in the locker room mirror and said out loud, "Well. She's seen worse."

Had she? Actually unclear. Her dating life post-divorce is a total blank to me. Mine is a blank too, if we're being honest, unless you count the woman from my spin class who ghosted me in spring.

So I'm doing laps, freestyle, counting strokes the way I always do, four breaths, turn, four breaths, turn, and around lap twelve I stopped at the wall to breathe and there she was.

Bernice. Standing at the shallow end in a long dark raincoat, of all things, buttoned to the throat, holding a plastic bag like she'd brought a picnic. Her hair was shorter than I remembered. The rain had got to it a little.

"Hey," she called.

I pushed my goggles up. "Hey yourself. Nice coat."

"It's raining, Corey."

"I noticed! I walked through it!"

She laughed at that, a short surprised laugh, like she hadn't planned on laughing. That felt good. That felt really good.

She walked down to the deep end where I was hanging on the wall and stood over me, and I'll tell you, the height difference did something to my brain. She looked down, I looked up, and we both grinned like idiots.

"You still do the flip turns," she said. "I watched from the window."

"You watched from the window? How long were you out there?"

"Ten minutes. Maybe fifteen. I was working up the nerve." She shrugged inside the giant coat. "It's been three years. I didn't know if you'd throw me in the deep end."

"I would never. I'm a professional."

"You're a show-off is what you are."

"Those can both be true," I said, and she laughed again, easier this time.

She crouched down at the edge, coat and all. "Can I ask you something dumb?"

"Those are my favorite kind."

"Did you ever think about me? During. These three years."

And I want to tell you I said something smooth. I did not. I said, "Every time I did a flip turn, actually. The pool here. You used to count my laps from that bench over there and heckle me."

"I never heckled."

"You absolutely heckled. You yelled 'my grandmother swims faster' once and my grandmother was DEAD at that point, Bernice, it was chaos."

She was laughing for real now, bent over the pool edge, and I thought, okay. Okay, this might not be a fight. This might actually be something else.

"So," I said. "You gonna swim in a raincoat, or?"

"It's not like I brought a suit to swim. I brought a suit to SIT here looking tragic and mysterious, and you've ruined it by being nice."

"Get in the shallow end. The water's warm. You can keep the coat on if you want, I'll pretend it's fashion."

She stood up and did this little dramatic sigh, arms out, and said, "Fine. But if I drown it's on your conscience," and went to the changing rooms while I swam over to the shallow end like a golden retriever who just heard the word walk.

* * *

She came back in a black one-piece, a real one, a proper swimmer's suit, and my whole plan of acting casual died right there. Forty-four and she looks like that. Some people are just built lucky and then had the nerve to keep it up.

"You're staring," she said.

"I'm assessing. Lifeguard habit. Safety first."

"Mm hm."

She stepped down onto the first step and the water came up to her thighs and she shivered. "Cold."

"It's a pool, it's water, it's a wet thing, you're shocked by it. Get in."

She got in up to her shoulders and blew a raspberry into the air, this old habit of hers, and something in my chest went sideways. Ten years of marriage. You forget the small stuff and then it ambushes you.

"Okay," she said, business-like, pushing wet hair off her face. "Teach me something. You promised yourself you would, I can tell. You've got your teacher face on."

"I do not have a teacher face."

"Corey. I watched that face for a decade. You have a whole face for when you're about to correct somebody."

She had me there. So I copped to it. "Fine. One drill. It's from my lifeguard certification stuff, the breathing thing. You breathe like you're panicking in open water and it wrecks your whole stroke, and I've watched you do it for years and never said a word because you threatened my life if I coached you unsolicited."

"And now?"

"Now you asked. So," I held up a hand. "Breathe in through your mouth, out through your nose, slow, three seconds out. Like fogging a mirror but underwater."

She tried it and immediately rushed the exhale. Classic. I put my hands on her ribs, both sides, light, just fingertips really, and said, "Here. Feel it. Out slow, one, two, three. Let the ribs drop."

She went still. The exhale came out slow that time, and I felt her ribs fall under my hands, and I felt her shiver. Not the cold kind of shiver. We both knew it wasn't the cold kind of shiver, because the pool is heated and she'd already acclimated.

Neither of us said anything for a second. My hands were still on her ribs. Then I pulled them back and said, "Sorry. Should've asked before touching."

"You used to just do it," she said, quiet.

"Yeah, well. Three years. New rules."

She looked at me, this look I couldn't read, water dripping off her chin. Then she said, "Ask me anyway."

"Can I put my hands back? Same spot. Just for the breathing count."

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, you can."

So I did, and she breathed, and the pool was empty, and the rain kept going outside, and that's where the night stopped being about closure and started being about something I didn't have a name for yet.

We messed around with the breathing for another ten minutes or so, and honestly it started feeling too much like a lesson, which is not what either of us came for. I could tell because Bernice started doing the thing where she nods along but her eyes go somewhere else. I've seen that nod a thousand times. I saw it at parent nights. I saw it at my own mother's Thanksgiving.

"Bored," she announced.

"You're bored? I'm teaching you a valuable skill."

"Corey, I can exhale. I've been doing it since birth." She flicked water at me. "Race me."

I laughed. "You want to race me? Me? I do this for a living."

"Did I stutter? One lap. Freestyle. Loser buys coffee from the sad café."

"That coffee tastes like somebody reheated a rumor."

"Then don't lose."

What was I gonna do, say no? Forty-four years old and she still knew exactly which button to push. We got side by side at the wall, and she did the thing where she shakes her arms out like a serious athlete, and I said, "Okay, save that, that's adorable," and she said, "On three. One, two," and took off on two like a jerk. Like an absolute jerk. Cheated right there at the starting line.

So I dug. I gave it maybe eighty percent, which is honest, because I wasn't gonna blow a gasket losing to a drama teacher, but also I wasn't gonna sandbag and insult her. And I will tell you, the woman can move. Her freestyle was sloppy, splashy, all elbows, but she was fast in that way people are fast when they don't know enough to pace themselves. She touched the wall half a body length ahead of me and came up gasping and triumphant.

"HA," she yelled, and the sound bounced all over that empty pool. "Half a second. I want the time posted. Official results."

"You left early."

"Prove it. Where's your camera? Oh wait, you don't have one, because someone is a lifeguard and not a referee."

I was laughing before I even got to her. Real laughing, the kind that hurts a little. I hadn't laughed like that in, I don't know, a while. A long while. She did a little victory spin in the water, arms up like she'd won Olympic gold, and her cap thing, her hair, was plastered across one eye and she looked completely ridiculous and completely great.

"Float," I said. "Float on your back before you pass out and sue me."

So we did. Side by side, staring up at the ceiling tiles, breathing hard, the rain still going on the windows somewhere far away. My ears were under the water so the whole world went quiet except my own pulse. That's my favorite thing about pools, always has been. The quiet.

"You know what I missed?" she said after a minute, to the ceiling.

"What's that?"

"The way you used to make me laugh. Like this. Stupid stuff. You were never funny on purpose, that was the thing, you were funny by accident, and it killed me."

"Thanks a lot."

"You know what I mean. Like the grandmother thing just now. Ten years, Corey, you made me laugh about every single day, and then the