I thought I’d be alone, but I wasn’t. Timothy was already engaged in his laps. He was good, too. He looked like he could swim races in freestyle. I watched him flip over when he reached the end of a lap. Smooth.
I wasn’t in his league, but I did love to swim. I’d been given lessons at the public pool as a child. I could swim adequately, but not with any speed, not like Timothy, the showoff. (Although, I doubted one could consider a person an exhibitionist if they didn’t know they were being watched.)
Timothy looked like he was in his own world, a swimming tiger, caged by the length of the pool, pacing via strokes and kicks. But watching him wasn’t getting my exercise in. I tossed my cover-up towel on a lounge chair and stepped into the pool. No diving into the deep end for me. I was turtle slow and cautious. Any signs of sharks, and I was out of there. (Just kidding.)
I edged to the side and did a couple of stretches, practiced a float on the back, then a dog paddle, and shoved off. Swimming came back to me almost instantly. It felt wonderful. The water was the perfect temperature, not overly warm as it had been sometimes in the city pool, and the smell of chlorine didn’t assault my nose like it had in the public’s urine-heavy water.
I made my way to the opposite side of the pool and found Timothy waiting for me.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb your concentration,” I said, wondering if I should get out and come back later.
The water surged, and he was suddenly beside me, giving me a lightweight kiss. “You can join me anytime, my darling Penelope. In fact, I look forward to it. I am happy to see you enjoying the pool. Although I’d really like to take you in my arms and show you exactly how happy, I’d better just let you swim, right?”
He sounded so plaintive, I almost wanted to disagree, but I said nothing and splashed off, swimming back to the shallows with my awkward and rather winded mode of free style.
I’d been going to the gym, working mainly on the treadmill, but swimming was a whole different set of muscles. My arms were weak and my stomach muscles were already complaining by the end of my second lap. I dog paddled a lap, then turned on my back and did a back swim or whatever they called it. Then I rotated into swimming on my side. That seemed to work the best, no necessity of that difficult breathing process.