The Pool Guy Came Tuesdays, and by July It Wasn't the Pool novel · Chapter 22 of 24
Chapter 22: The Mirror
His mother sat at my curb long enough to read the house number twice, and then she drove away.
Nico called her from the pergola, soaking wet, with his shorts still half undone.
She said she'd been looking at the grass.
"She said it needs water," he told me, with his hand over the phone. "And that Abuela wants to see you cook."
"I can't cook."
"I told her that," he said.
"What did she say?"
"She said, 'Good. Then she will learn.'"
I laughed so hard I had to sit on the wet table.
On Saturday morning I took him by the hand and led him to the dressing room.
It was the room off the closet, the one Craig had built for me when we bought the house.
It had a tufted ottoman, a vanity with a stool, and one whole wall of mirror, three tall panels edged in brass.
He had chosen the mirror.
He'd said a woman should be able to see herself from every angle before she walked into a room.
For ten years I had stood in front of it every morning while he sat on the ottoman with his phone.
He said, "Turn," or "Not that one," or "Hair up."
I had never once looked at myself in it for my own sake.
"What is this?" Nico said, at the door.
"It's a mirror."
"It's a big mirror."
"I want to use it," I said. "Take off your clothes."
He undressed.
He was careful with his shirt, as he always was, and he folded it over the vanity stool.
Then he stood naked on the pale carpet and met my eyes in the glass.
I took off my robe.
I stood in front of the three panels with nothing on and looked.
There was a woman there with auburn hair falling loose, freckled shoulders, full hips and a soft belly and runner's calves she didn't run on.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of The Pool Guy Came Tuesdays, and by July It Wasn't the Pool are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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