The Pool Guy Came Tuesdays, and by July It Wasn't the Pool novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Green Again
The pool is green again on Tuesday, Joelle asks the pool guy if it will ever be fixed, he says not today, and she steps into the water and kisses him.
The pool was green again, and it was the eighth Tuesday in a row.
I stood at the back door in my robe with a mug of coffee going cold and looked at it.
It wasn't a nice green.
It was the color of split-pea soup, with a gray skin on top.
A dead palo verde leaf turned in slow circles near the skimmer.
It was 109 degrees by nine in the morning.
I was the only woman in north Scottsdale who couldn't swim in her own backyard.
My phone buzzed on the island behind me.
I knew who it was before I looked.
"Hey, Jo," said Craig's voicemail, in the pleasant voice he used for waiters and for me.
"Just checking the pool's holding up. I put a lot into that yard, so I'd love to hear it's being enjoyed. Take care of yourself."
I deleted it with my thumb.
Eleven months divorced, and he still left me messages asking to hear that everything was in good shape.
The gate latch clicked at 9:40.
The pool guy came around the corner of the house with the net over one shoulder and a jug of shock in his other hand.
He was twenty-two, I knew, because I had read the sticker on his truck door that said Desert Blue, Since 1998.
Then done some arithmetic about his face.
The patch on his polo said NICO.
I had never once said it out loud.
"Morning, Mrs. Doerr," he said.
"It's green."
"Yes, ma'am. It was green last week," he said.
"It was clear when you left."
"It's always clear when I leave."
He said it with a straight face, and then his mouth moved at one corner.
I stood there with my coffee and almost laughed.
He set the jug down by the filter and went to work.
I told myself I was going back inside.
I stayed on the patio, in my robe, and watched him walk the edge of the deep end with the net.
He was lean in the shoulders, with black curls going brown at the tips from the sun.
His polo was stuck to his back before ten.
He hummed while he skimmed, something low and tuneless.
I realized he did it every Tuesday and that I had been waiting for it.
By 9:50 he was wet to the knees.
The skimmer basket was packed with leaves, and he had to kneel on the edge to dig it out.
I came down the steps with the water bottle from the freezer.
I'd put it there at six that morning, so don't ask me why.
"You'll faint," I said. "Drink this."
He stood up and took the bottle.
His wet fingers closed over mine on the neck of it.
Neither of us let go.
His hand was cold from the water, and mine was hot from the sun.
For a moment the whole yard went quiet except for the pump.
I looked at his fingers on my fingers.
I looked up.
The tips of his ears had gone bright red.
Sunburn, I thought.
He hadn't worn a hat since April.
"Thank you, ma'am," he said, and his voice was lower than before.
He took the bottle, and I let him, and he drank half of it without looking away from me.
I felt it all the way down my legs.
I was thirty-five, I had a coffee mug in my left hand and a robe on.
I hadn't been touched by anyone who wanted to be touching me in a year.
My husband had stopped before that.
I just hadn't counted.
"Is it ever going to be fixed?" I asked.
I meant the pool.
I think I meant the pool.
Nico screwed the cap back on the bottle and held it against his neck.
"Not today," he said.
That was all.
He didn't say it like an excuse.
He said it plainly, a decision he had already made.
The sun was on my shoulders, and the robe suddenly felt like a lot of cloth.
I put the mug down on the stone ledge.
I took off the robe and dropped it on a chair.
I stood in front of him in a sports bra and running shorts, with my freckled shoulders bare.
I watched his eyes go down and come back up on purpose.
"Pool guy," I said.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Don't move."
I walked down the steps into the shallow end.
The water was warm and smelled like chlorine and cut grass.
It came up to my waist, then my ribs.
I turned around and looked at him on the deck, holding the bottle, wet to the knees, with his ears red.
"Come here," I said.
He put the bottle down.
He stepped in with his work boots on, and the green water closed over them.
He waded to me until his chest was an inch from mine.
I put my hand flat on his wet polo, over the Virgen medal I could feel under the cloth.
His heart was going hard.
"Mrs. Doerr," he said, very quietly.
I kissed him.
He made a sound against my mouth.
His hands came up out of the water and settled on my hips.
He kissed me back hard. He had been waiting weeks.
Somewhere in his back pocket, his phone began to chirp, his alarm for the next stop.
He did not reach for it.
It chirped and chirped, and he pulled me against him in the green water, and he did not answer.
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