The Pool Guy Came Tuesdays, and by July It Wasn't the Pool novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: Tucson

Nico's POV

I made the call from the truck at 9:20, parked at the end of her street with the engine running for the air conditioning.

The owner picked up on the second ring.

"Ramirez," he said. "You're calling about Tucson."

"Yes, sir."

"Good. I need a yes by Labor Day. I need you in the new truck on the fourteenth," he said.

"I'm not taking it."

There was a pause long enough for me to hear a radio behind him, and a dog.

"It's eight thousand more a year," he said.

"I know."

"It's your own route in two years if you want it. I'd sell it to you."

"I know that too," I said. "I'm sorry. I appreciate it."

"Is this the Doerr woman?"

I looked at the dashboard.

I thought about what to say, and every version was a lie except one.

"Yes, sir."

"I've had three complaints that you run ninety minutes over on that house every week," he said.

"Yes, sir."

"Is her pool broken?" he said.

"No, sir."

"Then what..."

"It's the best pool I've got," I said.

He didn't say anything for a while.

Then he sighed, and I heard a chair creak.

"You've got until the end of the month on my route list," he said. "After that your Tuesdays go to somebody else. You understand? You'll have nothing."

"I'll have one," I said.

He hung up.

I sat there with my hands on the wheel and waited to be sick.

I wasn't.

I felt lighter than I'd felt since April, and a little stupid, and fine.

For four months I had carried the secret in my chest.

Since she'd found the lid I had carried only the sorry, and that went too on Sunday night when she read the dates out loud.

I started the truck and drove the last two hundred yards to her gate.

I knew what I wanted.

I wanted a hundred pools in Scottsdale and Paradise Valley and a truck with my name on the door.

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