The Best Possible Answer(11)

“We’ll get to go in the water soon, right?” Sammie says to Virgo as he works on the schedule behind us. “We’ll get to swim?”

“Sure. On your days off,” he says. “And during breaks, if you want.”

Our lunch break isn’t for another three hours, so that doesn’t really help. It’s only getting hotter by the minute. I guess the perks of semifree membership are supposed to keep us satisfied, but by midmorning, I’m sweating so hard, I’m ready to quit and tell my mom that she was right, that this is too much for me, that I’d rather spend all summer with Mila than sit in the heat and deal with crabby residents who yell at us when we can’t fully explain why their passes from last summer are invalid or their whiny kids who cry because the snack bar doesn’t carry Kit Kats.

“Forget inertia,” I say to Sammie. “Didn’t you promise me ‘awesome’?”

Sammie rolls her eyes.

But then, something interesting happens. Not awesome. But interesting. Entertaining, at the very least.

The Nut arrives.

There he stands—the man who lives a few floors below me with his nervous Chihuahua and self-portraits—in front of us, chewing gum, snapping it loudly. When I ask him to sign a form sent from the association for all first-time swimmers, he grumbles at me. “I gotta use a black pen? Goddamn Mercury retrograde—it’s a bitch.”

After we check his ID and finish scanning him in, Sammie reads his form. “Harold Joseph Cox?” she says. “That cannot be his real name. Let’s hope he doesn’t ever go by Harry.”

I can’t help but giggle. “Not much better than ‘the Nut.’ Poor guy. That is quite unfortunate.”

“I’m a nut, I’m a nut, a nut, nut, nut,” she sings under her breath.

“Stop,” I say. “Be nice.”

We lean over the counter to watch him. He’s bone-thin, and his skin is like leather. He throws his towel onto an empty chair, dives headfirst into the deep end, and swims the length of the pool underwater until his bald head pops up in the far shallow end. Then he jumps out of the water, grabs his towel, and whisks right past us without saying good-bye or anything.

“Well, that was a short swim,” I say.

Sammie laughs.

And that’s that.

Or so we think.

Because then twenty minutes later, he comes back. He’s completely dry and in a new bathing suit—a red one in place of the black one before.

He walks to the edge of the pool, dives in, swims just like he did before, pops out of the water, grabs his towel, and leaves.

“Um. Okay, freak,” Sammie says.

Another half hour goes by, and he appears, dry and in another new bathing suit—this one blue. We scan his card. He dives in. He swims. He leaves.

“That’s weird, right?” Sammie asks.

“Yeah. That’s weird.”

He repeats this routine three more times before our break at 1:00 P.M.

Arrives in a new, dry bathing suit (yellow). Dives in. Leaves.

Arrives in another new, dry bathing suit (white). Dives in. Leaves.

Six times in two hours.

“What the hell?” Sammie says. “How many bathing suits does he own?”

Virgo reminds us to take our break. The pool is too packed to swim and we’re starving, so we run down the street to Rocket Subs, where we split a twelve-inch veggie with extra pickles. We could easily have gone up to either of our apartments for leftovers, but we want some semblance of a summer.

When we get back an hour later, Virgo and Vanessa are sitting in for us at the front desk, playing with their phones. It’s calmed down. There’s no line and a lot of the families have left for the afternoon.

“You’re back!” Virgo says. He looks straight at me. “Your friend came looking for you.”

“Our friend?” Sammie asks.

“Harold Cox?” Virgo reads the log. “The guy who was here like ten times this morning?”

“Six,” I say.

Virgo and Vanessa stand up to give us our chairs back.

“I didn’t know you were counting.”

“Yeah, well,” Vanessa says before she leaves us to relieve Evan from his chair. “He was here. He got in line, and we were about to scan his card, but when he saw it was us, he turned around and went back upstairs.”

“It’s like he’s waiting for you guys,” Virgo says. “Like he’s just here for you.”

“Shut up. Gross!” Sammie says. “No thanks. There’s no way I want the Nut waiting for us.”

Evan approaches from the deck. “The Nut? Who are you talking about?”

“You know. Your friend,” Virgo says. “Mr. Harry Cox.”

I can’t help but laugh. I mean, it is a terrible name.

“Professor Cox is a great guy,” Evan says earnestly.

“Professor Cox?” Sammie asks.

“He teaches psychology at St. Mary’s. I met him here last year and we talked for hours. He’s fascinating. Won’t tell you a thing about himself, but he’ll discuss the effect of neurochemistry on interpersonal relationships, ideas like love maps and the triangular theory of love for hours and hours, if you have time. I don’t even need another psych class on my schedule after finishing 101, but I signed up for social psychology with him anyway in the fall.”