Chapter 6
six
Matt and I had to share a car today, so he was supposed to drop me off on his way to work. It was a great plan, except we left late (his fault, of course) and he claimed Bayshore was too far out of his way, so he dropped me off ten minutes away and left me to walk the rest of the way.
Classic brother move.
So, of course, I called Violet because she and I hardly ever stopped being on the phone during the summer.
“So are you excited to see Courtney?” Violet asked. I just groaned in response. I’d called her to take my mind off where I was walking to, not to think about it even more.
“Shut up,” I said. “I don’t even want to imagine how much of a monster she’s going to be this summer. Although… maybe she’ll be tolerable now that she and Charlie are together. I can only hope.”
Maybe it would be like in school when the good kids were forced to sit next to the misbehaving ones to be a good influence on them.
I doubt it would work all that well, but anything would help.
And it would give me a reason not to hate the idea of them being together—I needed a bright side to look at.
“Charlie!” Violet exclaimed. There was a harsh clanging sound in the background, like she had dropped a metal bowl, making me jump.
“What about him?” I asked. I rubbed my ear as if that could undo the ringing going on from the awful sound.
“Are you going to see him today?” Violet asked.
“Why would I see him?”
“Because he works with you…” Violet said slowly.
“No, he doesn’t.”
“Yes, he does. I mean, I know he’s not a swim instructor, but he’s a lifeguard at the same pool, so it’s basically the same thing.”
“He’s not working as a lifeguard this year,” I said.
I thought back to the other day when I had been talking to Matthew about his summer job as a waiter.
He’d mentioned that Charlie was working at a restaurant too, and I wanted to ask more about it but I didn’t know how to without making Matt suspicious of why I cared.
“What?”
“I don’t know, my brother just told me he’s working at some restaurant,” I said. “Anyway, I have to head to work now. I’ll come by as soon as possible so we can go to Jaxon’s party. I doubt this will take long.”
“Okay, I’ll be home the whole afternoon, so you can just come here whenever you’re done if you want.” That wasn’t surprising. Violet didn’t go out much.
“I was also thinking we should go to the drive-in movie theater this week,” I said.
We wanted to enjoy everything Port Lane had to offer before we moved away.
Matthew kept telling me I needed to stop looking at college as if I was moving away from Port Lane forever, but it was hard not to see it that way.
I’d spent my whole life here and had never left for more than a month at a time.
Moving a few hours away was a big deal to me.
“Let’s go Saturday. I heard they’re playing Mean Girls.”
“Perfect.”
“Are you at the school yet?” Violet asked.
“Just walking through the gates,” I responded.
Bayshore Academy was a large and imposing building, surrounded by a significant amount of greenery and sports fields with a wrought-iron fence around the whole property.
The original part of the building used to be a mansion back in the day, but the school had been expanded with random add-ons on all sides.
Most of the people who worked here over the summer were students, so it was totally normal to us, but there were a few people—such as Penny and Charlie Owen—who attended Falcon High instead, and every year without fail, at least one of them would get lost in the expansive hallways of Bayshore.
Luckily, all of us students knew the place backwards and forwards and could easily find them no matter where they were lost. One time last summer, Penny had stumbled upon one of the secret passageways.
By the time I found her, I was pretty sure she had decided that she was never going to get out of there.
I swear, the look on her face told me that she had accepted her fate.
“Okay, well, have fun at work, and I’ll see you in a bit!”
Fun at work seemed like an oxymoron to me, but I didn’t say so as she hung up. I was about to put my phone away when I noticed a text from Matthew. I frowned as I opened it.
Matthew
I hear you scared Charlie this morning.
I rolled my eyes. Was that how Charlie had described it to him? I knew Matt didn’t understand teenage girls all that well, but I didn’t appreciate the insinuation that a boy got scared by seeing me in a towel. What the heck did that mean? That I was ugly?
Madison
I didn’t scare him
Matthew
Whatever you say
But don’t do it again
Madison
It’s not like I did it on purpose
Matthew
I don’t care
Stay away from him
I tucked my phone back into my pocket without bothering to respond. Matthew’s text was a not-so-subtle reminder of what had happened between Charlie and me at the party a couple of years ago—along with my promise that it wouldn’t happen again. But I had bigger issues to deal with right now.
I nervously chewed on my lip as I walked towards the pool locker rooms. I had no idea what to expect from work today.
I brought my bathing suit just in case I had to get in the pool, but I had no idea if I needed to or not.
From what I remembered of last year, I did go in quickly for some reason, and knowing Courtney, she would probably make me do so again just so that I would have to wash my hair. She was incredibly petty like that.
The locker room was mercifully empty when I got inside, and I quickly changed into my bathing suit to be safe but pulled my clothes back on over it.
I would feel stupid walking around in just my bathing suit when I wasn’t immediately getting in to teach a class—especially since Courtney and my manager, Kelly, would both be fully dressed—but I didn’t want to give Courtney any reason to accuse me of being unprepared, which she had done numerous times before.
To that end, I grabbed my whistle and a pen just to be safe.
There wasn’t a single person on the pool deck and I paused in the doorway for a second, just staring at the flat water.
There was something about a totally empty and calm pool that called to me.
After all, I became a swim instructor because I loved to swim, and right now that was all I wanted to do.
But it was definitely against the rules for me to be in the pool with nobody else on deck at that moment.
Besides, even if my boss had allowed me to go swimming today, she probably wouldn’t recommend doing it before sitting down for a meeting.
I sighed and turned to the left, heading for the office that stuck out into the middle of the pool deck.
The walls were entirely glass, so I could see Kelly and Courtney sitting inside.
They were sitting on the same side of Kelly’s desk, looking at her computer.
I couldn’t see it easily from here, but I did see colored boxes that looked like they might be a schedule, and my impatient side reared its ugly head—I desperately wanted to know what I would be teaching this session, but I wouldn’t find out until the first day of lessons.
Last year, I tried to argue that it was unhelpful to us because we couldn’t plan our lessons in advance if we didn’t know the levels, but my manager shot back that there was little we could plan without first meeting and assessing the kids anyway.
I didn’t have an argument against that since most of the classes we taught were private lessons tailored to each kid, but it didn’t make me want to know any less.
I had to circle around the far side of the office to reach the door that led onto the pool deck.
It only occurred to me then that they were probably expecting me to come to the office door that led out into the hallway, next to where the change rooms were, since that was the way the desk was facing and that door was always propped open.
But it was too late for that now, since they would see me awkwardly walking away if I tried to do that, so I pushed the door open a little and knocked on it with a loose fist. Both Kelly and Courtney’s gazes quickly shot to meet mine, though the expressions on each of their faces couldn’t have been more different.
While Kelly looked genuinely happy to see me, Courtney looked like she was trying to kill me with her gaze alone.
“Madison!” Kelly said happily. She stood up and came around the desk to meet me. “Come in, come in! How are you?”
“I’m good, thank you,” I said. I awkwardly stepped all the way inside like she instructed, though I didn’t feel completely comfortable being in the room.
I felt like with every step closer that I took, Courtney’s glare intensified.
She didn’t really scare me, but she did put me on edge a little. “Uh, hey Courtney.”
“Madison,” she said coolly.
“I have some paperwork to go over with you,” Kelly said, “but I also need to make a phone call right now, so why don’t you and Courtney talk first? She can update you on everything that has changed since last year.”
I stared at Kelly with a frozen smile. I obviously couldn’t say no to her, but I had no idea how she could expect me to walk anywhere with Courtney. What was I supposed to say to a girl that clearly hated my guts? I wouldn’t put it past her to try to drown me during our meeting.
“Oh…” I said. Kelly continued staring at me, so I awkwardly tacked on, “…kay.”
“Perfect!” Kelly said. She turned to Courtney. “Just the same stuff you showed Penny this morning, okay?”
“Fine,” Courtney said sharply. She pushed her chair back so hard that I thought it must have left permanent marks on the floor and stood up.
“Penny’s working here again?” I asked. That wasn’t really surprising since she clearly loved the job so much, but I found it interesting that she was coming back when Charlie wasn’t.
Charlie got this job so he could work with Matthew in high school, then Penny got the job because it was convenient for her and Charlie to work at the same place.
Why would Charlie quit if Penny was still working?
Surely, serving at a restaurant didn’t pay more than being a lifeguard.
“Of course she is,” Courtney said. “Why wouldn’t she be?”
She swept past me and out the door before I could even begin to explain my reasoning.
Courtney started leading me around the pool and explaining every small thing in there as if I was an alien who had never been on a pool deck before.
It took everything in me not to scream when she explained the concept of starting blocks.
Luckily, my attention was pulled away rather abruptly as some people entered the deck.
“Is that… Charlie?” I asked without thinking.
“What?” Courtney asked.
I jerked my chin toward the other end of the pool where a group of boys were walking out of the changing room, all dressed in bathing suits and lifeguard uniforms. It was hard to tell from this distance, but I was pretty sure the boy in the middle was Charlie.
It was like I’d jinxed myself by telling Violet I wouldn’t see him.
I was so distracted by his sudden appearance that I wasn’t looking ahead of myself while I continued to walk. That came back to bite me when I tripped over Courtney’s leg, which had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, and fell forward.
There’s nothing more disorienting than falling into a pool when you’re not expecting it— it’s hard to hold your breath since you’re not prepared for it, you have no sense of up or down, and, as in my case, your clothes could weigh you down quite a bit.
Luckily, all three of these things were discussed quite a bit in lifeguard training, so it didn’t take me too long to reorient myself and swim to the surface.
I took a deep gasp of air as my head broke the surface again.
I couldn’t have been underwater for more than twenty seconds, but my lung capacity had always been crap, especially in situations where I couldn’t take a deep breath before going underwater, so my chest was burning, my head was spinning, and I felt like I had almost just drowned.
Coughing and sputtering, I swam to the pool’s edge and grabbed onto it as if my life depended on it.
I looked up at Courtney, figuring she would at least be faking some concern for me, but she wasn’t even looking at me.
She was staring at the group of lifeguards who were now watching me in concern—most notably, Charlie.