20. Carolina
Chapter twenty
Carolina
D ays pass, and we don’t talk about the fact that we poured our hearts out to each other or about my admission regarding my money. We certainly don’t discuss that orgasm. I trust him to keep my secret and, if I’m being honest, sharing it with someone was a relief. Berg acts friendly in front of the girls over the coming days. But his eyes are trained on me as I move about his kitchen each morning and there’s a tension in his shoulders when we get a little too close. His whole demeanour softens when he comes home after a long day to find Lou in my lap. It’s like we turned a pot on the stove up, and we’re both keeping an eye on it. Knowing that eventually it might boil over, but not when. For now we’ve put a lid on it.
Swimming lessons start this afternoon at the recreation centre. Berg told me how hard it was to register for the lessons and how he had to wake up before six a.m., months in advance, in order to get a spot. That morning when I let myself in I’m surprised to find the girls still in their pyjamas with their hair sticking out in every direction.
“Um, morning slowpokes. Why aren’t you dressed?”
Louisa stretches, her belly poking out as she yawns. “We slept in.”
“Were you up partying?” I ask as I follow them into their room and pull up the blinds.
Louisa giggles at the idea. “No, Caro. Don’t be silly.”
“I know you guys are party animals, so I thought I’d better ask.”
Natalie wiggles out of her pyjama top and promptly drops it at her feet.
I gesture dramatically at the bunched up shirt. “Hello? Laundry hamper is right there!”
She makes a funny face, scoops it up, and tosses it at the hamper.
“Nice one. You too, Louisa. Clothes go in the laundry, okay?”
I’ve learned the best way to stay on top of their laundry is to throw in one load the minute I get back from school drop off.
She nods, attempts a throw at the hamper and misses.
“Do you guys know where your swim suits are? Lessons tonight.”
“It’s tonight?!” Lou asks, bouncing with excitement.
Natalie rolls her eyes. “Yes. It’s Thursday. It’s on the calendar, Louisa.”
“Lose the tone, please, Nat. She’s excited. Right?”
“Yes!”
“Good, me too. But do we know where the swimsuits are?”
They shrug.
I throw my arms up as I head out of their room. “Super helpful. Thanks, guys! Get dressed!”
Berg has to leave for work in, like, ten minutes. He isn’t in the kitchen but I pour myself a coffee, quickly adding some cream from the fridge before I head to his room.
I pause in front of his door, rapping a knuckle on the wood. “Hey, Berg?” I place my mouth closer. “Where would I find the girls bathing suits for tonight?”
His voice is muffled but I know I hear him tell me to come in. When I open the door, the room is still dim, his bed unmade.
“Geez, did everyone sleep in but me?” I ask, setting my coffee down and twisting the wand to open his blinds.
“Jesus, Caro.”
I whirl around at the surprise in his voice, just in time for him to snap a thin blue towel closed over his right hip.
If I’d been one second faster…
Oh my god, no. The lid is on the pot, Caro. Remember?
I grab my coffee and stare intently into the rippling surface. “You said come in !”
“I didn’t realise it was you. I couldn’t hear over the water. You can look up now. I’m decent.”
Anybody who’s ever seen a man in a towel knows there’s nothing decent about it .
“Hardly,” I mumble.
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing.”
His legs come into view as he walks closer, bringing the scent of his soap along with him.
“Mmm, pretty sure you said ‘hardly’.”
I suck in an exasperated breath at his persistence. “You can see things ,” I hiss.
Enjoyment illuminates his eyes, a slash of morning light from the window cutting across his folded arms as he glances down at his own crotch.
“Things? Multiple? Who knew?”
“Where are the girls' swimsuits?” I blurt, eager to change the subject, and hopefully the visions of that towel falling to my feet.
Berg turns away, thank god, walking by me to his dresser. His ass looks just as good flexing beneath the fabric.
“I think they might be in a tote on top of their closet. We haven’t been to the pool in a while.”
“Good, I’ll look up ther–”
“So, when you say things–”
“Berg!”
He laughs, then opens his top drawer, pulling out a pair of white boxer briefs and wiggling them at me.
“Better get out of here, Caro. I’m gonna get my things out so I can get dressed.”
I nearly spill my coffee as I hightail it out of the bedroom, shutting the door behind me. I don’t even need to drink it. Every bit of me is wide awake.
***
After school that afternoon, we have barely enough time to come home, grab everything we need, and pack up some cheese and crackers for them to munch on in the car.
“I dropped my last piece of cheese!” Lou cries a few minutes later as I pull into the parking lot.
“Five second rule,” I tell her, cutting the engine and grabbing the swim bag.
We have a few minutes to spare when we walk through the automatic doors into the lobby, the strong scent of chlorine and humidity filling the air. A receptionist waves us through the turnstiles and we hustle toward the women’s change rooms.
“Where’s your bathing suit, Caro?” Louisa asks as I stuff the tote bag full of clothes and towels into the locker and pocket the tiny silver key.
“My suit? I’m not swimming, honey.”
Natalie adjusts her goggles. “Parents go in the pool for the baby levels.”
In the pool? I don’t have a suit here. Surely, Berg would have told me that if it was a requirement. It’s probably optional .
“I’m not in the baby level!” Lou cries as I lead them to the showers.
“Uh huh, are too. That’s why you need an adult there.”
I press my fingers to my temples. “Hold on, so you’re telling me I have to go in the pool? Or else what happens?”
Lou shrugs but Natalie speaks up. “She can’t do her lesson.”
“What!?” Louisa’s cry of outrage echoes off the tile.
Fantastic.
I smooth a hand over Lou’s head, noticing the rims of her eyes already turning red. “I’ll explain things to the teacher. Don’t worry.”
The pool deck is a fluster of activity when we emerge from the changing rooms. Parents are crammed into plastic chairs, babies are wailing, and it’s about eleven degrees hotter than it needs to be. What fresh hell is this?
“That’s my teacher,” Natalie announces, reading the sign with her swim level on it and heading off to a group of kids her age clustered around a lifeguard with a clipboard.
“And where do you meet your class, Lou? Hmm?”
I scan the area, trying to envision Berg’s text.
Louisa tugs my hand. “There.”
We approach the small group of children not far from the viewing area where a dark-haired instructor that can’t be older than seventeen is taking attendance.
“Hi,” I say, hurrying over, “I have Louisa here.”
She barely spares me a glance.
“No suit, no swim, Mom. You know the rules. ”
“Oh, um.” I laugh nervously, “I’m not the mom and I actually didn’t know the rules, so I was hoping we could make an exception for today.”
She shakes her head. “You can buy suits at reception.”
“You can?”
This is good. I can do that.
“We’ll be right back.”
I haul ass through the doors that lead directly to the lobby, Louisa’s bare feet slapping along next to me as we reach the desk.
“Hi, I was told I could get a suit here?”
The receptionist points me toward a rack of colourful clothing.
“Great, c’mon, Lou.”
I rifle through the rack, trying to find a medium or large top so I won’t be putting the goods on display during a seven year old’s swim lesson. These are the least practical styles I can imagine for a recreation centre. Who ordered this stuff? Where are the one pieces? Why does this bikini bottom look like it has enough cheek coverage for a toddler? I sigh, acutely aware that her lesson is beginning and return to the desk with my purchases.
“That will be one hundred eighty two dollars even, please.”
If my mouth wasn’t so dry from the sweltering temperature, I’d choke on my spit. I can’t afford that. I remember Berg’s credit card tucked into my wallet, but I could never charge something like this to it .
“Do you have anything…less expensive?”
The woman glances up from her screen, pushes back her rolling chair, and produces a white plastic laundry basket from beneath the desk.
“Lost and found,” she says, matter of factly.
***
This is what rock bottom feels like. I hold Lou’s hand firmly in what I tell myself is a safety precaution, but it’s really for moral support. Because I’m currently wearing an awning made of Lycra. There’s a skirt grazing my knees, attached to the top of the one piece. There’s ruching, so much ruching, that is adding inches of unnecessary volume to my waist. And for how much fabric this thing contains, it’s doing fuck all to support the girls. I feel dozens of eyes upon me as I speed walk past the parents whose children are old enough that they have the luxury of sitting there on their phones in their dry, non-borrowed clothing. A shrill whistle startles me, and I’m utterly horrified when Louisa’s swim instructor points at me and yells, “Walking feet!”
Nope. Now I’ve found the bottom. I need a heavy object, some rope, and a diving board. Stat.
I sink into the cool water with Louisa and the other parents. All except one are ignoring me. I get it. I wouldn’t want to look at this either. The skirt swirls heavily around my legs as I adjust my right boob. Louisa loves the water, and I forget all about what I’m wearing when I see her execute a perfect back float. After that they practise rocket ship glides and we sing some song about a tiny turtle that everyone else seems to know the words to. Thirty minutes flies by and before I know it we’re climbing back out of the pool to meet Natalie.
“Can we swim a bit longer?” Natalie asks, hands clasped tight beneath her chin.
Then Lou chimes in with the puppy dog eyes. “Yes! Please, can we?”
“Is that allowed?”
“Yes!” They chorus.
Despite my unfortunate attire, we have a blast. I get my arm workout in by launching them across the pool the best I can. I bet Berg can get them twice as high. Another mom, Sage, and her daughter that were also in Louisa’s lesson stay behind to swim too. She seems to be around my age, and I’m beyond jealous of her cute black one piece with the low scooped back and flattering neckline. I wipe water from my eyes after a splash from the girls.
“I’m just the nanny,” I tell her. “I had no idea I’d need to get into the pool today.”
“Just?” she asks, tipping her head. “These girls seem pretty full on.”
“They are. But I’m really loving it so far.”
She glances down at the floral print adorning my breasts.
“Do you like my new suit?” I ask her, managing to keep a straight face for all of three seconds.
At her mortified expression I burst into laughter .
“I’m messing with you. I had to take this out of the lost and found.”
Her mouth falls open. “Girl, you’re not just the nanny. You couldn’t pay me to put on something that had been all up in some other ladies business.”
“That…had not occurred to me until now. Thank you for that visual.”
“Piper and Lou actually go to the same school. She’s in Kindergarten, though.”
“Oh? I had no idea.”
I really hope we haven’t met before and I’m totally blanking. Awkward.
Piper coughs on a mouthful of water before giving her mom a thumbs up.
“I’ve noticed you around. There aren’t very many parents under the age of thirty five at the school, or that’s what it feels like.”
I know what she means. My parents had Chris and I in their early twenties, right after college. These days it seems like everyone is waiting so much longer.
“The swim instructor called you Mom today, but you don’t know how often people mistake me for the nanny or babysitter.”
“That must suck. You can’t win.”
“I’m in college and working and momming.”
“What do you study?”
“I’m in my third year of psychology. ”
I’m about to tell her that I was in the same program, but swallow my words. She’s managing to get through school with all the added responsibilities of parenthood. Sage seems nice, but I don’t know her well enough for me to share one of my biggest failures.
“So are you–”
The words get caught in my throat as my eyes land upon a man standing taller than all the rest. Berg must have gotten off work earlier than he thought and tried to catch the tail end of the lesson. Thankfully, he hasn’t noticed me. If I have any choice in the matter, I’ll sneak right past him into the changeroom and he’ll be none the wiser. I need to get out of here.
Sage’s voice comes into focus. “Carooo?”
“Sorry,” I say, tossing a purple plastic ring for Louisa so she can dive for it.
She laughs. “No, you’re not. You were totally ogling that guy. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t try to scope out the cute single dads at the pool. You have to look for wedding rings, though.”
“Oh, he’s not married.”
He crosses his arms at the hem of his sweatshirt and peels it over his head. The shirt beneath glides up, exposing a stomach that is both soft and solid at the same time, before his head pops free of the sweatshirt and he tugs the tee back down. He licks his lower lip and I revel in the fact I know what that mouth tastes like and how good he looks in a towel.
“You know him?”
Oh, I know him alright .
Before I can answer, Louisa launches her arm in the air and waves wildly across the pool. “Daddy! Daddy over heeeeere! Watch me!”
Berg’s eyes snap right to my own at the sound of his youngest daughter’s voice. There’s intensity in that stare, and I could almost forget that I’m wearing the swim equivalent of a mumu.
I resist the urge to blow every ounce of air from my lungs and sink beneath the bubbles.
Sage slaps the surface of the water.
“Oh, that’s Daddy alright.”
“Yeah,” I whisper, before I come to my senses. “What? No, don’t say that.”
“Why? Your cheeks are the same colour as the flowers on that nightgown.”
I slap my palm against the water in her direction. “Very funny. Let me ogle in peace.”
“You and every other woman in here,” she mutters.
“Do you need a dip in the cold pool?” I ask her, even though I know if anyone needs to cool down it’s me.
Her comment is a reminder that Berg could choose to date anyone. A woman his own age that has a big girl job and retirement savings who knows you need to pack your own swimsuit when you have a seven year old in swimming lessons. Not the nanny who climbs into his lap on her leather recliner to try and make out.
It’s time to stop avoiding the inevitable, I’m hungry and tired after our swim and Louisa is sure to be exhausted after a day at school and all this pool time.
“Say bye to Piper, Lou. Time to go girls.”
Sage sends me the most obvious wink in the world and I shake my head as we climb out. With every step closer to Berg, I cringe a little more. The swim skirt clings to my thighs as I resist the urge to pull the straps up higher on my shoulders yet again. Natalie and Louisa reach him first, hugging his legs, and scooping them up into a bear hug, even though they are soaked.