Second First Impressions: A Novel

At the swimming pool, I begin the arduous process of unloading the residents from the minibus. I’m struggling up the front path weighed down by purses, gym bags, and, worryingly, two forgotten walking sticks. Teddy is leaning against the front wall in board shorts and a tank top. He’s wearing a visor that has FRESH MEAT printed on it. Undoubtedly a gift from Renata. “Here …” He smiles, pushing off the wall. “Let me help.”

“What are you doing here?” I haven’t seen him much over the last couple of days.

“We,” he emphasizes, “are joining in for aqua aerobics. Well, I am anyway. The Parlonis will heckle me. They’re inside.” As he untangles bags from me and I grow lighter, I try not to look at the new tattoos revealed on this fabulous set of arms.

We walk inside and I greet Jordan, one of the assistant managers. “We’ve got twelve today. No, wait, thirteen.” I indicate Teddy. “Plus two spectators.”

“Aqua aerobics?” Jordan says to Teddy, face scrunched in skepticism.

“Just trying to keep my shit tight,” Teddy replies airily and walks in through the sliding doors.

“I need you to take this.” Jordan fishes a folded twenty-dollar bill out of his shorts pocket as we walk together into the pool area. “The really rude old lady gave this to me on the way in. She acted like I was a fancy hotel doorman or something.” Jordan’s eyeline is on Teddy now. “Is he her grandson?”

“Personal assistant.”

“Yeah, well, he needs to notice she’s handing out cash left and right. It doesn’t sit well with me.” Jordan hands it to me. “Get it back to her, okay?”

“Sure.” He’s so honest. It pings my memory back to my worksheet I submitted to Melanie this morning. Honesty is a turn-on. So is the protective bristling he has over the elderly patrons. Is this what it feels like to have a radar? I let him hold eye contact with me, but I feel nothing inside.

I look over at Teddy and realize my radar is calibrated very specifically.

I ask, “Where’s Sandy?” She’s usually poolside, ready to teach the class. Jordan excuses himself to go and call her. Teddy is marooned by the bleachers, covered in purses. I make my way over to him.

All in all, today’s going great. Teddy’s going to take that tank top off and drench himself, head to toe. I’m probably going to watch. This is all happening during work hours. Life is a gift. I’m smiling when I join him, holding out my arms for the bags.

“Did he just give you his phone number?” Teddy’s indignant.

“No, he gave me back the twenty bucks Renata tipped him just for existing.” I shoulder the bags. “I hope she doesn’t do that a lot.”

“She only tips good-looking people. It’s a rule she has.”

“Well, great. She’s never tipped me once.” I hang the bags in the change room. We’re talking like things are back to normal. Renata and Aggie are seated on the sidelines, both looking lively and distracted. I’m easily able to slip the money back into Renata’s purse— a Hermès Birkin, tossed like a lunch sack on the wet concrete.

“I forgot how cold and hard bleachers feel,” Renata tells me, in a tone like everything’s my fault. “And what chlorine smells like. I wish I’d never come at all, but Theodore insisted. Well, what are you waiting for?” She points at the pool. “Go on, get in, show me your doggy paddle.”

“I usually stay out. That way I can see if anyone’s struggling.” I fold up some towels into cushions for them both to sit on.

“What’s this I’m hearing about Providence being developed? It’s all the old folk are talking about.” Renata does not include herself in that demographic. “Inside scoop, please. Gossip is currency.”

“I don’t know. The Prescott family owns the site and they’re conducting a site review. Could you talk to Teddy? I’ve been really hoping he’d become an ally for Providence in whatever’s coming up.”

She thinks this over. “I don’t know. Maybe it would be the push Aggie needs to get out of this place. Central Park views would make her feel years younger.”

Aggie sighs deeply and does not reply. She is methodically scraping at a scratch card with her famous lucky penny that she’s had since she was a child.

“I need him to fall in love. With Providence,” I amend just as Renata’s eyebrows ratchet up.

I turn right as Teddy’s fist twists in the bottom of his tank and pulls up. A big cheer rises up from the dirty old pervs in the water. I guess I’m looking like I’m going through something, because Renata says to me, “I want an exact description of what you’re feeling.”

“I’m praying that his front isn’t as nice as his back.” Mainly, I’m just praying. He’s honey smooth. Tattoos everywhere, cut off under the waistband of his board shorts, all of them silly and perfectly done. He is a fresh coloring book and I’m a neat, tidy girl who thoroughly stays between every line.

He turns around, balling up his tank. “You getting in?”

“Goddamn it,” I blaspheme reflexively, because:

•  The front half of his torso is good, I mean,

•  So, so good,

•  So, so, so good.

“Pardon?” Teddy walks over, and I’m shrinking backward into the bleachers. “Oh, I get it, Ruthie’s fainting at the sight of my magnificence.” (Yes.) “You getting in?” He hooks his finger under the peeking-out strap of my bland one-piece swimsuit. “This looks like you’re thinking about it.”

I am very close to falling face first into a kaleidoscope of tattooed skin so I puff up defensively. “Sylvia doesn’t pay me to actually participate. I’m working.” It had occurred to me when I was getting ready for today that this might be one of my last chances to come back smelling faintly of chlorine.

“Sylvia doesn’t pay you to run an entire activities program, but here we are,” Teddy counters patiently. “Get in. Experience something.” It’s so hot in here I envy his shirtless state. At least, that’s how I’ve decided to label my intense torso-interest.

Jordan approaches. “Sandy’s running ten minutes late. If you can get them to just start warming up, that’d be great. I’ve got to stay on the front desk. Just get them to tread water or something.”

“Sure, I can do that. Okay, ladies. Sandy’s running a bit behind, so we’ll start.” I could lead an entire half-hour class. Maybe I’ve been waiting for this moment. After the warm-up, will I transition them into flutter kicks or leg lifts? Before I can decide, I’m interrupted.

“Teddy can teach aqua aerobics,” Renata says from behind us. “What do you think, girls?” A big cheer goes up. She cackles. “This oughta be good for a laugh.”

“Stand aside,” Teddy says to me as he twists his hair into a bun worthy of a cool magazine photo shoot. His torso moves and flexes with the movement and I need to lower myself onto a tranquilizer dart. “It’s time for me to get these women warmed up.”

“Already am,” someone calls out and the screams of laughter almost deafen me.

“Okay, let’s get started. Walk on the spot.” They’re all smiling, faces tipped up to him like sunflowers, water roiling. “Swish your arms like this.” He demonstrates.

Of course he’s good at this. I make a long echoing noise like urgggggggg.

Anything I can do with complete competence, a young man can do with less technical ability but more fanfare. I’ve never gotten a cheer, not once. I don’t think anyone even notices a single thing I do for them. I’ve still got marks on my arms from all the purses they hung on me.

“Don’t look so grouchy, Ruthie Maree,” Aggie says to me when I go to sit with them on the bleachers. “What’s wrong?”

“He’s so annoying.” I glare at his beautiful back and blot my face with my T-shirt. “I’ve arranged this entire thing and come to every session for two years, and he thinks he can just …” I lose my words when he begins to do that walk-like-an-Egyptian dance along the edge of the pool.

To stop myself from cracking a smile, I say with temper, “He’s. So. Damn. Funny.” I bury my face in my folded arms.

I peek up because Renata has been silent throughout this; she’s captivated by the poolside shenanigans, bouncing on her tiny butt, imagining herself doing the moves. She walks like a seated Egyptian. It’s heartbreakingly sweet and I think she loves Teddy to pieces.

Then she ruins it. “Why’s everything a big deal with you?” Renata ponders at her usual volume. “Just do it. You’re a supermodel next to all those saggy old hens.”

(Some of those hens look as if they would drown her if they could.)

“Fine, fine.” I pull my T-shirt off over my head, step out of my shorts, and plunge myself in before I have another thought about it. How long has it been since I stepped into icy water? Years.

When I surface, I try very hard to not objectify Teddy, but the fluorescent lights are giving the flat planes of his muscles a heavenly glow, and cutting darker shadows between them. It’s inexplicable that such an unhurried, cheese-eating person has a body like this. But he does, and what a treat. I lose strength in my legs and I sink down to my eyeballs.

“Please welcome to the class Miss Ruthie Midona,” he tells the group, and now I’m getting the smiles and cheers.

I get it now. Life requires full, up-to-the-neck participation. And for the next few minutes, we obey Teddy as our instructor. Every dance move he can think of, we’re doing it. We’re moonwalking. We’re doing the twist. We’re singing lyrics. The Parlonis are clapping along. We’re all shrieking with laughter and half drowning, and I’m not as fit as I thought. But I’m having the most fun I’ve had in years.

“You must be Sandy,” Teddy says when our regular instructor arrives all sweating and flustered. “I kept them all nice and warm for you.” And with that, he performs an illegal cannonball that almost wets the ceiling and swims up to me. “Can you believe we’re being paid to do this?” he says, scraping his hands up his face.

I really can’t believe it. On a weekday midmorning, earning actual money, we do aqua aerobics.

I didn’t know that guys could be so open to try new things. But Teddy is. He’s either laughing, or earnestly concentrating with a crease on his brow. His arm curls are magnificent. We line up against the side to perform push-ups and he doesn’t notice how the oldies angle for a space either side of him. No one needs to get jealous; he mingles and shares himself around. For anyone getting tired, he provides a shoulder to hang on to. I am almost needing it myself.

I know he’s being paid for this, but really the bare minimum required of him was to drive the Parlonis here. The way he spreads around his energy and kindness is so generous. He’s completely, deep-down lovely, standing there with elderly ladies hanging on his shoulders, just so they can feel that kind of youth and beauty firsthand.

It’s sad that he doesn’t realize how generous he really is.

We’re allowed ten minutes of free time after the class and we hand around pool noodles for floating. I think I should get out, so I can get dressed and position myself to help, but Teddy might watch the extraction process. I wait for a minute, hoping he might haul himself out and wander off, but he’s enjoying himself too much. He’s got a floatation ring around his neck and is carrying Mrs. Washington piggyback through the water. She looks like she could die happy tonight.

I didn’t think this through. I’d be climbing that ladder into the heaven-bright light, water streaming down my butt and thighs. I haven’t worn this swimsuit in years and it’s shrunk up my crack. The backs of my knees are really weird. I’m completely stuck in this moment I should never have stolen to begin with.

“What’s up?” Teddy swims over to me, his passenger now dismounted. “You look like you need to pee. Hold it in, girl. Think dry thoughts.”

“Come on, you know I’m not a rule breaker.”

“I’d say I’m relieved, but …” He laughs until I worry for his own bladder. Now he swims around me in a circle. “But seriously, what’s up? You’re stressin’.”

“When I get out of this pool, I want you to close your eyes.”

He covers his face. A sparkling hazel eye peeps through a big gap in his fingers. My laugh turns up his wattage. His hand drops away, revealing saucy eyebrows. “What’s the big deal?”

“Gravity’s the big deal.” We’re very close, but there’s something about floating that makes it feel okay. “Not everyone looks like you in their swimwear.”

“You flatter me.” We’re now floating closer, our hands making circles in the water, knees sometimes touching. “Do you think I’m a bit pretty, Ruthie Maree?”

I’m starting to get out of breath. “What’s it like being so self-confident?” I sink lower in the water.

“It’s just how I feel when I’m with you. But then I can’t seem to get the reaction I want from you, and I start doubting myself. Then I look at my reflection in a spoon and I’m an abomination. By dinnertime I’m a wreck and the ugliest man in existence.” He seems to bite off this torrent midstream and closes his eyes for a second like he’s exasperated. “I say the stupidest stuff to you. Why does this keep happening? I’m actually really normal and cool.”

I nod sagely. “I want to believe you.”

He goes completely still, because he’s tall enough to stand on the bottom. He puts my hand on his shoulder like I need assistance and a rest. Accurate. His eyelashes are crisscrossed spikes. Under my palm there’s a lit match inked onto him, and I feel that tiny spark.

His lip lifts in amusement. “Now you’re making me feel pretty.”

“As if you need little old me to pump up your ego.”

“Oh, but I do.”

Keeping the smile off my face around him is turning me into a medically certified killjoy. But if I relax, what will happen? He’ll be unstoppable. He’ll annihilate me.

“Hands where we can see them,” one of the residents shouts at us, and the shrieks of laughter echo off every reflective surface.

“Okay,” I hold my other hand up, and the laugh gets louder. “They honestly suspect me of feeling you up on a workday? Dirty old women.” The cogs turn in my brain. “Oh. They were talking to you.”

“You have a guilty conscience, don’t you? Where were we. Oh yeah, self-confidence. You gotta start walking around like you’re the shit, because you are,” he tells me, gathering up my hand and walking me in an improvised backward water waltz. “Want to hear a secret?” Even before he opens his mouth, I see the compliment coming straight for me like a shark fin. “Neat and tidy is my absolute favorite kind of girl.”

I don’t know how he can switch modes so easily. He was just horsing around poolside. Now, he’s got darkening eyes and that seductive husk in his voice.

I decide to try swimming for shore. “Okay.” I’m twirled out to the length of his arm, the water churning around us.

“But you don’t believe me.” He pulls me back, closer this time. “Your eyes are …” He blinks away from me now. Why would he feel self-conscious? He does, and it flips my heart. “Magnetic,” is what he goes with. Then he groans at himself. “I’m corny as fuck.” He dips down under the water for a bit.

When he resurfaces, I say sternly, “You’ve found the only female under the age of fifty in the building to mess around with. That’s what this is.”

But it’s too late. A flattered sizzle goes down my spine at the exact moment that he puts his hand low down on my back, only a wafer of wet fabric between us.

“Learn to take a compliment. Appreciate yourself. You’re sublime.” That’s the last word I ever thought would be applied to me.

“That’s kind of you to say.”

“Oh, I’m not kind. I nearly reverted to my old ways the other night, at your place. You should know my secret. I have a major Heaven-Sent-Francine-Percival kink.”

“Okay, well, she is gorgeous.”

“I love neat-and-tidy types who have label makers and smell like a bubble bath. All the soup cans in the cupboard with the labels facing the same way. The bath filling up at the same time every night. God, you walk around in this haze of bubbles. I just want to eat all your cheese and snuggle up in your bed. I can admit it.”

“I’m pretty aware of that.” My throat is making my voice weird. That was too many lush words for me to process. Bubbles, kink, snuggle, bed.

“You feel it, right?” His mask slips for a second as he looks down at my floating legs. Maybe he’s considering the possibility that he’s alone in this. “I think we’ve got an interesting sizzle.”

I look at the word GIVE, written on his skin forever. He’s always so brave. I’m going to try to be more like him.

I put my hand under his chin to tip his face up for my inspection, and his mouth opens in surprise. I look at his lips and the porcelain sharpness of his teeth. His stubble feels like wet sand on my palm. Men: so animal, growing bristles and beards. It must be a lot of effort to disguise it.

I decide to give him what he craves so badly. It’s not exactly my well-kept secret. “Teddy, you’re so pretty it’s crazy.”

Instantly he replies, “You’re so pretty I need to buy a pencil sharpener.”

He looks at my mouth and his pupils dial out, ink black, and everything on the edges of this moment washes away. I think he’s going to kiss me. I’ve only just come out of romance retirement and I’m very inexperienced, but even I know that this is it.

I swear, he’s going to do it. Another inch closer.

I haven’t been kissed in years, and those were largely tongueless. I don’t remember how to, but Teddy does. We are suspended in this buoyant moment, knees touching. Then it’s like he remembers something, blinking out of the building haze. Now we’re floating a respectable distance apart.

To cover up the weird mix of disappointment and relief I’m feeling, I say, “I know you just want to defend your couch and cheddar territory.” I’m getting fatigued and am sinking down to my chin in the water.

“According to your own Week 1 worksheet, which I photocopied and is now in the back pocket of my jeans, your dream guy is nothing like me. You want someone who’ll stick around. Mature, generous, principled.”

His fist is solemnly offered to me; I don’t check which hand it is. I just rub the knuckles like a comfort. “You didn’t have to make an ass of yourself just now, but it made their day. You just made a difference to a lot of people.” I watch him turn over my words. “You’ve been interested in what goes on inside my head, and that means more than I can say.”

“What’s going on here?” Renata bawls from the sideline. “What did I talk to you about, at length, Theodore Prescott?” She gets to her feet and walks to the edge. I stare at the wet tiles beneath her feet with my heart even further up my throat.

Teddy looks back into my eyes. “Don’t seduce Ruthie if I don’t plan on sticking around, because she’s a tender treasure that must be protected at all costs.”

Renata barks: “Correct. And what are you doing right now?”

“I’m explaining to her that I’m not her type,” he says easily as he strokes through the water, away from me.

“Damn right. Get out of the pool. Now.” Renata says it in a voice that cannot be disobeyed, and just like that, Teddy’s up the ladder, leaving me to eventually climb up myself. Out of that cold water, on dry land, I sweat and shiver for the rest of the afternoon.