I strolled around the halls of Byerlin as the school day wound to a close, looking contentedly at the grounds whenever I passed by a window. It had been such a peaceful day, one of the most relaxing in ages. My mind wandered back to a few hours earlier; I had had to open at the pool today, and despite sleeping late the night before, I had no problems waking up at five to be at work for five-thirty. On arriving I checked the schedule to see that Brandon would be opening with me; he was one of the guards hired in the past year and I had sort of taken him under my wing. Being one of the newest lifeguards always meant a little uneasiness and pressure, as I remembered well myself. So when Brandon and seven other new guards had been hired, I made sure I helped them feel more at ease about working at the pool. There weren't usually so many new faces at once, but with Blake, Janet, and a handful of others all leaving their jobs within a month of each other there was a clear shortage of employees in the Aquatics department.
"Hey Brandon, you look ready to tackle the day," I grinned as I walked into the office to find him pulling on his guard shirt. He looked at me with puffy eyes.
"Why do we even open this early?" he grumbled. "Just because the sun is up doesn't mean we all are."
"I know," I agreed, "I've never understood why, either. But it is what it is... Are your eyes just puffy from lack of sleep or something else?"
He shook his head a bit and rubbed his eyes. "Nah, I just didn't get much sleep last night." When I raised an inquiring eyebrow he continued. "Don't get mad but I was worried about opening, I've never had an opening shift before and I wasn't sure what I would..." His voice faltered and stopped under the look I was giving him.
"I told you not to worry about that," I said wearily. "You've been here two months and you're so much more comfortable. You've already seen that the job's not as hard as you thought it would be." He nodded, looking apologetic, and I chuckled. "Now, if you're all done stressing over the shift, I'll show you what we have to do to open and you'll have the hang of it in no time." With that, I put my bag in one of the lockers and got the set of keys hanging by the door, along with the pH and chlorine test containers. On turning around I noticed that Brandon was eyeing the containers with a hint of concern.
"I swear if you start worrying about these too, I'll throw you in the pool," I said in a tone of mock warning, and we both laughed. Brandon was at least twice my size, and there was no way I could get the better of him in a physical altercation, but it lightened his mood and I led the way out of the office to the pool deck, explaining as we walked. "Basically, we just have to make sure that all the doors are unlocked, especially the changing rooms and equipment room. Then we have to go to each pool," I pointed to the four pools on deck, "and check the pH and chlorine levels to make sure they're not dangerously high or low." He nodded, looking much more confident now. I demonstrated the pH and chlorine checks on the first two pools and let him do the last two, which he accomplished easily.
"See? Told you it's easy," I said.
"I was being stupid, I should have known it wasn't going to be hard," he muttered while looking embarrassed. We headed back to the office and he sat in the comfortable chair at the computer, taking out a thermos. "Want some coffee?"
I shook my head. "No thanks, I can't stand the taste, it's so bitter," I replied with a slight grimace. He chortled and took a huge swig, making my expression more pronounced and making him laugh even harder.
"How are you so wide awake?" he demanded. "It's like 6 AM and you don't look the slightest bit tired." I shrugged and we said nothing for the next little while. It was almost an hour later, when I finally turned away from watching a whirlpool form in one of the drains by the pool, that I realized the rhythmic sound of breathing behind me. Turning around I saw to my amusement that Brandon had fallen asleep; I would have woken him but saw no point in it, as there were no lessons to teach and no patrons using any of the pools at the moment.
