"Akash?"
"Hmm?" I said lazily, without lifting my head from its position on the counter. It had been a couple of weeks since I had begun my internship, and I was currently at the YMCA, on a hot Saturday afternoon, in the middle of a long shift with Brandon, Ben, Cam and Quinn. It had been sweltering for the past two hours, and to make matters worse, the air conditioning on the pool deck and in the office was temporarily broken. I opened my eyes a sliver before closing them again as my boss, Todd, spoke again.
"Are you feeling alright?" he asked. I looked at him again before glancing around the office. The other four guards were also in similar positions to me, reclining or slumped, looking tired and sweating a lot.
"Are you asking only me or all of us?" I asked, my eyes a little more open now. Todd glanced at all of us once, looking a bit surprised.
"To be honest, I was only asking you, since you're the most used to heat," he admitted. I nodded and lay my head down again.
"I'm not feeling all that warm," I replied. "But I'm tired, working eight hours a day between two jobs for five days a week starts to take effect after a while. It IS really humid here, though," I continued in a more serious tone. "We're lucky there's no one here for the public swim right now, we could get heat stroke if we had to stay on deck for long periods of time in that humidity."
Todd looked nonplussed. "Is it this bad on deck too?" He strode out of the office and was back in ten seconds. "Okay, you're right, it's terrible out there. Stuffy and disgusting and hot."
"In a nutshell, yeah," I chuckled. "Was there anything you needed, Todd?"
"Oh yeah! I almost forgot," he exclaimed. "What's this I hear that you're not going back to school next month?" I sat up, a little confused.
"Didn't I already tell you I was going to be in town for a year?" I enquired, and he shook his head. "Whoops, my bad... Yeah, because of my internship, I'll be here till the end of next summer."
"Does that mean I can put you on the schedule for the fall session?" Todd continued eagerly.
"Go for it, but I'll be working nine to five at Stomae once the school year starts, so I can only work evenings on weekdays, and preferably only one of Saturday or Sunday if I have to work on the weekend," I answered. "I'd like to have at least one day off a week." Todd nodded and left the office.
"You getting paid at this thing?" Brandon mumbled sleepily, with his face buried in his arm.
"Yup, but not until I actually start work, in September," I replied in a similar tone of voice. Ben spoke up this time.
"Then why are you still working here?" he asked incredulously. "I'm guessing the air conditioning doesn't break there!"
I laughed. "Yeah, you're right," I replied in a note of mock seriousness. "I work only where things don't go wrong." After all my previous experiences as a lifeguard alone, my resolve had hardly weakened. I had been through much worse than a malfunctioning cooling system when the likes of Blake had been working here, and I had come through those without compromising either my integrity or my values.
None of us said anything for a while, and my thoughts began to wander away from the pool and work. As I closed my eyes, I could very clearly see a room which was vaguely familiar. There were a couple of couches, facing a television and a couple of game systems. Behind the couches was an air hockey table, and a counter beside the table, like a mini-bar. There didn't seem to be anyone else in the room, and as I sat on the couch and looked around, I tried to figure out exactly where I was.
I became suddenly aware of a steadily strengthening scent. I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was, but I knew that I recognized it. And now, as I saw the silhouette from whom the scent was emanating, I remembered exactly where I was. I remembered an instance, over two years ago, when I had been in this very room. I had been watching a movie. "The Black Swan," whispered the figure in the doorway, and I jumped. Yes, that had been the name of the movie; it was very unnerving how this figure was following my unsaid thoughts.
