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The smell brings back so many memories.
I use my key to open an EMPLOYEES ONLY side door.
The rush of humidity hits me and I feel right at home.
“Hey, Piper,” Katie says to me.
Katie is one of the college kids that works at the gym. She’s going for physical therapy. She’s bright, bubbly, and has some really cool tattoos from her right elbow down to her wrist.
“Brian is looking for you,” she whispers to me.
She points at the main pool office and there’s Brian, sitting behind what is technically my desk.
“Go rotate with Jeff one more time,” I say to Katie. “Then Jeff can go somewhere else.”
“That works,” Katie says. “Brian wants him to check the sauna. Apparently someone said it’s not getting hot enough? Or that some other gym has one that gets hotter.”
I roll my eyes.
I walk into the office and Brian jumps up to greet me.
“Save the handshakes and all that,” I say. “When you visit it’s never good news.”
“Don’t paint me as the angel of death here,” Brian says with his too-white-of-a-smile.
When the guy grins you need sunglasses.
“Need you to rearrange some of the schedule,” Brian says.
“Oh?”
“Need you to do it now. For today. Meaning in the next two hours…”
“For today? That’s the aqua aerobics class. For the sixty-five plus.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know, Brian. You can’t just cancel that on them.”
“No choice. You can send out-”
“Brian, half of them use cellphones with prepaid minute cards. They don’t use apps. They don’t have email.”
“My hands are tied here.”
“No, they’re not. Something more lucrative has come your way. Let’s be real.”
“You have a lot of nerve talking to me the way you do,” Brian says.
“And you don’t have anyone with nearly half the experience I do. You need me more than I need you. What’s going on with the pool?”
“There’s a baseball player coming.”
“What?”
“An injured baseball player. He’s been rehabbing using a pool. He’s in town and needs the pool.”
“The entire pool?”
