Michele stops swabbing the counter. She swivels in the tight corner to reach the rinse bucket and shakes her head.

 

“Why not?” says Lorraine. Curls feather her face. With wet hands, she bunches them and tucks them behind her collar. “You’re crazy.” Michele leans against the sink. Lorraine crouches below her waist to wipe the floor cabinets. The midday sun emboldens. It’s inching toward disrupting their shady awning at the community pool snack counter.

 

“I could never with a customer,” says Michele. She eyes Lorraine, bent over and scrubbing. “I mean I can’t think of a single person who’s —”

 

“What?” Lorraine looks up, out of breath.

 

“I don’t know,” says Michele. “They all look like they taste chlorinated.” She continues swabbing. Still crouched, Lorraine flings her rag in the air where it hits the awning and lands on Michele’s knee. With a flourish, she grabs it and rises from the floor like Venus from the scallop shell.

 

“You said you wanted to do something different this summer.” 

 

“Ew,” says Michele. Lorraine wrings her rag in the bucket and tosses it against the sanitizer. It slides to the floor, where customers might see it as they stub to the counter to order paper cups filled with fries. Michele retrieves it before rinsing her hands. Wisps of hair frizz at her temples. She brushes them back and bands a tighter knot around her braid. Lorraine’s curls bounce and glint auburn in the sun. Her complexion is almost similar to Michele’s. When they met, they’d bonded over shared heritages. Sometimes Lorraine packs her nut-scented lotion from The Body Shop and lets Michele use as much as she likes. Michele won’t say “body butter” but loves the fragrance. The richness overwhelms the chlorine baking on her skin. Unlike her friend, Lorraine is long and slender and noticeable. Brown eyes catching flashes of amber when she tosses her head laughing. All summer, grown men peacock around the snack counter, waiting to light her up on smoke breaks while Michele waits at the register.

 

For three summers they’ve worked the counter. From June twenty-fifth to September second, every morning except for Sundays, Michele wakes to a pulsing flutter. To work with Lorraine is to watch an interactive soap opera. There’s always a boy, sometimes a man, frequently someone else’s. Michele’s never had a boyfriend. She’s only been kissed at dances. But she relishes her role as Lorraine’s consoler in the wake of whatever sandcastle has collapsed by the end of the week. Today is Monday. By the end of their shift, Michele and Lorraine will have close-read a series of DMs and grown hoarse dissecting one- and two-word texts. Under the teal awning, they’ll preside over soggy fries and splashes of ketchup. In this way, that afternoon will be no different from any other. 

 

“So who then?” says Michele. A bubble of hesitation rises in her throat. Lorraine flops her rag by the register. She stares out from the counter at the drowsy crowd of sunbathers and says nothing. Michele holds her focus.

 

“You know the guy who comes over Tuesdays and Thursdays and orders a black coffee and a hot dog with no bun?”

 

“Yeah?” says Michele.

​

Lorraine lets her bottom lip curl. She leans in so her forehead is almost touching Michele’s.

​

“Oh my god.” Michele steps back. “You’re not serious.”

​

Lorraine swivels around, and Michele nearly trips forward to maintain their eye contact. “Lorraine. That guy? Lorraine! He literally asked me if I’m living life authentically.”

 

“No!” Lorraine tosses her head and laughs. “Come on. Come on, Michele, not him. His son.” She snatches her rag and snaps it at Michele’s waist. “He’s a senior at Central.”

 

“High school!” says Michele. Sweat slicks her forehead. “Like, he just graduated? Or he’s a rising senior?” 

 

“Definitely rising,” says Lorraine. Michele blushes. She covers her smile with her wet hand.

 

“He doesn’t count,” says Michele.

 

“Why not?”

 

“Because he’s not a customer. He’s just related to one.” Lorraine shrugs and resumes swabbing. She and Michele have been out of Saint Margaret’s for a year. Enrolling in the state university several hours away has made them feel renewed. Removed from the musty red oak that lines the hallways and the kids that plod around them, sucking red and purple elixir from tiny plastic barrels topped with foil.

​

During their junior year, Lorraine convinced Michele to wet the wick on the sacramental candle before religion class. For a week, they stashed their loafers in Lorraine’s locker and crept through the hallway in their socks. After five days of fumbling to catch a flame, Sister Regina had launched an investigation. It was the only time Michele received detention.

 

When she finishes wiping the counter, Lorraine pulls a box cutter from under the till and opens a case of plastic forks. She’s the only one who uses the blade. Michele’s hands sweat, and she worries the blunt edge might slip from her fingers, so she asks Lorraine to open everything. Michele leans forward on the counter. The candy display case needs Windexing. Through its cloudy reflection she can see Lorraine behind her, pressing her hipbone to tuck her shirt back inside her denim. A lump curdles in Michele’s throat. Feeling it well in her esophagus, she steadies herself and swallows. When the moment passes, as it does, she grabs the spray bottle from under the sink. Crouched again, Lorraine circles a dry rag across the front of the floor cabinets. Neither of them speaks until the next customer arrives twenty minutes later. 

 

The lunch counter has no employee restroom. After each shift, Michele walks to the far side of the high dive pool to change out of her uniform and into her bathing suit. She twists her braid into a bun. If she’s alone after changing, she’ll jump in front of the sink mirror to glimpse her entire frame. Michele wears a one-piece because Lorraine does. Something to do with a raised birthmark on the side of her stomach. Michele, who’s known her friend to be entirely comfortable exhibiting her body, doesn’t understand her self-consciousness. But she accepts it. An unspoken loyalty and a percolation of empathy for what she considers her friend’s rogue insecurity have kept her from purchasing a bikini. This summer’s different. She’s given in to a stirring of curiosity and seasonal languor. After six weeks of enduring her lifeguard-style suit that bulges the areas she’d rather conceal, Michele had ordered an indigo and white halter top with a matching bottom. When she tapped “place order,” she’d wondered whether the bows on the bottom piece were stitched together at the seam or able to be completely undone. 

 

For several minutes Michele stands in the locker room without intrusion from middle school girls flip flopping between stalls for toilet paper, or middle-aged women combing chlorine from their hair. She pulls a package from her tote and tears the soft plastic. The bikini looks smaller than it did online. She rolls off her shirt and ties the halter around her back and neck. Watching herself in the sink mirror, she feels exposed and elated. The top fits her perfectly.

 

The bottom is trickier. Michele has her grandmother’s figure. Most days she spends half an hour in the mirror trying to adjust it away before giving up. The material dimples around her backside. When she smooths the bottom piece in place, she jumps a couple times in the mirror. Everything looks pretty good. Her hips descend into the wash of her thighs and the halter’s lift makes her torso look longer. Almost like Lorraine’s. She feels a giddy rush inside her stomach. Her heart beats hard in her chest. Suddenly she’s sick. The faucet knob creaks as she spins it around and around until the water pressurizes and spits into the sink. She splashes her face and grips the edges of porcelain. For a moment, she stands there letting the water drip from her ears and chin and absorb into the nylon of her top. She tears a paper towel from the dispenser and pats her face and neck. Smoothing her flyaways, she uncoils her braid. In a minute she’s dry again. Michele leaves the locker room for the shallow end of the high dive pool. The bows, it turns out, are sewn together. Relief settles in her posture. Were they hand-tied, she’d almost definitely undo them at some point, swimming in the deep end.