Never Smile

 

“Carol!”  I’m rushing down the hallway to the pool, already clad in my cap, googles, earplugs and, of course, swimsuit. I have 55 minutes to swim. It takes me 53 minutes to do 2500 yards. I have no time to stop and chit chat.

            What the hell does Frank want?

            I stop and turn around. He’s ambling back down the hall since we’ve already passed each other. I think I said ‘hello’ to him. He is a friend of LS so I try to be nice. But today, I just want to get in the pool.

            He’s already swam. His weird long anchor patterned swim trunks hang limply over his white mole ridden legs. A striped towel is draped over his neck, and his beady eyes stare into me.

            “You never smile. Is it something I said?”

            I stare at him for a moment, dumbstruck. What the hell is he talking about? Is it just another old white guy telling me to smile? Or did he really say something to offend me?

            This is unlikely since I never have had a conversation with him. Well, this isn’t absolutely true. The other day we were both in the shallow pool here at Kennedy High and I’d been doing my 50-yard sprints on the minute, resting at the wall for 10 seconds between each set and he’d been staring at me. “How you doing?” he’d asked.

            “Tired,” I said. Duh!

            “I bet,” he nodded, before I took off again.

            Nothing in this conversation that would have been offensive, right?

            So, he must just be another man telling a woman to smile because, you know, women are always supposed to be smiling at men to make them feel good.

            Fuck that.

            “That’s a really sexist thing to say,” I told him now.

            Shocked for a moment, he stands rooted to the cement floor, staring at me. Starts to mutter some sort of explanation, “No... No, I…”
            “Women are just supposed to go around smiling at men no matter how they’re feeling? Is that what you’re asking? Have you ever asked a man to smile?”

            “Well, no…but…I…I...

            I turned around and stomped off to the pool, leaving him there sputtering some lame explanations that I didn’t want to hear.

            In the pool, I just couldn’t get the exchange out of my head. I kept going over and over how men are always expecting women to be ‘cute’ and submissive and happy. Men? They’re not expected to do this, right? I couldn’t stop thinking about the exchange and was berating myself for this. “He’s ruining my swim!” I thought to myself as I turned at the wall and stroked down the lane.

           It’s interesting timing since Ian and I had just watched a movie the night before called Ladies First, where a male chauvinist asshole CEO bonks his head and when he wakes up the whole world is upside-down gender-wise. Women are running the world and men are the second-class citizens. The CEO gets a real awakening, living as a subservient, lesser than human in this world.

            I wish that this would happen to Frank. He could shuffle out of the facility (as all old men do. Shuffle shuffle shuffle) and trip and fall and bang his head on the concrete in the parking lot and wake up and find out that all the women are in charge. And, that we were going around telling him to smile, interrupting him when he spoke, admonishing him for his stretched-out suit.

            When you think about it, women really are getting the short end of the stick in this world.

            But hell if I’m gonna smile about it.

            From now on, when I see Frank, I’m just going scowl scowl scowl or better yet, ignore him completely. And if he ever asks me again why I never smile and if it’s something he said, I’ll say, “No, but now it is!”

No Clue

 

“Hi, Bobby!”

I call out to the pool manager, fake cheery. He’s just gotten out of his dirty Subaru station wagon, holding a handful of yellow envelops, trying to hide under his grimy baseball cap.

            “Hello?” He’s confused. I can see it in his beady eyes. They’re blank, trying to retrieve information, but it’s just not there.

            I glance over at LS, who’s pulled out her phone, but manages to roll her eyes at the situation. We’re standing in the shade in front of the Kennedy pool facility, chatting about this and than when he drives up.

            “Carol,” I hint, to Bobby now, thinking he’ll remember me.

            He stares at me. Uncomprehending.

            “Carol Jameson.” He still stands in front of me, dumbfounded. Emphasis on the dumb.

            “Uh…. we talked on the phone?”

            ZING! WRONG! We’ve never talked on the phone. Only exchanged lengthy emails about the pool for several weeks. Its overcrowding. Its temperature. Its limited hours.

            “Nope,” I taunt. Do I give him another hint? Okay, I’ll play nice.

            “Email. We exchanged many emails about the pool,” I grin.

            “Oh…yeah…yeah….” he nods, shakes his head, but I can tell there’s still absolutely no recognition. What the hell? I do realize that he must email a lot of patrons complaining about the pool, but c’mon, can’t he hold the more strident ones in his brain?

            Evidently not.

            He starts in on a long harangue about the parking lot without any prompting. I don’t care about the parking lot, only the pool, but I let him ramble on.

            “They’re gonna give us a new parking lot this summer. But it’s going to take some time. They’re gonna give us some new trees, tear those out.” He nods toward the splendid cauliflower trees that shade several spaces. 

            “That’s too bad,” I comment, thinking isn’t that just the way of development? Destroying perfectly good trees that give us shade, oxygen and beauty.

            “Yeah, I agree,” he nods. Then continues his rambling after I ask about the parking lot behind the pool, which is always locked up, and could provide parking when the lot is closed this summer.  Wasted space. He has some long indecipherable explanation as to why there’s no access. Something about the gate?

            “The gate opens up inside instead of outside and so if it was available for our staff, they’d have to unlock the gate, open it the wrong way, then….”

            He stops for a moment, confused. “Well, anyway, it’d cause an accident.”

            I can’t fathom how a large chain link gate opening the wrong way would cause an accident, but I just let it go. It’s too far away from the topic of the pool. Which is all I care about. And he doesn’t seem to care about at all.

            “The pool was so nice today,” I offer, tired of his rambling. I can see that he’s trying. Trying to be someone who is in charge but has no clue what priorities he needs to explain.

            G, LS’s husband and one of the lifeguards, comes out of the facility, holding the door open for a moment.  Bobby takes the open-door escape and leaves us. Does he say goodbye? Smile with some semblance of social confidence?

            Nope. He ducks into the facility. G continues to hold the door open for him, then lets it close sharply behind him.

            “He didn’t even acknowledge me, let alone thank me for holding the door open for him,” G says, shaking his head.

            LS rolls her eyes even more if that were possible.

            “He gave us a long unasked-for update on the parking lot,” I mention.

            “Let’s get out of here,” G says, climbing onto his bike. LS follows him.

            “You guys have a good afternoon,” I call after them, heading to my car.

            “You too,” LS answers, mounting her bike and pedaling away.

            I unlock the car and heave my swim bag into the back. Then start humming the Rachmaninoff Prelude in D I’ve been practicing. Humming, according to LS’s acupuncturist, helps with anxiety.

Irina Lankova plays Rachmaninov Prelude Op.23 No.4

            I think this is true. But also, I like the melody and the depth of its emotion. A far cry from a talk with Bobby. Who probably has no idea who Rachmaninoff is.

            But he’ll give him a call. If only he could find his number!

Mind Waiting?

 

“Hi. Can I share the lane with you?”

He pauses, slowly removes the snorkel from his fleshy tan jowls. “Uh…. I was just gonna do some backstroke. And I have a tendency to go kinda all over the place. Why, the last time I shared a lane with someone and I was doing backstroke, I accidently hit her in the face. I couldn’t sleep that whole night. Would you mind waiting while I swim 4 laps?”

            I stare down at him in disbelief. First, what happened to the woman that he hit? Was she hurt? Did he apologize? Or did he just continue on his merry way, but did lose some sleep over his braining of her.

            Second. Dude! The proper response to someone asking to share your lane is: “Of course, which side do you want?”

            I get not wanting to share a lane. I’m guilty of this feeling too. I’ll even go to passive aggressive lengths (pun intended) to keep someone from asking me or getting in the lane with me. Backstroke is an effective means of accomplishing this. Weaving down the lane, taking up as much space as possible. Usually this makes the lingering deck waiting possibility choose another lane.

            So, to give this guy credit, at least he knew he was a danger.

            But, c’mon. If you can’t stay to one side of the lane doing backstroke, then don’t do backstroke!

            Or, try harder!

            I’m at the Oceanside senior center pool, El Corazon, visiting my mom and sister. In fact, my mom wanted to come and ‘watch’ me swim, which I thought would be really boring, but a cute idea. The two of them were there on the deck with me joining me in disbelief at this guy’s response.

            The pool was busy. Sunday afternoon families, bikini girls, snorkel dudes like this guy. In the lane next to him was Hat Man, floating obliviously in the center of the lane. To the other side was String Bikini Woman, grabbing at the wall on the far side, then heaving herself up onto the deck, holding her nose with thumb and index finger, and tumbling into the water, flailing about, then emerging, gasping for air.

            Neither one of these swimmers seemed like promising prospects for lane sharing, but hell if I was gonna press Snorkel Man.

            It just wasn’t worth it.

            In past years, I might have. Told him that I wasn’t going to wait. That this was not only an unfriendly response, but absurd as far as public pool lane sharing etiquette went. Then I would have gotten in the lane, put on my fins, and zoomed past him.

            Asshole.

            But today, I opted for Bikini Woman. Signaled to her that I was getting in the lane. She responded right away with a friendly wave before diving under water again, holding her nose.

            My mom and sister went to sit in the shade, watching the show. Mom marveling over a toddler that kept climbing up on deck and diving back in. A real little fish.

            “That was me, right?” I asked her when she told me about him.

            “Oh, yes, you were so at home in the water. Me? I never was.”

            I do love the water. It’s where I feel the happiest. If all the variables are in alignment: my mask doesn’t leak, my energy is good, the time allotted is enough, and my own lane. OR, if no own lane, then someone who is nice to share with.

            Bikini Woman turned out to be just fine. I’d turn around at the far wall, while she stayed to her side of the lane, flailing about underwater, the pink strings of her bikini dancing at her thighs.

            After the pool, driving home, my mom and sister commented on Snorkel Dude. “We think he must have been an attorney or surgeon,” my mom said.

            “Yeah, well, whatever he was, he was an asshole!”

            We all laughed. “What’s for lunch?” my sister asked.

            “Pizza?” my mom asked. “Can we have pizza?”

            “Sure, why not,” my sister responded. “Let’s call for delivery when we get home.”

            Tired and hungry, I settled into the warmth of the car’s back seat. Pizza did sound good. But frankly, anything would taste good after that adventure in the pool!

           

 

Can’t Beat It!

 

Taking a detour from my usual walking course, I turn right on Clinton instead of continuing on ahead up 31^st street. Why?

            My former piano student lives in the Purple House on Clinton. So, if I turn instead of continuing on, I walk right by his house. I miss him and his family. I had to give up teaching piano for a time in the fall because of my partner, Ian’s, illness. Then when I was able to teach again, I couldn’t seem to connect with Cedar. Missed texts and voice mail tag. Emails sent out and never answered. I finally gave up. But it’s always felt strange. To at least not formally say ‘goodbye’ and ‘thank you’ and ‘hope you keep playing the piano’ before disconnecting.

            As I walk under the shade of two huge sycamore trees, I glance across the street at the Purple House. No sign of life. No mom out in the garden. No sound of Mozart floating through the open windows. It’s strange.

            But today, as I pass a large two-story shaded house, surrounded by thick bushes, tall flowers and spiky succulents, I spy a man sitting on a bench in his front yard. He’s dressed in a red tank top and black shorts, sporting a thick gold chain and nodding his head to what must be music.

            “Good morning!” I call out since he’s caught my eye. “Beautiful day!”

            “That it is!” he grins. “I got my coffee. I’m listening to my jazz. Can’t beat it!” He raises his coffee mug toward me as I march past.

            “You got that right,” I answer, smiling. He’s right. Sitting out in the yard, drinking your morning beverage, listening to your music of choice, staring up at the blue sky and puffy elephant clouds, what could be better?

            As I turn up 32^nd street, I sigh though. At the moment, all is good. I’m outside. Walking. It is a beautiful day, a little cool and breezy, but with signs that it will warm up and be a pleasant afternoon. Yet, I’ve been cooped up in the house all weekend with my poor sick Ian. He’s so frail and depressed. I wish there were something I could do to help him, but there’s not.

            Last night, as I was cleaning up the dishes, he was standing at the threshold between the kitchen and dining room looking so sad. I stopped the running water, dried my hands, and went over and gave him a big hug.

            “Ohhhh. You are so sweet,” he murmured, hugging me back, needing the touch, the sympathy that only our bodies can communicate.

            “Well, not really,” I pulled away, turning back to the pile of unfinished dishes. “But it looked like you could use a hug. I’m so sorry you’re feeling so crummy.”

            He nodded, his eyes foggy behind his thick wired rimmed glasses.

            It’s all so sad. And, I can’t get away from it. There is hope, I suppose. A surgery is being scheduled that will hopefully send him on the road to recovery. But it will be a long, arduous road. I don’t know if I’m up for it.

            At the top of 32^nd street now, I spy Mike and his big black cat who’s doing multiple roll-overs at his feet on the warm cement. “How ya doing?” he calls out to me across the street.

            “I’m fine,” I answer, deciding that I don’t have the energy to go over and chat.

            The cat is busy and round, rolling over, getting up, rubbing against his legs, then plopping down again.

            “Just hangin with the cat!” he calls out, grinning widely.

            “Nothing beats it!” I answer, heading briskly up to the corner.

            And, it’s true. Being out in the morning air, walking, talking to neighbors and cats, counting the elephant clouds in the sky. I have to live in this moment. And I can. For a little while.       

            As I turn the corner, I head down McBryde, humming the Turkish Rondo to myself. I think how I’m going to call Cedar. Find out how the Mozart is going. Maybe start working with him again.    

  Or I could just keep walking. Humming. Chatting.

            At least for the next 45 minutes….    

Yundi plays Mozart Rondo alla Turca    

  

Thievery

 

“Last night I finally got a chance to take a shower at home!” Alice announces as she lets the warm water cascade over her back.

            We’ve all just finished our swims in the Kennedy pool. Another success beating the crowds. Though on this Sunday, it wasn’t as bad as I had anticipated. Everyone left the last half hour. Maybe they had the schedule wrong and thought the pool closed at 12:00 instead of 12:30? Whatever. It was nice to have a lane to myself for 30 minutes. A rare luxury these days.

            “Why don’t you usually take a shower at home?” Violet asks.

            “I live with my 23-year-old granddaughter,” Alice rolls her eyes. “I’m afraid she’ll steal from me.”

            “WHAT?” I cry, astounded. “You really think your granddaughter would steal from you while you were in the shower?”

            Alice shrugs. “Don’t know. But I know what I did when I was her age.” She laughs, throwing her head back to rinse the shampoo out of her hair, the suds covering her worn, wrinkled skin.

            I thought about it. I did steal. But not from my grandmother. Though maybe I would have if I’d lived with her. I took small change out of the bottom of my mom’s purse. I don’t think she ever knew or if she did, it was so little that she didn’t care. Plus, I thought I was doing her a favor cleaning out the bottom of her purse.

            Then there was Alpha Beta. In Irvine. I used to steal candy bars and then run out through the automatic doors before anyone could catch me. It was thrilling and stupid. They only cost 70 cents at the time. Not like I couldn’t have bought them. But I was so bored. There was NOTHING to do in Irvine except play tennis, swim, and steal.

            Now that I think of it, I did, in a manner of speaking, steal from my Grandma Birdie. We always bought her pounds of See’s Candies for holidays, her birthday, Mother’s Day. We’d keep the wrapped boxes in the fridge until it was time to give it her. I’d sneak into the kitchen, open the fridge, pull out the box and carefully unwrap the box, being sure not to tear the paper. Then, I’d root around in the bottom of the box, stealing a prime chocolate cream or Bordeaux, move the remaining candies around so it would look like it was still a full box.

            But she always knew. One year, when I was older and didn’t do this anymore, she told me that she wasn’t fooled.

            “Why didn’t you say anything?” I’d asked her.

            She gave me her Cheshire Cat smile, “I wanted to let you have your fun.”

            She was like that.

“I remember one time,” Violet says now, “that my son stole my car.”

            “How’d he do that?” I asked. “Were you asleep?”

            “Yes. He just took my keys and drove over to his girlfriend’s house, took her to the mall out in Concord where they had a spending spree, and then brought the car back to me before I woke up.”

            “How did you find out about it?” Alice asks.

            Violet pauses, thinking hard, her thick grey hair damp around her face. “You know, I can’t remember. All I know is that he did steal the car.”

            “And got away with it!” I exclaimed, turning off the shower, wringing my hair and suit and heading out into the locker room.

            “Yes, I suppose he did,” Violet muses, grabbing her own towel off the hook and wrapping it around herself.

            “All I know is…” Alice calls out to us, “…is that my granddaughter is the type not to be trusted. She’d steal from herself if she could!”

            We all laughed. Stealing from ourselves. That is a funny idea.

            What would I steal from myself I wonder? I have nothing of value. Though I do have Aunt Lucille’s moonstone ring hidden away in one of my pasta boxes.

            It’s worth something. My mom said at least $5000 dollars.

            I’d steal that.

            Though since I’ve had it, I’ve never worn it. Too valuable. It might get lost.

            Or stolen.

            “5 MINUTES! 5 MINUTES LADIES!” One of the lifeguards hollers at us.

            Violet shakes her head. “They are off by 2 minutes. I’m going to go tell them.”

            “Go Violet!” I say as she marches out of the room, her jaw firmly set, eyes of steel. I wonder if she ever stole anything?

            I bet she did.

            And Alice?

            I know she did!

 

Good Job

 

“Okay, Ladies! The pool is closed. The locker room closes in 1 minute!” The lifeguard stalks through the locker room, announcing the closure loudly. Doesn’t make eye contact with any of the half dozen or so women still half dressed.

            No one seems in a rush. Except for me. I always try to get out on time. But it’s hard. I’m so slow.

            “You can do it, Girl!” Singing Woman encourages me, grabbing the keys to her Mercedes lying on the bench. “I have a story about my husband at Costco. He tells me, every time I wanna go to Costco, ‘I don’t wanna go with you. You’re too slow.’ And this one time, I tell him, ‘I just have to return something. I won’t be long.’ So he says, ‘Okay’. And I leave him in the car while I go in, but of course, I pick up a few other things that I needed, this hairbrush, and some real cute sandals, you know? It’s hard to resist. But still, I wasn’t gone long. When I get back to the car, I ask my husband, ‘See I wasn’t gone long, was I?’ And he just shrugs and says, ‘I guess not.’ ‘You guess not! You guess not!’ I say to him. ‘You supposed to say, GOOD JOB, TRUDY! GOOD JOB!’”

            I start laughing, trying to gather all my swim gear and toss it in my gym bag before the lifeguard comes back in and starts yelling at us. And, I think, this commendation of ‘Good Job’ is so overused that it has no meaning. I remember watching the movie, Whiplash, where the hellishly abusive drum teacher, J. K. Simmons, yelled at one of his students about how being told he’d done a ‘good job’ gave students permission to be lazy and unmotivated. “Good job!” he’d yelled, terrifying the student, “The two most useless words in the English language for a teacher to use to motivate his students. You haven’t done a ‘good job’, you haven’t even done an adequate job. You are here. You sit on your ass and pound on the drums like some sort of cartoon idiot, and you expect me to say, ‘Good job.’ Well, it ain’t gonna happen buddy. Not on my watch!”

            I’m guilty of this too when teaching piano. Especially with the little kids. They just exhaust me. They don’t listen to me. When they do anything that halfway resembles music or what I’ve been trying to get them to do, say play the melody of Mary Had a Little Lamb with both the right and left hand even though you could just play it with the right hand, well, I just shrug and say, “Good Job, Jenny.” And Jenny beams. Sometimes smiling and wriggling. She’s happy with herself. I’m happy to not yell at her. Saying ‘good job’ does the trick.

            Now, in the locker room, Singing Woman laughs along with me, “You see? You can do it! I’m outta here!” She lifts her bag onto her shoulder, gives a wave to everyone, heads out of the lockeroom.

            I yell after her, “Good job, Trudy. Good job!”

            All the women in the locker room start laughing, the sound of their mirth floating up into the cold sterile walls of the room.

            I walk over to the mirror, start to yank at my wet hair to get the tangles out, thinking, if I can get most of these tangles out, it will be a good job.

            And, I don’t even have to go to Costco to get a new brush to do it.

            Good job, Cj, Good job, I say to myself, yanking the last clump free. I toss my brush into my bag and hurry out of the locker room, the echo of "LADIES! THE LOCKER ROOM IS NOW CLOSED!" following me out into the parking lot. 

The Peace Apple?

 

“Ahhh….at least it’s cooler today!” L exclaims as we spill into the parking lot of the Kennedy Pool facility, the last three women to straggle out.

            It had been too hot the last few days, especially for the middle of March. Usually, northern California has plenty of rain in March. In fact, some years it’s even been dubbed ‘Miracle March’ when the storms sweep through in an otherwise dry year, giving the snowpack and reservoirs much needed reserves.

            But not this year. This year, the rain stopped in March. Each day clear and blue and waterless. People exclaim over how beautiful the weather is. How nice it is to be out in the warmth. Yet the warmth and sunshine at this time of year portends more drought. Don’t people get this?

            I like the warmth. I’ll admit it. But I also have a healthy does of anxiety (can anxiety ever be healthy?) about the lack of rain tied to the climate crisis and potential drought. California has been in a severe drought for more years than not in my adult life. There are stats about this, but the bottom line is, no rain in March is NOT a good thing.

            Today, when L exclaims about the relieving coolness from the previous few days of blistering heat, V, loaded down with armfuls of plastic bags, shakes her head and smiles at me, sitting at the table eating my Good For You Brownie Bar snack. “I like the warm weather,” she says to me, almost conspiratorially? Or am I just imagining this? L has trundled off to her Jeep, waving goodbye to us and the conversation. I am left to respond to V’s comment? Esp since it does seem aimed at me. Almost a dare? But again, am I imagining this?

            “Yeah,” I agree now, but can’t help but mention what the heat means, “But we need the rain. You know, climate crisis and all.”

            V stops shuffling around in her trunk with all the plastic bags. Turns toward me, taking a few steps in her tottering white high healed sandals: “We have enough water,” she hisses, staring at me long and hard. Almost a threat? Daring me to contradict her? But before I can respond, she says, “It’s the price of gas that we should be worried about! I paid $5.99 a gallon this morning! Can you believe that? $5.99!!!!”

            I nod, knowing that gas is way up because of Trump’s deadly and unnecessary war with Iran. The price of oil going up and up each day: 10%, 25%, 30%. And, yes, we drivers are paying for it with the price of gas. Yet all moral outrage aside about this war, we can live without gas. Water, on the other hand, is a resource that we can’t live without. It’s a finite resource. And with the climate crisis, with longer and more severe droughts, the issue of not having enough water is a real one.

            I decide not to get into all of this, though, with V today. She seems too agitated. A bit unhinged. I’ve always thought she was a little crazy. Spending over an hour in the locker room primping: makeup, hair drying, fancy dresses and shoes. Everyone else tries to get out of the locker room as quickly as possible. It’s not a nice place after all. Cold cement floor, freezing air temperature, screaming kids.

            V has turned back to her car now and is bending over the trunk, rifling through the plastic bags. Emerging, she turns toward me, hand outstretched, something in her palm.

            “Hey, Carol, do you want an apple?”

            What???? I start laughing. Where did this come from? Is she offering me a piece of fruit to allay the tension we’ve had about the price of gas and the lack of water?

            “Uhh…no, thank you,” I say. I don’t elaborate about how I don’t really like fruit. Sometimes, sure, I’ll eat an apple. But taking one out of someone’s trunk that’s been there for who know how long isn’t my idea of a good snack.

Instead, I just shake me head and watch as she takes a big bite out of the fruit.

            “You sure?” she says, chewing loudly. “I’ve got more.”

            “Nah, that’s okay, I have to go,” I rise, grabbing my keys and hat off the tabletop.

            “You have a good day now,” she calls after me as I head across the parking lot.

            “Thanks, you too,” I answer, inwardly thinking how strange it was that she offered me an apple after the tense exchange we had.

            But maybe it was a Peace Apple, as Ian suggested when I told him the story later. “You know, maybe she knew she was wrong and she wanted to give you a gift to say she was sorry.”

            I doubt it, I think. But maybe he’s right. Maybe it was a Peace Apple.