“Excuse me?” Cute, Pert Lifeguard (not the usual scab pickers) stops PP at the end of the lane as she was turning around. “I just wanna let you know,” CPL smiles so sweetly, apologetic, “that I’m gonna have to close this lane in a few minutes. So I’m gonna have to ask you to move.”
PP glares up at her through the foggy mask, glancing around at the relatively quiet pool now that the goddamn swim lessons are over. Paddle Man is hogging the lane to her right; Slow Moving Asian Woman and Brisk Woman are sharing the lane to her left. She can’t see beyond these two lanes cuz of the fog mask factor, but thinks, whatever, as long as I don’t have to share a lane with Paddle Man.
She doesn’t say this of course to Apologetic Sweetness Lifeguard, but just shrugs and says, “When do you need the lane?”
“In about 5 or 10 minutes.”
“Okay, I’m only gonna swim for another 10 minutes anyway, so just let me know,” and she takes off down the lane thinking how this must be what DHBF was talking about yesterday when he got moved out of his lane for Hemophiliac Swimmer. A new regime? HS gets the lane prepared/closed for him before he even arrives?
Now that’s a King for you.
Which is perfect since today was all about the Coronation. As PP and DHBF sat riveted in front of the TV that morning, watching the procession of Diane Feinstein and Nancy Pelossi and various other personages before Barack Obama and his family came marching into the arena, PP couldn’t help but make the comparison to the Showtime Series she’s been watching, The Tudors, when Henry the VIII crowns Ann Boleyn with all the pomp and circumstance.
Not that Barack is any Henry the VIII or Michele is anything like Ann Boleyn, though that would be interesting, wouldn’t it?
And so, today at the pool, when Hemophiliac Swimmer did make his entry, and was hanging around the deck chatting with Sweetness Apologetic Lifeguard and PP glanced up and grinned and said, “You want me to move to another lane now?”
HS waved at her, beaming, as SAL nodded, “If you....”
But before she finished, PP spied another lane at the other side of the pool the fog suddenly clearing in her mask, and thought, what the hell, I’ll just move. “I can just swim over there,” she called out, grabbing her equipments and diving under the lane lines, popping up in the end lane, only to be met by HS, who came rushing over, bending down with a big toothy grin, holding out both of his hands to reach for hers.
Laughing, PP gave him both of her hands, and he grasped them, holding onto her with his papery 82 year old ones. “You really didn’t have to do that!” he joked.
“It’s no big deal,” she smiled. “I don’t really care which lane I’m in.” She was gonna say as long as she wasn’t with PM, but then before she could, HS raised her right hand, bent his old bald turtle head down, and gave her hand a KISS! Like a real southern gentleman in the movies or something.
Charmed and embarrassed, PP let him hold her hand for a shy moment after the kiss before he let her go. Grinning, she turned around,diving under the water, the feel of his strange old man’s lips still on the back of her hand.
What a weird day, she thought.
A coronation.
And a kiss.
She felt like Royalty.
But only for a moment..... At the pool...... On Inauguration day.
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