What Women Do

“Accch! I haven’t made it on a Tuesday in I don’t know how long!” Alice announces to no one in particular as she turns the shower on, dipping her head back to soak her white hair.

            “Yes, I haven’t seen you here on Tuesday in a while,” I say, though I honestly don’t keep track of the days that she’s here. I often lie to keep the conversation going. 

            “Do you swim every day?” she asks me, soaping up her hair after tugging off her wet swim shirt and suit.

 "Nah, I can’t swim every day. My body can’t take it," I answer, trying to focus on getting all the shampoo out of my hair. 

            “Well, you’re here every day that I am!”

            “I plan it that way! I think to myself before I leave the house, ‘Is Alice going to be at the pool?’ And if I think you are, then I head on over!”

            Alice guffaws. The other two women, her friend, Linda, and another woman whose name I don’t know,  join in the giggles.

            “We’re both reading the same schedule!” Alice continues.

            “Yes, but it’s only a schedule for Alice and Carol. No one else is privy to it!”

            Again, more laughter. I’m on a roll today with the shower laughathon. I used to think it was so strange to chat in the shower, naked, tired, and soapy, but now I know it's just What Women Do. At least here at the Kennedy High Pool.

            “The schedule reminds me of statistics!” Alice continues. “I won’t give you the details!”

            “Thanks,” I say, though I wonder how the pool schedule reminds her of statistics. Is it the boxes? Or the outcomes? What the hell is statistics anyway? My students are always citing evidence from a source called ‘Statista’ but I have no clue what it is. It seems to tell them something about business, but I don’t know what. And, I remember that in order for me to be a psychology major at UC Santa Cruz, I had to take statistics.

            That’s when I switched my major to Literature.

            “OH!” Alice exclaims now that we’re all out of the shower and hurrying to dress before the 15-minute-get-out-of-the-locker room shouting begins. “We’re doing pretty good today. 7 minutes left.”

            “Yes, we’ll make it,” I say, shoving some of my stuff into my swim bag and digging around for my brush.

            “You know what slows me down?” Alice continues, and I think to myself, “TALKING!!!”

            But say instead, “No.”

            “Q-Tips. I love just sitting here, digging around in my ear with the Q-tip, waiting for the water to drain out. I just can’t get out of my ear!” She laughs joyfully.

            “That’s really weird,” Linda comments, pulling up her solar system stretch pants in what looks like an impossible task.

            Again, we all laugh, even the shy other woman who hasn’t said a word but has joined in all the frivolity. She slips on her red bowed flip-flops and heads out the door, “Goodbye!” she calls out, her soft voice filled with laughter.

            “BYE!” We all yell after her.

            20 seconds later, she comes back in. “She’s back!” Alice pronounces.

            Shy Girl grins, scurrying over to where she’d left her anti-covid face mask hanging on the bar. Grabbing it, she puts it on, then waves goodbye again.

            I think how I haven’t worn my mask today. I’m not sure why. Of course, it’s mostly habit at this point, and I do remember thinking that I should put it on after I got out of the shower, but then I thought, it’s just Alice and Linda and Shy Girl. Why bother?

            So, I hadn’t.

            And this is a first. To not wear a mask in the locker room. I’d been complaining about how no one does to my swim friends. That I was the only one who wore a mask. “You’re the only smart one,” Lauri had said.

            Was I being dumb today? Or is it really time to eschew the masks?

            I finish drying out my cap, rolling up my suit in my towel, and tossing all my stuff in my bag.

            12:14! I am out of here with a minute to spare!

            “Bye, Ladies!” I call out.

            Alice hollers something at me and she and Linda both crack up. I have no idea what she said as I head out of the locker room and into the parking lot, the rain showers paused for a minute as the puffy dark and white clouds float in the sky above me. "Those dark ones look like they're full of fire!" Alice had said at one point in the shower. Maybe before the statistics chat. "But they're not! They're full of water!"

    As I climb into the Fiat, the water starts to fall. I raise my face to the sky and grin and grin and grin!