Page 10

Before

Before Will Somerset and boat rides around Winter Park’s Chain of Lakes to cool off on a hot Saturday morning, and before Este and rosé by the pool on random Wednesday afternoons, I was hot.

Not, like, check-out-those-curves hot, but rather, wondering-why-the-fuck-did-I-choose-to-live-on-the-surface-of-the-sun hot.

I understand that Northerners will tell a Floridian to take a seat with weather complaints when they willingly live with minus-forty-degree winter days, but Florida’s climate is a special kind of unforgiving.

There’s a heaviness that comes with the humidity that can feel impossible to shake.

It’s an ass-sweat-sticking-to-the-seat-of-your-car, perspiration-gathering-under-the-cups-of-your-bra kind of heat.

Unless, of course, you have the luxury of spending your days poolside with a little umbrella drink, best not to be outside at all.

Back in those days, I spent most of my time working as a receptionist at the front desk of a children’s museum in Loch Haven Park, a hub for museums and theaters just outside the boundaries of Winter Park.

And my daily dose of sunshine came during my lunch break, when I would find a shady tree in the park where I could eat my brown bag lunch before the most oppressive heat of the day, and daydream about how I was going to reboot my life.

When I took the museum job just out of college, I had high hopes of parlaying the nonprofit role—with its fundraiser events and donor cocktail parties—into something with more upward mobility, like a job in marketing or public relations.

At every event, I held my breath with the fantastic expectation that I would meet someone looking for a plucky young upstart.

But three years into answering phones and doling out visitor stickers at the front desk, no one had taken me under their wing to help me find a bigger and better job.

For all intents and purposes, my career was stalled, which was too bad, because living on a nonprofit receptionist’s salary was, as the title implies, not exactly lucrative.

Meager funds and dwindling career prospects were why I snagged a second job as a swim instructor at the Winter Park Racquet Club.

One of the three private clubs in town, the Racquet Club is nestled among the enormous estates and historical homes on one of the town’s most coveted streets, Via Tuscany, and its lakeside location meant that members could arrive by boat and leave their vessels at the property’s dock.

Neighborhood moms would bring younger kids here because they could keep a close eye on their children between Chardonnays.

Teaching swimming was a nice way to escape the heat for a few hours on the weekends. And the second income stream from giving one-on-one lessons to children with deeper pockets than my own meant that, if I was thrifty, I could save up enough money to move out of my mom’s place in a year or so.

“You want a Diet Coke?” Quinn, my 10:00 a.m. student, always offered as her lesson wound down. “I can charge it to my parents’ account.”

I’m not proud of the number of times I took her up on her offer, but the swimmer I saw after her was always my toughest student of the day.

Fearful of water and not in command of his own limbs half the time, three-year-old Spencer tugged on my one-piece bathing suit like it was a life raft.

More than once I had to pull his hands out of my neckline when, in plain sight of most of the club’s guests, he grabbed wildly for anything that he could use to haul himself out of the water.

And sometimes, a Diet Coke from Quinn felt like a well-earned treat.

One Saturday morning, I was trying to teach Spencer how to dive for small Paw Patrol figurines and keep his wandering hands from coming near me when I spotted two girls sneaking drinks from abandoned pool chairs.

Frowning, I watched them giggle and hide behind the snack stand, and I looked around to see if anyone else had noticed.

It was another sunny day in Winter Park.

The moms, perpetually in an arms race to see who could be the most agelessly beautiful while also jockeying to snag the latest designer bag or priciest Cartier bangle, sunned themselves on lounge chairs while a veritable army of babysitters and nannies sat fully dressed under umbrellas with strollers or wrangled kids and their snack stand hotdogs and instantly melting Popsicles.

Everyone seemed too engrossed in their own afternoons to notice the girls.

But over the course of a thirty-minute swim lesson, I watched as they became more brazen in their thefts, swiping fresh drinks as busy bartenders left them on the bar tops for servers to carry off.

Given the relatively small size of the club, it came as a surprise to me that the girls weren’t being caught or even noticed.

“All done!” Spencer shrieked as he rescued a Dalmatian figurine in a red fireman hat from the second step of the pool for the umpteenth time.

“You ready to be done, buddy?” I checked the clock on the side of the snack stand. “Yeah. We can be done for the day. Did you have fun?”

“Nooo.” He shook his head with a cheeky grin.

“Noo?” I parroted. “Should I bring some Spider-Man figurines next time?”

“Spider-Man!”

“If I bring Spider-Man, will you try jumping in the pool?”

He nodded.

“You’ve got a deal. Let’s go find your mom.”

After bundling Spencer up in a towel and handing him off to his mother, I headed into the locker room, braced for the stale scent of pool water.

Pushing through the door, though, I heard a faint sound echo off the tiles, a blend of a mewling kind of cry and something else that got louder with every step.

It didn’t take long for the second sound to come into sharp focus: retching.

I scanned the gaps beneath the bathroom stalls until I saw a small pair of white Keds on the beige square tiles.

“Hello?”

The white Keds drew closer to their owner at the sound of my voice. I could see cutoff denim shorts and knobby knees. It was one of the drink thieves from the pool. I looked around at the other stalls and realized she was alone.

“You okay?” I offered. “Where’s your friend?”

This only provoked fresh tears and a whining sound from the girl.

Walking to the sink, I grabbed a handful of paper towels and ran them under cold water, then crouched down beside the stall door and showed the towels to her.

“I’m going to put my hand under the door, okay?” When the girl didn’t object, I reached in, and she tentatively accepted the towels. “Clean up a little, and I’ll go get you some water.”

Approaching the bar outside, I caught the attention of Andres, the manager on duty for Saturday mornings.

“Can I get a water for a guest?” He nodded, grabbing a plastic cup.

Feeling a little protective of the girl curled up in the bathroom, I raised an eyebrow in his direction.

“Hey, did you see those kids stealing drinks?”

He just made a noncommittal shake of his head. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

“I try not to get involved.”

“So you did see them?” My voice was accusatory.

He handed me the water. “If we catch them, they just say we’re lying and then their parents try to get us fired.”

I started to say that the club could lose its liquor license, that someone could get hurt.

But I could already imagine Andres’s response.

The district attorney for this county lived three houses over, and the member directory included judges and other higher-up city officials.

The rules were whatever members wanted them to be.

What did I expect Andres to do about it?

“Nice.” Rolling my eyes, I reached across the bar to grab a handful of saltine packets, then made a beeline back to the bathroom.

—

When I reached the stall, the girl had opened the swinging door, but she was still sitting with her legs drawn to her chest. Her head was on her knees.

“Here.” I sat down beside her and put the water and crackers between us.

She lifted her head for a second before groaning and putting it back down.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Mia,” she whimpered.

“I’m Nora. Is there someone I can call for you? Someone who can help you get home safely?”

Without lifting her head, she pulled a cellphone from her back pocket and handed it to me. “Just don’t call my mom.”

Her lock screen was a picture of her and her friends on the back of a boat flashing duck faces and peace signs. I tried to swipe it open, but her phone was password protected.

“Okay. Look up for a second, Mia.”

She begrudgingly obliged, her face in a pathetic scowl, and I held the phone up to her face to unlock it. It seemed like a positive sign that she could respond to basic questions. Not alcohol poisoning. I hoped not, anyway.

I opened her contacts and scrolled through a list of unfamiliar names—Alwyn, Answell, Axley—and raised my eyebrows. “Your friends have…really interesting names. Who do you want me to call?”

“My mom is crazy. Don’t call my mom. She’ll kill me. She’ll literally kill me.”

I thought about all of the times in my life when my mother ditched me for a new boyfriend, including the one she was currently jet-setting around Europe with while I watched her place, but decided this wasn’t the time to commence a one-upmanship game on whose mom sucked more.

“What about your dad?” I searched her contacts for Dad.

She reached for the water and nodded. “Pal.”

“What?” I frowned, wondering if I had misheard her, but when I searched Pal, a contact showed up. I hit the phone icon.

After two rings, a warm male voice picked up. “Hey, Buggy.”

Andres’s warning echoed in my head for a fraction of a heartbeat before I said, “Hi, this is Nora at the Racquet Club.”

“Is Mia okay?” His voice went taut with concern.

“She’s okay. I’m sitting with her in the bathroom. She’s not feeling well, I’m afraid.”