When No One Was Looking Read Free Page B

embarrassment, “I wonder who that is?”
    “I don’t know,” said Julia, “but she’s a powerful swimmer. Probably races. Look at her strokes.”
    The same large body that had been serving so steadily in court six now swam up and down the length of the pool with identical determination. She was still at it long after Julia had left and the evening shadows had fallen on the pool, the deck, and the surrounding empty chairs. At last she hoisted herself out and announced to no one, “Two hundred.”
    By this time Kathy had finished a hamburger and a soda (free to employees of the club) and had started to net a few limp ginko leaves off the surface of the water. She collected what stray wet towels lay around and cleaned out the pool house. The club manager would check her work later with the energy of a room inspector at West Point. She lined up the containers of chlorine, although they were already arranged perfectly. Then she collected the things for the lost-and-found box and took them to the office. The previous summer Kathy had been the lone club employee without a single red stroke beside her name on the manager’s error sheet, or blacklist, as it was called by the lifeguards. She enjoyed this little contest, and the work required no thought at all. At seven, when the first people arrived for the dance, the pool house was immaculate, the water leafless and shimmering, and the deck as shiny as a liner’s on a maiden voyage. Kathy buttoned her sweater against the wind and climbed high up into her lifeguard’s chair. There she sat in the darkness, listening to the ocean wash and spill against the rocky jetty outside the three-story enclosure of lockers and public rooms that left the pool open to the sky, staring into the wonderful depths of the lighted water. She was quite happy. In one hour she would begin passing the rest of the evening listening to the Red Sox on a tiny transistor radio she kept hidden in her towel.
    “I’m Oliver English,” said a voice from the deck. The voice cracked slightly in the middle of the sentence. “I’m afraid I got you into trouble with your coach.”
    “Trouble?” Kathy asked. A boy with very heavy glasses and large white teeth was smiling up at her. But of course she remembered right away. He had indirectly gotten her into trouble with Marty. It had been Oliver whom she’d seen grinning at her at the end of her lesson, and she of course had smiled back. Marty had probably figured him to be a potentially more serious distraction than algebra.
    “She’s pretty tough on you. She’s a real drill sergeant,” Oliver added.
    Kathy laughed. “I know,” she said, “but she’s nicer to me than she is to anyone else. I’m quite used to her.”
    “I’m the other lifeguard tonight,” Oliver announced. “You’re the best girl tennis player I’ve ever seen. Will you hit with me next week? I’ve played a lot out in California.”
    “Sure,” said Kathy, and she began to laugh.
    “Why are you laughing? You think you can beat me?” Oliver looked seriously annoyed behind his horn-rims.
    Kathy pointed to the dance, now fully under way in the conservatory, a room reserved for senior members. People had gathered around the bar and talked in little groups, although no one danced yet. A woman in an evening dress, tall as an oak, stood holding a drink in both cupped hands. She was listening to a man in Madras pants. Her smile never wavered from a full horsy grin, and she wore a diamond choker that could be seen twenty yards away. The flashing teeth and sparkling diamonds complemented each other perfectly. “Look at her!” Kathy said. “Look at him! Don’t they seem big to you? That guy must weigh three hundred pounds. What would we do if he fell in the pool?”
    “That’s what I’m here for,” said Oliver seriously.
    “But that’s why I’m laughing,” said Kathy. “You’re not much bigger than I am. It would take four of us to pull him out of an