I Need a Lifeguard Everywhere But the Pool (The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman #8)
Lisa Scottoline
To Laura Leonard, with love and gratitude
Introduction
Lisa
Welcome to our collection of funny stories about our everyday lives, which will sound like your everyday lives, except less well behaved.
We’re a mother-daughter team who also happens to be best friends—as well as occasional enemies.
What mother has not had a daughter slam a door in her face?
What daughter has not had a mother roll her eyes behind her back?
We’re talking about family in these stories, and we keep it real.
Real funny.
We each write about our lives from our differing perspectives. Francesca is a thirtysomething in an apartment in New York City, and I live on a farm in Pennsylvania. As far as my age goes, let’s just say I can’t remember the last time I had estrogen.
I prefer it on the rocks.
Francesca came up with the title of this book, and as soon as she said it, we both knew it was perfect.
I need a lifeguard everywhere but the pool.
Haven’t we all felt that way, sometimes?
Especially me, because I can’t even swim.
Yet I have a pool.
Every summer, I get out to my pool for an hour a day and try not to drown.
I flail, I doggie-paddle, I put my face under the water, and somehow, I don’t die.
I wish there were a lifeguard, but there isn’t.
Do you smell a metaphor?
Isn’t that what life is like, at times?
I’m divorced twice, from Thing One and Thing Two, and Francesca isn’t dating anyone right now. In fact, as you will read in her stories herein, she’s on what she calls a “guyatus”—a hiatus from guys.
So here we are, mother and daughter, happily single yet unhappily celibate, going through life on our own.
We’re not the only ones. There are a lot of women in our position, whether divorced, widowed, or just never got married or divorced in the first place.
And we still count.
Even if you’re lucky enough to be in full-blown love, marriage, or living with someone in unwedded bliss, there are going to be times in your life when you are simply on your own.
When no matter how much someone loves you, they can’t undergo chemo for you, or get you out of debt, or help you make a decision that is personal to you.
I grew up in an era when women expected to be saved by a Prince Charming.
Which is just another kind of lifeguard.
But with a castle.
And I don’t think that those expectations have completely left this culture. I think the myth of Prince Charming, a lifeguard, or Mr. Right to make everything right, is as pervasive as ever.
And that notion can make you unhappy if you don’t have one, or if you think other women have one and you don’t.
But here’s what I want you to know:
As I lived a little, I began to understand that there was no Prince Charming—and that wasn’t bad news.
On the contrary, it’s excellent news to be on your own.
Who better to trust with your life than you?
Who knows you better than you know yourself?
Who’s more reliable than a woman?
The busier we are, the more we get done.
We haven’t met the Things To Do List we can’t defeat.
We were born to check boxes.
You’re a grown-ass woman, and you make excellent decisions.
If you want the job done right, do it yourself.
Right?
So there is no lifeguard in life.
Though sometimes we wish for one, mightily. By the way, it’s okay to secretly whine about the fact you don’t have one, just so long as you understand that you don’t really need one.
You will get to the other side of the pool even if you can’t swim.
Sometimes life is treading water and not going anywhere.
You won’t sink, girl.
Think of your breasts as a flotation device.
And your hips and your butt, in my case.
Bad times pass, and before you know it, it’s summertime.
The sun is out, you go on vacation, and your mood lightens. You’re not only staying afloat, you’re making your way across the pool.
Or even the ocean.
Look back.
It’s behind you.
Being on your own is being free.
So have a great summer.
Read this book and LOL on the beach.
The real truth is this:
You’re your own lifeguard.
Ain’t nobody better.
Perking Up
Lisa
Mommy has a new wish.
Besides Bradley Cooper.
We’re talking coffee.
And I’m on a quest.
I know, some people climb Everest.
Others cure cancer.
But all I want is a delicious cup of coffee that I can make myself, at home.
Is that so much to ask?
Evidently.
Right out front, I have to confess that I love Dunkin’ Donuts coffee.
Sometimes I’ll have Starbucks and other times Wawa, but my coffee soul mate is Dunkin’.
We’ve been together longer than either of my marriages combined.
Daughter Francesca likes to tell the story of the time we were watching television and a Dunkin’ Donuts commercial came on, and I whispered, “I love you, Dunkin’ Donuts.”
Okay, that’s embarrassing enough.
But then Francesca tweeted that to Dunkin’ Donuts, and Dunkin’ Donuts tweeted back: “We love you too, Lisa!”
OMG!!!!!
Anyway, you get the idea.
So I stop by Dunkin’ Donuts whenever I can and I also pick up a lottery ticket. When I lose the lottery, at least I’ve had a great cup of coffee, which makes me almost as happy.
You’re supposed to be able to make Dunkin’ Donuts at home, and I have a Keurig coffeemaker, so I bought the Dunkin’ Donuts K-Cups and did the whole Keurig thing, but it wasn’t the same as the real thing.
And unfortunately, I developed almost a superstitious belief that a cup of great coffee is essential to my writing process. I’m not the first writer to believe that a beverage is essential to great fiction. Ernest Hemingway had booze, but I have caffeine. And when my good-luck charm is on shaky ground, I fear my books will start to suck, and Mrs. Bradley Cooper can’t have that.
So I decided that I would give up on making Dunkin’ Donuts at home and try different types of coffee. I understand this is called being flexible, but it’s not something that comes easily to me.
Nor should it.
One of the great things about being single is that you never have to compromise anything, and I wasn’t looking forward to compromising my one and only vice.
Nevertheless, I decided I should go back to basics, namely percolated coffee. I admit this was probably nostalgia-driven, because I remember the days when Mother Mary perked coffee on the stovetop, brewing Maxwell House from a can, but I couldn’t find a stovetop percolator and had to settle for a plug-in, and I thought I could beat Maxwell House, so I got myself to the grocery store, where I stood before a dizzying array of types of coffee, coming from everywhere around the globe, including Africa, Arabia, and the Pacific.
This was coffee with frequent-flyer mileage.