“I’m a nut, I’m a nut, a nut, nut, nut,” she sings under her breath.
“Stop,” I say. “Be nice.”
We lean over the counter to watch him. He’s bone-thin, and his skin is like leather. He throws his towel onto an empty chair, dives headfirst into the deep end, and swims the length of the pool underwater until his bald head pops up in the far shallow end. Then he jumps out of the water, grabs his towel, and whisks right past us without saying good-bye or anything.
“Well, that was a short swim,” I say.
Sammie laughs.
And that’s that.
Or so we think.
Because then twenty minutes later, he comes back. He’s completely dry and in a new bathing suit—a red one in place of the black one before.
He walks to the edge of the pool, dives in, swims just like he did before, pops out of the water, grabs his towel, and leaves.
“Um. Okay, freak,” Sammie says.
Another half hour goes by, and he appears, dry and in another new bathing suit—this one blue. We scan his card. He dives in. He swims. He leaves.
“That’s weird, right?” Sammie asks.
“Yeah. That’s weird.”
He repeats this routine three more times before our break at 1:00 P.M.
Arrives in a new, dry bathing suit (yellow). Dives in. Leaves.
Arrives in another new, dry bathing suit (white). Dives in. Leaves.
Six times in two hours.
“What the hell?” Sammie says. “How many bathing suits does he own?”
Virgo reminds us to take our break. The pool is too packed to swim and we’re starving, so we run down the street to Rocket Subs, where we split a twelve-inch veggie with extra pickles. We could easily have gone up to either of our apartments for leftovers, but we want some semblance of a summer.
When we get back an hour later, Virgo and Vanessa are sitting in for us at the front desk, playing with their phones. It’s calmed down. There’s no line and a lot of the families have left for the afternoon.
“You’re back!” Virgo says. He looks straight at me. “Your friend came looking for you.”
“Our friend?” Sammie asks.
“Harold Cox?” Virgo reads the log. “The guy who was here like ten times this morning?”
“Six,” I say.
Virgo and Vanessa stand up to give us our chairs back.
“I didn’t know you were counting.”
“Yeah, well,” Vanessa says before she leaves us to relieve Evan from his chair. “He was here. He got in line, and we were about to scan his card, but when he saw it was us, he turned around and went back upstairs.”
“It’s like he’s waiting for you guys,” Virgo says. “Like he’s just here for you.”
“Shut up. Gross!” Sammie says. “No thanks. There’s no way I want the Nut waiting for us.”
Evan approaches from the deck. “The Nut? Who are you talking about?”
“You know. Your friend,” Virgo says. “Mr. Harry Cox.”
I can’t help but laugh. I mean, it is a terrible name.
“Professor Cox is a great guy,” Evan says earnestly.
“Professor Cox?” Sammie asks.
“He teaches psychology at St. Mary’s. I met him here last year and we talked for hours. He’s fascinating. Won’t tell you a thing about himself, but he’ll discuss the effect of neurochemistry on interpersonal relationships, ideas like love maps and the triangular theory of love for hours and hours, if you have time. I don’t even need another psych class on my schedule after finishing 101, but I signed up for social psychology with him anyway in the fall.”
“The triangular theory of love?” I ask.
“Intimacy, passion, and commitment,” Evan recites. “The three essential components of love, according to one theorist.”
“What was up with his little parade of Speedos this morning?” Sammie asks.
“I don’t know. I saw that. And he didn’t say a word to me all morning. It was like he didn’t remember me at all,” Evan says. “Why do you call him ‘the Nut’?”
“It’s what Vivi’s little sister calls him,” Sammie says, and then she makes me tell them the story about the pistachios, and we sing two verses and the chorus of the “I’m a Nut” song.
He gives us a guess you had to be there look, and I suddenly feel like a child for making fun of someone who probably suffers with issues. “Sorry,” I say finally. “Do you think he has a mental disorder?”
“Honestly, I don’t think so,” Evan says. “He’s incredibly intelligent. Sure, he exhibits some behaviors, as he himself might describe, that fall outside of the normative, but he can’t help it. It’s probably his own little game, some experiment he’s conducting to test our reactions. He’s probably the one doing the observing.”
God, I like Evan. Besides the hotness factor, I like how he talks, how he thinks. I like that he’s smart and sharp and—I don’t know—open to possibility.
Evan’s smiling. “Hey, you guys. I just thought of something. Do you want to play a game?”
“Oh no,” Virgo says. “Not a game.”
Sammie explains. “Each summer involves some kind of game.”
“Usually it’s just a bet,” Evan says. “Like how many banana hammocks in one day. Or how long until a kid throws up.”
“Banana hammocks?” I ask.