We pass a man in a suit, standing outside one of the bathrooms and I try to figure out whether I’m walking “professionally” enough.

In a voice so soft I can barely hear it, she says, “Some companies like to keep exercise rooms and that sort of thing in the building so their employees spend more time in the office. I don’t know if it actually works or not, but that really doesn’t matter.”

“Do you work here?” I ask.

“No.” What?

“Then why do they know your name?” I ask.

“You know, it’s kind of disconcerting that even after knowing each other a couple of months, you still don’t know my last name.”

“You don’t know my last name, either.”

“Dane Paulson,” she says. “It helps if you pay attention. Quiet. We’re almost there.”

We pass another man, but he doesn’t give us a second look.

We turn a corner and there’s a glass door at the end of the hall. The lights are on, and I can see a few ripples in the water.

“I think someone’s in there,” I tell her.

“I know someone is,” she says. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Why not?” I ask. “Didn’t you say something about how we could get arrested?”

“We’re good,” she says.

“How do you know that?”

We stop at the door and she looks up at me. “Because Phil’s gone home for the night.”

She opens the door, and the sound of people laughing and splashing fills the hallway.

“Come in,” she says. “I’d like to introduce you to some people.”

This just got weird.

I walk through the door and, while I’ve known Wrigley long enough to expect this sort of thing, I am wholly unprepared for what I see in front of me.

“Welcome to skinny swimming night,” she says and sets her briefcase on a table. She opens it up and pulls out the bottle. “Don’t worry,” she says, “there’s always plenty to go around.”

“Hey there, Bliley!” a naked man in his fifties, but easily in better shape than me says. “We didn’t think you were coming.”

“You know me,” she answers as we walk over to a table holding about twenty different bottles, “swimming naked with you degenerates reminds me not to take life too seriously.”

I’m not quite sure what she means, but I’m far too absorbed with the whole scene to ask about it.

“Don’t stare,” she says. “That’ll get you kicked out.”

“What happens if someone walks in here?” I ask.

“It’s the middle of the night,” she says, placing our bottle on the table and immediately picking up a different one. “That, and we’ve got a couple of guys on watch.”

“You don’t mean—”

“Yeah, the guys in the suits: They actually do work here. We struck a deal with them—well, one of us did. I think it was Robinson. She’s the one over there with the pixie cut—”

“The guys in the suits,” I interrupt, trying to get her back on track.

“Right,” she says. “They let us come here once a week and, in exchange, they get to join us in rotating shifts. The hard part was getting the security guards in the front to buy that we all work in the building and that it’s not weird they only see any of us once a week and always after midnight.”

There are about twenty people in the pool. There are men and women, almost in equal distribution.

“Don’t get the wrong idea, though,” she says. “It’s not a sex club or anything weird like that. It’s just a bunch of people who like swimming naked, but don’t want to swim in polluted shit. Take your clothes off.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I said take your clothes off,” she repeats. “You’re not getting in the pool dressed like that.”

I take off my shirt, but before I can get to the pants, Wrigley stops me.

“A few rules first,” she says. “First, don’t stare at people. When you’re talking, look them in the eyes like you would at any other time. Otherwise, it’s just disrespectful and, let’s be honest, pretty fucking creepy.”

“Got it.”

“Rule two,” she says. “Everyone showers before they get in the pool. It’s a hygiene thing. Yeah, it’s not really different than if you were wearing a bathing suit, but it’s just best to be clean. Oh, and with that, if you have to pee, get out of the pool and go to the restroom. It’s possible that no one would notice if they didn’t put a chemical in the pool that changes color in the presence of urea.”

“That’s an urban legend,” I tell her. “There’s actually not a chemical that detects urine in swimming pools. That one’s been around since the fifties.”

She just raises an eyebrow and glares at me.

“Not that I’m going to pee in the pool, though,” I tell her.

“Rule three,” she says, still giving me that look, “is that while you’re here, you don’t get completely wasted and belligerence will not be tolerated.”

“That’s simple enough.”

“Finally,” she says, “keep your hands to yourself. Any kind of touch that you wouldn’t perform in a business meeting is off-limits. Handshakes are fine, so are high fives and the occasional pat on the shoulder, so long as there’s context and you don’t overdo it. Other than that, no touching anyone, got it?”

“I got it,” I tell her.

“Okay,” she says, “now you can drop your pants.”

“Oh, one more thing,” she says.

I scoff. “You know, for such a free-thinking group, you’ve got a lot of rules.”

“They’re rules to ensure mutual respect between everyone,” she says. “Which leads me to this: the occasional erection is just going to happen. However, in the event of an erection, your hands are to stay at or above the surface of the water, you’re not to draw any attention to it, and you’re certainly not to stand closer than two feet away from anyone while you’re facing them with a boner. When possible, you are to stay in the water until the situation has resolved itself.”

Of all the things I thought I’d be doing tonight, this is absolutely beyond and outside what I could have imagined.

“All right,” I tell her. “Where is the bathroom?”

She points to a door on the other side of the pool.

“The showers are in there, too,” she says. “After you’re done peeing, don’t forget to at least give yourself a good rinse. You can drop your pants now.”

I laugh and do as I’m told.

The air is pretty warm in here, so I don’t make a bad showing. I can only hope that the shower water isn’t too cold.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Butterfly

Leila

It’s been a week since I left, and I’ve just been trying to keep my mind on my job.

While I was an intern, I figured that I was learning enough on top of my college education to just be able to walk onto any broker job without any adjustment period.

I was wrong.

My first day, I’m pretty sure I almost got fired when I gave a bad tip to a client. That may sound like a silly thing to get fired for, especially on one’s first day, and it would be silly if the tip didn’t lose my client about $350,000 in twenty minutes.

That was a tough explanation to my boss.

I think I’m starting to get acclimated to everything, but it’s a stressful job.

It’s not helping that I can’t stop thinking about Dane and the way I left things.

I wonder what he’s doing tonight.

Oh well. Tonight, I’m going out with Annabeth.

I’m a little nervous that, in preparation for our night out, she bought me a white cotton shirt and told me to sleep in it for three nights then put in in a sealable sandwich bag. While I’m not sleeping in it, she told me, I have to keep it in such a bag and store it in the freezer.

I really don’t know why I go along with these things.

The knock lands on my door around eight o’clock, and I invite her inside to see the apartment.

“Nice place,” she says dismissively. “Have you been wearing the shirt?” she asks.

“Yeah, but I don’t know why—”

“Is it in the freezer?” she asks.

“Yeah,” I tell her.