You hear that phrase “he lives and breathes” about people’s enthusiasms, but I’ve never seen it in action quite like this. Clay Tucker lives and breathes politics. He makes Mom, with her relentless schedule, seem like a casual dabbler. He’s turning her into someone new, someone like him. Maybe that’s a good thing…But the fact is, I miss my mom.

Chapter Eighteen

“Ms. Reed! Ms. Reed? Could you please come here?” Mr. Lennox’s voice slices through the air, practically vibrating with rage. “This instant!”

I blow my whistle, put the Lifeguard Off Duty sign on my chair after making sure there are no small kids without parents in the water, and head for the Lagoon pool. Mr. Lennox is standing there with Tim. Once again Mr. Lennox looks a few breaths from an apoplexy. Tim, amused and a little wasted, is squinting in the midday sun.

“This”—Mr. Lennox points to me—“is a lifeguard.”

“Ohhhhhh,” Tim says. “I get it now.”

“No, you do not get it, young man. Do you call yourself a lifeguard? Is that what you call yourself?”

Tim’s expression is familiar, struggling to decide whether to be a smart ass. Finally he says, “My friends are allowed to call me Tim.”

“That is not what I mean!” Mr. Lennox whirls on me. “Do you know how many demerits this young man has accrued?”

He’s only worked at the B&T for a week, so I make a conservative guess. “Um…five?”

“Eight! Eight!” I’m almost expecting Mr. Lennox to burst into a ball of flame. “Eight demerits. You’ve worked here two summers. How many demerits do you have?”

Tim folds his arms and looks at me. “Fraternizing” on the job is worth four demerits, but he’s never said a word—to me or, apparently, Nan—about seeing me and Jase.

“I’m not sure,” I say. None.

“None!” Mr. Lennox says. “In his brief stint on the job, this young man has”—he holds up one hand, bending down finger by finger—“taken food from the snack bar—twice—without paying. Not worn his hat—three times. Allowed someone else to sit in the lifeguard chair—”

“It was just this little kid,” Tim interjects. “He wanted to see the view. He was, like, four.”

“That chair is not a toy. You have also left your post without posting the off duty or on break sign—twice.”

“I was right there by the pool,” Tim objects. “I was just talking to some girls. I would have stopped if someone was drowning. They weren’t that hot,” he adds this last to me, as though he owes me an explanation for this unaccountable sense of responsibility.

“You didn’t even notice me when I stood behind you clearing my throat! I cleared it three times.”

“Is not noticing the throat-clearing a separate offense from not putting up that sign? Or is it three different demerits because of the three times, because—”

Mr. Lennox’s face seems to contract and freeze. He straightens up as tall as a very short man can. “You”—finger jabbed at Tim’s chest—“do not have the Bath and Tennis spirit.” He punctuates each word with another jab.

Tim’s lip twitches, another bad move.

“Now,” Mr. Lennox thunders, “you do not have a job.”

I hear a sigh from behind me and turn to find Nan.

“A week,” she whispers. “A new record, Timmy.”

Mr. Lennox turns on his heel, calling, “Please return all items of your wardrobe that are club property to the office.”

“Aw, shit,” Tim says, reaching into the pocket of the hoodie draped over the lifeguard chair and pulling out a pack of Marlboros. “I was so hoping I’d get to keep the cute hat.”

“That’s it?” Nan’s voice rises unexpectedly in both pitch and volume. “That’s all you have to say? This is the fourth job you’ve lost since you got kicked out of school! Your third school in three years! Your fourth job in three months! How is it even possible to get fired that often?”

“Well, that movie theater gig was boring as all f**k, for one thing,” Tim offers, lighting up.

“Who cares! All you had to do was take tickets!” Nan shouts. Tim’s kept his voice low, but Mr. Lennox was loud and Nan, who hates a scene, doesn’t seem to care that she’s making one now. A group of small kids are staring, round-eyed. Mrs. Henderson has her cell phone out once again. “And you screwed that up by letting everyone you know in for free!”

“They charge crazy-ass prices for popcorn and candy—the management was hardly losing money.”

Nan puts her hands in her hair, sweat-damp with either heat or frustration. “Then the senior center. Giving joints out to senior citizens, Timmy? What was that?” Mrs. Henderson has now moved in closer, under the pretext of heading toward the snack bar.

“Hey, Nano, if my ass were in a wheelchair in a place like that, I’d only hope you’d show up with some weed. Those poor bastards needed their reality blurred. It was like a public service. They had them square dancing. They had fake American Idol contests. They had frickin’ funny hat day. It was like Torture the Elderly Fest. They—”

“You’re such a goddamn loser,” Nan, who never swears, says. “It’s not possible we’re really related.”

Then a surprising thing happens. Hurt slices across Tim’s face. He shuts his eyes, pops them open again to glare at her.

“Sorry, sis. Same gene pool. I could resent you for swimming to the deep end with all the perfect genes, but since they make you so f**king miserable, I don’t. You can have ’em.”

“Okay stop it, you two,” I say, the way I used to when they clashed as kids, rolling around on the grass, pinching, scratching, punching, no holds barred. It always scared me, afraid they’d really get hurt. Somehow the potential seems so much bigger now that words are the weapons of choice.

“Samantha,” Nan says. “Let’s get back to work. We need to do those jobs we still have.”

“Right,” Tim calls after her retreating back. “’Cause then you get to keep the great outfits! Priorities, right, Nano?” He picks up his hat, puts it on the lifeguard chair, and stubs out his cigarette in it.