Yannick Murphy - This is the Water

T he air conditioners in the rooms in the house you rented at the equator made a lovely sound every time they were turned on. You wish you could hear the sound at times like this when you had thoughts of your brother. The air conditioner made a small series of space-age-sounding, relaxing notes whose decibels were in the perfect range, neither too quiet nor too loud. You would feel cooler the moment you heard the sounds, even though of course it would take a while for the air to circulate and the temperature to drop. You thought on the plane ride home that the one thing from the equator you would have liked to bring back was a recorded sound of the air conditioner. You were not interested in bringing back shells from the beach, or crafts made by local artisans. You just wanted that series of notes.

When you finally arrive at the hotel and you and your girls bring up your bags, you hear a knock at your door. It’s Cleo wanting to know if your girls want to go down to the hotel pool. Your girls, of course, want to go. You go with them, knowing you should get some exercise yourself. When you get to the hotel pool, it’s already a swirling mass of kids from all the swim teams who came to the meet. You slide into the whirlpool instead, realizing with an emotion you can only identify as the horror of embarrassment that Paul is in there too. You didn’t recognize him at first, his hair wet and not in a ponytail now but hanging down loose at the base of his neck.

You feel like wet clay in your bathing suit. Your breasts, your rear, are not perfect at all. “Is Cleo excited about the meet tomorrow?” you ask him. You are hot in the water. You wonder how long you can last before having to get out and dive into the cooler pool with the swim team kids. You think Paul says, “She can’t wait,” but you cannot be sure. The children are yelling so loudly. They have started doggy-paddle races now in the kidney shaped pool, and you think to yourself that here is a conglomeration of all the eastern states’ best swimmers and here they are doggy-paddling. Paul invites you and your girls out to dinner. You say yes, and thank you. You say you know the girls would love that. You think how you would love it too. You wonder what you will wear. You hear him say, “But maybe a better idea would be to order a pizza. Everywhere will be crowded.” You are relieved that you can wear anything. You are getting used to the water. You could now stay forever in the whirlpool. Have the pizza in the whirlpool, why not? you think. You hear Paul say he is too hot. He would jump into the pool with the kids, he says, but he is afraid the dose of chlorine in the hotel pool would asphyxiate him. You hear him say he can already feel the chlorine drying out his throat and tearing up his eyes. You look at him and his eyes are red and tears are sliding down and you think that this must be how he looks when he is really upset. You wonder what could make him really upset. You are glad when he gets out first and heads up to his room. You did not want to have to rise from the water first and let him see your body in the suit. You see Dinah and her husband walk into the pool through the door at the same time Paul and Cleo are about to leave. Paul calls to you, “Come to our room in thirty minutes. I’ll order the pizza.” You see Dinah look at her husband and then look at you. You tell Dinah you like her swimsuit before she can make a snide comment about you and Paul. You tell her it’s very Marilyn Monroe. Dinah’s husband smiles at you. He does not even try to have a conversation. He can’t hear anything above the swimmers’ voices, amplified in the small room of the pool. He sits down in a chair next to a rubber plant that is really made out of rubber. You know because one of your girls has already pointed out its almost indestructible leaves to you. Dinah looks down at her suit, or really at her breasts coming out of the suit.

You head upstairs in the elevator with your girls. You had to tell them twelve times to get out of the pool, before finally throwing the Styrofoam lifesaver that hangs on the wall onto their heads to make them hear you. In the elevator you see how they are dripping pool water on a cheap knock-off of an oriental-design carpet. You let them take long showers when you get to your room. You are thinking that at least you are getting your money’s worth from the hotel in the way of the hot water bill. You think you can hear Paul in the next room clearing his throat.

When the pizza comes, the girls and Cleo eat in your room and Paul invites you to eat in his room. This is Paul’s black leather coat on the dresser, looking like an extension of Paul himself, the arms of the coat slightly folded, the elbows holding wrinkles in the leather that were created by the constant flexing of his arms, the cuffs looking gently worn and gray compared to the black of the rest of the leather. This is Paul moving clothes off one bed so that you can sit while you talk. This is Paul asking you questions about yourself that you’re not used to answering. You are used to Thomas talking to you about what he thinks is important. You are not used to having to speak for so long in front of a man. This is you thinking that it feels a little like you are emptying your purse out in front of Paul, even though you are not. You are telling Paul about where you grew up and you are telling Paul about your brother, about the good and the bad of your brother, and Paul laughs once in a while, at the parts you mean to be funny, because you try to be funny telling him things you think that you have never even told Thomas about your brother because Thomas never wanted to hear about your brother, even when your brother was alive. When it’s late, and you think you should go, you wish you could pick up what you let fall out of your purse. Is there a way to put back all the things you said, as if they were just your ChapStick and your hairbrush, and zip them inside? When you get up, Paul rises off his bed at the same time. This is Paul saying he wishes you could stay longer, saying he has enjoyed talking with you, saying he is tired of hearing himself lecturing all day at school, and that sometimes he thinks he has lectured for so many years that his voice would continue on talking without him if he could just take himself outside of himself while he was teaching and sit down in a chair in the lecture hall with his students and, like the rest of them, text on his phone. This is you laughing and this is you thinking you should say something about Chris, because Paul and Chris are married and you want Paul to know you are aware of that, and that you talking to Paul was not about you wanting to be with Paul in any other way than just two swim-team parents talking, but already you know the conversation has gone beyond that. You haven’t mentioned the team or your daughters’ swimming once. This is you sitting back down in such a way that you can pull your shirt away from the muffin top of fat on your belly so it doesn’t look as bad. It’s something you only do when you want to look presentable, when you first meet a client whose wedding you may photograph, for example. It’s something you never do at home when you just sit in the chair at the kitchen table across from Thomas, because he’s always reading a magazine and wouldn’t notice anyway. This is you asking how Paul first met Chris.

He tells you he first met her in Greece on a trip he took right before he started college. They were both just eighteen years old. You listen to how beautifully he describes how they met at an archaeological site in front of a figure captured in ash during the eruption of a well-known volcano. You can hear your girls and Cleo in your room next door laughing at a show on the television. Outside it’s getting dark, and you notice that Paul has not gotten up to turn on the light. He looks gray in the fading light and you imagine he could very well be the man frozen in volcanic ash come back to life.