The small inflatable pool could be called a “kiddie pool” based on size, but the built-in beverage holders and attractive couple on the box suggested it was not designed for kindergartners.
His grey coveralls were in a lump on the small deck, his checked boxers the closest he had to a swimsuit anyway.
The garden hose water wasn’t as frigid as he would have liked, but there was really no way to make it cooler.
Steve settled in, kicked his head back on the blue inflatable pillows.
His modular home community was relatively quiet and he found himself dozing in his new purchase, the water in the hot sun more amniotic than invigorating.
A firecracker woke him.
It was summer, after all.
He looked at his old work van, rusted, ready to die, nearly 300k on the odometer, servicing the donut chain that dotted 94 between Romulus and Benton Harbor.
He’d buy used this time, all he could really afford.
His phone hummed.
Erlitz. Never good on a Sunday morning.
No hand towels in the dispenser in Parma. It was a tri-roll, enough to last six days of normal use. Not everyone used a pisser at a donut shop, even on a highway.
Erlitz was fuming, the guest (Erlitz always called customers guests), had put a photo and scathing review on Twitter.
Steve hung his exhausted head over the side of his pool. The man on the pool box had six-pack abs. The blonde woman on the box had large breasts partially camouflaged in a demure black one-piece bathing suit.
Erlitz was explaining something to Steve that didn’t need explanation.
More than likely a mischievous child had pressed the dispenser handle until all the product had come out and he had thrown most of it in the large white metal garbage can next to it.
“All an employee has to do is check the garbage and they’ll…”
An associate, Erlitz corrected him.
There were brown hand towels in large tri-rolls in the van. Parma was less than an hour away.
That van was not leaving the driveway.
Steve drew in his gut in his slightly too warm inflatable pool. He should start doing situps.
Erlitz hung up.
Steve looked at his van, at his trailer in need of a power wash, and at the inflatable pool box.
He picked up his phone again.
The woman at the escort service had been there four years. She took requests for large-breasted companions all the time.
This morning was the first time she had gotten a request for the companion to bring a black one-piece bathing suit.
***
Photo by Andrii Leonov on Unsplash
Beautiful.