Caitlin by Jade Parker

started to swing him around —
    Michael came to an abrupt stop. I didn’t know if it was because he saw me and thought I’d blow my whistle at him or if he was just glad to see me.
    “Morgan, you’re dawdling. People are waiting to eat.”
    Trent. Why was it that lately he was always catching me at the worst possible moment? I hurried to my station and relieved the guy who was on the tower. After he came down, I climbed up.
    The umbrella that provided shade started rattling as the wind began to gust. I looked at the sky. The clouds were growing darker. Not good.
    Just rain. Just rain. Just rain.
    I heard the roll of thunder. In orientation, we were taught: “If you see it, flee it; if you hear it, clear it.”
    I wasn’t the only one to give three short bursts on my whistle. “Out of the pool!” we all started yelling.
    I could hear whistles blowing throughout the park. Water is a conduit for electricity. If lightning hits a pool, it can hurt or kill someone.
    I heard a drop of water hit the umbrella. And then another.
    After everyone was out of the pool and we all did a last visual scan of the water, we climbed down from our towers and headed to the pavilion. By the time we got there the rain was coming down heavily. The park had several covered pavilions and people headed to them when it rained. Theyweren’t the safest place. But there were too many people and not enough buildings. The wise people went into the various souvenir shops, mini-restaurants, or into the locker rooms.
    It was eerie once all the yelling stopped, and people weren’t rushing down slides or through tubes any longer. There was a hushed silence as people waited. The scent of rain mingled with chlorine.
    “So are we going to get a refund?” Michael asked from behind me.
    I wondered how Michael had managed to find me in the crowd. Of course, I guess I stood out in my red swimsuit and visor. Or maybe not. There were several lifeguards around. I didn’t want to be glad that he seemed to take an interest in me, but I was.
    “Depends how long it rains,” I told him, glancing over my shoulder. “It has to rain an hour and a half. And you don’t get a refund; you get a rain check, which means you can come back another day without paying.”Someone would just stand at the gate handing out rain checks as people left.
    “I know what a rain check is,” Michael said.
    I shrugged. “I don’t know what you know.”
    “Doesn’t seem fair. I mean, we just got here a little while ago.”
    “Should have gotten here sooner. It was beautiful this morning.”
    “I didn’t see any lightning just now.”
    “Thunder means lightning was somewhere.”
    “But not close enough.”
    “Lightning isn’t predictable. You can’t take chances.”
    He shifted around so he was standing beside me, almost in front of me. “Want to go get a Coke?”
    I almost said, “What? With you?” Instead, I very practically said, “I’m working.”
    “No, you’re not. You’re waiting for the storm to pass over.”
    “I have to make sure people don’t go back to the pool until it’s safe.”
    “You really take your job seriously.”
    I couldn’t tell if he thought that was a flaw in my character.
    “Sure. Don’t you take your work with the lights seriously?” I asked.
    “Yeah, I guess.”
    The rain suddenly stopped. People started moving out.
    Trent blew his whistle. “Y’all have to wait thirty minutes after the last roll of thunder sounded. We’ve got twelve minutes to go.”
    People grumbled, but they also started to relax. Waiting out a storm causes a tenseness because we’re crammed together, with nothing fun to do.
    “He’s worse than you,” Michael said.
    “He’s doing his job.”
    “So what made you want to work here anyway?”
    “I love the water,” I confessed.
    “Playing around it, I can see. But working around it?”
    “I just like it. I wish I lived on the coast or on a tropical island.” I nodded as I realized my preference. “A