The Laps

I swim laps at the Y, and by the eighth lap I've lost count. It isn't that I stop counting. It's that I keep going, and the number is somewhere behind me.

I've tried counting by fours. I've tried counting presidents. Last Tuesday I got to Taft, which means it was either lap twenty-seven or lap three, depending on whether I skipped Harrison.

The lifeguard is a girl named Imani. She's sixteen. She sits on the tall chair with a whistle and a clipboard, and in May she started holding up a small laminated card each time I reach the wall. It has a number on it.

The numbers jump around. Eleven, then seven, then fourteen. I asked her about it once. She said, “You're doing great,” and she meant it.

So I've swum forty laps this month, or twenty-three. I don't know.

I don't think she's counting. But she's the only person at that pool who's there every time I turn around.