When a friend suggested we each take a vacation day and spend it at the Clayton pool, I was grabbing sunscreen and a beach towel before I’d even closed the email. Every Saturday, when I was a kid, my widowed mother used the pass she’d wangled as a secretary at a Clayton investment brokerage, and we drove from Normandy like New Yorkers fleeing Manhattan. The turquoise water was crystal-clean, the concrete around it glinted like sand, and the cabana place sold hot dogs and ice-cream sandwiches. I tested my courage on the high dive, my mother’s patience begging her to watch me.
That weekly pilgrimage to the Clayton pool was a journey into a world of pleasure otherwise locked to me. I knew we were there on borrowed time—we did not, after all, live in Clayton. But a window of privilege had slid open. Now, I had a chance to climb through again.
I got to Shaw Park 10 minutes early and waited for Janet outside the pool entrance. “Hurry up,” I urged when I saw her. “Nobody’s here yet!” We stepped around the gate.
“Recreational swim’s not till 4 p.m. today,” a disinterested lifeguard informed us. “The pool’s closed from noon to 4.”
Closed? On a gorgeous Indian-summer Thursday when it was 82 degrees with a gentle breeze and a deep blue sky? The pool sparkled just the way it used to, and it was completely deserted, all that cool clean water just waiting…
I almost stomped my foot.
“You can swim at the Center,” the evil lifeguard told us. Great. Indoors. In a humid, echoey, high-ceilinged natatorium no doubt filled with ladies in skirted suits doing water aerobics.
“This is…an offense against pleasure!” I sputtered as we headed for Janet’s car. We freely cursed whatever bureaucrat had come up with such rules, ransacked our brains for other cool pools, wondered whether we could convince anyone at the Chase that we were residing there. Then, like disconsolate 7-year-olds, we trooped over to the Center.
We could only “water-walk,” their lifeguard informed us. I did wonder what earthly harm could befall Clayton if I defied her and did a quick sidestroke. But it was time to grow up again. So we water-walked, swirling along with the current, and it was rather fun. Afterward, we ventured onto the wee, stark terrace and pried two lounge chairs apart. Ate Subway instead of a hot dog. Talked about our lives, which are much fuller than they were when we were 7, and our friendship and how it sustains us.
Childhood memories might wield power, but the consolations of middle age are far sweeter.
As I drove home, sun-soaked and sleepy, I realized this is how I feel about St. Louis, too. The coasts sparkle. But making do in the middle feels friendlier, and somehow more grown up.
