"Gradulation day, Freshie!" One of Uma's fellow lifeguard trainee's gave her a clap on the back. Julie was a redheaded, freckle covered woman Uma's age that kept her hair in a ponytail behind a shade visor. Julie had given Uma the nickname as, unlike most others in training, Uma had never done lifeguarding before nor had she been on a competitive swim team. The two had hit it off talking after their courses, swapping stories of their athleticism. Julie had been on swim team and tennis.
"My roomie's been waiting for this day," Uma laughed. Indeed, Audrey had been crossing off days on the calendar with a rainbow's worth of colored pens.
"You mind catching my back?" Julie asked, holding a bottle of sunscreen.
"Sure," Uma obliged, as Julie held her ponytail out of the way. Uma had never seen anybody go through as much sunscreen as Julie. The pale redhead never tanned, just had more and more of her freckles crop up across her body. Sure, she needed more shade than the average lifeguard but nothing stopped her during a rotation. Her senses were sharp, helping keep her focus.
"Where do you suppose we'll end up?" Uma asked as she used the dregs of the sunscreen to catch some missing spots on her own arms.
"I'm hoping its not the beach," Julie said as she repacked her ready bag. "When I moved here last year I was only there two weeks. The lifeguard towers were so run down that we kept having to patch up the boards. I've heard the city still hasn't dealt with them."
"Dang," Uma munched on her morning power bar.
Speculation died down as they met up with their instructors. Once everyone was assembled, the new cadets were given their stations for the rest of the season. Given the myriad of water and public pool features nearby, a centralized lifeguard program was created and sponsored by the city. Uma waiting with baited breath for her name, hoping for a decent posting.
"Ferro, you'll be at Flush Zone."
Uma kept to toothy grin while cheering on the inside. The waterpark? Awesome! Doubly so when Julie was posted there as well after several other surnames were called.
"Yes!" Julie hissed as she and Uma high-fived as their team prepared to leave, having already developed a buddy handshake. "Flush Zone may be noisy, a bit smelly, but more exciting in the day-to-day than other places."
"I'm just glad to be here with a new friend, unlike the other squares," Uma whispered.
"They're not all squares," Julie nudged Uma as they entered the staff & equipment room at the waterpark, already dressed in their red and white lifeguard onesies with fanny pack.
Uma nearly froze upon seeing who was in charge of the waterpark's lifeguard team. "Django works here?!"
"Ladies," said the smooth voiced Django, "glad to see some fresh faces in here, especially those at the top of the class." Django was one of the trainers for a few days of their lifeguard training. He had a hint of Caribbean heritage and a stocky, well muscled physique with a friendly smile. Uma had been smitten instantly, earning relenting jokes from not only Julie but the Durant twins as well after she let slip to Phoebe one night.
"Great to be here!" Uma said, trying to contain herself, as she found a seat where Julie was elbowing her in the ribs.
After Django introduced the rest of the veteran lifeguards he went through orientation with the newly certified lifeguards. "Work at Flush Zone presents some additional challenges to ensuring safety but nothing too different than what you went through in training. We use 2-hour station rotations, so you'll both be poolside and monitoring some of the attractions. Pool checks are at 2 pm every other day. We show up before opening to run through drills and a staff meeting. I'll be having you rotate more frequently to get used to the attraction stations but don't worry if you don't get to everything, there's some overlap."
Django held up an id badge. "Keep your card on you at all times. They're your keys into the staff areas and we use them for digital check-in after performing certain inspections. Plus, they give you a discount at the concessions, so they're very important."
The latter earned a chuckle, as Uma licked her lips.
The rest of the day was a frenzy of learning how to keep focus while fitting to the needs of the waterpark. Flush Zone was ironically poorly named for how ambitious it was; a complex of pools, climbing structures, a lazy river, several water slides and a zip-line. It wasn't the best looking waterpark and was somewhat sparsely populated, even for the early season. While not as run-down as Julie had described the beach facilities, two of the slides were out of commission for repairs. That had been three weeks ago.
Still, while safety was of the upmost importance, Django encouraged a sense of fun for the lifeguards. It was a pretty fair system, all things considered. The biggest incident Uma had to stop thus far was breaking up some kids blocking one of the exit ladders.
Later in the day, Uma joined up with Julie again as the two were tasked with helping riders out of the water rafts from the giant slide and fielding them on the conveyor back to the top of the structure. Which netted them the same lunch period on the schedule.
"Break time!" Julie cheered as the pair met up at a staff exclusive area of picnic tables, as she opened up a bagged lunch from a waterproof lunchbox.
"I am famished!" Uma announced, setting down a packed tray.
"Chicken strips and the hot dog meal?" Julie scoffed. Uma had already taken a shine to the concessions discount, the tray also graced with some extra fruit and snacks.
"The work here works up an appetite," Uma said before her first mouthful of hot dog.
"Sotra," Julie shrugged. "When you're spending time in the water like we just did. Otherwise not so much."
Uma didn't pay much attention to Julie's opinion. Audrey had been more stringent about perceived 'mooching of the household vittles' as Uma went through her lifeguard training. Short of getting her usual munchies and getting back into a physical regime, Uma found herself extra hungry at meal time, hence her fry-up double compared to Julie's tunafish sandwich and carrots.
"Tuna, really?" Uma challenged.
"I pack my own lunches, thank you," Julie replied, "with the tastier, healthy option. You don't know what you're missing."
"Don't get me wrong, I don't mind tuna. I can't stand the smell of it around all this chlorine."
"Well, you should mind how much you eat, or it'll be an hour before you can be swimming," Julie teased.
Uma stuck out her tongue. "We both know that's a load of tosh," Uma shot back, as the proposed dangers of stomach cramps from loss of blood flow to the muscles while digesting had been proven wrong.
"A big eater, I see," Django said pleasantly, coming to join them with his own lunch.
Uma found herself inwardly embarrassed being caught with this much food by a guy she was crushing on who was also the lead lifeguard. She downplayed any awkwardness with her response. "Figured I'd get my calories in at once to free up time on my next break."
"Not bad of an idea, Ferro, just keep your hydration up." Proper hydration, given their heavily chlorinated environment, was one of Django's biggest concerns. "So how are you ladies finding work here at Flush Zone?"
The rest of the lunch break featured plenty of discussion, job facts, talking about the latest movies, and some pointers before Django left the new friends. Afterwards, Julie ceaselessly teased Uma about 'hitting' on him.
"I wasn't hitting on him," Uma said later as the pair were tasked poolside, keeping their eyes trained on the swimmers.
"He looked like he was hitting on you, though, with the size of your lunch." Julie said from under the lifeguard umbrella.
"What?"
"I heard Django said he played football in school, same as my brother," Julie quipped. "Footballers typically eat like horses, there's a camaraderie around it."
"Shut up," Uma said. "It was a good deal with the discount, it was practically two for the price of one."
"So no need to share my corn chips with you on the next break," Julie said.
Uma pulled her sunglasses down with a finger. "Girl, since when where you so ribbing compared to our time in training?"
"We're out of boot camp now, Uma," Julie waggled her own glasses. "More time to tease when there's less oversight."
It could end up being a longer summer than Uma thought. She went to put up her sunglasses when she noticed a feature at the corner of the waterpark she had yet to see.
Flush Zone had a gourmet ice cream stand? Mocha chip, butterscotch swirl, razzleberry, peanut butter chunk, birthday cake. She watched some kids and parents lined up to the stand, instantly envious of their double-scoop cones. Suddenly, Uma had a new plan for her next break.
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