"Oh, I'm very sorry," the first says, stiffly polite. She looks again and recognizes a friend from the diving class. She laughs. "I didn't recognize you. I mean with your hair on," she said, tugging at her own cap.

"I swam 33 laps today," she said, demonstrating exhaustion. "I try to do a few more every day."

"Don't you get bored?"

"Sometimes. I swim up on my stomach and back on my back and count the ribs in the ceiling. Do you swim every day?"

"Almost. I missed one day about a week ago and then, well, just got out of the habit for a while. But it makes the whole day a lot easier if I swim a while. Do you swim for exercise?"

"A little. Mostly it's just fun."

I WATCH the two girls talking, looking for any stiffness in two newly-acquired friends. There is none. No change in posture, no half turning-away. Not even the subtle, residual tummy tuck, sucking in the breath and the abdomen together as we walk into a group of strange people.

The two chat, share shampoos and in almost continuous motion, gather up their bottles and towels and now-limp suits. Under the hair dryer the conversation stops as the canned wind throws their hair to their eyes and roars past their ears. They grin at each other and at the matron, who is sweeping puddles of water at the drain.

The girl with the long red hair pulls it high on her head, bends and lets it fall, brushing it into the dryer. The two do a little jogstep to save their toes as the matron moves more puddles out from under them.

The matron, a grandmother probably, every day at 1:45 removes herself to a corner to change. She takes off her white attendant's uniform, steps into a long purple acetate dress and fastens a single strand of pearls. At 1:48 she begins to sweep again. She times the sweep to a rhythmic chant that does not vary from day to day. "Two o'clock, pool closes, hurry up please."

She has sat there for more hours than I. She watches the girls go by, nods and smiles. She talks to them sometimes, a little about Thanksgiving maybe, or Christmas holidays and going home, or about the temperature outside. Mostly she sweeps and watches the girls go by.

Sometimes she cleans the urinals, which seems to me a thankless task.

And at 1:58 she begins to chant:

"Pool closes, hurry up please."

. . . . . . . . .

"Hurry up please, it's time. Hurry up please, it's time."