Still Waters

The pool at the Marriott was empty at 2 AM, which was exactly why Elena chose it. She'd come to Chicago for what was supposed to be a career-defining presentation, only to watch it dismantled by men who wouldn't look her in the eye. Now she floated on her back, chlorine stinging her eyes, wondering if thirty-four years of climbing was worth reaching for a ledge that didn't exist.

"You're thinking too loud," a voice said from the edge.

Elena jerked, went under, came up sputtering. A man sat there in his bathrobe—Daniel from Marketing, the one who'd defended her budget proposal when no one else would.

"Sorry." She swam to the side. "Didn't think anyone else was awake."

His hair was wet, plastered to his forehead. He'd clearly just finished swimming. "Insomnia comes with the territory. They fly us out, put us in these rooms with perfect temperature control, and somehow we're supposed to forget that our whole department might not exist next quarter."

He gestured toward the hotel lobby's centerpiece: an enormous aquarium where a single goldfish darted between plastic castles.

"Look at him," Daniel said. "Swimming in circles. Probably thinks he's going somewhere."

Elena pulled herself up to sit on the edge, water streaming from her hair, pooling around her on the concrete. "That's the thing about goldfish," she said quietly. "Everyone says they have three-second memories. That it's a mercy. But the myth is wrong. They remember perfectly well. They just keep swimming anyway."

Daniel looked at her then, really looked at her, in that way someone does when they recognize something mirrored back. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"No." She stood up, water dripping down her legs. "It's supposed to make us honest."

The goldfish swam to the glass's surface, opened its mouth once, then disappeared back into the artificial deep.

"Tomorrow," Daniel said, "I'm going to walk into that meeting and tell them the data was solid. If they don't like it, they can find someone else to lie about it."

Elena smiled, something small and genuine, as the pool's surface began to smooth itself out again behind her. "Good. Because I already did."

She left him there with the fish and the water, already dressing for the flight home, knowing some currents you swim with, and some you finally learn to cross.