Pool Blues

Summer vacation that year comes with its usual symptoms. The sky is bright and blue and endless, the asphalt of the roads sizzles with heat and the days of the week begin to melt together and no longer bear any real meaning to Maya. Except, of course, for Tuesday. Tuesday is the day that she and her best friend Ally go down to the public pool so they can look at the lifeguard on duty. They don’t know his name or anything other than the fact that he’s very cute and a high school junior, which makes him, at max, four years older than them. Ally wears her big floppy hat and a dress over her swimsuit which she takes off when they get there. Maya walks with her in a one piece and flip flops and a canvas bag with a hibiscus flower printed on it. They have to really book it, so it’s less of a walk than a barely restrained jog. This is so they can get there early and claim the lounge chairs that are directly opposite his special lifeguard seat, the tall one that that has a ladder leading up to it. 

They get the seats but there’s no lifeguard. For once, actually, the whole pool is empty, save for a couple of dragonflies skimming the water’s surface. ‘We’re probably too early,’ Ally says with an accusing look at her friend.

‘No, he’s late,’ Maya fires back. She thrusts her wrist in Ally’s direction so that she can read the time on her Swatch. It’s pistachio green, because Maya’s been trying to divorce herself from pink recently. Ally swats it away, and then they both lie back in their seats to wait.

They have to keep waiting for quite a bit. Maya takes out a dark blue tube of Nivea sunscreen and squeezes it out onto Ally’s back in a heart shape. Ally does the same, but she decides to make it into a smiley face instead. They flip over every five minutes to get an even tan, and it makes Maya think of pancakes on a griddle. Soon they’re both bored.

‘Why don’t I be the lifeguard?” she says. “And for once you can actually swim.’ 

‘You just want to sit on the big chair,’ Ally says, but she takes off her shoes and tiptoes as fast as she can to the edge of the pool, wincing at the feel of the stone burning the soles of her feet. Maya climbs up the ladder. There’s something about being perched up really high that really appeals to her. She enjoys looking down and seeing everything neatly arranged in her field of vision instead of sprawled around her. The pool is a glittering blue rectangle beneath her, divided neatly into fifths by the floating lane ropes. If Maya were to shut her eyes and try to picture summer, this image would probably come up. Maya has always liked how blue summer is, a bright and dazzling shade. She squints down at Ally splashing around. Ally waves at her, and then dives down to touch the floor and waves at her with her feet. It looks too ridiculous not to laugh. When Ally comes up she’s laughing too, but then the water goes up her nose and she starts to splutter and cough. 

‘Are you drowning?’ Maya calls out jokingly. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll save you.’ She stands up in the chair, hesitating for only a second before she plunges into the pool. It’s too high and there’s too much momentum, though she realizes this too late. The next second she’s crashing into the water and meeting the bottom of the pool in a cloud of bubbles. When she surfaces, gasping for breath, she only momentarily notices the sharp pain in her head. Ally screams and at the same second the hot lifeguard appears behind her. For a moment Maya thinks she’s screaming because of the lifeguard, which is a bit much. He’s a highschooler, not a celebrity, and he looks really freaked out. Maya starts to hiss at Ally to shut up already. Then she notices the calm blue of the water being rapidly stained by red. Blood, coming from her. Her legs buckle and as her vision goes black she notes that this is really, really, really embarrassing. 

Five Tuesdays later Maya and Ally are back at the pool. A few new developments - Maya has bangs now to hide the scar on her forehead, it’s much cooler out now, and hot lifeguard is no more. He’s not dead, of course. He just got in trouble for coming into work late and allowing an accident to happen during his shift. He even panicked when he saw all the blood and Ally had to call 911 on his cell herself while he sat down and took deep breaths. His replacement greets the two girls with a stern look when he sees them come in. As if it’s really Maya’s fault that she accidentally cut herself on the edge of the pool while diving from a high surface!

‘It is your fault,’ Ally says, choosing to state the obvious as always. She spreads out her towel over the plastic slats of her lounge chair and stretches out luxuriously on it. Maya puts her bag on the ground and follows suit. Pink and yellow clouds float across the vast blue expanse above her, like melting ice cream sliding across a ceramic plate. School starts next week, something Maya has diligently avoided thinking about. But she can’t escape it any longer. Her mother took her stationery shopping together the day before, buying pencils and ballpoints and composition books, so now it’s really real. In a week Tuesdays will mean algebra and geography and gym once more. They’ll swap swimsuits and flipflops for sweaters and boots and bookbags. They’ll have to conjugate French verbs again. When the weather turns colder she’ll have to bring her North Face puffer and gloves out from storage. Ally will probably get one of her month long colds because winter doesn’t agree with her. When it warms up again they’ll probably have to deal with thunderstorms and muddy walks to the bus stop. And then there are all those troubles that Maya can’t even predict, like getting a really terrible lab partner, or breaking out before an important day, or having no one to go to spring formal with. Or (and this is almost too horrible to even consciously acknowledge) Ally might find new friends she likes better than Maya, and next year she'll have to come to the pool alone.

Maya’s train of thought is halted by the beep of her watch. This means it’s time to turn around and tan their backs. ‘We’re being pancakes again,’ she remarks, voice slightly muffled by the towel pressed against her face.

Ally hums. “When we come here next summer we should be French toast.” Maya doesn’t know what that means and she suspects Ally doesn’t either, but somehow she likes the sound of it anyway.