Pool Party

He’d slipped her the note in study hall. He sat in the row behind her. “Party Saturday night at my house,” it had said, “wear your bathing suit.” Her face got hotter as she read it. She could feel the hair on her legs bristle against the insides of her pant legs as she stared at the awkward curves of his penmanship. A secret, thrilling vibration rose up off of his writing. A boy’s writing. It was meant for her.

Patty slipped the note into her purse and it burned there, an ember of confidence, throughout the rest of the day. She almost felt her classmates might see the glow coming through the leather. A boy’s writing.

In the girl’s restroom she considered her reflection. Her full face, slight mustache, heavy brows. Here was a face that could be loved. A face that promised more than the sum of its parts, apparently. Wear your bathing suit. Her hands fell to smooth her jeans down the sides of her thighs and she was not in the least perturbed by their relative width. Not everyone is born thin, long, smooth like the ones who usually got invited to parties, passed notes. Girls like her were starting to come into fashion now. She turned her head slightly to the right and lowered the lids of her eyes. “Thank you for inviting me,” she whispered, “you have a lovely house.”

“Thank you,” she closed her locker.

“Thank you,” she walked out the doors of her high school squinting at the sunlight. Early June. Groups of girls huddled together in the parking lot smoking cigarettes. One girl was riding a boys back, laughing. “Thank you so much for inviting me.”

“Your house is lovely,” her bus was waiting at the back of the line.

“It’s such a lovely house,” her seat was waiting at the end of the aisle.

She looked at the window, at the houses moving by. Light blue, white, pale yellow, light blue, pale yellow. The colors of the houses were nothing. Party. Saturday. Night.

This was Thursday afternoon. The sun bathed her front lawn with possibility, with the warm energy of countless possible scenarios. She looked down at her wide feet, sweating on cheap flip-flops. These were the flip-flops of a person with a Saturday night. A Saturday night at my house. These were the flip-flops of a person who has been told to wear her bathing suit. She listened gleefully to the soles slapping up the steps. Par. Ty. Par. Ty. Par. Ty.

Glancing around her bedroom she was touched by the cheeriness of objects, though she lacked the capacity to name the things she saw. A shining thing here, a frilly thing here. There was only room for bathing suit. It was the only noun that registered now. Bathing suit blazed in her mind’s eye. Its carnival colored lycra hung there at the center of her thoughts, dripping chlorinated water.

It was Chinese takeout for dinner. Her fortune cookie said, “Your deepest desire reveals your nature.” She stifled a squeal. Later the in the steam of the bathroom mirror she remembered. Her true nature stared back at her. . .a swimmer at a party, mingling with boys, opening her eyes underwater, swimming between legs, brushing up against other wet bodies. The party made her delicious to herself. She blew a kiss at her reflection.

That night her father turned the bedroom knob and more darkness spilled in through the crack in the door. She clenched her eyes and her inhaling and exhaling became a rapid, whispered prayer: partysaturdaynightatmyhousebringyourbathingsuit, partysaturdaynightatmyhousebringyourbathingsuit.

O The Day. O the Hallowed Day it came. O how the essence of Saturday struck her when first she opened her eyes. Gazing downwards her stomach appeared flatter than before.
Shaving her legs was a holy rite. She tapped the razor against the shower wall with an invocation, “Saturday night.”

She was standing on the front walk now. The party lie just beyond the house, she need only walk through. She felt a stifling heat in her groin that rose up to her jaw line as she stared at the front door. Time had slowed and the honey of June was oozing out of the atmosphere, out of the flowers. The door swung open.

“Oh! You’re here!” It was a male voice. She extended her hand, lowered the lids of her eyes.
Behind her she heard, “Here we are!” And two taller girls brushed past her into the womb of the house.

She trailed behind them, entranced. Through the sliding glass doors she could see the sunlight glinting off the pool. The surface of the water shone like a beacon.

She moved toward it as no one watched. She removed the t-shirt she had so carefully chosen hours before, kicked off a new pair of flip-flops, shimmied out of cut-off shorts.

She stepped off the side of the pool. An enormous splash. Many pairs of eyes on the water at the place she’d gone under.

One girl near the potato chips muttered, “cow.”

Under the water all was silence as she reveled alone in Saturday night. Opening her eyes she saw the long white legs of others. She let the air out of her lungs in a long bubbling sigh and rose to the surface. Awkwardly she climbed up out of the luminous blue rectangle.

As reality closed back in around her, she started to dry off in the heat of the night. Carefully dressing again, she walked back out through the front door of the house with a wet bottom.

Back in bed she stared in wonderment at the ceiling. The best party ever.