“Really,” I answer with an exaggerated smile. But then I think bout my list and my empty paper bag. I bet it might be easier to find bottles at the pool than around Granddaddy’s too-clean neighborhood. This might not be so bad after all.
“Let’s go find our bathing suits!” Nia runs into the house with steps that are more like hops, so I do, too. But my excitement is for a different reason than hers.
“Okay!” I follow Nia to our room and grab my paper bag—still folded on the end table where I left it—on the way.
I search through the old backpack that holds all my clothes, looking for something to wear. I know it won’t be a bathing suit, cause I ain’t got one. At home, we usually just swim in long T-shirts and undies, or shorts if we go to the neighborhood pool, even if we get funny looks for dressing that way. I find a pair of Nia’s old gymnastics shorts and a too-small tank top I can tie on one side. From far away, it might even look like a bathing suit.
I get dressed and wait for Nia to change in the bathroom. She used to get dressed in front of me, but lately she’s always screaming for privacy and covering her body with her hands if I look her way. I’m surprised when she comes out in a real bathing suit. Red and blue with tiny white stripes, too saggy up top and pinched underneath, but it’s a bathing suit. I don’t know where she got it from, but for once she ain’t complaining bout how she looks, so I don’t ask.
“Ready?” I ask, interrupting her hair ritual. She looks at me through the mirror and smiles. Not quite an ice cream cone smile, but close.
* * *
The neighborhood swimming pool is packed. Maybe cause it’s so hot, or maybe cause it ain’t nowhere else to go around here on a Saturday. Kids fight for space on the pool steps. Mommas lay on lounge chairs or talk together in small circles. Big kids play pool games in the deep end, while little kids hang on the blue-and-white safety rope in the middle of the pool. Everybody is screaming and playing, yelling and fighting. I love the quiet at Granddaddy’s house, but this feels more like home.
Granddaddy stayed in the car when we got here, so it’s just me and Nia. We walk around the pool area twice looking for seats but can’t find none. Even with sandals on, the cement burns our feet as we search. Finally, we pick a small piece of wet ground by the gate. We take off our shoes, holding the gate for balance. I got my paper bag hid inside my towel, cause I ain’t want Nia asking me no questions. As she lays down her towel, I sneak the bag out, quickly sit down on my towel, and hide the bag underneath.
I look around the pool area. Just like Granddaddy’s neighborhood, don’t seem to be no bottles around here, cept the ones people are still drinking from. I watch, hoping somebody might finish soon. There’s a family with a white momma but a Black daddy, and a baby girl who’s a strange mix of the two. The daddy—who drinks from a short bottle of Coca-Cola—is missing a tooth right in the front and has tattoos all over his neck and arms. The momma—who ain’t drinking right now but has a bottle of juice peeking out from her bag—has rolls of skin falling from the sides of her swimsuit, and pale skin that don’t match with the bright red hair falling down her back. She holds the baby, who got rolls of skin like her momma and no teeth like her daddy, but in a way that’s cute cause she’s a baby. I watch and watch, but after a while I get bored cause it don’t seem like they gon’ finish with them bottles anytime soon.
There’s a group of kids in the pool, three boys and two girls, all with skin like Daddy’s and lips kinda like Momma’s. Two of the boys look like almost teenagers, one maybe older than the other, but the third boy is the baby of the group. He sits on the pool steps splashing water while they play. The girls look like they bout my age. They take turns dipping their heads beneath the water as one of the older boys counts. Ringlets of hair fall straight beneath the water, then coil like a spring soon as the girls come back to the surface. I smile cause my hair coils up like that, too.
Nia is beside me, but not watching like I do. She lays on her back with her eyes closed, knees slightly bent, face offered up to the sky. Even though them other girls are pretty, Nia is still the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen. I wonder if I ask Nia can we go play with those kids, would she say yes? But before I can ask, a voice yells from cross the pool. “Nia!”
I look for the voice, but not faster than Nia. She pops up and yells back. “Brittany!”
A yellow-skinned girl with thick lips and knobby knees hurries over from the other side of the pool. Her bathing suit looks just like Nia’s, but with stars where Nia’s got stripes. I bet that’s not a coincidence. Brittany stands in front of me and wrings her thick, black hair in her hands, letting it cascade down her back. “I’m so glad you came!” she exclaims and rushes into Nia’s arms for a hug.
“Of course, I couldn’t wait to get out of that boring house!” Nia and Brittany giggle and I realize what happened: Nia ain’t ever wanna come to the pool with me. She wanted to come to the pool with Brittany. I stand up and walk away, thinking maybe Nia gon’ be sad to see me go and come after me. But when I turn and look back, she ain’t even noticed I’m gone.
I walk around the pool twice before I find a spot. Right next to the Black kids I been watching. I sit on the edge and poke my foot in the water. I think it’s gon’ be cold, but the water is lukewarm and wraps around my toes like wet dog kisses. I pretend not to listen as the smallest boy whines. The two big boys toss a football back and forth. The little boy stretches his arms like baby bird wings but can’t reach the ball. The girls go under, touch the bottom, and then kick their legs to the top. I think they’re tryna make a handstand, but ain’t neither of their legs staying in the air long enough.
“Dang, Dominique,” yells the biggest boy suddenly, “you splashin’ us!” The tallest of the two girls—Dominique, I guess—shakes her hair to make water spray the boys’ faces. Then she laughs and the other girl laughs, too. But the boys ain’t laughing.
“That ain’t funny!” squeaks the smallest boy. He got a half grin on his face that makes me think he likes the splashing. But the big boys mad, so he gotta be mad, too.
“My bad.” Dominique smiles, diving underwater for another half handstand. The boys watch and so do I. She gets her legs just barely out the water, then kicks real hard and real fast. Water splashes on the boys and splashes on me.
“Dominique!” the big boys scream all at once, while the other girl and the little boy laugh and laugh. I wanna laugh, too, but I think they gon’ notice me watching if I do.
Nia’s still in our spot with Brittany, laying close together on Nia’s towel, whispering and pointing at a group of boys on the other side of the pool. The boys got small hoops in their ears and when they jump in the pool, they yell, “Cannonball!” loud so everybody can hear. To me, them boys are making too much noise. But Nia keeps smiling and whispering and pointing their way. I roll my eyes, then go back to making circles with my big toe in the water. I wonder if Granddaddy is still in the parking lot, cause I’m ready to leave.
“Wanna play with us?”