Oola by Brittany Newell

Author:Brittany Newell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

Public Pool

One day in late summer, Oola came down for lunch fully dressed in frayed shorts and an XL T-shirt. It read: GO FRACK YOURSELF. “We need to get some air,” she said.

She didn’t sit down. She plucked the keys off the hook and walked resolutely to the truck.

I followed, mug in hand.

We drove for over an hour to the public pool, a concrete ditch on the outskirts of Salinas with water the color of veins seen through skin. The flagstones frothed with dandelions; heavy-lidded children in bad-smelling swimsuits picked the flowers as if posing for postcards. They held the weeds between thumb and forefinger. The whole place seemed to stoop, bathers walking belly-first toward bone-colored beach chairs whose plastic ribs had gone soft. It was five dollars to get in, fifty cents for a locker. Mildew frilled the corners of the changing room as I stepped into my trunks.

Oola took her time in the women’s room. I waited for her on the edge of the pool. I kicked up little tide pools with my feet. Sullen children with scraped shins gave me the side eye.

After ten minutes she emerged, clutching a beach towel about her in an unusual bout of shyness. The late-afternoon sun hit her at an angle, blanching the part of her face that was turned away from me. She was looking around, nervously sifting through the flabby families and oiled men for a familiar face.

I didn’t wave. I waited until she spotted me. Hey, you, I mouthed.

She gave me the evil eye, but I could see in her shoulders that she was relieved. She speed-walked toward me, making no noise in the afternoon heat. She trod on more than a few dandelions, which poofed sadly at her feet.

“Fuck you,” she said softly when she reached me. “There’s lots of creeps here.” She stood above me like a radio tower. I tugged at one corner of her towel, which she held tight to her body.

“What gives? It’s like ninety degrees out.”

She rolled her eyes and didn’t answer.

“Suit yourself,” I said. I eased into the water. She stayed still, eyes fixed on the chain-link fence that surrounded the pool. I swam a few feet away to get a new perspective. Perhaps from there I’d be able to see what was distracting her. I paddled slowly, cleaving the water with my palms like one parting a drug-induced thicket.

By the time I emerged, she’d entered the pool from the opposite side. She did laps with a dogged expression, surfacing for air less and less frequently. I swam in her direction, but the closer I got, the longer she stayed underwater, the flat crown of her head like a yellowish jellyfish. I worried in spite of myself each time her face disappeared, not knowing how long it would be before, with a gasp imperceptible to everyone but me, she’d break again. On impulse, I reached for her arm, not to drag her up but just to touch.

She surfaced with a start and flinched away from me.

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