Something Unpredictable by Barbara Chepaitis

Author:Barbara Chepaitis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2003-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

They went up and down quite a few more times, letting the water lead the way, before Carla said she wanted to go back in the pool for a while.

“Okay,” Delilah said, prepared to follow. Carla stopped and turned to her.

“After that, I have to go to the bathroom,” she said. “You gonna follow me into the stalls?”

“I just thought…”

“I know what you thought. Will you go sit down and let me be for a minute or two? I’m used to being alone now and then.”

Delilah supposed she was, and let her go. She went back to the lounge and sat there, trying to keep an eye on Carla, but there were too many people, and she was soon lost among them. She let it go, and contented herself with people watching.

What she noticed primarily was how many different kinds of bodies there were. A bleached-blond woman in lime green tank top with lime green shorts, five feet tall and five feet around—a true sphere—sat at the edge of the wave pool reading a romance novel. Delilah wondered what her thoughts were. Was she longing to be beautiful and loved? Did she wish she looked like the woman illustrated on the cover, with breasts pouring out of a slightly torn bodice and her waist nipped in to almost nothing?

A round man came up and sat beside her, put an arm around her, and looked at her adoringly. She returned his gaze. Got that one wrong, Delilah thought. Apparently you don’t have to be thin to be loved.

A robust woman sitting on one side of her, wearing a paisley muumuu, was smoking a cigarette and talking to a friend whose skin shone with oil. Her voice, which was as robust as her body, called Delilah’s attention away from the lovers.

“So I smoke,” she declaimed loudly. “I told my niece. We all have something. My niece, she’s fat. She goes to the beach and wears a T-shirt. I tell her, you’re fat with the T-shirt on, and you’re fat with the T-shirt off. Take it off and enjoy the sun.”

It seemed like good advice.

A group of children ran by squealing, and Delilah watched them. They didn’t care what their bodies looked like yet. As Carla might have counseled, they only enjoyed the feeling of having them and using them freely to explore motion, the pleasure of sensation, the power of control, and the freedom of the lack of it.

Delilah watched them run and romp around and in the pool, skittering like insects among the many kinds of bodies gathered there. Women with beautiful faces and a little roll at the belly. Women with truly fabulous breasts and bony knees. Men with protruding bellies and marvelous biceps. Men with hairy backs and six-pack abs, or balding heads and strong jawbones. Everyone had something that worked, and something that didn’t. Praised are you, she thought, who varies the forms of your creatures, who freckles, scars, bulges, and builds them. Praised are you.

She was enjoying the abundance of all this, when the worst happened.

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