The Thunderbird has a tiki bar on the beach and a swimming pool with a thunderbird depicted in green and red tiles on the bottom. There is a breakfast buffet in the morning, but there is also a Shell station across the street so I bet we will get our breakfast there tomorrow. My mother loves gas station coffee (black), and donuts from a Plexiglas case.
We have the entire hotel pool to ourselves so Clarisse and I take turns doing handstands in the shallow end, counting to see how long each of us can hold the pose. Clarisse can hold her breath longer than I can, which gives her the advantage every time.
Then we swim down to the bottom of the deep end, touching the slimy concrete floor. I open my eyes underwater and see the red and green tiles of the thunderbird, blurry flashes of color. I feel the burn of chlorine in my eyes when I come up for air. Clarisse and I act like little girls, playing and splashing and taunting each other, until a group of three high school boys appear. They are all wearing board shorts and flip-flops, and their bodies are lean and long. They look related, maybe brothers or cousins, each head of hair sandy blond, each face fair skinned and angular.
The boys claim a group of lounge chairs and throw their towels down. They kick off their flip-flops and jump into the shallow end one at a time, each one making a splash that ripples out to the rest of the pool. Clarisse and I swim to the side of the pool and hold on to the edge, our bodies suspended, floating in the deep water.
The boys begin to walk through the shallow end toward us, their smiles so big they are practically giddy, about to burst into laughter at any moment. They stop when the water gets too deep to walk, and then the tallest one motions for us to come over.
Clarisse glances at me and gives me a reassuring look, one that says, I’m brave enough for both of us. And I believe her. We swim over to the shallow end and say hello.
The boys are from Massachusetts “but not Boston,” they make sure to specify. Two are brothers, and the third is their cousin. They’re here with their parents for a family reunion of sorts. It’s nothing too official, just a bunch of people from their extended family meeting up on the beach and hanging out. They’re early, they say. The rest of their family members aren’t arriving until Sunday.
When they ask where we’re from, Clarisse tells them we’re sisters, and that we live at the hotel. “Our mom works here,” she tells them. “So we grew up here, ordering free room service and using the pool whenever we want.” I’m certain they’re going to see right through this. Clarisse and I don’t exactly look alike, and it seems rather far-fetched that the hotel would allow employees and their families to live here. I scan the boys’ faces, looking for signs of them calling bullshit, of them telling us we’re stupid little girls who are also stupid little liars. All I see is more wide smiling.
“That’s really cool,” the tallest boy says. “It must be awesome to live in Florida. No winter.” He’s giving Clarisse the once-over with his laser-beam eye, scanning her body like he’s a machine. “How old are you?” he asks.
“I’m nineteen,” Clarisse says without blinking. Everyone knows that blinking is a tell, a sign of lying. Other tells are touching your face, looking down, clearing your throat, and taking long pauses. Clarisse knows to avoid them all. “I go to Florida State. She’s eighteen,” Clarisse says, motioning to me. “She’s starting FSU as a freshman in the fall so we’ll finally be back together.” She drapes one arm over my shoulder, a sign of sisterly love. “How old are you guys?”
They sound off their ages. The brothers are seventeen and fourteen, and the cousin is fourteen too. The seventeen-year-old smiles at Clarisse.
“Do you get a lot of guys hitting on you here?” he asks. “I bet you do.” He is cupping water in his hands and then raising them and letting the water fall, making a trickling sound like a leaky faucet.
“It’s not so bad,” Clarisse says. “When that happens, I just tell them that my mom works in human resources here at the hotel. And she’s very good at handling sexual harassment cases. That usually solves the problem.”
One fourteen-year-old challenges the other fourteen-year-old to a race to the other side of the pool. They take off with a start, noisily splashing away from us.
“Don’t mind them. They’re just trying to show off,” the older boy says. “They aren’t around pretty girls very often.” He’s looking at me now, eyeing my breasts covered by my purple bathing suit top. My body feels like a silvery fish at the market, shining on a bed of ice as customers walk by and examine me. I stand up a little straighter, pushing my chest out just a little. I almost can’t believe that I want him to see me. I’m so used to wanting to be invisible.
An elderly woman in a black bathing suit arrives poolside, her skin sagging and spotted from sun damage. She walks into the pool, the skirt of her bathing suit eventually floating around her like a little black cloud. A few minutes later, two moms arrive with two squealing toddlers—armed with floaties and water wings and foam noodles.
“Let’s get out and go down to the beach,” the seventeen-year-old boy says.
“Actually, we should probably get going,” Clarisse says. “We have to check in with our mom about dinner. But maybe we’ll see you later?”
Clarisse taps me on the shoulder, and we walk up the steps and out of the pool. I wrap myself up in my towel, and Clarisse dries her hands on hers and then picks up her phone. I watch the water drip from Clarisse’s body while the boy recites his number with the Massachusetts area code, and she taps the digits into her phone.
“I’m Heidi, by the way,” she says. “And this is Gretchen.” I smile, trying to look nonchalant after hearing my new name. The fourteen-year-olds are racing back to the shallow end now, their lean bodies cutting the water as if it were glass.
The seventeen-year-old smiles with his teeth this time, which are straight and white and perfect. “I’m Oliver,” he says. “Nice to meet you.”
Inside the hotel elevator, Clarisse and I watch the numbers light up as we are transported to our floor. There is a woman with a baby in one corner and what appears to be a newlywed couple in another.
Clarisse smiles at me and then retrieves her phone from her bag and sends me two texts. He’s hot, her first message reads, and then she sends a second message that is just a bunch of fire emojis, dollops of identical orange and red digital flames lined up in perfect rows.
I nod silently, smiling at the illuminated screen of my phone. When the stainless steel doors glide open, we step out of the elevator and into possibility.