The Backside of Water
I PRESSED MY HAND against our thick hotel room door. I expected it to be hot for some reason, as if there were a fire on the other side. I turned the knob slowly, squeezed through, and held the handle behind me so it wouldn’t slam shut. I stood still in the dark room. If my parents were taking a nap, I wasn’t about to wake them up.
But I found my mom sitting up at the table, tucked into the corner of the room, with a half-read true-crime book and an ancient, giant booklight illuminating her face. She wore a look that told me she hadn’t actually been reading but rather plotting my demise instead. The digital clock by their bed, where my dad was snoring away, showed 4:10 p.m. I had to shower and get dressed in time to leave for dinner, which would be practically impossible even without dealing with my mom. I had that feeling you get after stubbing a toe, when you know it’s going to be bad, and you’re waiting to feel it.
I would have to move—my wet hair was dripping a puddle on the thin carpet. I turned around to pull the door shut, but stood facing it, with my back to the now-lit room, staring at the “Exit route in case of emergency” sign taunting me. Someone, anyone, please set a non-dangerous-but-still-evacuation-worthy fire to the building right now.
“Casey. You’re back,” my mom said, way too casually.
I had to turn around now. I squeezed the doorknob goodbye.
“I went swimming.” I was trying to whisper so my dad wouldn’t wake up. That subtlety was lost on my mom, who was talking too loudly over the roar of the air conditioner next to her.
“Well, yes, I can see that. But that doesn’t explain why we haven’t heard from you all day, or why you went to the pool without telling us.”
Was I supposed to check in with them? Hadn’t she said she’d have a better time without me? I was getting cold in my wet suit in the air-conditioned room. “I just wanted to swim.”
“That’s not all, Acacia.” I sensed she was regretting not giving me a longer name now. She seemed to want more syllables to say. “It was very irresponsible of you.” My dad rolled over, yawned, and scowled at me. Well, at least it wasn’t my fault he woke up.
“I go swimming all the time, Mom. I’ve been able to do laps since I was five. What exactly were you worried about?” I patted my towel around me. My victorious feelings from the successful Bra-Strap Girl encounter were fading.
“Don’t antagonize your mother,” my dad started in, yawning.
“You don’t think I can handle some laps in that little pool? That pool I’ve swam in since I was learning to swim?”
“That is not the issue,” Mom said. She stood up and pulled on a Mickey sweatshirt that had been folded next to her. I suddenly felt too underdressed to argue, but I cinched my towel skirt tighter and kept my hands on it.
“It is the issue. If you trusted me, you’d know I was safe and you wouldn’t have been worried.” That definitely sounded logical.
“Trust? You haven’t even let us know where you were all day!”
“Mom, I was downstairs and that way”—I pointed back toward the blessed pool—“about 100 feet. You wouldn’t think I was safe if I took a long bath!”
“You are missing the point,” Dad said.
“I think you are both missing the point that I am practically in high school and I can keep myself alive for periods of time without you or someone else supervising me!” No point in being quiet now. My throat was dry. I wanted to suck some water off of my dripping hair.
My head and ears pounded. I definitely did not want to stay here with them. Or eat dinner with them like we were all normal again. Or come back here to sleep and listen to them snore at each other. How could I finish my vacation with them now? How could I ever have a vacation, or any freedom, when they questioned everything I did?
“You treat me like—” I sniffled, appalled but not able to do anything about it—“like I am a little kid. But—I—am—not!” I clutched at my towel, aware too late that it probably looked to them like I was holding my blankie. They were looking at me, unimpressed and annoyed that I was messing up their plans. “And besides,” I added, “didn’t you tell me this morning that you would have more fun without me? Why would you even care where I went if I’m such a drag to be around now that I’m not actually three years old?!”
My mom opened and closed her mouth. “Acacia, I simply meant that you were acting incredibly rude to me and I didn’t want you to act like that all day. What a mood you’re in!”
“It’s not a mood, Mom, it’s who I am! I’m in high school now and you don’t like it and I can’t help it that I don’t want to follow you guys around all day anymore!”
“Well, you know what? I did like you better when you were a little girl! We didn’t fight! We didn’t waste our whole vacation! And I didn’t wonder where you were all day.”
“Why is everybody being so mean to me lately?!”
“Bert seems pretty friendly,” my mom said. Wait, what? What was she even talking about?
“Don’t even talk about him,” I said.
“Who is ‘everybody’ then?”
“You. And Dad. And...and my friends at school,” I added, even though it wasn’t quite true, “and especially stupid Kiley!”
“What are you talking about?” Mom waved her booklight around and it kept blinding me. I don’t think she realized she was still holding it.
“Kiley. Your favorite person, Kiley. Kiley that you want to buy presents for and think is so great. She’s not, Mom. She’s mean and she totally ditched me!”
“Casey, she didn’t ditch you, she’s sick.”
“Mom, she’s not sick. She just didn’t want to come on our trip this time, okay?
My parents looked at each other. They couldn’t believe it. I realized they must have thought of her as part of this trip, as part of our family. She had ditched them, too.
“She dumped me, okay? She was horrible to me at school and now she won’t even talk to me.”
“But...Kiley loves Disneyland.”
“Kiley is over Disneyland. At least with us. With me. She is over you guys and she is totally over me.” And at that, my anger crumbled. I teared up, hating it but not able to help it. “I know you wish she was here and it would be like last year, and the year before that, and the year before that. I know you wish that I was little again. But I’m not.”
“Casey...” she said. And nothing else. No words of wisdom for me? I turned to my dad. He was staring at his notebook, the one he’d carried on last year’s trip, the one Kiley and I had doodled on the cover of when we were bored in line.
“Forget it. I’m going. Like you said, you’ll be happier without Crazy Teenager Casey with you. You and Kiley and everyone else at school.” I flushed and turned and put my hand on the knob. I didn’t know where I was going. I couldn’t really go anywhere. But I couldn’t stay here. I’d rather sleep in a lounge chair by the pool than here.
“Casey, you are acting like a spoiled brat!” my dad said, shocking me enough to turn around. How could he turn against me so completely, too? He hadn’t even been worried about me today, he’d been asleep! He was only angry that I’d messed up his itinerary. My mom was staring at me in an emotionless way, like she was trying to figure out what Woman’s Day or Good Housekeeping would advise in this situation about troublesome teens. They both acted like they didn’t even know me, like I hadn’t been a perfect swimmer, daughter, and friend my whole life.
“Excuse me?” I said. “Dad. You didn’t even try to find out what was going on this morning. You didn’t care about what I was saying. You didn’t care why I wanted to go off by myself and make my own plans. You wanted to do whatever it was that would get this whole thing over with so you could get on with the trip, right? Well, here you go. Have your trip. I’m not on it.”
My dad sat, sleepy and stunned, on the bed.
“Well, it hasn’t seemed like you’ve been on it at all,” Mom said.
I turned to her. I was hot and the water from my wet suit cooled me. I felt like steam was rising up from my swimsuit. “You think you’d have a better vacation without me. You probably would. Kiley thinks her life is better without me. Yours probably is, too.”
My mom shook my words off.
“You know, I don’t want Kiley here,” I said. “I don’t care if she was the one who dumped me, I wouldn’t even want her here now, anyway. She didn’t like me like I am. You don’t either!”
My dad seemed to think it was time to wrap this up. “Casey, of course we—” I shot him a look. He stopped. “Well, you could be nicer, it’s true.”
“Nicer? I was being nicer. Like on every trip, going along with your stupid plans. And then when I made my own, you thought I wasn’t being nice starting then. It doesn’t matter. Things are not going to be the same. Ever.”
We stood in silence. The air conditioner whirred on and buzzed. My mother was shaking. I thought she was cold, but then I realized she was just really, really mad.
“But last year...” my dad said.
“It is not last year. It’s right now. And I’m sorry if you think you’ll have a better time without me or that you think—” I started to cry again, but didn’t care—“you don’t like me now that I can think for myself, but it’s your problem. Other people do like me like I am right now. And I am going to go be with them!”
I darted to my pile of luggage sprawled out in the corner by my bed. I grabbed a pile of my crumpled clothes, and shoved my comb and a magazine into my bag around my shoulder, and grabbed the rest of the fresh film, too. I headed for the door.
As I banged on the door’s automatic safety latches, my mom said, “You are uninvited to dinner!”
“No kidding!” I said. “Who wants to eat dinner at 4:30 anyway? That’s for old people! You changed too, you know!” I flung the door open. I flip-flopped down the fluorescent hallway clutching my small bundle of clothes. I was probably bleaching my clothes with the chlorine, but I still clung to them. I hugged them to my chest and watched the floor numbers light up while I waited for the elevator to come and get me out of there.
When I burst out of the elevator, where I had left another chlorine puddle, I headed back to the pool. I didn’t know where else to go. I tripped over a twig, banged my elbow on the iron gate, and clanged it shut. I slammed down on a lounge chair, sure it would break under me, but the plastic strips bounced back.
I didn’t care if the Bra-Strap Girls were still there—Just let them try to mess with me now! I thought—but prime tanning time was over for the day and the pool area was deserted and shady from all the decorative trees. At least Bert wasn’t back yet. I sat, staring at the water, watched leaves swirl around the surface, and noticed dirty spots and pebbles on the bottom. I looked into the dark bushes and plants, and built a cushion on the lounge chair from the towel station’s offerings. I sat and breathed and tried to calm down my heart. My suit was still damp where I sat. I wanted to change.
After a while of fuming, my stomach rumbled, my wet swimsuit irritated me, and I started to feel nauseous. It was easier to think about being hungry than being wrong. I dug in my bag, came up with some mini-packages of smashed saltines from the Blue Bayou, and crunched on the crumbs. My anger was further fueled by my realization that I’d left my cell phone charging on my nightstand in the room.
I felt in my bag for the piece of hotel stationery with Bert’s cell number printed across it in red marker. Taking my little pile of belongings with me, I went to the lobby’s pay phone, and could almost feel Bert’s number in the receiver; it seemed to make the phone heavier in my hand. It would be the first time I actually called him because I was upset, like he was a friend from home.
I listened to the phone dial the song of Bert’s numbers. He picked up on one ring. “Hi Bert, it’s Casey,” I said, rushing. It had been so long since I used a pay phone, I worried it would cut me off and demand more money at any second. “Meet me here at the pool. Please. I’m in a big fight with my parents. And I’m hungry. Um, bye.”
I didn’t know what else to say, and I couldn’t talk about the argument right then or I’d cry, so I didn’t wait for an answer and hung up. So that wasn’t quite the chat I would have had with Kiley. But maybe this was better, I thought. She would have wanted the gory details and would take an hour to dress herself before coming over. I knew Bert would come soon. I knew he would think I was right. I left wet spots across the tiled lobby as I went to change.
I slid into the large, one-person restroom, tugged off my clingy suit, and threw it in the sink. I stared at myself in the mirror, studying the slightly tan outline from my swimsuit around my shoulders and thighs. My mom would probably accuse me of not wearing sunscreen when we got home, but I could feel it still sticking to me—SPF 45, of course.
I scrubbed at my arms and neck with a fistful of wet paper towels, trying to get the overprotective sunblock off of me. What my parents had said today meant less right now than what Bert thought of me. He understood that I wasn’t a kid, and knew me for who I was right now. Even if I was awful, at least his opinion would be based on my personality as it was now, not when I was a toddler. He couldn’t compare me to my old self or Kiley or anybody I wasn’t.
I dunked my head under the faucet, rinsing out the chlorine as best I could, and was comforted at the thought of the classic Jungle Cruise skipper joke, told when the boat passed underneath Schweitzer Falls: “You may never have seen this before...the backside of water! Don’t try to see this at home, because you’ll hit the back of your head on the faucet.” I cracked a smile, glad that I could think of a Disneyland quote that made me feel better in almost any situation. I pulled on my dry clothes with relief, and slid into my new pirate sweatshirt.
As I combed out my hair with my fingers, spraying drops across the counter, I tried to make a mental list of what I might want to do tonight, but I didn’t want to think orderly; I didn’t care what we did, I just had to be next to Bert.
I stuck my head under the hand dryer and hoped it worked on hair. It blew hot air on my face and warmed my shoulders. I hadn’t realized how cold I’d been. As I thought about the night ahead, spent with Bert, wandering together, I also realized that there would be fireworks. My family always watched the fireworks together. I jerked up at that, and bonked my forehead on the hot metal. It was what we did on the last night of our trip. My mom, mad as she was, hadn’t uninvited me to that. Maybe I could bail on everything else, but if I ditched them at fireworks time, I honestly thought I might not have a ride home. Which maybe wouldn’t be so bad. I thought of my mom’s uninviting me to early-bird dinner, and guilt crawled over me. I thought of how mad she must have been to say what she said. That she didn’t love me now. Well, I would show up, for this one last stupid tradition, so at least they couldn’t say that I had ditched them completely, even if they deserved it. My mom deserved to feel awful. So did my dad. They’d feel worse if I showed up and made them look bad. The rest of the night, I would be free. I tried to detangle my hair, studying myself in the mirror. I didn’t know how I could watch the fireworks with my parents and pretend like we were the same family we used to be, one that had spent yet another summer vacation at Disneyland having fun together. I wasn’t the same; that meant none of us were the same. But I would still stand there with them. And Bert would be there, too.
I heard the clink of the gate, but didn’t look up. Bert hesitated to come to my side and sat down on the plastic chair across from me. I was hungry and glad he came—I was surprised at how good I felt that he had come. But at the same time, I felt empty, and sad that he was the only person I knew who could comfort me, this boy I hadn’t even met until yesterday.
“So, I’d ask you if you came here often, but I think I already know you do,” he said.
I smiled up at him half-heartedly. “It’s weird to be by a pool with my normal clothes on.” Bert was wearing a black Pirates of the Caribbean long-sleeved shirt. We matched each other. We were like a team. A team against thoughtless, mean, clueless parents.
“I wasn’t sure what you’d want, so I got a selection from the mini mart,” he said. Like Mary Poppins’ carpet bag, Bert’s cargo pants pockets produced an array of wonders: Snickers, Milky Way, and Hershey’s bars; bags of peanuts and cashews; three small packages of Doritos in assorted flavors; a fruit roll-up and applesauce; and—my favorite—a York peppermint patty.
I reached for the patty, and Bert handed it over while he rubbed my shoulder with his other hand.
I attacked the chocolate with a large bite. Usually I rationed out my patty by taking small nibbles, but I thought this was a special situation. My parents had basically admitted that I was, to them, barely potty trained and that they liked me better when I had been barely potty trained. I had run out on them in the middle of an argument to sit on a plastic lounge chair, where I guessed I would spend the night, and the only person that I could talk to was Bert, whom I’d met the day before. I took another big bite.
Eyeing my little stack of supplies, Bert waited until I’d finished eating the Peppermint Patty and flopped back on the chair before he leaned toward me and said, “So, I’m guessing you aren’t sitting on a pile of towels outside because it’s fun. What happened?” He produced a miniature can of Pringles from another mysteriously deep pocket and popped the top, watching me.
“I had a fight with my parents.” I tried to say it as blandly as possible, and it didn’t sound all that dramatic, except that my voice quivered.
Bert handed over some applesauce and a plastic spoon. I realized that I’d been zoning out, staring at the applesauce. It was the same kind my mom packed in my school lunches. “I’m sorry, Case, it’s all my fault. Of course your parents want to spend time with you on your vacation. You’d be doing that if you weren’t with me. They should really hate me.”
“It’s not you,” I said. “I mean, it’s not just me being with you. I found out they think I am completely unreasonable, irresponsible....” My eyes immediately teared up, stinging from chlorine, and the pool became a blur of blue light. “My mom actually said she didn’t love me.”
“She said that?”
“Yeah. Well...” I thought about it. “Basically. She said she liked me more when I was little.” I sniffled.
I told Bert the whole story and that I had left puddles on the hotel’s ugly paisley carpet. He listened the whole time, looking thoughtful as he chewed his chips.
I had eaten the entire bag of Cool Ranch Doritos when I finally finished, and wiped at my eyes and my fingers with a towel. “So, I called you.” My new friend. My only friend.
Bert smiled. “Well, I’m not getting a very relaxing vacation thanks to you, but it is interesting.” I shivered, crossing my arms over my chest. Bert produced an orange, puffy jacket from behind his back. He wrapped it around me, and I nestled against it. We stared into the pool until I thought to ask, “Aren’t you going to get into trouble? For seeing me so much?”
He shifted, and the plastic strips under my bottom danced. “Nah. My grandma and Maggie are going to Ariel’s Grotto for dinner, and my grandma said it was okay if I came to see you instead. I am missing out on seeing Ariel, though, and I do like her seashells,” he added, poking me.
I was glad to have anything to laugh at, even Ariel’s seashells, and we sat for a while, eating junk food. Bert traced around his grandfather’s watch band. I could now see that the brown leather was still shiny around the edges, even though it was lighter in patches along the top, where Bert was touching it now.
“Did your grandpa, and grandma...did they see you a lot?”
“Yeah, they would pick me up from school sometimes, or when I got sick, and I’d get to go to their house. My grandma would make these crazy sandwiches for me out of whatever she had around—‘hot dog sandwiches’ were my favorite. I realized last year, when she was making Maggie and me lunch, that she got creative when she didn’t have any hot dog buns around.” We giggled. “And my grandpa would let me help him work on his model railroad. We would talk about the trains and how good my grandma could cook.”
“How long...have you had his watch?” I asked carefully.
Bert put his hand on mine. He appreciated my effort. “He died two years ago. I wore it to the memorial and I wear it a lot since then. But I don’t wear it to school or anything. I don’t exactly tell people about it.” He looked directly at me, and our gazes met before he cleared his throat and continued. “You’re not a secret agent or anything, right?”
“If I were, I wouldn’t tell you,” I reminded him, giving him a sly smile.
We sat, chomping on our snacks for a few minutes, until he cracked open a bottled Sprite, took a long drink, and said, “Well, whoever you are, I’m glad you’re here.”
“Thanks. I’m glad somebody is.” I knew we were both thinking about tomorrow, and the days after, when we wouldn’t see each other anymore, but I sensed it was an unspoken rule that tonight, we were not going to talk about that.
Bert looked at me, and I saw that his brown eyes had turned golden in the sun’s slanting rays, spilling around the pool’s palm trees and birds-of-paradise. “Yeah,” he said, squeezing me. We settled back on the plastic chair and watched the full moon rise in the late afternoon sky.