Because of Mom’s weak arm, I had to put away the heavy pots and pans, carry the baskets of laundry, and vacuum. She didn’t ask me to do these things, but when I caught her wincing at the chores or giving up, I decided to do them myself, but secretly. That way, she wouldn’t feel like an invalid. And when things were settled at home, I’d go walking. After a while, I could walk around the whole neighborhood without feeling tired, even though I still had to deal with sweat and swollen hands. I kept thinking a 5K wasn’t enough, but since I had no other ideas, it would have to do.
I kept in touch with my friends, though I wasn’t seeing them very much. They invited me to all their outings, but I felt too guilty to go when I had so much to do at home. So when Iliana called to invite me to the pool, I said, “I wish I could go, but I hate to leave my mom. She’s still not one hundred percent.”
“Go where?” I heard. I turned around and spotted Mom at my bedroom door, eavesdropping on my conversation. She held out her hand. “Give me the phone.” When I handed it to her, she said, “Who’s this?” and then, “Oh, hi, sweetie.” She quietly listened for a while. “Of course, I’m fine. Getting stronger every day. You know Erica. She tends to worry over nothing.” She listened some more. “Of course she can go. She can’t spend the whole summer moping around here. It’s not healthy. She’ll be ready in thirty minutes. I promise.” She hung up, handed me the phone, and said, “Time to put on your bathing suit.”
I should have felt excited about seeing my friends, but I felt angry instead. “Why did you tell Iliana that I’m all stressed out and worried? That I’m moping?”
“Because you are.”
I glanced at my mood ring, wondering if Mom knew how to interpret the colors. “No, I’m not,” I lied. “But even if I was stressed out, it’s none of Iliana’s business.”
“She’s your friend, so it is her business.”
“But that’s the problem,” I complained. “She’s going to tell everybody and they’re going to feel sorry for me, and instead of having fun, they’re going to give me useless advice, like the kind you find on a cheesy card, because even if they really try to understand me, they don’t. Then I’m going to get mad. But if they think everything’s fine, I won’t get mad because instead of talking about me, we’ll talk about other things.”
“So tell her I was exaggerating,” Mom suggested. “That way, you can have some fun.” She pointed to my dresser. “Now get ready.”
“But I’ll have to—” I stopped myself.
“You’ll have to what?” Mom asked.
I hesitated, not sure I wanted to finish my sentence. “I’ll have to wear a bathing suit.”
Mom crossed her arms. “Is that the real reason you don’t want to go?”
I shrugged.
“So how many times have you turned down a trip to the pool?”
I shrugged again, not wanting to admit that my friends had invited me three times already. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings,” I said instead. “If you see me in a bathing suit, you’ll think about having cancer.”
She sighed. “Mija, I think about it anyway. I feel worse knowing you’re avoiding fun because of me. Now get ready. That’s an order.”
She left me alone in my room, shutting the door behind her, so I hunted in my drawer for a bathing suit, finding one of Mom’s bikini tops instead. I decided to put it on. It sagged because I wasn’t developed enough. I made fists and put them inside the cups, so I could see what I’d look like as a real woman and picture my body as beautiful as Mom’s… as Mom’s used to be. I took my hands out of the bikini top. I made a fist again, placed the other hand over it, trying to form the shape and size of Mom’s breast and then imagining that part of her body being cut away. How could she stand it? Didn’t it hurt? Didn’t she hate looking at herself in the mirror now that she wasn’t whole? If she did, she never mentioned it. But that was Mom, strong and brave. She didn’t feel sorry for herself. Or maybe she did. Maybe she kept her true feelings inside, wearing a brave face for the rest of us, because that’s how mature people acted. They handled things.
So in the spirit of handling things, I went to the pool. It was at the neighborhood park, on the opposite side of the skateboard area. The pool was fenced in, and you had to sign a guest list before going in. Behind the entrance was a covered patio with picnic tables. Mostly parents sat there, reading magazines or visiting as their children played in the water. The pool itself was a giant rectangle, three to ten feet deep, with black swim lanes painted on the floor. Lifeguards sat upon high perches beneath colorful umbrellas, and high school girls tanned on the chaise lounges.
“Over here, Erica!” I heard the Robins call. I spotted them, waving to me from the five-foot section of the pool. I went over and jumped in. The water felt cold. I shivered, but it felt so refreshing, a perfect cure for the heat.
“Iliana says you’re all depressed,” Patty told me. “That you aren’t sleeping because you’re worried about your mom.”
“You do have bags under your eyes,” GumWad said, his mouth full of red gum today. When I touched the area beneath my eyes, he said, “I didn’t mean that in a bad way. Baggy eyes are pretty.”
“She does not have baggy eyes,” Shawntae said. “You’re imagining things. But”—she turned to me—“you do look skinny. Have you been eating? I heard depressed people lose their appetites.”
“It’s true,” Iliana said. “They don’t feel like doing anything like going to the pool. I just hate the thought of you feeling too sad to come to the pool. You have to get out and do something.”
I thought about how busy I’d been—helping with the chores and walking around the neighborhood to train for my promesa, things you can’t do while sleeping—so if I looked a bit skinnier, it was because I’d been working, not because I’d been skipping meals. I probably had bags under my eyes because Jimmy woke up at six o’clock every morning. Mom slept right through his cries for attention, and even though Dad was awake, he was too busy getting ready for work. So I had to help Jimmy instead. And although Carmen cleaned the bathroom, that’s all she did. My friends didn’t have younger brothers or lazy sisters. How could they possibly understand?
They circled, waiting for me to share a true-confessions moment. When I didn’t say anything, Iliana put her hand on my shoulder to encourage me to talk. This is exactly what I tried to tell my mom. I had the nosiest friends on the planet.
“I am not depressed!” I yelled, and I went under the water, making my body heavy so I could sink. My friends’ voices were muted, and their legs wavered in the flickering sunlight. What a wonderful way to disappear. If only I could sink into a quiet place whenever people got on my nerves. After a moment, GumWad came underwater too and did all kinds of hand signals. Who knew what he was trying to say? The way his hair floated like a wild mane and his cheeks puffed out as he held his breath made me want to laugh, so I had to go up for air.
“What were you trying to say down there?” I asked GumWad when he surfaced a few seconds later.
He said, “I was trying to let you know that I’m going to Disney World next week.”
“You go to Disney World every summer,” I told him.
“No, I don’t.” He glanced at the other Robins, but they could only agree with me.
“Every summer,” Iliana repeated. Then she turned to me. I knew she was about to question me again, but before she could, a bunch of boys from our Boyfriend Wish List walked in.
“It doesn’t get better than this,” Shawntae said, nodding toward the guys as they got ready for the water.
Iliana turned to us. “Quick. Do a face check. Do I look okay?” After we gave her a thumbs-up, she gasped. “They’re taking off their shoes and their shirts!”
“Big surprise,” Patty said, unimpressed. “We’re at the pool, remember?”
“Yeah, that’s why my shirt’s off, too,” GumWad said, sticking out his chest. He probably meant to look muscular, but he looked like a puffed-up rooster instead.
I turned away. After all, GumWad was like a cousin. I’d been meeting him at this pool for as long as I could remember. He has a dime-size birthmark behind his left shoulder and a scar on his belly from the time he ran into a barbed-wire fence at his uncle’s ranch. So, of course, the other guys were more interesting. I wondered if they had scars or birthmarks. I scanned their bodies, but instead of scars or birthmarks, I saw nice tans and athletic arms and legs. I hadn’t worn my mood ring because I didn’t want to lose it in the pool, but if I had been wearing it, it’d be all sorts of colors because I had emotions that weren’t even described on the mood ring chart.
“Snapshot,” Iliana said, pretending to take a picture of the boys.
“Tattoo that image on my heart,” I added.
“I dreamed about this,” Shawntae said. “I dreamed we’d see cute guys at the pool. That’s why I wanted to come today.”
Our eyes followed the boys wherever they went. And, of course, they went to the diving board. Cool guys didn’t bother with the pool. They weren’t going to bob around like the rest of us. They were fearless. They were going to climb up the high board and jump.
Chad went first. When he got to the top, he stood at the edge, his toes curling over. Then he lifted his hands over his head and dived, doing a beautiful somersault before hitting the water. Derek Smith went next. He did two somersaults. Alejandro did a twist in the air, and Forest, a graceful swan dive. Each time they jumped, they got back in line to wait their turn again. And we just watched, speechless.
“Hey, girls,” GumWad said, tapping our shoulders to get our attention, “check this out.” He plunged and did an underwater flip, and when he came back up, his red gum was floating in the pool. How gross! GumWad coughed and snorted. “Water up my nose,” he explained.
“Don’t be disgusting,” Patty scolded, pointing to the red blob.
GumWad obeyed. He picked up the gum and headed to the ladder so he could throw it away.
Meanwhile, we turned to the diving board. It was Chad’s turn again. This time he hugged his knees and curled himself into a human bomb. The other guys copied him, bragging that they could make bigger splashes.
“I just love how they shake the water from their hair as they climb out of the pool.” Iliana sighed.
“Yeah,” Patty said, “like wet dogs shaking out their fur.”
While we watched the guys, I decided to multitask by holding the edge of the pool and kicking my legs. That way, they could get ready for my promesa. Little by little, my legs felt heavier, which meant they were getting stronger, too. Soon I was on autopilot, hardly noticing that I was exercising while watching the diving board and visiting with my friends. Ten minutes must have passed when Patty said, “Is that Roberto in line?”
It was! We had forgotten all about him after he left the pool to throw out his gum. Patty did the Robins’ cheerily cheer-up cheer-up whistle to get his attention, and when he glanced our way, we waved. He waved back and pointed to the high dive.
“I thought he was scared of heights,” Shawntae said.
“Maybe he’s conquering his fears,” I suggested.
Sure enough, when GumWad reached the ladder, he paused a long time before grabbing hold. The person behind him had to nudge him. Finally, he climbed a couple of steps, stopped, climbed a few more, glanced down, and climbed a few more. At one point, he put his arms around the ladder and hugged it. Some nearby kids started to laugh. “Check out that scaredy-cat,” they said. Even though I knew it was true, I didn’t like other people making fun of my friend.
“Hey, GumWad!” I called out. “You can do it!”
He nodded, then made his way to the top. When he got there, he stood at the back of the board for a while, shaking out his hands. Someone said, “Quit holding up the line!” And that’s when GumWad jogged forward, the board bouncing beneath him. He didn’t pause at all. He simply ran off, and while he was falling, his arms and legs went in crazy directions. He looked like a rag doll, and he was screaming like someone on a roller coaster. Then he hit the water, one giant belly flop, with a splash more forceful than the stream that comes out of a fire hydrant. Everybody laughed, including me, because it was the most awkward dive I had ever seen. Poor guy. He must have felt embarrassed as he swam to the edge, where he gripped the side of the pool and coughed like someone who had swallowed the wrong way. Luckily, a lifeguard helped him out of the pool and sat beside him, patting GumWad’s back till he caught his breath again.
When he returned to us, he said, “Did you see my dive?”
“Sure,” Patty said, “you were as graceful as a… as a…” She snapped her fingers in front of my face.
“As a duck in ballet slippers,” I said.
We all laughed.
“I wasn’t trying to be graceful,” GumWad explained, a bit defensively. “I was trying to be funny.”
“If that’s the case, then you scored a perfect ten,” Shawntae said.
We laughed again, but then Iliana got serious. “You scared me. I thought you almost drowned when I saw you with that lifeguard.”
“You were supposed to close your mouth before hitting the water,” Patty told him. “But you were too busy screaming.” She couldn’t contain her chuckles.
“It was all part of the act,” GumWad insisted. “I wanted the lifeguard to help me. Not the guy lifeguard, but the one who’s a pretty girl.”
We glanced around. Sure enough, a pretty girl studied the pool from her perch.
“You’re always staring at the guys,” he went on, “but I can’t because I’m a guy, too. I can’t be talking about them. Sure, Chad has nice hair and Derek looks like he lifts weights, but I can’t say that.”
“You just did,” I pointed out.
GumWad pretended not to hear. “So I search for the pretty girls instead, and there’s a whole lot of them.” He looked at me directly. “They’re all around me.”
“Then why are you hanging out with us?” Shawntae asked, her voice all offended.
GumWad thought about it, then said, “That’s what I’m wondering.” I could tell he was mad. He probably tried his best to do a fancy dive, and here we were, making fun of him. “See you later,” he said. He climbed out of the pool and found a chaise lounge right between two high school girls. They were a lot more developed than us, and I had to admit, they looked great in their bikinis. One of them yawned as she adjusted her sunglasses. The other grabbed a water bottle, took a sip, and poured a bit onto her head. They didn’t have a care in the world as they sat under the sun—the cancerous sun. Didn’t they know that ultraviolet rays could cause cancer? I looked at their chests. I couldn’t help it, couldn’t help comparing them to Mom, couldn’t help wondering if someday they’d have to get mastectomies.
“Are you looking at those girls’ boobs?” Patty asked me.
“No.”
“Yes, you are. You are totally checking out their boobs.” She laughed at me.
I decided to challenge her. “So what if I am?”
My harsh tone surprised her. She backed off, got quiet.
I glanced at Shawntae and Iliana. They wouldn’t look at me. They probably guessed that I was thinking about my mom. So I took a deep breath, made my body a rock, and sank. I’d stay under as long as possible, as long as it took for my friends to find another topic to discuss. Anything was better than facing my problems when they were around.