Summer with Megan

I remember the public pool.

Megan and I decided we wanted to go as a spur of the moment thing. We tried to convince Kate to go but she hardly ever wanted to do anything but go to the mall and hang out with her boyfriends. So Megan and I got in our swimsuits and got our towels.

We brought zip-lock bags full of red cherries that made our mouths and hands look bloody when we ate them. We sat under a planted tree by the pool and spat out the seeds on the floor, wondering if cherry trees would grow where they landed.

That was my first time going off a real diving board. I can still remember the drop in my stomach when I stood at the very edge of the wobbly board. Finally she convinced me to jump. The water was freezing. By the end of the day she had taught me how to do a running front flip like a pro. I only belly flopped once.

When all the cherries were gone we begged her grandma to give us a couple dollars to get popsicles and nachos. My Popsicle was purple, mixing with the red from the cherries to make my mouth an indescribable shade of dark something. Her Popsicle was orange; her mouth looked like the inside of a pomegranate.

We knew the whole time that we were going to get sunburned but we were trying really hard to re-apply the sun block every half hour. But everyone knows that if you go to the pool for a whole day you will go home with a red face and shoulders that sting under the spaghetti straps of summer.

We were so tired on the way home. The pool was only a few miles from Meg's house but the ride seemed to take forever. We barely listened to the radio as our heads drooped in the sunset-filled car. We still had those paper plastic neon green bracelets that are so hard to get off our wrists a week later.

I think I still have mine in a shoebox in my closet.