You hear about this place? The pool? Out in the hills, behind the old ranch. Everyone’s going there after school today.
It’s this heat wave, see, driving us all out of our houses and into the open fields, into the woods. Looking to cool down.
I wasn’t the one who first found the pool, but soon everyone was talking about it at lunch, during passing periods. Planning trips out to the old ranch to take a dip. Rinse off the sweat. Nobody likes feeling dirty.
Ricky said the pool was haunted, with a ghost of a kid who drowned in it a hundred years ago.
Lilly said the pool was owned by the richest man in town, and he used it for private exercise, because he didn’t want anyone to see his man boobs.
Ginger, who falls asleep in class, said she dreamed that the pool was filled with terrible germs, and going in it would make you sick.
I told her that was stupid. Obviously the pool was being kept clean by someone, right? How else to explain the clarity of its waters, the gentle chlorine scent on the breeze as you approached it, over the hill from the farmhouse?
It was exactly what we all needed. Summer vacation was coming, and here was the promise of our very own oasis.
Remember when I said it wasn’t me who first found the pool?
Well, that’s not quite true.
If you asked Ricky, or Lilly, or Ginger, who first found the pool, and told everyone at school about it, they would’ve said it was me.
But it wasn’t me.
She came alone, sweaty and sad. The trailer she lived in had no air conditioning. It was filled with the endless smoke of her stepmother’s cigarettes. All she wanted was a swim. The pool looked so inviting. It looked like it would wash all her troubles away.
She wasn’t me, but I sure do look like her now.
Wanna go swimming?