Pool Party

1.

Ruby decided to sit next to the girl with the red, blue and white ribbons in her hair, whose eyes kept bouncing to each of the boys messing around at the end of the pool. The girl wore a bikini. Her stomach rolled over onto the tops of her thighs. Her chest was a blackboard. A small group of other girls in similar bikinis watched everything from a high school clique perspective in the corner.
The girl, Winnie, Ruby learned, confessed that she liked the tall boy on the right.
It made no difference to Ruby because she didn't know anybody. Aunty P had invited only her friends with kids. It was Ruby’s twelfth birthday party, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA, 1992.

2.

Morning sun is different in the US. It softly strokes your face, growing warmer by the microsecond, letting you know how hot it can get. From her window, Ruby watched Uncle Jamal prepare for his run. He strolled onto the street like a basketball player, a healthy lean, the look of an emancipated slave.
Together, they watched the overweight next door neighbour, Mr Jameson, get into his car, reverse, dry turn the wheel left, drive forward; stop at the communal post boxes, get out of the car (leaving it idle); retrieve his mail, get back into the car, reverse perfectly into his drive, park, cut the engine, get out and enter his house.
The sun stretched to reach the edges of the street, creeping slowly towards Uncle Jamal, almost filling out the square shaped neighbourhood. He shook his head and jogged slowly past the post boxes.

3.

She would offer Winnie a drink, first. Ruby made her way to the four white fold-away tables laden with food stuffs: hot dogs, pizza slices, chipolatas, chips, dips, sauces, popcorn, corn on the cob, chicken pieces, sausage rolls, pitta bread, tacos, a bowl of fruit. The parents stood beside it, orbiting Aunty P who’d sunk into a lounger. Wafts of beer pierced the dry air. The sky looked like it would never grow dark. She grabbed two cans of pop, and waved back at her aunt who waved at her as if she were a toddler.
Winnie accepted the can as if she’d been expecting it.
“You see what that boy just did?” Her voice was sonorous, adult. It made Ruby feel eight.
She looked to where Winnie pointed, at Dijon, with one blue fingernail. He was pushing the boy named Nathaniel closer to the edge of the pool. Ruby knew their names because they were sewn into the front of their tight trunks, in large Arial type font.
Aunty P was waving again, to the area outside the pool, gated off from the world that was quiet and still. Mr Jameson didn't wave back.

4.

Ruby was in the kitchen when Uncle Jamal came back from his run. He stared at the bowl of cereal beneath her chin and made himself some granary toast.
Aunty P came downstairs, leaking out of a teal silk robe, large pink rollers holding up her weave. Behind her, sunlight tiptoed over the overgrown cream sofas, the monster 52inch plasma TV, through the slits in the automated blinds. Everything looked dusty. A banner screamed ‘Happy Birthday, Rubes’, trimmed with snake-like streamers. They slept all over the floor.
“Get enough sleep, honey?” Aunty P stole a bite of her cereal, pinched Uncle Jamal’s bum and scratched at her scalp in one smooth movement.
Ruby nodded.
“What time this thing start today?” Uncle Jamal leaned against the counter, his head tilted back, his eyes closed.
“The time I tell you.” Aunty P moved to stand close to him, as close as is possible without touching someone. Ruby averted her eyes anyway.
“That lazy fuck Jameson drove to his box again.”
Aunty P looked at Ruby and put one manicured finger to her lips.

5.

“My mama went to London once.” Winnie leaned back on her hands, her arms turned in awkwardly at the elbows, her face spread-eagled for the sun, and sighed the way women do when they are actually satisfied. “Said it wasn't as cold as folks make out.”
Ruby’s initial reaction was to question this claim: when had ‘mama’ visited London, exactly? How long did she stay? Why would she leave here, ‘the sunny state’, with a swimming pool in every community, for every immigrant or citizen to share, surrounded by houses made for giants, by trees with foliage that belonged in Disney Land?
“It’s cold in winter,” Ruby said.
Winnie laughed. Threw her head back, whipped her neck left and right and laughed from that over ripe gut.
Ruby laughed too, out of embarrassment.

6.

The mothers ate the fruit. The married men and single dads picked at the pizza and hot dogs, then ate some more of each. All the adults wore beachwear: yellows, reds, whites, and oranges that matched sand and parasols. None of them had been in the pool.
A splash: the boys swam under Ruby’s feet in a rainbow of colours, from browns to whites, to mustards. Winnie smiled as they passed, watched them as they clambered out of the pool, seemed to revel in a thought or two as they stuffed their faces with a mixture of the food, before going straight back in. There was no word of caution from the parents.
Dijon cast a look their way.
“I’m thirteen next week.” She readjusted her bikini. “You gonna be around?”
Ruby grew hot with pleasure, and suddenly very annoyed with herself.

7.

Time didn't seem to pass. The sun was stuck, way up there, bright and yellow, screaming at the world. Soul-funk blared from the ghetto blaster Aunty P had told Uncle Jamal was broken. The boys pitted for who could be more of a man by trying to drown one another.
Aunty P held a women’s conference by the food table, picking at sausage rolls and chips, looking at times to Uncle Jamal who was talking to just one of the dads. Her gaze played tennis between the party and Mr Jameson’s door that gaped black. The houses observed everything silently. Cars gleamed Hollywood ready. Ruby was hot but didn't want to get in the pool.

8.

Mr Jameson was washing his car. He looked superimposed out there, against the serenity of the afternoon. Uncle Jamal stood with a hand on a hip, standing by the boys but not looking at them. Aunty P waved at him and he waved back, shaking his head, smiling to himself.
Aunty P was wearing the dress she’d first rejected, a red hot number, she called it, for showing off what God gave her. She got up from her seat and sashayed to Uncle Jamal, slid her arms around his neck, forcing his eyes down. She put her forehead against his and breathed into his face. He did the listening. They broke apart and he headed for the gate. He ignored Mr Jameson as he went into the house.

9.

Ruby felt cold wet flesh staple her ankle, and had just enough time to turn onto her side so that she only hit the top of her head against the side of the pool. Mid-scream she swallowed pool water. It tasted better than any pool she’d been to in London. Resurfacing was an effort. The loss of hearing prompted brief frustrated tears. Dijon was a mime in front of her. He mimicked her facial expression, the cries for help.

10.

She crawled beside Aunty P’s lounger, sunk her head into one meaty thigh and thought of nothing in particular. Aunty P stroked her cornrows, her false nails catching the tip of her forehead. Someone turned down the music.

11.

She closed her eyes, opened them again and saw Winnie and Dijon talking. Winnie had turned her body towards him, one hand in the air, her mouth all action. Dijon was looking Ruby’s way.

12.

She got up and managed a slice of pizza and that’s when the singing started. Happy Birthday, Stevie Wonder style. No one knew all the lyrics, except Aunty P. Uncle Jamal was returning, carried a cake the size of a small plasma in one hand, and a fresh beer bottle in the other.
Mr Jameson walked up to him and pointed to the party.
She saw Aunty P move, wobble slightly in her haste, pulling down her dress, still singing.
Watching her aunt, hearing the singing, eating that bland slice, she almost missed seeing Uncle Jamal’s bottle leave red splinters in Mr Jameson’s face. He didn't drop the cake.