Malinda McCollum
"I get it," says the lifeguard. "You don't want to look stupid. You have things to lose." She circles the table, flip flops slapping concrete. "But you've swallowed a lie."
"I didn't—"
"Nope." She drops to the chair beside me. "We're past If. I want Why."
The lifeguard is my age, which is strange, since the other park employees are college kids. Her cheeks are ghosty with sunscreen. Her lips, purple black.
"What were you thinking?" she asks.
On the table: wet dollar bills, pulled from the crotch of my swimsuit, all bunched up and wrinkled like brains.
"The thing is—"
"No excuses," the lifeguard warns. "Just the truth." She leans in, hair dripping on my thigh. "The truth is what happened."
"I'm not stupid," I say.
"Good." She claps briskly. "Then let's get the ball rolling. It's late summer. You're in the Wave Pool."
A small room makes everything so much sharper. Chlorine, like needles in my nose.
"Is this an interrogation?" I ask.
"Conversation." She wafts her hand. "Back-and-forth."
I remain silent. But something starts to slip.
"You're in the Wave Pool," the lifeguard repeats, softer. "Waiting for the waves to begin."
For me, launching a story is what's hardest. Now that she's done it, I can't resist.
"There's a fist in your belly," I say. "You hope the waves make it unclench."
The lifeguard, silent, taps her water bottle with a pink-polished nail.
"They're gentle, at first. But they get rougher—your legs fork, your eyes burn. That's when you see the first bill, floating on the chop like a sick fish. Then another. Another. Everywhere."
Her brows rise.
"The waves," I explain. "Lifting people's pockets, emptying them out. Delivering it all right to your hands."
"And why," asks the lifeguard, "cram everything in your suit?"
"You can't help yourself," I say. "There's too much to hold."
She frowns. "There's a difference between can't and won't."
I squint.
"There's a difference," she goes on, "between an uncontrollable urge and an urge you fail to control."
"Is there?" I ask. "I can't see it."
She shrugs. "A fine line, true."
A stripe of sun makes the lifeguard's chest glow. Her lungs! When she blasted her whistle—before yanking me from the pool and marching us to this room—my ears rang and rang.
"Have you ever done CPR?" I ask.
"Oh," she says, "wouldn't you like to know."
The lifeguard unscrews her bottle and takes a loud, lengthy drink. When she's finished, a pellet of water gleams on her lip. I can't stop staring at it, the dark matte of her mouth against the luster of the bead. I shift my weight, jostling her knee, trying to break the surface tension of the orb.
"Watch it," she says.
"Are you wearing lipstick?" I ask.
"Have to. Otherwise I look dead."
"What's the color?"
She pauses. "Baby Got a Boo Boo."
"Jesus," I say. "Way to sexualize violence. Why not just call it Punch Me In My Pretty Mouth?"
She snakes her tongue. And the droplet is gone.
"Punch me in my pretty mouth," I say.
The lifeguard rolls her eyes.
"No," I say. "Really. Punch me. Pretty please."
Could it be? A slight curl of her fingers, the motion radiating to the softness of her upper arm? My whole body goes hot. Somewhere, outside, a kid yells Parasite!
Her hair is long. I grab a hank of it and suck the ends in my teeth.
"Messy, messy," the lifeguard says.
I let go.
"Fucking do it," I say, "you dumb ass aqua bitch."
The lifeguard smiles at me with what looks like pity. Then she swings. I duck, but her knuckles hook the edge of my mouth, and my neck snaps sideways, so fast it's like falling, though I stay in my chair.
"Bloop," the lifeguard says.
I try to steady myself, inhaling deeply, rubbing the down on my arm. Bubbles of light drift through my field of vision, each dark-centered, like a goldfish eye.
"I think I'm bleeding," I say.
The lifeguard scans the quadrants of my face. "Not a scratch."
"I mean, I think I'm still bleeding. Last week I miscarried. It's kind of messing with my brain."
She throws up her hands. "Are you kidding? Why didn't you tell me that at the start?"
"Sometimes," I say, "it's a struggle to find the right words."
"Oh great, a perfectionist," the lifeguard says. "A perfectionist afraid of hard work." She points at me like a teacher. "Next time, try the Lazy River."
"There won't be a next time."
"Stop," she says. "Just because you can't see something doesn't mean that it's gone."
"What else could it mean?"
"Look," says the lifeguard. "After my third miscarriage, I started a gratitude journal. Write down five things you cherish, every day, without fail."
I'm about to explain why I will never keep a gratitude journal. A daily list of what would hurt most to lose? But before I can speak, something balloons, slow and low, inside me. A capsule of warmth, blooming into the saddle of my suit.
The lifeguard glances at my chair. She sighs, then reaches for the money on the table.
"Here," she says.
"It's not mine."
"Losers weepers," she says.
The bills are soft and damp. I stretch the leg hole and pack them in tight, until my suit swells.
The lifeguard touches my elbow.
"You're in the Wave Pool," she says.
"I know," I admit. "I dread what's coming."
"It won't last forever. Know that."
"I'm sorry for your losses," I say.
And then the lifeguard's mouth is on my mouth, for one hot, wet breath. When she releases me, I stumble from the room to the bright of the day. There, hanging from the snack bar's awning: a huge planter resembling a jellyfish. A hood of succulents tops a spill of dichondra, a cascade of frail silver arms.
My pulse quickens.
Where are we?
What is this?
Am I your mother?
Why, why can't I show you who I really am?