I was twelve years old during the O.J. Simpson trial. The summer before the verdict, Mom and I would visit my grandmother and swim in her above-ground pool. That was the month my best friend’s stepdad went to jail, and we spent most nights huddled under a blanket, listening to Alanis Morisette until 2:00am.
The matriarchs would discuss the legal case feverishly while walking laps around the pool, fueled by Jenny Craig and Snackwell’s cookies. Their teal and magenta swim skirts were poisonous spandex jellyfish, hovering above pale, dimpled thighs.
He was so attractive in those Hertz commercials. It’s always the good-looking men, I swear.
Time stretches like homemade slime when you’re that age—prepubescent and eager for womanhood. During those liminal afternoons, I pretended to be one of the seductive mermaids from Peter Pan, brushing my Lana Turner locks while perched on a glistening cliff. I became a siren, viciously pouting rouged lips and fastening a starfish in my hair by the lake’s reflection. The warm water segmented the scorching Texas sun across its rippled surface.
Mom intermittently offered updates about her love life and the recent man she had met in a chatroom, glancing at me to gauge my reaction. She wanted me to adore him, just in case he ended up sticking around longer than the last one. My grandmother interjected her own thoughts.
Oh, he drives a BMW? You should get your nails done before your first date. Also, maybe lay off the TCBY until then, huh?
Together, we created a circular, endless current that became more potent with each revolution around the pool. It could have swept us away at any moment. I wondered if the neighbors noticed my radiant fin as I somersaulted, as if in a traveling circus, until my skin pruned and peeled from too much water, too much sun.
Exotic names like Kato Kaelin danced on my tongue when I came up for air. I loved the way it felt to play with the sounds. Kay-to, tongue bouncing behind the two front teeth, all staccato and pointy; Kay-lin, tongue hitting the palette, lush, full, and bright.
Did you hear those 911 call recordings? I never realized a man like that could have such a temper. He seemed so gentle.
***
One night in July, my best friend told me she was going to run away. She had met a boy from the local high school who drove a pickup truck. They planned their escape before classes resumed, across dark stretches of highway, heading toward California.
He’s on the football team, and all the girls drool over him. But he actually likes me. Can you believe that?
I noticed the faint mahogany smudge under her sunglasses. She didn’t want to talk about it.
I thought maybe I wouldn’t be cool enough because I’m like four years younger, but that doesn’t seem to matter. I think he’ll take care of me, Maddie.
***
We enjoyed a final swim the evening before I started the eighth grade. Once the fireflies emerged, we drip-dried and popped open sweating Sun Drop bottles while toweling off our chlorine-infused hair. We usually stopped for shaved ice on the way home, but my mother shook her head, eyes aggressively glued to the road. I glanced at my bare legs and pulled a purple gel pen from the glove compartment. In languid, intentional strokes, I traced the translucent stretch lines along my skin, dripping rivers of pigment down the length of my thighs. Sparkly roadmaps to nowhere. Mom didn’t notice.
July flowed into August, and she took me on her first date with Chatroom Charlie because my grandmother was out of town. He serenaded her in a Dairy Queen parking lot, on one knee, to a ukulele rendition of “Everything I Do, I Do It for You.”
I liked Charlie but never saw him again after the concert.
Don’t ever trust men, Madeline. There are only a handful of good ones in this world, like my father. You can’t even tell at first. They wear masks all year—until they just don’t anymore.
On my twelfth Halloween, a neighbor and I went trick or treating around our subdivision, dressed like Sporty Spice and Mariah Carey. I crimped my hair and practiced glass-shattering soprano to prove my commitment. We went to the wrong door right before heading home. He was in his mid-fifties, in a white, sweat-stained t-shirt and boxers. He leaned against the door frame, eyes devouring us. We never talked about the rest. I spent the remaining years in that neighborhood checking the lock on my window before bed, convinced there were still safe homes surrounding us, lit softly by the glow of television while families gathered to eat their microwaved dinners on well-worn sofas.
Not guilty? What’s this world coming to? Is there even justice anymore?
***
I’m in graduate school now. I left my hometown as quickly as possible, despite not having access to a jock with a truck. In my thirties, I’m dating again, and it’s healthier this time. We order hot chocolate, and he asks me what I wanted to be when I grew up.
I mean, did you ever dream you’d be a social worker?
I think of mermaids. The rice cakes and diet shakes and self-loathing of the nineties. Masks, costumes, performances.
You know…I think, deep down, I wanted to be like Marcia Clark. My family never talked about her—well, only to comment on her hair. But I’d watch her on tv and thought she must be really brave to take on that man, that case.
We are in the university cafeteria. I sip my cocoa and watch the marshmallows bob along the steamy surface.
Who?
Image: Above ground swimming pool in a garden with the figure of a young woman floating from freepik.com
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