8
Past, Las Vegas, Nevada, Age 8
Shelly and I grow up together like sisters. Days at Shelly’s apartment and nights at mine. It’s odd because our moms aren’t good friends. They rarely spend time together when they’re both off work. It’s more like they’re co-parents, disgruntled ex’s who share the burden of child care, each slightly disapproving of the other’s child-rearing methods.
Sometimes Mom whispers, “Brandi, if that’s even her real name,” under her breath. My mom frowns as she washes Oreo and Cheetos dust off my fingers at night. A gummy multivitamin makes its way onto Shelly’s and my plates at dinner, along with our homemade fettucine Alfredo. Mama tries to school the wildness out of us, especially Shelly. She teaches us table manners and some fancy word I can’t pronounce…etiquette. She shows us how to “walk like a lady,” which involves prancing around the apartment with books balanced on our heads. I get up to three books before they topple to the floor.
For her part, Brandi is bothered by my mom’s lack of a man. She brings it up one day in late spring, when the weather is already scorching hot. We’re all at the apartment pool together. Mom slathers us both in sunscreen, ranting about how our fair skin needs extra protection and I will thank her for this later.
I squirm under my mother’s slick hands, eager to join Shelly, who’s already cannon balled into the pool. Once I get into the shallow end, Shelly and I take turns seeing how long we can hold our breath underwater. Shelly is 42 seconds, and I’m a proud 48 seconds. Shelly’s mad I beat her. She complains that I cheated and angrily splashes water in my face, which makes my eyes sting. Tears mix with water droplets that run down my cheeks.
The moms talk in hushed tones at the side of the pool, stretched out next to each other on chaise lounge chairs. The cheap kind, with thin plastic strips that dig into your back. I swim closer, eavesdropping as Brandi asks my mom if she’ll start dating soon.
“I don’t think so,” replies Mama absently. She thumbs her way through the thick book in her hands. She’s always reading novels, my mama. The other moms all read magazines with glossy covers and skinny women wearing bright red lipstick on the front. Sometimes, I wish she would try to blend in a little more. Pick up a magazine or highlight her hair. I’m starting to notice things like that. How my mother sticks out in this place, a red rose among a bunch of carnations.
Brandi unties her bikini top and lets it drop to the ground. I avert my eyes, to avoid looking at her giant beach ball–rounded breasts. I can’t explain why, but seeing her naked chest makes me feel uncomfortable, like I’m doing something wrong, looking at something I shouldn’t. All she wears now is a tiny string bikini bottom. She rubs tanning oil over her arms and chest, gleaming blindingly in the sun.
I’ve asked Mom before why Brandi and some of the other apartment ladies wear so little when they sit out sunbathing at the pool. After a long pause, she says, “They can’t have tan lines for their job.” My mother refused to explain any further.
Brandi shoots my mom an incredulous look and whispers, rather loudly, “But what about the sex? Don’t you miss it?”
My mom’s lips thin into a disapproving line. “Not at all.”
Brandi’s eyes pop open even wider, and she says with equal disapproval, “Then you obviously weren’t doing it right.”