For a few moments, the three of us are silently focused on the TV, letting out the occasional sigh. The news anchor introduces a segment about what to do with your children during the school break, and the suggestions are the same as always. Summer camps, movie theaters, public pools. But my heart stops beating during that last part. Because the TV shows a group of kids getting all wet and having a good time. And Caio’s face opens up with a huge smile, like someone who’s just had the best idea ever. And I feel my sweat drip down harder, because I know exactly what he’s about to say.
“Wanna go to the pool?” he says.
Actually, he shouts it.
My mom chokes on her lemonade, because she knows me well. She knows there’s nothing in the universe that can drag me to the pool. But for a second she seems to forget about that and completely ignores my freedom to make my own decisions.
“Sorry, Caio, I have a lot of work piled up. Can’t even think about having fun. But the two of you are on vacation, so go enjoy your day!”
And after dropping that bomb, she gives me two taps on the shoulder, gets up, and walks to the kitchen.
Caio gets up as well.
And I end up standing, too, because it makes no sense to sit by myself on the living room floor. But, considering that the alternative is going to the pool, I wouldn’t mind just staying on the floor.
Caio’s level of excitement is comparable to my level of despair. He dashes into the kitchen (and I follow because I want more lemonade).
“Can I invite my friends?” Caio asks my mom, almost jumping up and down with excitement.
“Which friends?” my mom asks, but with curiosity, not suspicion.
“Becky—Felipe met her yesterday—and her girlfriend, Melissa. I hope that’s okay. I mean—”
“Lesbians?!” my mom yells in a terrified voice, feigning surprise. And then laughs out loud. “No problem at all. You know, I was almost a lesbian myself for a while in college.”
Caio and I go silent, absorbing this information, and then he runs out to grab his phone, leaving my mom and me alone in the kitchen. I muster all the irony I have inside me and condense it into two words:
“Thanks, Mom.”
She kisses my forehead (in the way she always does, but in this case I see it as an act of true love, since, in case you forgot, I have been sweating nonstop this entire time). Then she says, in a very soft voice only I can hear, “Son, the opportunity train only passes by once. Go enjoy your day.”
I have no idea what she’s talking about.
I stalk out of the kitchen in an attempt to make a dramatic scene, but it doesn’t work well because my mom starts laughing at me. She might be able to make me go to the pool, but she can’t make me go in.
About thirty minutes later, Becky and Melissa are at our place. The two of them are polar opposites. While Becky arrives totally confident, chatting nonstop and calling my mom “girlfriend” after talking to her for literally one minute, Melissa is quiet and very shy.
Her skin is very pale; her hair is long and blond and has some pink on the tips. And she might be the thinnest person I have ever seen. Her arms are bony, her legs are long, and I think whoever came up with the term negative belly had actually just met her.
She’s a very good-looking girl. Good-looking like those models who have big eyes and gap teeth.
“Hey, my name is Felipe,” I say, unsure whether I should wave, shake her hand, or go in for a hug.
I do all three at the same time, and the result is pretty clumsy.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Melissa. Or Mel. But never Meli. Please don’t ever call me Meli,” she says with a smile, and then I see that there’s definitely a gap between her front teeth.
Officially a model.
Caio and Becky won’t stop talking for one second, my mom offers the girls some lemonade, and it feels like there’s a party in our living room.
While we waited for Becky and Melissa, Caio put on shorts and a tank top and applied sunscreen. I put on shorts, a T-shirt, and a Pokémon hat I got when I was a kid that surprisingly still fits my head.
I never wear tank tops. I don’t like showing my arms in public. I feel as if I were attacked by two hippos, one from each side, and that they’re still hanging from my arms, swinging from side to side when I walk.
(My arms are the hippos, in case you find this image hard to re-create in your head.)
I get a bag and shove sunscreen, a water bottle, three comic books, and a novel in there. My plan is basically to sit and read my stuff and answer, “In a sec!” every time someone asks me when I’m going to get in the water.
It’s not the most ingenious plan, but trust me, it tends to work. As a last resort, I can pretend that I need to go to the bathroom or run out screaming, “THIS IS A FREE COUNTRY AND NO ONE CAN MAKE ME!” if things start to go south.
“Are you all well protected?” my mom asks.
“Yes,” the four of us respond at once, like the audience of a game show.
“Now let’s get out of here. I’m ready to dive until my toes turn into prunes,” Becky says, and I find it equal parts hilarious and gross.
All the kids in the building are out of school, and it’s the first sunny day in months. The pool is obviously crowded. There are people running everywhere, boys and girls diving and splashing around, and endless screaming matches. I regret not having packed earbuds, too.
The pool area is surrounded by tables with umbrellas, chaise longues, and plastic chairs. We grab the last remaining vacant table and, one by one, place our junk on top of it. Becky is wearing one of those beach dresses that aren’t really dresses. (I don’t know what the official name is, but you know what I mean.) In a quick flourish, she sweeps it off and is suddenly wearing nothing but her bikini.
I hear a muffled laugh coming from a nearby table where one of my neighbors is sitting, wearing a big hat on her head and tanning lotion all over her body. She makes a comment I can’t quite hear, but another woman responds without even trying to be discreet.
“Some people really don’t have any sense, do they?”
Then the two of them share some more high-pitched laughter.
It pisses me the fuck off, because I’m an expert in laughter and mean remarks. They’re talking about Becky. Who’s fat. And wearing a bikini.
I want to punch my neighbors and hug Becky at the same time, but it doesn’t seem to faze her.
“Good thing my body isn’t here to please anyone else, isn’t it?” she says in a much louder voice than necessary. The whole complex must hear her, and I think that’s just great.
Then Becky walks toward the water as if she’s strutting down a catwalk and makes a perfect dive into the pool, like a mermaid. I’m relieved that she didn’t take offense to my neighbor’s comment. Proud that she killed it with her dive. And embarrassed because I would never have the guts to do the same.
“You’re not coming?” Caio asks, bringing me back from my imaginary scene in which I award Becky a ten out of ten for her dive.
And when I look to the side, I almost have a meltdown.
Forget everything I said about Caio in his pajamas, because now things have reached a different level:
Caio.
In.
His.
Speedo.
I’ll try to be brief on this subject, because I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable, but I can promise that the view is pretty impressive. His tan body has all the right curves, the yellow Speedo perfectly hugging all the places they need to hug. Caio isn’t totally ripped in random places like the protagonist of an adult romance novel. But everything about him is distributed in just the right way. It’s hard for me to pick a favorite part, and yet, I immediately create a mental top three: thighs, shoulders, and butt.