Adan belly flops into the above ground pool and a chorus of ohhhhh's issue from the other kids. It's hot. Cloudless sky hot. The bees steadily work the floral scene, buzzing from flower to flower, staying out of direct sunlight as much as possible. The bees scatter for a moment from the belly flop's splash, and some of the water sprinkles you, too.
You step sideways and back away from the pool. Baths are okay. Wading pools are okay. Sprinklers? Not okay. And, just now, belly flops are similarly black listed. You make an unhappy sound and tap your two pointer fingers to your forehead, your bastardized sign for "pain." Of course, you're not in pain. But you haven't learned the sign for "that belly flop startled me and it's undesirable for me to get splashed as a spectator," so you've expanded the pain sign to include just this scenario.
You reach up and hold your dad's pointer finger and walk through the pergola to the food table. It's ten degrees cooler in the shade and your cheeks are already flushed red from the sun. Your face is greasy with SPF 70, but your mom may have acted to late. To be fair, your dad wouldn't have acted at all, and he'd be nursing your burns with aloe vera and vitamin E for the next week.
The olives are a hit. You can't eat those one at a time. And the strawberries are delicious. "The Strawberry Shack" (not its real name because your dad doesn't know its real name) is just a country mile down the road, and that's where these must have come from. You still call water "yummy," so you don't even bother asking for a sip of your dad's diet Squirt.
And the slide. That was the raison d'etre of Jessica's whole birthday party, as far as you were concerned. "It looks like I'm going to have to pick one of those up," your dad says. And your dad never says that. He's content to let you play with hand-me-down toys and birthday gifts. He doesn't often contribute to the already sizable stockpile of toys at your disposal. Plus, he takes a certain pleasure in seeing you play with a stray rubber band or a found stick for just as long as you play with a toy truck or bouncy ball, so he keeps his toy buying under control.
But this slide is something else. Up three steps, down the slide, put on a smile. You pick yourself up off the grass and point your own way back to the stairs again. Up steps. Slide down. Huge smile.
"Yep," your dad says, sipping his diet Squirt. "Looks like we'll be getting one of those."
