Stacy lifted her head off the float. A red mark ran down the side of her face where the seam had left an impression, and I tired desperately to hold back a smile. Stacy, however, was clearly not smiling. She stared at me through her dark sunglasses, and though I could not see through them, it was obvious her eyes were narrowed with accusation.
“Why do you ask?” She snapped suddenly. I quickly tried to back-peddle, but found myself simply back-stroking away from her in the pool, my eyes avoiding hers, and surveying Stacy’s backyard: The lounge chairs, the garden of lilacs, the silver BMW parked in the driveway that her mom drove.
“You saw her car when we got here, so you know she’s back.” Stacy added, her tone as sharp as before.
“I…well, I didn’t know. I thought maybe she flew and left her car here.” I muttered, still avoiding her gaze.
“To the city?”
“Well—“
“And why do you always ask questions about my mom?”
This time, a smile did escape me. I liked Stacy very much. She had been one of my closest friends since kindergarten, but this was one of the stupidest questions I had ever heard her ask. Why do you think I ask questions about your mom? I wanted to ask. Because she’s amazingly HOT! I disappeared beneath the surface of the water before I could yell these things; before I opened my mouth causing the destruction of a fifteen-year-old friendship. Was her mom really worth that? Sitting on the bottom of the pool, I pondered this and other questions until I needed air.
When I resurfaced, Stacy was out of the pool, drying her hair, and facing the other direction. My guilty conscience rose as I realized that Stacy never asked stupid questions. She had simply wanted to see my reaction to her question. The answer had sunk beneath the water: A TITANIC mistake on my part.
“Stace?” Nothing. “Stacey?”
She continued to ignore me, rigorously drying her hair to the extreme that I feared it would fall out. I swam up to the edge of the pool. The filter lid clapped loudly as if applauding my stupidity. I had asked Stacy if I could come home with her after school to go swimming; A question that at this point, I hardly had to ask. We were seniors in high school now. All grown up. Yet it was only September, and I didn’t need Stacy knowing I lusted after her mom with the rest of the school year ahead of us.
I watched Stacy, not knowing what to say. She wasn’t a bad looking girl by any means, standing about 5’4, with strawberry blond hair and a button nose. She was often dating one guy or another after realizing we weren’t going to “work out” as they say. Looking back, I wonder if she suspected then what I knew she knew now.
“You’re in love with my mom, aren’t you?”
Bingo, I thought.
“Look, Stacy, I know it might be wrong, but…”
“Might?” She shouted. “Might be wrong?” I sank a little lower in the water. “She’s my
mother!”
“Stacy, can’t you see…”
“Not to mention she’s 36!”
Now this was not a set back for me, as Stacy’s mom looked as if she could be in our senior class. She had given birth to Stacy at 18, and it was safe to say every other woman over 30 in town, was probably extremely jealous of her knockout looks.
As I was day dreaming, Stacy made a sound of disgust, tied her towel around her waist and marched towards the house. Turning once at the sliding glass door she yelled:
“You’d better be gone by the time I finish dressing!” And she disappeared inside, slamming the door behind her.
Well. That was it. For years, I had been hiding my secret desires for Stacy’s mom from her own daughter, and now the bubble had finally burst. I had lost my trust in Stacy, and as awful as it is to say, what was worse: I had lost any chance of winning the heart of her mom. Stacy’s beautiful mother would no doubt come charging out of the house, cursing at me for hurting her daughter.
Or…would she? I had never heard Stacy’s mother get upset, and the more I thought of it, the more I realized Stacy would probably be too embarrassed to mention anything to her mother about what I had said. And there was that summer afternoon when I was all but thirteen: A scrawny little teenager, just trying to make a buck by mowing the neighbor’s lawns. Stacy had told me her mother was interested in having me mow their lawn, and my heart pounded in my chest when the front door opened, and out stepped a vision of sex. Her mother had been in nothing but a soft white towel and matching slippers. Her hair, freshly blow-dried, hung in flowing waves over her naked shoulders. I instantly stopped dead in my tracks, the mower kicking off as I released the handle. Our eyes locked, and the only sound I could hear was the faint hum of bees in the garden and the pounding inside my under-developed chest. Then she pointed and with an almost in-audible whisper said: “You missed a spot over there.” But I didn’t even turn my head to see where she was pointing. I was utterly hypnotized. She smiled then, her ravishing smile, and sauntered back inside the house.
I lay on Stacy’s float in Stacy’s swimming pool, at Stacy’s house, daydreaming of Stacy’s mom. All time seemed to stop, that I must not have heard Stacy’s Jetta peeling out of the driveway. But I did hear her voice; Her mother’s sweet voice, without any hint of anger or frustration.
“Well, there you are.” The voice said. And I almost fell off the tube. I looked up and saw the person of all my desires, standing at the far end of the pool. She wore a conservative business suit, which complemented her curvaceous body, and held two glasses.
“Thought you could use a drink.” She said, and I slipped off the float, and swam to her, like a sailor being drawn to the sound of the sirens.
She bent down to hold out my glass, and I could just glimpse the black lace of her bra down her blouse.
“Th-Thanks.” I stammered, and raised the glass to my lips. Lemonade. She was still treating me like a kid. I wanted to pull her into the pool and kiss her passionately and tell her “I’m not the little boy that I used to be.” This I did not do, but I did feel bold.
“What are you drinking?” I asked politely with a hint of sarcasm.
She paused and answered: “Gin and tonic.” I nodded. “You must know that I just got back from a three-day business trip in the city.” I nodded again. We both took sips. I didn’t take my eyes off her. She was much taller than Stacey…5’7, maybe, with long beautiful legs that I wanted wrapped around my waist. Her eyes were bright green, like sparkling emeralds, eyes that now could not remain in contact with mine.
“My daughter left here in quite a hurry.” She finally said. “Did anything happen?”
What? So Stacy didn’t say anything to her mom! But Stacy’s mom obviously new her daughter left upset.
