SUMMER OF STARS

Summer of Stars Part 26

            “What time will you be here to get me?” I asked.

            “Will your mom take us? My mom’s at work.”

            “No problem. We’ll come get you in an hour.” I hung up and ran downstairs.

            Mom sat at the table jotting in her lesson plan book. She’d report back to work next week, one week before the students. “You look chipper this morning. Who was that on the phone?”

            “Hannah. She wants to go to the pool.”

            “So you’re going back to the old sidekick then?”

            “What’s that supposed to mean? Nothing’s changed. Hannah was just away for the summer.” Actually everything had changed and I wasn’t sure if my friendship with Hannah could still be normal.

            “Well, don’t get me wrong. I’m glad you’re getting out in the sun instead of staying cooped up indoors playing video games, but isn’t this the same girl who thinks your new best friend is a weirdo? How is that going to work exactly?”

            “Ian’s at Joan’s this week and I really think I can be friends with both of them. Once Hannah gets to know him, she’ll realize how cool he really is.” I put a frozen waffle into the toaster. “Can you drive us to the pool?”

            “Sure. I’ll take you on my way to clean out the studio.”

            The toaster popped, I wrapped the waffle in a napkin and went back upstairs. I searched through my chest of drawers looking for the bathing suit we’d bought at the end of the summer last year. I found it at the bottom of the second drawer, a floral tank top with a black-skirted bottom. Mom had begged me to get the regular bikini bottoms. Last summer, I’d put on some extra weight and finally realized my hips and thighs were not the size of a child’s anymore. I hated my pear-shaped figure, but Mom had boasted that I was lucky to have such extraordinary child-bearing hips. She wanted me to be proud of who I was, flaws and all. Instead, I chose the suit that would hide as much of me as possible.

            I changed into the grandma bikini and stared in the mirror, confident that the worst of my body was covered. Mom’s voice ran through my mind, reminding me to love myself just as I was. It was odd that a woman who was prone to falling into deep holes of self-loathing could be so persistent about teaching her child to express self-love. Do as I say, not as I do. Isn’t that how the saying goes?

            “Hey, Mimi,” Mom remarked when I came down in my suit.

            “Mimi?”

            “Yep, that’s what we called my grandma when I was a little girl.” Mom laughed. “She had a bathing suit just like that.”

            I glared at her.

            “I’m sorry, Lola! I just wish you weren’t so modest. You have a beautiful body. I would kill for those curves.”

           

            Mom dropped Hannah and me off at the pool an hour later. Hannah scoped out the lounge chairs until she found the perfect spot. “There he is! Come on.” She grabbed my elbow and pulled me along.

            “There who is?” I caught a glimpse of Andy at the same time I asked the question.

            “Andy!” Hannah waved like the pageant girl she was.