Evening at the Three Palms Pool
Kat Kleman
No one expected the boy, so no one missed him, not really. Once, somewhere, he must have had parents, at least long enough to grow into the skinny, long-legged frame he occupied. Maybe they were up in one of the rooms, even. Or maybe he was from one of the cookie-cutter houses in the surrounding neighborhood. But no, no one missed him, and no one noticed him as he opened his mouth wide, pool water streaming through his gapped teeth, and crossed his eyes to watch the bee glide into his mouth. No one witnessed his triumph, short-lived as it was.
After a week of swimming around in the pool and watching people shriek and dodge the bees that had haplessly landed on the water, watching them chase the bees around the shallows and guide them to the filter or swoosh them up and out of the pool in a gesture of humanity that always came too late for the bee, he had finally won. He had intercepted, interfered with their kamikaze mission. The boy swept through the water taking each bee into him in turn. Once, he collected too much water with his prize and coughed and sputtered and the bee seized the opportunity to regroup and fly away, but the rest he collected in smooth, graceful motions: a great whale feeding under the yellowish glow of the deck lights.
He liked to think of them piling up, one atop the other in his stomach, silent ghosts. He liked to think he was doing a service, this collecting of his.
No one noticed the puzzled look on the boy’s face that froze as his throat tightened so quickly that he could only squeak a word that sounded like hat. Or bat. Or maybe mat. No one noticed his soft descent or the way his hair floated above him and the pool lights shone through it. Or how his left foot touched first and his body collapsed before he bounced gently toward a surface he hadn't even had time to search for. No one noticed. No one but Natalie.
~
Natalie sat on a beach lounger with her knees drawn up to her chest. Her family owned the Three Palms, and she spent much of her summer at the pool. She pulled her necklace up onto her chin, the chain straining until it scraped further up the back of her neck. Then she drew the heart-shaped locket into her mouth— it tasted like chlorine and sweat.
The pool was empty, except for the boy. She’d been watching the boy all week as he hung around, always alone. She liked his strong arms and his brown hair and his long legs. She understood the boy’s need, or thought she did, for collecting the bees. Much like the need she had to collect the pieces of lives of the Three Palms guests, a need to be part of a bigger story.
Natalie listened in the near darkness. Except there was no conversation to collect—only a half-gasped word. “Nat.” And then a silence that grew into a booming absence of sound and threatened to turn her inside out and drown her.
Her mother always told her not to get involved, to stay away from the boys and men who leered at the way she was beginning to fill out her threadbare swimsuit, the ones who licked dried lips as she passed. Sometimes she wanted those looks, liked the way they warmed her stomach, made her feel a bit queasy and dangerous. Mostly Natalie obeyed her mother, minding her business, simply watching and listening, gathering their stories as guests came and went. But as the silence screamed inside her head she dove into the pool.
She came up under the boy and hesitated. She’d never seen him up close. He looked peaceful and strong, almost beautiful, as bubbles from her arrival bounced against him. His body moved with the bubbles and his hair swayed around his head, face distorted by the water. Even though her own eyes burned from the chlorine, he stared down at her, unblinking.
The silence joined the pressure of the water against her head and became the screeching of metal. She opened her mouth and screamed, releasing it all as she burst through the surface and dragged the boy to the steps and out of the water.
He was lighter than he should have been, and she pulled hard at him until he lay flat on the textured concrete. Out of the water his face was blotchy, his lips puffy and his cheeks swollen to twice the normal size. She watched but his chest was still and the silence, the emptiness of him, filled her again until she did the only thing she could think to do: She punched him in the stomach. Hard.
~
The boy had been floating, a long-lost lullaby rocking him to sleep as he drifted above a desert that never ended. As his eyes grew heavier, he began to let go, sailing higher into the cloudless sky. No one would notice, or remember, and he knew that. A small piece of him knew he should feel sad, or angry, but the lullaby hummed and the sky comforted him in a way no human ever had. As he drifted on, he heard a patting, dancing sound that demanded attention. It became a rushing, rhythmic slap, growing in urgency. The sound became a drum, booming along until he couldn’t hear himself think. And the water came with it, enveloping him. Then he fell.
The boy jerked upward, spewing water and bumblebees.
~
A small crowd had begun to gather around the pool. “Did you see that?” asked a middle-aged man in khakis.
A woman who had been eyeing the middle-aged man all night grabbed his elbow. “Was he dead? He was dead.”
Mickey, the maintenance man, shook a mop at the boy. “Where did these bees come from? This is all your fault.”
“Now he’s not dead,” the woman said. “This is a miracle.”
The boy sat up, eyes round with panic.
As the crowd pressed closer, Natalie crouched in front of the boy. The woman who thought he was dead reached out to poke at him. Natalie yanked him up from the ground and ran, dragging the boy behind her.
They raced up the stairs then past the rooms on the third floor until they came to a narrow staircase, blocked off with rope, with a sign that read “Employees Only.” They scrambled under the rope and up one last flight of steps.
“You’ll be safe up here,” Natalie said.
They lay on the roof and stared at the sky.
After a while, she turned to him. His face was still puffy, but much of the swelling had gone down. In the moonlight, he looked older, maybe a year or two older than her. “Do you have a name?” she asked him.
“Does it matter?” He turned toward her.
Natalie had never saved anyone before, and she felt deeply, heavily responsible. She could feel his warmth next to her, and his sorrowful expression reached something deep inside her. She touched his arm gently. “It matters to me.”
He turned toward her, looked her over. “Why? Why did you save me?”
“I’ve been watching you.”
“I’ve been watching you, too.”
Minutes stretched between them, and she was conscious of their nearly naked bodies so close to each other. She knew this was what her mother had warned her of, but she didn’t care.
Flashing lights swirled around the parking lot below.
“That’s for you,” she said.
“I know.”
They went back to staring at the sky, at the few stars that struggled through the hazy city lights.
Finally, Natalie broke the silence. “You want to kiss me, don’t you,” Natalie asked.
The boy shrugged, embarrassed. “Not like this,” he said, gesturing to his face.
“It’s ok,” Natalie said. “I don’t mind.”
The boy hesitated then leaned in and drew a finger down the side of her face. “Thank you,” he said. Then he pressed his lips to hers. Natalie kissed back and tasted everything she thought a kiss would be. Wonder. Astonishment. Love. Danger. She felt like she could pull the rest of the poison from him, release the sad look from his face. Then it was over, and she knew she couldn’t.
“See you around,” he said, and headed down the stairwell. Natalie watched as he crossed to the far end of the parking lot, skirting the glow of light cast by the ambulance and disappearing into the shadows. She believed him, that she would see him again, this odd boy, but she also knew it didn’t matter. He’d given her this gift of a first kiss, and it was all hers.
About the Author
Kat Kleman holds an MA in English from Northern Arizona University and an MFA in Fiction from Penn State University. Her fiction has appeared in Lynx Eye, The Rio Grande Review, Eureka Literary Magazine, and Scratch Anthology.