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Patient Narrative - Christina Melendez - entry six:
The swimming pool
My parents were due to return two days after Yvonne and I did our
streaking run on the construction crane. We were both depressed about my
parents coming back, because it meant she could no longer spend the
nights with me.
With me, being away from my friend, or lover, or girlfriend, or whatever
she was, was just emotional. I'd miss her, but I didn't have to worry
about my safety or what stress waited for me when I got home from
school. I had a safe comfortable place to live and study. Most
important, whatever their faults, my parents are decent and nice people,
for the most part.
With Yvonne, not being able to come over to my house was much more than
just missing my company. Her home-life was nothing like mine and she
couldn't stand being there. Over the first three weeks of our
relationship, I had given her a place to stay that allowed her to avoid
dealing with her "old man" and "that fucking whore". From what little
she had shared with me about her home-life, and the intense
bitterness in her voice, I knew that whatever she was dealing with was
pretty bad.
When she left my house, she was wearing her skimpy tight shorts and a
sweat-suit top that covered her shirt. She had a back-pack full of clean
clothes that she had washed in my parents' laundry room. I assumed,
correctly it turned out, that she was going straight to her job and
would avoid going home as long as she could.
My parents came back from the airport just 30 minutes after Yvonne left.
That did not give me enough time to make the emotional transition from
having my friend with me to having my parents with me. They were their
usual selves after a cruise: badly sun-burnt, carrying bags of souvenirs
that would go into the garage and then be donated to Goodwill after a
few months, and somewhat drunk.
I'm gonna tell you, I honestly don't get cruising. For the most part
it's like being locked up in a closed building that's part casino, part
shopping mall, and part hotel. Sure, it's nice to look out your cabin at
the ocean for about 10 or 15 minutes. Then what? Everywhere on the ship
it's crowded with drunk old rich people. As for the food and drinks, I
stayed away from that shit as much as I could, because I've read some
bad stories about food handling and drink ingredients on those ships.
The truth was, the one time when I went with my parents on a cruise from
Miami to Santo Domingo and San Juan to Trinidad and then back to Miami,
I just sat around watching my parents drink and was bored out of my
mind.
So, why do Mom and Dad do it? What's the deal with them and cruises? I
think with them, and especially my dad, it's about status. He didn't
start out with much, but he likes to invest in weird shit like
crypto-currencies and a few years ago he got lucky with a couple of
those investments. Because of that, my parents have more money than they
really know what to do with. They definitely aren't country-club types,
but cruising seems to work for them as a way to show-off.
----------
Mom and Dad had told me that as soon as they got back, they'd have a
"big surprise", for me. I thought: oh fuck, please don't have me go on
one of those idiotic cruises. But no, their surprise was actually
something I would like, a swimming pool. Starting the very next day, a
construction crew was coming over to install an indoor pool in the back
yard.
It turned out that Mom had decided that she wanted her own private pool
after using the crowded pools on ships. So, that gave something for Dad
to spend some money on for a property tax write-off, a new pool.
I knew what would happen. Mom would use that pool about as much as she
used the hot tub and the equipment in the workout room. However, a pool
would be a nice thing added to my life, something that I would be using,
especially when they weren't around. And I couldn't wait to surprise
Yvonne the next time she came over. We'd have not just a hot tub and
massage table, but also a pool to hang out in.
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Yvonne and I had to put our relationship on hold while my parents were
home and the pool was being built. We hung out with our cliques and
tried to ignore each other at school. That was so hard, all that
pretending. I no longer really wanted to hang out with the girls who had
set me up to fight with her. I knew that she felt the same way about her
crowd. And yet, we really didn't know how to handle our situation.
Neither of us had the courage to break away, give up our social status
in school, and start completely over with no one but each other. And
it's not like we could have spent much time together anyway, because the
only place we could do that was my house. My dad was gone at work most
of the time, but my mom was working from home on her laptop and watching
over the pool installation crew.
Yvonne and I couldn't go out on the weekends because of her job. She
worked Thursday and Friday afternoons and evenings, all day Saturday,
and part of Sunday. And, my "friends" always wanted me to be with them.
There was nothing else for me to do, so I went along with that.
----------
There was only one time Yvonne and I managed to get together when my
parents were back home. She sent me a couple of selfies and finally
texted me that she wanted to meet me at Sutter's Park. Yes, finally, I'd
get to see her. Then she added a challenge.
"You know how I'm going to want to see you. I'm going be that way too.
And no cheating."
I took a deep breath. I should have known. I'd finally get to see her
alone, but I'd have to run naked all the way to Sutter's Park. If what
she was saying was true, she had committed herself to a much bigger
challenge; streaking all the way from Eastwood. She'd somehow have to
get past the highway and run somewhere between five and six miles. I
only had to do about a mile and a half.
Still, it was the first time I ever went streaking alone. I had to get
out of the house without Mom seeing me, run the usual route to the park,
spend however long I was going to spend with my friend, and then return
home and get back to my room without being seen.
Fortunately Mom was on her laptop at the dining room table, wearing a
set of headphones and totally absorbed with the commission she was
working on. I went into my room, took off my clothes and put on my
shoes, grabbed my cell phone, and peeked back out. She was still working
and not aware of anything going on around her. It was as good as it
would get. I quietly walked behind her and slipped through the front
door.
It is hard to express how vulnerable I felt as soon as I stepped
outside. I realized how much I felt protected when I was following
Yvonne. She was not with me to protect or guide me. I had to get to
Sutter's Park on my own and make my own decisions about how I would do
that.
As I ran along the shaded sidewalks and felt the cool night air on my
exposed skin, I picked up confidence that, if I was in my own
neighborhood, I could streak by myself just as well as I could with her.
I wanted to show her that yes, I could do it, and I would do it, because
that was what she wanted. I ran through the cul-de-sac, but fortunately
it was empty. A car entered just as I made it to the path between the
two houses. That was my closest call.
I got to Sutter's park and crouched behind a large tree to look around.
My phone buzzed. The text read: "Not too good at hiding. I can see your
white ass all the way from Picnic Station 5."
I had to run across the entire park to get to the picnic station. And,
true to her word, there she was, sitting on a table and just as naked as
I was. We hugged, then kissed, and then ran our hands over each other's
bodies. It felt so good to be with her again.
She glanced at her cellphone.
"The park patrol will be coming through in about five minutes. We'll
move behind those bushes until he's gone. Then we're good for a couple
of hours. He does the same route at the same time every single night
I've come here."
We didn't talk much when we left our hiding spot and returned to the
picnic table. There was a lot we needed to say to each other, but we had
no idea how to start. Anyhow, the park was not the place to really talk.
We made out for a while, and then lay on the table together, looking up
at the night sky.
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My father had contracted services to take care of the yard, do routine
maintenance on the house, deliver groceries, and with the addition of
the pool, to take care of that as well. For some reason my parents
assumed that I existed on "autopilot", that if everything in the house
was taken care of, I didn't need any maintenance. And, I guess with me
they lucked out because, for the most part, that was true. At home I
studied, cooked for myself, did a small amount of housework, and managed
to keep myself entertained. I learned how to do a lot of things on my
own and take some responsibilities at an early age, because my mom was
so distracted, even before Dad's investments paid off and we were still
poor.
Even though I often had the house completely to myself and my parents
weren't around to see what I was doing, I was smart enough to not have
anyone from my clique come over, because I knew for a fact they would
have trashed the place. I was with them and saw them in action at
another girl's place whose parents had left just for the weekend. That
was enough to let me know I should never, ever have any of them over at
my house, nor let them know that my parents weren't home very much.
It turned out that I was right about Mom and the pool. She used it
twice. Two days after it was finished she left with Dad to go on a
"business trip" which would include several hotel stays around the
Caribbean and another cruise. I later learned that Dad used the trips
not only as entertainment and a way to show off, but also as tax
write-offs. It was a legal way to scam the government, that allowed him
to go year-after-year without paying any taxes.
"Sure you don't wanna come with us, Sweetie?"
"Uh, Mom, it's the middle of the semester. I've got term papers coming
up and mid-terms in two weeks."
"Oh, yeah, Sweetie, I keep forgetting. School. OK, then you be a good
girl and let us know if you need anything. And please, no more fighting,
OK?"
"I promise, no more fighting. The other girl and I patched things up."
"Good to hear. Better to be a lover than a fighter. That'll get you much
further in life. Always remember that."
Better to be a lover than a fighter. Yeah Mom, I got that figured
out. As soon as you leave, I'm gonna text her and she's gonna come over
and we're gonna run around naked and have sex in your hot tub, the one
you never use. So you go enjoy your hotels and your cruise and getting
drunk. Bye.
Chapter
07
