The Hottest Part of the Summer

16 LAURIE ANN CEDILNIK THE HOTTEST PART OF THE SUMMER T he pool was the one nice thing Ernie owned anymore, so it made sense that there would be cracks. Big ones, the pool guy had said, long, sucking cracks in the shell that drained water like a wound. The water levels dropped overnight, the loss at first barely noticeable and then down a full inch by sunup . The difference was subtle, but Ernie caught it. He liked to keep the water in the pool up to the top of the second tile in the mosaic decorating the inside edges of his ten-foot-deep inground . His wife and daughter thought the pool looked fine. They would; it did look fine—it was a damned nice pool. The coat of paint, a blue like a chic salad bowl, was only a year old, unbleached by the sun. The diving board was taut and springy. If the mosaic lost a tile, Ernie got his goggles and fished it from the depths himself, letting it dry and gluing it back. The pool was his own personal Atlantic, made more appealing than the ocean by a commendable lack of jellyfish and murderous finned predators. The two-door Mazda had been traded for the bloated Ford. The bottom of the basement walls were ringed with a moustache of mold. The screen door no longer had a screen. But the pool? It dotted the yard like a sexy birthmark, oddly shaped and ageless. Even its cracks were invisible. Ernie’s wife, Christine, flourished her Capri like it was a wand that could fix cracks in a twenty-four-thousand-gallon pool, her gold bracelets jostling. “I say we just leave it. Who can tell? It’s not dangerous.” It wasn’t dangerous to anything but their water bill, but it’s not like Christine ever paid or even saw that. “It’s a big waste of water. Gets expensive.” “Sure, the water’s expensive.” Christine exhaled an accusing plume at the placid surface. “Forget how much they’ll charge to fix it. You get that quote yet?” “Not yet.” “I thought that was them calling this morning?” 17 Cedilnik “Nope.” “Who called? You were on the phone a little while.” Christine looked at Ernie, her eyes narrowed. Her cigarette consumed itself, its ash-head lolling. “No one.” Ernie hadn’t planned to tell her who had called; the phone call wasn’t a secret, exactly, but it had rattled him enough that he didn’t feel like sharing. He thought it actually might be easier to lie and say a woman’s name, to give Christine something concrete to bitch about. Maybe he would, if she pressed. Christine drew on her Capri, frowning. “Damn,” she said. “It’s out.” Ernie moved to offer his own lighter from his pocket, but Christine had already thrown the stub to the ground and was rooting for a new one. “I found my cigarettes on the microwave today.” “No kidding.” Christine struggled with her lighter, though there was no wind. “I don’t leave them on the microwave. I leave them, always , next to the drying rack. I think Lindsay might have moved them.” “So what if she did? Give the kid a break.” “Ernie! Pay attention. I don’t think she’s moving them around for her own amusement, I think she’s smoking them.” Lindsay was just shy of fifteen. Her birthday party was to be held next month, July, at the pool, a prospect that became impossible once you factored in the draining and repair and the refilling—the refilling alone took up to a week. “You ever seen her?” “No, but I know that little Rosalia smokes.” Christine pronounced the name of Lindsay’s best friend like it was a kind of venereal disease. “She has this little pink lighter she doesn’t even try to hide from me. It’s covered in stickers, for Christ’s sake.” Maybe Ernie couldn’t imagine his Lindsay smoking or doing anything that couldn’t be aired on Sesame Street, but he imagined that Rosalia was capable of plenty of behavior unfit for children’s television. “You want...