“Sure you don’t want to swim?” her mother coos on the lanai. My head shakes to say no. Red-faced, I sit and eat my cake. The ice cream is melting in the heat, pooling around the edges of the thick paper plate with “Happy Birthday!” printed in festive block letters, so I spoon up the liquid and slurp it down. The sharp blue glint of the pool and the sun hits the corner of my eye. I don’t know how to swim.
Displaced Victorian tea party
The girls cut out to the over-sized trampoline in the backyard and I follow sheepishly. After a little help climbing up, I try to find a prime spot to not get chucked too far into the air. Their bodies pump up and down.
Someone has taken the floor from my feet; with nothing to hold onto, I let myself fall onto the undulating black plane of the trampoline and be scuffled and bounced by the jumping girls’ sneakered feet. I feel sick and crawl back off the trampoline.
