Not Another Vampire Story - 5
5. Farewell to Summer I
PG13. Tween, humor, middle school, angst, vampires, serial, teen, fiction, summer. #ReadFree
Suggested Music: Stevie Wonder on YouTube
Sylvia wades into the deep end of a pool party. . .
Summer wasn't exactly winding down, not yet, but school was starting next Tuesday. Sylvia hated when school began before the Labor Day weekend. They'd have a few days of school, a few days off again, and then resume classes all herky-jerky, and that just ticked-off everyone.
But it also meant that Brian would have his last summer party, and that was always fun. These were always a cross between buffet and get-your-own, not sit-down dinners but not cut-offs and halter tops casual. Swimming was encouraged, but so were one-piece swimsuits. That was fine with Sylvia.
There were children here, you know, her mother and Brian had said.
Not as many kids as last year, Sylvia noticed the day of the party. Brian had three by his first wife and two by his second, all ranging in ages from thirteen to twenty-four, and some of the guests had teens, and some younger kids who were at home with sitters or ex-spouses.
Usually Holly was there, too, but not this summer. She was baby-sitting, earning money for the next Kanjani8 CD. The evening promised to be half a snoozer without Holly.
Sylvia made do without her.
The party officially started at four o'clock, but most guests—and the bartender—didn't really arrive until eight. Brian's kids from Number One were there at noon because Number One had things to do that weekend. These were thirteen-year-old Kristi and fifteen-year-old Lane, both whom Sylvia had met before, and who weren't too terribly terrible. She wondered if Lane had kept his flaming skull tattoo a secret since last New Year's Eve's party. Probably not; he'd been pretty sore since Christmas. But, if Number One was anything like Sylvia's mom, keeping a secret tattoo might not be too difficult.
Kristi was okay, most of the time, and an absolute angel compared to Number Two's sixteen-year-old Josie, who had been known up until the New Year's Eve party as Jailbait. Now that she was sixteen they'd have to find another nickname for her. Several quickly came to mind.
Sylvia pulled on the hem of her fringed skirt, making the sable faux leather straighten momentarily. It wasn't real leather; it wasn't even a clever knock-off of a good original. Not on an assistant professor's salary. The title was mostly just that—empty impression—more than money, but her mom seemed content with it. Sylvia and Julia were not so impressed. Her shoes were ones that Julia had passed down, low heel slip-ons with open toes, made of scuff-resistant gold lamé. The skirt was topped with her best tie-dye tank top of vivid blues and purples, and she'd pulled her bushy red-blonde hair up into a high ponytail so tight that her scalp screamed. She was ready.
People were already mingling around Brian's pool, couples and singles, middle-aged men with bad pants and worse jewelry and comb-overs, and women with form-fitting, bulge-emphasizing short skirts and slinky spaghetti string tops. The day was hot, even for late summer in the Midwest, and the humidity was getting to everyone. Even the air conditioning was on. By early evening the heat was set, and the crowd had grown to twice its size. And the music on the speakers inside and outside the house had changed.
Sylvia groaned. Wasn't disco supposed to be dead?
Everyone was taxed by the heat, except for Bob Grady, Brian's neighbor. He was perched on a stool by the portable bar at the side of the pool, not close enough to get wet by an occasional cannonball dive from the diving board, but not so far that anyone lounging at the water's side couldn't hear him. He had one of the better heads of hair among the half dozen men at the bar. He smiled a lot, a sleazy smirk, and had a tendency to stand too close—especially to the young ladies—when he spoke. But that was it, Sylvia and Julia had learned. No hands.
Sylvia was just passing the bar as she overheard the account.
"So we're sitting by my pool, me and Janis, the airline stewardess," Bob said, grinning at his audience of men and a few women at the bar, "and it's getting to be one of those moments, all close and cozy, and flinging through the air comes this blue swimsuit top! Just out of the sky like that. Fling! Right into my lap! Like a sign!"
"Janis'?" It was one of the men, of course. The bartender was listening in, too.
"No. Out of the air, over the fence!"
Sylvia felt the blush start at her cheeks and heat up through her hair until she thought her ponytail was going to catch fire. Left, right, left, right, she thought to her feet, trying to put distance between her and the bar stools of people. Bob only spoke louder, more passionately.
"So I'm thinking Oh, yeah, sweetheart; come on over, baby, but then I pick it up and look at it, and the top's so small, I laugh and think This wouldn't hold a damn thing!"
Sylvia quick-timed it to the other end of the pool where the deck door led to the kitchen area inside Brian's house before she could hear the other men's reactions.
At least Bob didn't know it was her bikini top landing in his lap.
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Thanks to Sakurapu for sharing her story!
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