Floater

Alexandra Ameel

The weatherman called for rain. Strange, considering there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. At least as far as Esmerelda could see. She stood in front of the tv in her white fuzzy slippers and silk pajamas, cofee mug in hand. She didn’t like to sit while she watched the news in the morning, then she might get stuck on the couch until the afternoon, and there were errands to run. They were out of milk, for instance. And someone had to go get more pool shock or Harrison wouldn’t be able to foat around this afternoon. The weatherman concluded by stating that the whole county could expect thunderstorms all week.

The screen switched to a woman in a white shirt sitting next to a man in a blue suit who started talking politics. Esmerelda turned the tv of. She was headed upstairs when she heard the glass door of the dining room open, close, and then open again a few moments later.

Harrison appeared at the bottom of the stairs. His feet were bare and his tattered bathrobe was open to reveal yellowing underwear. Another item to add to her list of things to buy today, Esmerelda thought. He had a cofee mug in one hand and an unlit cigarette and a lighter in the other hand.

“You forgot to shut the door,” Esmerelda said.

Harrison’s mouth worked to say something, but nothing came out.

“Bugs are going to get in. You know I hate when those tiny ones get all over the fruit. It makes my clementines feel dirty.”

Harrison’s face was blank, his mouth slightly parted. Finally, he said, “I think you should come outside.” He turned and strode back out into the backyard.

Esmerelda didn’t feel like going outside at the moment. What she felt like doing was putting on her nice pink blouse she just bought yesterday. She would pair it with her pastel pink pants, the ones with the nice crease down the middle of each leg. In her mind she had already picked out the jewelry she would wear, the gold set of earrings with the dewdrop pearl hanging of, and the matching necklace. She would curl her hair in that

way that always got so many compliments from the other women at the store. What she didn’t want to do was go see what Harrison was complaining about now. Probably a bird built a nest and was shaking leaves and twigs out of the lemon tree all over his lawn. Or a squirrel had fallen into the pool again and gotten sucked into the flter.

With a sigh, Esmerelda climbed back down the stairs and walked out the door, still open, and onto the cement patio. She closed the door loudly behind her, in a way that she hoped would get her husband’s attention. If he wanted to leave the door open, he could go buy her clementines. And everything else too. It was his day of; he could go to the store.

Harrison stood with his arms crossed, staring down into the pool. A hint of something in the air made Esmerelda hesitate before walking up behind him. It wasn’t a squirrel in the pool that had gotten her husband’s attention, but a man, foating face down in the deep end. The man’s brown hair foated around his head. He had no clothes on except for white underwear.

“Who’s that?” Esmerelda asked.

Harrison turned around, the unlit cigarette hanging out of his mouth. His forehead was wrinkled in surprise, showing his age. “How the hell would I know who that is?”

“Well, he’s in your pool.”

“My pool?” Harrison’s voice rose.

Esmerelda nodded as she stared at the man in the pool. She thought she would probably need more pool shock than anticipated now.

The rest of the neighborhood was waking up beyond wooden fences and iron gates. Cars pulled out of driveways and the groan of school buses rumbled past the house. Birds chirped and few in and out of the lemon tree. Before long the sun would be at that point in the sky where it begins to get really hot. Esmerelda wanted to be in the air-conditioned oasis of her living room when that happened.

“I need to get going if I’m going to get my errands fnished,” she said.

“We need to do something about this.” Harrison gestured with both arms towards the dead man.

“You should defnitely do something about this. While I go get those shoes I’ve been wanting. They’re on sale today and I don’t want to miss it,” Esmerelda said.

“Are you kidding me?”

“I’ll get the pool shock too, don’t worry.”

Harrison rubbed his temples. “This is my only day of. You know I like to foat in the pool on my day of. And now you’re leaving to go get shoes? How am I going to go to work the rest of this week? It’s going to throw the whole thing of.” He bowed his head and put his hands on his hips. “I mean, really. This is going to screw up my entire week.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Esmerelda said. “You can foat around him then.” Harrison seemed to shiver at the thought, but his eyes never left the dead man. “I’ll be back this afternoon,” she said to no response. When Esmerelda left she was in a sour mood, but by the time she returned she felt much better. A lot lighter. She had secured the shoes she wanted and gotten three compliments on her outft. She had even picked up extra pool shock, which she wasn’t happy about, until the nice man at the counter told her that buying that much would get her a discount. Esmerelda unlocked the front door and found the house empty. She set her things on the kitchen table, pleased that everything was back to normal, and Harrison was out foating. Back to a normal Saturday.

Esmerelda grabbed the bag of pool shock to take outside. She would set it on the

cement poolside as a reminder to Harrison to pour it in when he was done. And hopefully he wouldn’t have to be reminded to pour extra. Something like a wall came up when she got close to the thought of what had transpired this morning. A thick wall that wouldn’t let her train of thought pass through. That was all right with her, she never wanted to think of it again, in fact. But when she stepped out the back door and saw Harrison standing in the same exact spot staring into the pool the wall simply ceased to exist. Suddenly she couldn’t see anything but the dead man foating in his underwear. “Harrison,” she said, “why are you still standing there?”

He made no indication that he heard her.

Esmerelda dropped the pool shock and marched up to him, ready to yank

him around by his collar and demand his attention. “You haven’t done anything about this? Are you kidding—”

Harrison turned towards her, his eyes shot through with red. She couldn’t tell if it was from an afternoon in the sun or if he had been crying. As she looked at him, she saw something in his eyes she had never seen before. Something that made her want to run and climb one of the high wooden fences Harrison had built up around their yard when they moved in so many years ago and never come back.

Esmerelda looked down and saw that the man in the pool had turned over. She saw that the long blue skimmer was lying on the other side of Harrison, dripping wet. “Honey,” she began in a small voice.

He cut her of, his voice a half whisper, “Don’t you think he kind of looks like me?”

Mary-Rose Keane