El Melon- The Melon

The dozen or so crescent-moon shaped cantaloupe skins waded lazily in the neighbor’s otherwise pristine backyard swimming pool. The ruthless midday sun penetrated the heavily chlorinated water, inciting a lively concert of glistening and sparkle that only water and gemstones can orchestrate. Despite the intrusion of cantaloupe skins, the swimming pool flaunted its allure like an oasis in the desert, or to children specifically, like a rainbow-sprinkled-frosting-covered-cream-filled-something on any day of the week. If it wasn’t for the shared feeling of accomplishment, the three young girls would have acknowledged their envy of those discarded, half-eaten fruit peelings.

***********************

By 10am the temperature had nearly reached 90 degrees. Arlene, Lorrie, and Christina, three cousins almost in their pre-teens, fended for themselves upon waking that Monday morning. All of the adults were at work and the designated babysitter was Arlene’s teenage sister who scarcely removed herself from a rigorous all-day beauty regime. After bowls of fruit loops and two deafening hours of MTV (when the station still aired music videos), Lorrie’s thick black bangs began to stick to her moist forehead and Christina’s eyes glazed over with suffocating boredom. Arlene took charge of the situation, as always, being two years older than her cousins and hesitantly declared it was time to get in the pool.

Their pool, unlike the neighbor’s, was a flimsy plastic contraption purchased from a drugstore and set on the front lawn because the backyard had no grass, only dirt. Dressed in brightly colored swimsuits that struggled across their baby fat, they emptied the pool of yesterday’s mosquito bedazzled water and filled it anew. The chilly nips at their skin were refreshing for about ten minutes. The pool was by no means big enough for three girls to swim or even stretch out in. Having tried before, it usually ended in unintentional kicks to the face. Steadily, an array of bugs showed up for a quick dip that inevitably resulted in accidental suicides. Arlene’s family dog, named Lady, made her way over from some un-ladylike venture that left her blonde coat caked with dirt. An easy leap over the unstable rim and she was in the pool, spreading mud and the fragrance of hot, wet dog.

Not much later the girls sat atop the roof of the garage – a new vantage point they had recently discovered. In their now sun-drenched swim suits, they nibbled at carved slices of juicy cantaloupe and day-dreamed about the neighbor’s built-in pool and its possibilities. Games of Marco-Polo and chicken-fights, swimming races Arlene would always win, and parties where you’d only leave the water to eat and hit the piñata. Hope quickly seized them, like when they’d hear the musical promise of an ice-cream truck three blocks away, because out came the little neighbor girl in her swim suit. They watched her jump in all by herself with no one to race or play with and thought what an opportune moment this was for everyone involved. Neighbor-girl could get three new friends and they in turn could get the pool! In her friendliest tone, Arlene asked if they could join her and then proceeded with an itemized list of benefits that included plenty of yummy cantaloupes to share, an extended knowledge of pool-games to be played by four people, and a never-before-released invitation to visit their clubhouse. Neighbor-girl responded with a steadfast “NO” before strutting back inside and closing the door behind her.

It’s difficult to describe what the girls felt at that very moment. Heartache and disappointment was unequal to any un-purchased but desired toy or gadget. A blazing heat, not caused by the sun, scorched a hole in their chests worse than any chest cold had ever caused and far beyond the healing powers of Vicks vapor rub. Not yet interested in boys, it was the most painful of rejections their young souls had experienced. And it would be their first lesson in adolescent retaliation, as they each willfully launched every last cantaloupe skin into the neighbor’s swimming pool.