The Pool Party (2 page)

Just then Rudy’s best friend rode up on his bike.

“What’s happening?” asked Alex.

“Look at this, Alex,” Rudy said, shoving his invitation at his friend.

Alex read the invitation three times, his lips moving over each word. He licked his lips. “
Híjole,
Tiffany Perez is rich. You’re going to eat good.”

“
W
e got a job. Let’s go!
Ándale!
” Rudy’s father called from the back steps. Rudy and his grandfather were in the yard playing cards. They wore baseball caps that shaded their eyes like gamblers.

Rudy’s father was a gardener in spring and summer and a house painter in fall and winter. Now that they were deep into July, his knees were stained green, and his hands resembled roots dug up from the earth. He
worked for widows and retired people, and a few rich families whose driveways were long and smooth as glass.

Today, it was a rich person’s house in North Fresno. Rudy, his father, and grandfather, all dressed in khaki, were climbing into their Oldsmobile. The mowers, rakes, and broom stuck out from the trunk.

Just as they were ready to leave, Rudy’s mother came out of the house with a Polaroid camera dangling from her wrist.

“Espérate,”
she yelled, and waved.

“Look, Mom’s gonna take a picture,” Rudy said. A big,
queso
smile cut across his face.

Grandfather smoothed his work shirt and played with his collar. He combed his hair with his stubby fingers.

“Let me take a picture,” she said. She looked into the viewer. “Rudy, you’re smiling too big.”

Rudy relaxed his smile.

The three of them stood, arm in arm, with Rudy in the middle. They smiled like
pumpkins when Rudy’s mother, one eye squinted, sang,
“Queso.”
The camera shuddered and clicked, and a picture the size of a slice of cheese rolled noisily out of the camera.

Rudy’s mother tore off the picture. She was known for her shaky hand. Sometimes their heads were cut off, and other times they were completely out of the frame and only their lean shadows on the ground would be seen. Still, she would proudly prop them up on the television or tape them to the refrigerator, a family of blurred faces.

Rudy’s father tapped his work boot as they waited for their faces to develop out of the fog of Polaroid land.

Today, only the tops of their heads were cut off.

“Baby,” Rudy’s father said, “you almost got it right.”

“Yeah, Mom, you did a good job,” Rudy said in encouragement.

They piled into the car and drove across town, their equipment rattling in the
trunk. The small houses gave way to large houses, all set way back from the street.

“You see,
mi’jo,
” Rudy’s grandfather said. “This is how to live.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t mind having a little
casita
like one of these,” Father said. A toothpick dangled from the corner of his mouth.

They admired the houses and the calm lushness of shrubs and bushes deep with shadows. The sprinklers were hissing on the lawns and pampered dogs with tags jingling a tinny music on their collars paced up and down the walk.

Father stopped at a large house, and all of them got out and stretched.

“Híjole, es muy grande!”
Grandfather whistled.

“Like Club Med,” Rudy’s father remarked as he untied the trunk and took out a bundle of rakes and shovels. “Come on, let’s go.”

A woman appeared on the front steps. “Yoo-hoo,” she called, waving a delicate finger
that sparkled with a blue diamond. “Mr. Herrera, perfect timing. My children are at ballet.”

“Hello, Mrs. Gentry,” Father greeted her. “Want us to cut the front first?”

“That’s a perfect idea.” Mrs. Gentry scanned her yard and inhaled the morning air. “Isn’t it just lovely?”

“What?” Rudy asked, looking around. “What’s lovely?”

“The morning,” she said. She smiled and walked away with her nose lifted and sniffing the air.

The three of them looked at each other, and shrugged their shoulders.

“Qué loca,”
Grandfather said as he returned to the car for his hat and work gloves.

They started the mowers, the engines coughing blue smoke. While his grandfather and father cut and edged the lawns, Rudy gathered the clippings. He raked most of them into a burlap sack, and then swept up the blades of grass from the walk. With shears he snipped the grass around the sprinkler heads. He felt like a barber and giggled when he remembered how a friend had cut his hair and left him as bald as the belly of a green-spotted frog.

While they were working on their hands and knees, Father found a nickel minted in 1949.

“Hey, Little Rudy, check this out,” he yelled.

Rudy was standing on a small ladder, pruning flowering quince. He jumped down and, with his grandfather in tow, ran over to see what his father was yelling about.

“Mira, hijo,”
Father said. He handed Rudy the dirt-caked nickel. “It’s worth
mucho dinero.
See that ‘D’?”

“Yeah,” Rudy said, examining it closely.

“That means it was minted in Denver, Colorado,” Father explained.

Rudy took the coin in his hands. To him, 1949 seemed like the beginning of the
world—long, long ago, just about the time the dinosaurs died out.

“Wow,” Rudy sighed as he turned it over admiringly. “Can I have it—please?” Rudy gave his father a pleading puppy-dog look.

“I’ll flip you for it,” Father said.

“Fair deal.”

Father flipped the nickel into the air, almost tree level, and when it came down and smacked against his father’s wrist, Rudy called, “Heads.” Father peeked with a squinting eye. It was tails. But Father turned his wrist and whined, “Ah, man, it was heads. You win, Rudy.”

“All right!” Rudy yelled. He pocketed the coin, and even listened with patience to his grandfather’s story of how he was once down to a nickel, two oranges, and a sweater with worn elbows. This was way before 1949, in the time of dinosaurs.

They returned to work. They cut the backyard lawn, the air scented with the smell of cut grass. They worked continuously,
stopping only to drink from the garden hose.

In the backyard, the Gentry’s kidney-shaped pool gleamed a blue tint. Rudy stood at the pool’s edge, looking down where sunlight danced on the water. He knew from experience that his face was sweaty from work, and that a necklace of dirt darkened his throat. He remembered Tiffany Perez’s pool party the coming Saturday. Rudy wondered if her yard was as large as this one. Even in the far corner, near a fig tree, a white doghouse stood tall as a wedding cake.

Grandfather tiptoed up from behind. He grabbed Rudy’s shoulders and pretended to shove him into the water.

“No!” Rudy screamed.

“You look hot,
chamaco,
” Grandfather laughed. He held Rudy over the water. Rudy kicked his legs and begged not to be thrown in.

“Knock it off, we’re almost done,” Father
yelled. He was holding up a pair of shiny pruning shears. “Let’s do the bush.”

Finally, when they finished and had piled the equipment back into the trunk, Mrs. Gentry came out to inspect the work. She was happy. Her smile made folds in her face.

“Now, let’s see, Mr. Herrera,” she said. “We agreed on forty-five dollars.”

“That’s right, ma’am,” he said.

“I thought it was fifty-five,” Grandfather said in Spanish. “Did she charge us for drinking from her hose?”

“No,
hombre,
forty-five,” Father said in Spanish. “I got it right.”

The three stood in a line. Mrs. Gentry counted out dollar bills. “One, two, three …” When she counted out fifteen, Grandfather snatched a bill from Father’s palm. Mrs. Gentry shot a curious look at Grandfather, then continued counting out the dollar bills. When she got to twenty, Grandfather snatched another dollar bill. She looked at him even more curiously.
Rudy’s father whispered in Spanish, “What’re you doing?”

“I don’t know,” Grandfather said. “I can’t help myself. The money looks so tempting.”

“Knock it off,
hombre,
” Father growled. He smiled at Mrs. Gentry and said, “Grandpa’s been in the sun too long.”

Grandfather shrugged his shoulders and winked at his grandson, who winked back and fumbled for the nickel in his pocket.

Mrs. Gentry counted out the remaining amount, and when she finished, she opened her purse and brought out a tiny striped candy cane.

“And this is for you, my little man,” she said, handing it to Rudy.

Rudy took the candy cane and said, “Thank you.”

Mrs. Gentry smiled and thanked him with a poorly pronounced,
“De nada. Gracias a ustedes.”
She lifted her nose and sniffed the air. “It’s a lovely morning.”

The three looked at each other. They were certain that she was
loca.

When they got to the car, Rudy unwrapped the candy cane and placed it inside his bottom lip like a fish hook. While they rattled away in their car, Rudy sucked the stripes from the candy cane.

R
udy and his best friend, Alex, stood at the stove making peanut butter tortillas, a midmorning treat. Estela sat at the table, painting her fingernails. She had a new boyfriend, a boy named Lucky, and she was waiting for his phone call. He was in bed with a hurt knee. He had fallen from his skateboard and snapped a bone whose name sounded something like
papas
or
papi
or Pepsi. Rudy thought Lucky
wasn’t very lucky. Later, Rudy learned from his mother that it was his patela, the kneecap.

“Rudy,” his sister said, not looking up as she stroked red enamel on her fingernails, “you better take something to Tiffany’s party.”

“I am. I’m taking a towel,” he said. He snatched his tortilla from the burner. The flames were like the petals of a blue flower, but hot.

“No, I mean more than that.”

“Mom says I can take only one towel.”

“No,
menso,
take something to share,” Estela snickered at her brother. She wondered how he could have gotten through his first ten years of life without a lesson in manners. “Rudy, I know some of Tiffany’s friends. I don’t want you to make a fool of yourself—or embarrass me!” She knew that Tiffany’s party would be a hit.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be cool,” Rudy said. “I’ll show them some belly flops.”

“Rudy, it’s a pool party,” Estela said. “You can’t get your hair wet or monkey around in the water.”

“We can’t swim?” Rudy asked. “How come? It says on the invitation.”

“Forget what it says,” she said as she turned and faced her brother. “You see, you’re just supposed to hang around the pool.”

“But that’s not fair. I like to swim.”

“But you’re not supposed to. You’re just supposed to talk, have conversation.” She made a face at her brother. “Look, Rudy, I’m trying to teach you manners.”

“But I wanna fool around and have fun. Wouldn’t you wanna swim, Alex?”

“Yeah, it’s more fun,” Alex agreed. “Anyway, Rudy already has manners.” Alex licked the spoon and handed it to Rudy.

“You’re not catching on,” Estela whined. “It’s no use, you’re hopeless.” She wanted to pull her hair and scream, and would have except her fingernails were wet.

“When is the pool party?” Alex asked. He bit into his tortilla and, with eyes closed and his tongue rolling around in his mouth, savored the rolled tortilla slapped with a glob of peanut butter.

“This Saturday,” Rudy answered. He put the lid on the peanut butter and started to put it in the cupboard when Estela said, “Leave it out.” She got up, blowing on her fingernails. She threw a tortilla on the burner. “Aren’t they nice,” Estela said, admiring the even strokes on her fingernails. She held them over the burner, drying them even more.

Rudy and Alex smacked their lips and said, “Looks like blood.”

“You little jerks,” she snapped. “You just don’t have any taste.”

Rudy and Alex ran out of the house, giggling. They went to the backyard, where Rudy’s grandfather sat in the shade of the pomegranate tree. He was whistling while taping a splintered broom.

“See, it’s good as new,” Grandfather said.
He tapped the broom against his workhardened palm.

The boys looked at Rudy’s grandfather but didn’t say anything. They threw themselves on the lawn. Rudy’s dog, Chorizo, who was sleeping with his legs straight up in the air, opened his eyes. He had a whiff of their midmorning snack. He rolled over like a barrel and approached the boys, whining for a taste of their tortillas. Each of them tore off a corner, and Chorizo snapped at the sweetness.

“Estela’s right,” Alex mumbled. “You gotta take something to the party.”

“Like what? Tiffany’s pretty rich.”

“I don’t know. Take something she ain’t got.”

“Like what, Alex?”

Rudy was always bad at choosing gifts. One Christmas he bought his mother a frying pan from a yard sale, and another time he bought his father, also from a yard sale, a fishing pole that snapped when he pulled in a tiny fish.

Alex looked around the yard. There was a rusty bicycle, lawn chairs, scraggly tomato vines, toys, a rusty push mower, and plastic bags of crushed aluminum cans piled against the garage. Then Alex’s eyes fell upon the inner tube hanging awkwardly from the garage roof.