American Women

by R. Clifton Spargo

No one offers me a drink. Eliot and Sara come and go through the screen door to their kitchen maybe half a dozen times, bringing towels for the children, pitchers of Kool-Aid, bowls full of potato chips, Cheetos, and pretzels soon to be soggy from wet, busy hands. They get themselves glasses of iced tea but don't offer me one.

I'm standing off to the side, statuesque in the sun, sweating. There's no shade anywhere on this godforsaken patio, as I watch children dunking each other in the pool, envying them the water, their lack of inhibition. For a second I imagine how Eliot would react, what he would say if he saw me, his ex-wife, peel off my street clothing and walk to the edge of his pool and dive in. The only thing that keeps me from doing something so reckless is I'm not wearing a bathing suit underneath my clothes, and besides, the person who would be truly mortified, if only for fear of his father's mortification, would be my eight-year-old Damien, whose birthday party this is.

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