Deep Blue Something
Chapter Three: Clear Blue
I sat on the edge of the Hill Ridge public pool with my feet dangling in the water. It was my second day of vacation and also the day when report cards and results of the finals were going to be mailed.
I looked at the water and saw my distorted reflection. I had changed a lot in the physical sense since Junior High. My long, stringy hair was now in funky, fresh layers just above my shoulders. I had gotten a little bit taller too. I never really changed in the emotional sense. I was still the same Parker McKenzie I had been in Junior High.
I stood up and stretched for a minute, until I felt a set of hands on my shoulders and then I found myself in the ice cold water. I saw the distorted legs, arms, and faces of other swimmers in the pool. I then swam up to the surface to see Miranda Sanchez laughing along with Larry Tudgeman.
"Parker, you look like a drenched sewer rat," I heard Miranda say in between hysterical laughter.
I crossed my arms across my chest and rolled my eyes at the two childish teenagers.
"No need to be so serious. I always push unsuspecting people into the pool," Miranda said sarcastically as she adjusted her lime green tankini strap.
"What's your story, Tudgeman," I asked Larry as I rolled my eyes again.
"Well, see, I was born with the intent of being a Jedi knight," he rambled on continuously about something, even though Miranda and I weren't listening to him at all. "…And then, when I was five, my mom let me watch Star Wars for the first time…" Poor Larry, he actually thought we were paying attention.
"So," Miranda said to interrupt Larry's rambling. "What are you doing here?"
"Can't I come to a pool by myself without getting interrogated," I asked sarcastically.
Miranda always had hated me since the "incident" in eight grade. She really didn't like me to begin with, but that just broke the straw on the camel's back.
"Nah, its fun to interrogate you," she chuckled sarcastically.
"Well, I'm meeting my friend Carly here, so I'll see you later," I blew her off as I walked away. Miranda was stuck there listening to Larry ramble on about his life story, poor Miranda. I think she'll live though.
I scoped out places where Carly might be; which consisted of the snack bar, trying to impress some cute guy, or a combination of the two. I looked around for Carly, and sure enough she was talking to some guy (cute…I don't know, slightly attractive maybe) while eating a hot dog she got at the snack bar. Could she not notice that she had dripped ketchup on her chin? No, of course not, she was too busy flirting away with some blonde guy. She kept on playing with a strand of her long, dark hair. She was either twirling it or putting it behind her ear. The guy didn't look too amused with her hair twirling and her ketchup stained face. I decided to see who it was that my friend was trying to flirt with.
"Hey Carly," I greeted her. Her smile turned into a scowl because I was most likely "interrupting" her flirting session or an attempt at one anyway.
"Is this your friend," he asked politely. He had a rather odd voice, maybe an accent even. I don't know, I can't really distinguish the difference between a British and an Australian accent, so go figure.
"Yeah," she huffed. "Her name is Parker, Parker Laurel McKenzie to be very specific. We like to call her 'PLUM' though."
Since when did PLUM regain existence, we hadn't used our childish acronyms since Lizzie's lunch box sitting days in the fifth grade?
He looked confused, you could tell by looking into his blue eyes, were which a nice shade of blue, which complimented his kind of bleach blonde spiky hair.
"Plum," he asked in confusion.
"See, Parker, our friend Veruca, and I all had these little nick names for each other using our initials. I was CAN because my full name is Carly Ashton Neilson; Veruca was VIA because her full name is Veruca Irene Albano, and Parker…well we couldn't really spell anything with her initials, so we added a "U" and she became PLUM," she explained.
"Oh," he chuckled. "I get it, see, you'd have to do that with my name because my initials are RHJ."
"Interesting," Carly said trying to act cool. "What's your name…by that I mean full name?"
There is one word to explain Carly, which was mercurial, she could change constantly into any emotion or personality, even though it's kind of weird, Veruca and I still love her.
"Ronald Harvey Jacobs, but you can call me Ronnie. I live over in Jefferson and unfortunately their pool was closed because of filtration problems or something like that, all I knew was I had to come over here or be bored out of my mind all day long," he sighed in exasperation.
"Well we're glad you came here, well, I am anyway," Carly smiled while chuckling like a crazy woman. Could she be anymore…odd? Not that it's a bad thing, but she was probably scaring the poor boy.
I saw Gordo wave at me from over where I had been with Miranda earlier. Carly spotted him and waved for him to come over here. Oh great, now we would be making fun of poor Carly who couldn't carry on a conversation with this Ronnie guy for the life of her. Well, at least she knew his name that was always good.
"Hey Parker," Gordo greeted me. I felt so special; he didn't greet Carly, but just me. Snap out of it Parker! Get your mind off of the Gordo channel, yes the Gordo channel with twenty four hours a day of pure Gordo-ness. That sounded really odd, oh well.
"Hi," I managed to spit out. Thank goodness Maddy wasn't here or she'd tell him everything her little heart desired.
"Hi Carly," he greeted her politely.
"Hi Gordo, this is Ronnie, my new friend Ronnie Jacobs," she squealed latching on to Ronnie's arm. Gordo looked like he had seen a ghost or maybe his ears were bleeding because of the booming of music over the speakers. Yes, maybe his ear drums were bleeding because of the sticky sweet 80's pop song "Two of Hearts" was playing. Ronnie tried to break free from Carly's death grip.
"You're hurting my arm," he told her. She let go and chuckled nervously. Gordo rolled his eyes and chuckled. It was quite amusing to see Carly crash and burn yet again I don't sound like a good friend when I say that.
Ronnie looked at Carly, "I got to go do…something, sorry. I'll see you again…maybe," he said as he walked away.
Carly put her hands on her hips and a smug smile unfolded onto her face, "So Gordo, how are things with Lizzie?"
"Uh…we broke up on June 16th, it was a mutual thing," he sighed sadly. Poor Gordo broke up with his princess. Oh well, I think he'll live.
"Yeah, well I better get going and leave you guys alone to discuss whatever it is you're going to discuss," and with that she walked away.
Gordo stood there in a white tee shirt and swim trunks. He also was holding a soda and would sip at it sporadically. Maybe he had some curly fries before.
"So, what did you want to talk about," I asked as I twirled a piece of my brown wet hair around my finger. No, I'm turning into Carly. No, no, no, now I can't make fun of her anymore because then I would be making fun of myself. In words of Charlie Brown, "Good grief".
"Uh," he almost seemed tongue tied, like the way he was when he was around Lizzie. Holy shit, could this actually be happening? I must mentally scream like a teenybopper. No I shouldn't, because then I would be scaring myself.
This felt extremely awkward, like when Gordo asked me to the dance in eight grade. He was so cute when he was stuttering and I was being a ruthless bitch and calling him short. Yeah, those were the days.
"Parker, um, see, there's this thing," he stumbled over his words.
I felt like slapping him across the face for him to hurry up, but then I felt like squealing incessantly for him appearing to like me, or so it seemed.
"What is this thing," I asked impatiently.
"It's a thing, you know where there's a thing along with another thing, and there are a lot of things," he stuttered.
"Oh, I see," I said airily.
"Parker! Thank goodness you're here," I heard a woman's voice call. I saw my sister, her friend Ashe, and Ashe's mother Irene.
Ashe and my sister had been friends since preschool. Ashe was a scared little blonde with deep blue eyes who my sister took under her wing, even though my sister could be quite manipulative towards Ashe, they still stayed friends for reasons unknown to the universe.
"Hi Mrs. Tarboro," I smiled.
"Parker," she said between breaths. It seemed like she had been running. "I totally spaced out, Ashe is supposed to visit her dad today at two, and it's one o' clock right now, so I have to get her ready and…"
I stopped her, "I get the point, Mrs. Tarboro. I'll take Maddy home and she can eat Ben and Jerry's ice cream until she pukes."
"Yeah," Maddy squealed.
"You were kidding, right," Gordo and Mrs. Tarboro asked simultaneously.
"Of course I was," I chuckled.
"Aw," Maddy sighed.
"Tough break kid," Gordo said as she patted Maddy on the back as she scowled.
"So, Parker, is this your boyfriend," Mrs. Tarboro chuckled as she pointed at Gordo.
I wish that was the truth.
Gordo jumped, "No, no, no, no. I'm her friend, David Gordon."
She chuckled again. Mrs. Tarboro was a very giggly person, "Well David, if she's not your girlfriend, why is she blushing?"
Maddy cut in, "She pro—
I cut Maddy off thankfully by kicking her heel. Maddy looked up at me and scowled. It seemed as though a lot of people were scowling at me today.
"Well, we'll be going," Mrs. Tarboro said as she grabbed Ashe by the arm and they left.
I looked at Gordo who was currently looking over at the snack bar. He looked as though he had missed something.
"Do you think they'll give me a refill," he asked with a nervous chuckle.
"What were you going to tell or ask me," I asked.
"It's not that important," he sighed.
"It must have been important if you left the oh-so important Miranda Sanchez to talk to the lowly Parker McKenzie," I said sarcastically.
"Parker, you're not lowly. You're a great person! You're smart, funny, and—
Well I shouldn't have to reassure you," he sighed.
Did he just compliment me? Did he or did he not just compliment me? I think he did, I definitely think he did. Okay, maybe he didn't. Maybe he was just making up stuff about me to make me feel better about myself. Maybe I should stop thinking and just bask in the glory of this moment. Yes, that is a great idea. A very spectacular idea!
"Thanks," I smiled. "So what did you want to tell me?"
"I kind of lost my train of thought," he shrugged.
"You lost it," I said in disbelief. "How does your train of thought go? My train of thought goes chug a chug push Gordo into the pool chug a chug."
Ooh Parker, you bad girl you! Pushing David Gordon into the pool isn't very nice of you! Well, I'm not very nice to begin with.
"Not if I push you first," he said sinisterly.
Before we knew it our arms were on each other's shoulders, trying to walk over to the edge of the pool to push the other one in. I kept kicking him in the shin as I kept glancing over at Maddy who was eating an ice cream cone Mrs. Tarboro had bought her. Thank god ice cream occupied her.
"Ow, you're kicking my shin," he howled in pain.
"Well you're stepping on my foot," I snapped back.
We were soon by the edge of the pool and we still had death grips on each other's shoulders. We were locked in a battle of concentration. It was hard paying attention to Gordo; he was very sneaky like Emilio from Mr. Deeds.
I finally succeeded. I pushed Gordo into the pool. He felt into a pool with a huge splash. He emerged to the surface. It kind of looked like he couldn't swim. Oh shit! Now you've done it Parker! You've killed Gordo!
"Gordo, are you okay," I yelled out to him.
"Parker," he said between breaths. "The water is…really deep. I'll swim over to the edge and you can help…me out."
He swam over the edge with difficulty. He extended his arm and hand out for me and I grabbed his hand. It felt so…special. Yes indeed it did. He then pulled me towards the pool and I felt myself flying in the air until I landed in the pool and submerged to the bottom. I swam up to the surface and saw a hysterical Gordo laughing at me.
"You fell for it! You're an idiot," he said in between his bouts of hysterical laugh.
I swam over to him, he probably didn't notice because he was acting like a giggling idiot. I put my hands on his somewhat bony shoulders and tried to submerge him, but he went under intentionally and brought me down with him. We held our breath as we were under the water. He looked kind of blurry underwater, as I probably did too, but I felt like I was in one of those teen movies where there's a romantic interlude in the pool, yet again that was probably the effect of watching all of those movies with Carly.
I swam up to the surface and he followed. We looked at each other and we both looked like drenched sewer rats. He looked at me for about a minute and got out of the clear blue waters of the pool.
"I got to go," he said. "My parents wanted me to be home by three, I'll see you later."
It almost seemed like he was uncomfortable with me. I hope that's not what the situation was.
"Parker," Maddy squealed. "I ate all of my ice cream!"
I rolled my eyes at my annoying, mass consumption sister.
"You're going to turn into an ice cream cone if you don't stop eating them," I yelled.
I got out of the pool and went over to the chair that I had put my stuff on earlier, Maddy followed me.
"What did he tell you," she asked as she looked at me with amusement as I dried my hair with my towel.
"He said he forgot what he was supposed to tell me," I sighed.
"Oh," she sighed. "I'm sorry."
I rustled her dry hair, "That's okay."
We then walked towards the pool gate. I saw him talking with Miranda and Larry. Larry and Miranda looked like they had become rather…close since I had last talked to them. Miranda looked at me and rolled her eyes while Gordo tried to move out of my line of sight.
I wonder what he was going to tell me. I wonder if I'll ever know.
I'll just wait and see.
[A/N: I've been working on this chapter for a long time because well, this is fun to write! Please review with your thoughts, thank you!]