It was a late June afternoon. Jon, Nicole, and I were scattered around the pool in our backyard, watching our mother swim laps. Jon, who was almost fourteen, kicked rhythmically at the foot of his chair with his bright yellow Walkman earphones over his ears. "Cut that out," my sister snapped. She was almost seventeen, and had felt entitled to boss our little brother around since his arrival had displaced her from her crib, even though he was taller than she was and muscular from a spring on the lacrosse team.
Jon kicked harder. Nicki leaned forward, brown eyes glaring, skinny shoulders tensed. "Stop it, you guys," I murmured, as our mother touched the edge of the pool at the deep end and began another lap. The flowered skirt of her swimsuit flapped in her wake. Nicki sank back against the slightly mildewed cushion of her chaise lounge, which seemed to sag under the humid, gray sky. Even the leafy trees and lush lawns of our Connecticut suburb looked despondent in the heat. It had been over ninety degrees every day since June, and it hadn't rained once, although there was thunder every night.
Mom flipped over again and started another lap, switching from the crawl to the breaststroke, with her sleek head bobbing in and out of the water. Underneath the tinted plastic of her goggles, I couldn't tell whether her eyes were open or shut.
"Why doesn't she wear a decent bathing suit?" Nicki grumbled to no one in particular. Nicki herself was clothed in a scrap of a bikini, neon green with black polka dots, cut high on the thigh and low on the chest.
I unlaced my workboots with grimy fingers and wiped my forehead on my sleeve, smelling the gasoline that had seeped into my clothes. I'd taken a women's studies class that spring and had come home from college determined not to take any stereotypically female job. I'd passed up a chance to babysit or peddle perfume in the air-conditioned mall, and had gone to work for a commercial landscaping company, earning six dollars an hour pushing a big red mower up and down endless corporate office parks. It was miserable work, and I wouldn't even have a good tan to show for my troubles: Lavish Landscaping rules dictated jeans, not shorts, because the mowers would kick up stones or broken glass—whatever you'd run over—and spit chunks of it back at your shins.
I yanked my shirt down over my hips and started fanning myself with my Lavish baseball cap.
Nicki glared at me. "Get downwind," she commanded.
"I'm striking a blow for gender equality."
"You sure smell as bad as a man," said Nicki.
Jon settled his earphones around his neck. "Mom bounced a check to the car place," he said.
Nicki made a disgusted hissing sound. "Oh," I said. I twisted my shirt, feeling a mixture of sorrow and indignation. Sorrow that my family, my mother in particular, kept finding itself in situations like this; indignation that, somehow, I'd become the one who was supposed to do something about it.