“

Not yet buoyant, and finding the water still warmer than the air, or maybe it was only the air getting cooler, the girls lowered themselves to the last step down. The skimmer door thumped with a drowned-sounding gurgle. When Ellen’s hand arced backward Betsy recoiled, understanding instinctively what was to come. A shocked expression appeared behind the sheen of her swim goggles. The girls’ parents had disappeared for a minute behind the pool shed, probably to smoke pot, since a tendril of purple smoke was wisping above it into the clouds. To one side of the pool stretched a chain-link fence, but the rest of the fence was made of woven slats of wood with trees spilling over. Inchworms lowered themselves on invisible threads, then yanked themselves impossibly upward again.

Just as the parents stepped back onto the patio, carrying stacks of psychedelic beach towels, Ellen swung . . .

”

—Abby Frucht, “Choir Practice”

(Image by Infrogmation)