The temperature hovers around 90 degrees on a hot and hazy afternoon in July. The oppressive humidity makes her skin feel clammy and her hair frizz. She stands over a grill, laying down pieces of halibut, their skin sizzling on contact with the hot grates. The heat from the flames rise and sting her face and hands, making her exposed flesh feel tight and sunburned.
Less than 30 feet away, a group of children splash in a pool. The adults sit around a table in the shade of a pergola. Their conversation is languid, flagging in the heat. Why aren’t they in the pool? If given the choice, that’s where she would be.
In the shallow end of the pool, the children play a raucous game of tag. Marco? Polo! She fixates on the way their hair drapes over their heads like sleek curtains. Wet. Cool. Refreshing drops fall on their shoulders and trail down their backs.
In the deep end, a solitary boy lays floating on his back. His body is slack and motionless, his expression tranquil. He bobs in the wake from the game, an occasional wave laps onto his face. Unresponsive, he appears transcended, no longer earthly in his state of weightlessness. Suspended in Zero Gravity, oblivious to heat.
She thinks of excuses to walk by the pool, closer than she ought to, and pretend to fall in. They would come running, concerned that she is hurt, put out at her clumsiness, worried that she may not be able to finish preparing their lunch. They would offer her a dry towel and a change of clothes. She would refuse, unwilling to part with the relief provided by her cool, wet clothing.
A flare-up at the back of the grill diverts her attention to the fish. She lifts a piece to check the skin for crispness. She brushes the tops with fragrant basil oil and seasons them with garlic-infused sea salt. She flips them over, adjusts the heat, and checks her watch.
In the shade of an oak tree, she reaches into a cooler and pulls out chilled soup bowls, laying them out in rows on the staging table. She lifts the lid off a cambro and is assaulted by the scent of nectar rising from the cantaloupe juice that she had extracted earlier. With a ladle, she parts the foamy raft that floats on the top and dips into the bottom for the clear juice. A full ladle is tipped into each bowl, followed by a spoonful of foam. She uncovers another cambro filled with rectangular planks of cantaloupe macerated in reduced Madeira. She wraps each piece with thin strips of Serrano ham, hiding a tender, young sage leaf within the folds.
Glancing at her watch, she works quickly, moving the soup bowls onto a service tray and applies the final touches. She doesn’t allow herself to be distracted by the swimming pool, but she is powerless to stop the images of a melon pool that is forming in her mind. She would build the walls out of gelled melon juice and fashion a liner from thin slices of the ham. She would fill the pool with melon juice and foam.Yes, it would work, she decides.
The server appears at her side, mopping his brow with a napkin. She notices that his shirt is drenched in sweat and she can see through to the tattoo on his upper back.
She asks wryly: Did you go for a dip?
No, but I’m tempted.
Yea, me too.
She smiles and hands him the tray.