Hot Locket | 17 May 2022
I suddenly became aware of a focused heat on my sternum. Reflexively I reached for it and found a patch of sweat forming right where the pendant hung under my shirt.
BNR Response
I lifted my shoulders off of the back of the pool chaise and crisscrossed my arms in front of my chest to remove my tee. I knew it was probably better to remove the golden locket while sunbathing, but I never wanted it far from my heart. A wave of chlorinated water lightly sprayed me as a ten-year-old did a cannon ball, and I was happy to be cooled by it. It must have been 85 or 90 degrees, and, while I was partially shaded, it was steamy. I tilted my wide straw lifeguard hat backwards from its low perch on my brow and surveyed the scene: club house to the left, large as an auditorium with the look of an expansive, rustic cabin. Every lounge chair was occupied, tweens lined the fence on the opposite side of the pool with their towels right on the concrete. Tall conifers lined the edge of the pool to my right, candy-caning around and adorning me with their shadows and fragrance.
Motown played in the distance and lilts of laughter carried on the breeze mixed with the squeals of children in the water. The sounds of summer. Someone was barbecuing in the distance and the scent of charcoal and sunscreen surrounded the pool deck. I felt so embraced and fulfilled and so lonely all at once, surrounded by the families participating in quintessential summer rituals: chasing kids around the pool, reapplying floaties and sun cream, the subtle elastic snap while readjusting a swimsuit bottom, stealing kisses under baseball caps, the sweet fatigue of a day in the sun. The tender dissonance between missing my own membership in a trio and the recent loss of hope for belonging with my newest love was overwhelming. I gulped down a lungful of humid air, the first of several deep breaths. I put one hand on the amulet at my breast and the other hand on my belly, focusing on the rising crests of each inhalation and exhalation. “I am here, I want for nothing, I have my boy,” I recited in my head, at which point the wind caught in my throat and I sputtered as my heart skipped and hurried. I lowered my hat to cover my weeping eyes and swung my legs over the edge of the chaise to bring me to an upright position. I clenched both hands on the hard plastic loops that lined the rim of the chair. I watched my knuckles turned white and felt relief in the physical discomfort. I squeezed tighter until the plastic dug into the soft underside of my hands, this was easier to feel than my heartsickness.
The montage of carefree, unexpectedly warm memories mixed with all of our plans for the future, all of the promises, and all of the words exchanged, and kept running like a reel on repeat behind my eyes. Everything beckoned nostalgia, things we’d shared and things we’d only daydreamed about in abstract hues. The heartbreak upon heartbreak in such close succession was unbearable, the tightness it brought in my chest felt was like a rubber band around my heart muscle.
I brought the back of the chaise up to a medium incline and forced my back down onto my towel-lined chair once again, practicing relaxing myself from head to toe as they coached us to do in our yoga classes all those years ago. I was once again able to hear the music. The sweet July smells were once again filling my nostrils. I reopened my eyes and took in my surroundings once again, searching for new feelings to feel. I felt simultaneously superior to and beneath the couples milling around me: the dad bodies clad in tiny turtle-embroidered shorts and quilted belts, and Sperry top siders without socks seemed provincial to me. The gossip of the Swan Ball and the new private school headmaster scandal, diamonds dripping off of their fingers and bending their earlobes under pristine Panama hats were pretentious and petty. I chose to dive deeper into the feelings of contempt blended with jealousy, betraying the true north of my sense of profound rejection and despair. I found that locket at my breastbone once again and clutched it, trying not to remind myself that I had been lucky to have been truly happy once.