pouring rain in an overflowing pool.

Vincent Bertolini-Felice / 4.7.25

Welcome seasonable humidity. Three weeks into March and the expected waves of palpable, moist heat entered the local frays of Naples, Florida. In the backyard of a midcentury modern home, a local boy skims layers of accumulated scum off the fluorescent aqua of the ovular pool. Behind planes of floor to ceiling glass, he is observed by a woman cresting the age of forty. 

It had rained the night before and thistles and twigs from the overhanging maple tree were spread variably across the tile surrounding the pool. The boy struggled to comb up the bulbous offspring of the tree, collections of the flora slipping through the crevices of his rake-esque tool. She was unsure of his name, he had stated it earlier when he came to the door, but she had been distracted and felt the opportunity to ask had passed her by. He was an employee of one of her neighbor’s lawn care business and remembered the occasion on which she met said neighbor. 

On her arrival to the neighborhood, a group of neighbors had knocked on her door inviting her to an occasion celebrating her arrival to the neighborhood, to be hosted at her next-door neighbor's house. The house was a shade of flamingo pink with imposing navy window frames highlighting the definition of the neon colors. Despite knowing there was an event hosted, the house was disorganized; arrays of unopened mail stacked on counters and dishes cluttered every aspect of the kitchen.  

“Oh honey, just set that anywhere.” 

The words made sense logically, but the practical application of these words were lost to the woman. She had been handed a cocktail seconds earlier and wished to relinquish her hands of it, only to notice the tables meant to house it were occupied by prior drinks or half-eaten hors d’oeuvres.  

The woman encouraging her to add her drink to the collection of forgotten objects was the owner of the property, Samantha Cardona. Samantha spent the first five minutes of their introduction excusing her last name, explaining that her husband was nor directly Italian, rather the byproduct of a lineage of Italian men that came over well before. The context behind why someone needed to justify their lineage, especially someone of Italian descent, was lost to the woman.  

It was immediately after this that the woman who the party was in honor of was thrust into a series of hasty introductions from an onslaught of less-than-savory guests. Two local stockbrokers sharing a property a block away who had taken advantage of the readily accessible alcohol. The men couldn’t have been older than twenty-seven or twenty-eight but seemed very comfortable to make sexual advances on a variety of guests, ranging in age from sixteen to well past fifty.  

“No husband?” 

“Military. Returns in two weeks.” 

“Lucky man.” 

The men failed to give their names, or rather the one man who spoke did. His hair had receded into a cone of thin, filmy hair running from the tip of an extended forehead to an extremely elevated neckline. He had sunken eyes and wiry eyebrows punctuated by a mute natural expression that run from one end of his narrow lips to the other. The other was more handsome than the other but had the demeanor of a negligent follower comfortable observing in silence as the atrocities of the other ensued. Throughout the party, an instance could not be noted in which the two men were not directly by the other’s side. On the woman’s exit onto the back porch, the quiet one could be seen waiting adamantly next to the bathroom for the exit of the other.  

One of the final men she met at the event was Howard Philmaher. He was a heavyset man in his forties with a neatly trimmed goatee and a friendly squint in his eyes. He shook the woman’s hand with his daughter propped up on his shoulder and asked a series of politely intruding questions. 

“How old are you?” 

“Thirty-nine next week.” 

“That’s about when my wife and I got married, we were late bloomers.” 

He chuckled a familiar laugh to himself at this statement. It was not a rehearsed statement, but it was clear he has said some variant of this expression several times in his life.  

“521?” 

“23.” 

“Ah! Just off. Do you know the family that lived there before?” 

“No.” 

“The Farmers. Nice people, a little reserved. They hosted something for the 4th of July but seemed so out of place. Don’t hold that against them, lovely people, just definitely not their crowd.” 

“Where did they go?” 

“Baltimore. Well, that’s where she went. Husband killed himself a year or so ago. No one really saw it coming, really sad. She found him in the garage one night. Eh, it’s irrelevant. I know she’s got family up there, probably better to be close to family.” 

The woman was taken aback at how direct the man was in describing the intimate details of a family dynamic she had no prior experience with. He spoke of the event with such cheerful ignorance it vexed the woman. Cheerfully ignorant was an apt way to describe the man, on this occasion he attempted unsuccessfully several times to segue the conversation to his work before handing her a business card detailing information about his lawn care business.  

“Lawn care needs and things of that sort.” 

He tapped on the text logo adorning the center of the card before working into a forced smile that had semblances of honesty.  

In the coming years, she had only a handful of needs to call the man. They installed a pool within the recent months, and since then, her reliance on the yard care services had greatly increased. The house that had gone through an uncharacteristic number of changes in their brief ownership had become a burden to maintain. Her husband trusted her to maintain housely affairs but took on projects that shelved the responsibility to handle fallout to his wife.  

---

The boy came in with an oblong pool of sweat accumulated by his tank top. He ran a thin, waxen towel across his forehead, the firm fragments of sweat spraying from the border of his headband and onto the faux wood paneled floor. He held out his hand without looking for payment and the woman walked across the living space to retrieve her purse. 

Inside the floral bag, two crumpled ten-dollar bills were left exposed outside the confines of their usual pocket. She did not remember the origin of these bills nor knew the rate at which the boy asked but believed it would suffice.  

She handed over the bills and the boy frowned, but did not pitch a fit, collecting his tools silently and exiting through the back. 

Alex, maybe. No, it was a Jewish name, Hiram? No, not that Jewish. She just remembered she had seen the boy at the store the other week at the grocery, he must have worked there as well. She was unaware if it was a good sign or a bad sign a boy his age felt the need to work two jobs. He may have been fourteen or fifteen, a boy that age has better things to do than work. When Mike was his age, he was working for his father, but possibly not to the extent of this boy. It would have been foolish of her to get a job when her and Mike were fifteen. Her days at that age were fun, possibly. Busy, but the normal busy, school activities were the talk of the day. It was different for her than Mike, he hadn’t left his rural town near Warren, Michigan until he was seventeen, but for some reason she couldn’t help but view her teenage years through the lens of Mike’s upbringing. Cleveland seemed more to resemble whatever suburb it was Mike was raised in, and her life before marriage seemed to be nothing more than the stories Mike told her. 

The door rang with a familiar knock. The protruding line of the composite door had a hollow echo when hit with a knuckle. The first knock hit this spot before correcting with two short and quiet yips on the main section of the door.  

The knocks were nothing more than a formality, Esthel opened the door brandishing a picnic basket and a grin that communicated opportunity. 

“Dear, what goes best with the rain?” 

The woman shrugged silently. 

“This new drink Melissa told me about. You know how she is with her gin and her limes. I’m not quite sure what it’s called, but dear God, it is to die for this time of year.” 

Before the woman even had time to react, Esthel had made her way to the kitchen and removed the contents of the basket. It was a bottle of gin with an unbroken seam and several devices for making cocktails. 

“Dear, I don’t know how I did this, but I forgot limes. Do you-? Oh, nevermind I see them here.” 

The woman looked at the pool, not noticing a tangible change between the prior scene and the one the boy left. Could have been the wind, but she couldn’t help but feel the twenty she had given the boy would have been better put elsewhere. 

Before the other woman reached her peripheral, she was accosted with a rocks glass filled near to the brim with clear liquors. She was met with Esthel’s smiling eyes as she indulged in a hefty sip, cupping the glass in both hands. 

The sound shuffle of collected rain ran through the tubes that collected rain. It was not visibly raining but the sound she heard usually did not occur unless it had begun to rain.  

“Well, try it! I just need to know your thoughts.” 

Esthel’s glass was near empty. Her eyes were wandering around the house, with the woman imagining Esthel viewed the nonexistent clutter she believed dictated the living space. 

“It’s fine.” 

Esthel frowned, expecting more theatrics. The previously unseen rain began to tatter in broken specks around the backyard, appearing to fall at an angle on the surface of the pool. 

  The two carried on brief conversations as the drinks continued to pour. Cocktails became straight pours of alcohol attempting to hide behind fewer and fewer cubes of ice. Despite the friendly demeanor of the conversation, the woman failed to smile more than once or twice at half-hearted jokes. 

She was fixated on the clutter she had viewed earlier. A remote with the wires exposed dangling off the ledge of the television desk, a laundry basket overflowing with socks and various garments, and opened boxes of parcels became sores on her bagged eyes. She truthfully did not remember the origin of any of these obstructions, she was vehement that she had moved the laundry upstairs, but did not remember when that would have occurred. 

“Where do you get your makeup, love?” 

“I- I don’t wear makeup.” 

Esthel opened her mouth and tilted her head without judgement, closer to awe at this statement. Although she had presented a friendly non-verbal reply, her comment bordered on antagonistic. 

“I don’t know a man that would be okay with that.” 

“Mike doesn’t seem to care.” 

“That’s not surprising.” 

The woman knew there was a degree of prejudice in that statement but could not identify exactly what. Was she implying her husband didn’t care for her? That’s a pedantic statement. She ran through her mind looking for concrete instances to disprove this, but her mind ran blank. Work stories about early nights and small trinkets bought felt signs that he cared, but the traditional semblances of care evaded her mind. 

Esthel tapped the woman’s knee twice. 

“This has been lovely, but I must be going.” 

Esthel left the house silently, not collecting any of her possessions from the kitchen other than the basket. The woman followed her with her eyes, but did not leave her chair until after the door had closed. Her hands were clamped around each other, her knees firmly pressed near her stomach, she noticed a chip in her nail. A thin crack ran along the translucent paint over her finger, splitting wider as she pulled her finger apart. She felt as if she needed to cover it, but it did not bother her, it really was no matter. 

As the rain continued to fall, the woman went to tidying the house, noticing more clutter in places non-visible from her post in the living rain. The final place for her to fix was the kitchen, she hadn’t been in the room when Esthel made her drinks and noticed it more unkept than imagined. Puddles of gin collected around the dirty cutting board that housed the rinds of oranges and limes. The last to leave the now clean kitchen was the rectangular gin bottle, occupied by no more than a drink or two.  

The woman decided to clean the contents of the bottle as she listened to music. Before long, the sun began to wane, leaving her in a dimly lit room filled with a single light and a distant row of Bill Haley. 

By the time her husband walked in the door, she was asleep on the chair Esthel had occupied earlier. The man took to eating leftovers, watching TV, and tinkering with an alarm clock he had been meaning to repair before waking his wife. It was well past eleven when she started the long walk to bed, haphazardly swinging one front in front of the other on the stairs before finally collapsing at the top.  

There was no thud or crash, leaving the woman alone to collect herself. She clenched her head, unaware if her skull connected with the wood, but worrying it had suffered some sort of damage.  

---

She woke up the next morning as she did most, raging headache and a dead appetite. The only exception being a small welt forming above her clavicle, where she had fallen the night before. Mike was gone, as expected, however, she knew he would return early tonight; the two had planned a trip to Phoenix and they needed to leave before sunset to make decent time for tomorrow. 

Her day was spent eerily similar to the last, drinking and collecting clutter, flipping through television and music but failing to settle. She poked at the welt on her neck and watched it reverberate at the touch, speckling and vibrating, but feeling hollow. She watched it increase in size, drink after drink, to the point where the woman considered dusting off her unused makeup to cover the blemish.  

She spent an hour in the mirror unsuccessfully attempting to hide the mark, forgetting why she tried in the first place. She told herself it was to prevent Mike from worrying, but closer felt that it was to prevent herself from having to look at it.  

  The house had never looked worse. What used to be collections of unwanted junk became problems with the wallpaper, the flooring, and the general aesthetic. Sorting through boxes and piles, she decided to move coffee tables and chairs to rid the house of the muck that became increasingly violent.  

Not long before the rearrangement, she noticed the sun had set. The two had never set on a time, but the general agreement acknowledged that Mike would return early was void. The bottles that were previously full now were entirely void of their contents. She ventured out to the store to replenish supplies, only to notice how vibrant the town was this night. 

It may have been Thursday or Friday; the days had entirely blended together, and it wasn’t until passing her turn that the woman realized she had forgotten where to go. It may have been a week or two since the woman last left the house and the usual trips outside no longer seemed intimate to her memory. 

Eventually, she found the neon lights highlighting the grocery and spent no more than ten minutes inside. Most of these minutes were spent attempting to find the boy that cleaned her pool the other day, but it was no use, she had forgotten his face. 

The drive back was much easier. Crowds and parties of people noticeably outside had vanished into domiciles or bars and the earlier cackle of clutter was reduced to a distant shout of joy. 

She found this mass exodus odd, but felt as if the people must have had a good reason to do so. Perhaps it had rained, or maybe the lights were dying, or it could have just been time to leave, all good reasons.  

Inside her home, she attempted to mimic the joy she had heard on her commute. The music was vibrant, her shoes were off, she indulged in a dance or two before violently throwing herself into a chair to collect her breath and finish another drink. 

It was all too quick that she noticed how much of a toll the day had took on her, curling herself in a fetal position on the settee couch where she would spend the night. In her dreams, she pictured Phoenix, a city she had not been to, but Mike spoke very fondly of. 

City limits and vibrant downtown scenes of the desert city became second nature to her as she slumbered. Her and Mike danced on top of a tiled roof strung up with lights, a place she had known she been, but was simply the byproduct of her desires.  

---

Mike was in the kitchen when she woke. He was pouring the final drops from a carton of orange juice and fixing his hair as he sucked his teeth and picked at imaginary plaque.  

“Morning.” 

There was no emotion in his sentiment. She reached her arms upwards and felt frizzled portions of her hair sprung in uneven shapes she couldn’t quite track. 

“I thought we were leaving last night.” 

“Tomorrow, sweetheart.” 

“What day is it?” 

“Wednesday.” 

The woman yawned and nodded. 

“What time do you think you’ll be home tonight?” 

Mike seemed taken aback at this statement, checking his watch and looking at the still dawning sun. 

“I don’t know, usual time.” 

The woman sighed. 

“What’s wrong dear?” 

A budding onslaught of tears pooled on the bridge of her eyes, stinging at every restraint. 

“I just... I would really like it if you came home early tonight.” 

Any prior sentiment of empathy disappeared at this request. He got up off his knees and stretched his arms, before returning to his watch and not looking at her when he spoke. 

“I can’t tonight. But... I will be home very early tomorrow; we can grab dinner before we leave.” 

The woman felt as if she should have been appeased at this compromise but felt as if the only thing she wanted was an early night in with her husband. Her dreams of Phoenix shifted to the evening, a night spent at home, but one in which she knew he cared. 

Mike planted a wet kiss on her forehead and grabbed his belongings aggressively from the kitchen table and exiting the house in a defined swoop. The woman fell back asleep, waking at the knock of the door. 

It was the pool boy. She hadn’t called, had she? No, they came routinely, but this didn’t sound quite right. All she knew was that he was here now to take care of business. It was the same boy as before, in a much better mood than the past time. Following his exit out the back door, she took a shower and fixed her hair, noticing the welt had only grown in size. She put on a tighter dress with a high neckline, the welt still protruding, but only to the touch, it was not visible. 

---

Noon passed and the woman still felt lingering repercussions from the night before. She poured only a half-pour of her husband’s least favorite whiskey into her coffee and sat outside on a lounge chair nearest to the pool. She sat with her back hunched over, the cup in her hands, watching the boy mow the lawn from a distance. 

As the chat of the blades died down the woman felt obliged to say something. 

“What’s your name?” 

“Andrew, ma’am.” 

She knew there was an A. 

“You in school, Andrew?” 

“Yes ma’am.” 

“Do you like it?” 

“Well, I mean, no one likes school. It’s fine, I guess.” 

“Do you know what you want to do?” 

“Join the service ma’am. My father wants me to stay in school until then.” 

The woman felt the need to deter the boy from his militaristic aspirations but wasn’t entirely sure why. She had given little thought before to the military, only picturing a cascade of images from the war. It still left a bad taste in her mouth, maybe it was Mike, or maybe it was something about what it meant to be a soldier. Was Mike anything more than a soldier? Maybe so, maybe not, but the image of what a soldier was sent a pinging chime through her head. 

“You have a girl?” 

“Yes ma’am.” 

“You like her?” 

“Of course, ma’am. We went out to dinner last night and it was lovely.” 

The word “lovely” was a terrible one. She felt the people who used it softened their definition of love to mean pleasant. It was a perverse thing, to take something so sacred as love to fill an adjectival purpose. It trivializes everything. 

Choosing to remain mum, the woman relaxed on the chair. A short while later the boy left, feeling generous, the woman left him forty this time. Andrew had a devious smile that reinforced the ignorance the boy had asserted prior. 

Lovely, lovely, lovely. Everything could be lovely. Her house was lovely, or it used to be, it’s too messy now, not even worth cleaning. Was her design lovely? No, no it wasn’t. Pursuing lovely was too hard. The idyllic and quaint pleasure she associated with the word was miserable. It was all she could see. 

Being lovely was too hard to maintain. Nothing could be lovely. Soon, all semblances of the word vanished from her house, music lie disheveled across rooms, the kitchen was spread in arrays on floors and cupboards, finding lovely was impossible. 

It was so much easier this way, chairs sprung over, televisions broken, this was who she was, why try to be lovely?  

Amidst her tirade, the glasses that used to house her favorite drinks lie shattered on the floor, the bottles were who she was. 

Sleep was who she was, waking to the sunset alone was as far from lovely as she could hope for. Her pool wasn’t lovely. The boy did a poor job, and, in her haze, the fibers of grass looked more unkept in the opening shadow of moonlight. 

She hovered over the pool for minutes, her reflection becoming increasingly more warped in the shimmering reply. As she watched her figure wane and wax, her memories became clearer than ever. Her childhood was a good one, it was peaceful and quiet, but not in the way others would consider lovely. Her mother had a kind smile and her father, threads of happy blonde hair. The books she read were enthralling and her dances were joyous. 

There were no more books to be read, no more dances to share, it was all too lovely. She had what she wanted, her clarity. She forced a silent smile as she reflected, sinking further and further down the pool.