at the bottom I shoved her forward and threw my feet out flat so I could stretch into a plank position going into the water. I made a mini-train with each one of my three skinny friends, never letting any of them ride behind me. I launched each one of them off of the slide at the end with all of my might so that I was a straight flat line as I exited the tube. It seemed to work fine.
As I was launching my friends through the air, more people began to fill the sun deck and line the stairs. I paid particular attention to the shapes and sizes of each arrival and made my judgments of each. The presence of others who “shouldn’t wear swimsuits” amplified my disgust for myself and my anxiety grew.
I couldn’t help but stare at the overweight woman with her three pudgy children. She was wearing a purple two piece swimsuit with a top that hung like a dress over the bottom. The top piece frequently rode up and rested under her breasts exposing her large lumpy white gut. She seemed unaware and unaffected but I was fully humiliated for her. Another fat woman was nearby. She wore long pants and a t-shirt and sat under an umbrella at a table watching her group of preteens run around. That’s how it should be, I thought. Maybe one more time and then I, too, should cover up and sit for a while.
Bridget and I got in line behind the exposed woman in the purple two-piece. We scoured the crowd for people we knew from the stairs. There was another group of girls, thin and beautiful, who we hadn’t seen ride the slide at all. “They’re just there to be in the sun and show off their bodies!” I said. Bridget knew one of them from gymnastics. “She’s a real bitch,” she said. I caught the bitch staring at me, I knew she thought I was too fat.
By the time we got to the top, a group of boys had joined them. I was next in line to go and as I stood there pretending to be distracted, I noticed a boy gesture to the top of the slide, most certainly to point out me and my fat. I panicked. I almost ran back down the steps to cover up. But I realized that would mean jiggling my fat all the way down the steps with all of those eyes on me. I had to go down the slide. On the slide I could be a blur, then a plank and then hide. Once the fat lady in the two-piece was half-way down and the life guard yelled go, I wasn’t in place yet. She yelled go again.
When she yelled go a third time, Bridget nudged me in the butt with her knee. I dropped like a board onto the slide and took off. I slid the whole way down lying flat and stiff sucking even the muscles on the bottom of my feet in and I flew into the pool. I stayed under the water.