Before long Hailey is at the door. The two of them exit Madison's apartment in a manner deeming much purpose, as if they are carpooling to a pair of certified public accountant jobs on some upper avenue of the city.
"Does your dad feel sad about what happened?" Hailey asks Madison as they make their way to the pool.
"What do you mean?" Madison replies, stooping to pick up a small handful of stones from the inside of a wooden flowerpot.
"What do you mean, what do you mean?" Hailey stops just before the gate leading into the pool. "Didn't your dad tell you anything? The kids?" She pauses for a moment. "The kids that threw the bottle at him?"
"Oh—I don't know. I mean, he's hurt and everything." Madison seems to be speaking directly to the stones in her hand. "I saw his eye, it looks like a rotten tomato." Hailey unlatches the gate and files in behind Madison. The pool is empty, and the aging red tarpaulin covering everything up is drooping in the center from gallons and gallons of trapped rainwater.
"I can't believe you didn't know," Hailey says in the brisk tone she often utilizes to let everyone within ear shot know that she is three years older than Madison.
"He never really—"
"It's crazy, actually." Hailey doesn't make eye contact as she says this. There, lying on the ground alongside the large square net used for cleaning the pool, is an elongated pole with a lazy hook at the end—the type that's almost always on hand at private pools that don't employ lifeguards. Her eyes are drawn to it.
No one notices the girls and their fine blond hair being victimized by the wind sweeping in from the parking lot. Hailey picks up the hook; visualizing the reach it would give her. Madison picks up the remaining length of the pole in a manner that makes her stuffed elephant seem like it's skewered by the rod of aluminum. Both girls squint from the glare of the sun coming off the metal.
By now Madison's white hooded sweatshirt is grimy from spending the last two hours loitering in the various alcoves and entrances of the apartment building—each little corridor a working interpretation of what the inside of a vacuum cleaner must be like.
She feels comfortable tucked away in the corner of the courtyard, crouching behind a row of hedges. It's deceptively warm for February, but the naked bushes are still romancing December, are still fragile and stark and brittle. Even though she is quite visible, and in all reality, rather vulnerable, they still provide some sense of cover, and that's what attracts her to the spot. Her grey corduroy skirt feels oily from all the dirt, but still looks presentable. She's busy trying to crush the small pile of stones she collected earlier, trying to make them disintegrate in her hands.
"Nobody has their stupid window down," Hailey yells from the sidewalk. The wind has picked up and her dress is clinging to one side of her body.
"Look for the smokers," Madison replies over her shoulder. The stones need to submit and become diamonds. "Even when it's really cold outside my dad still rolls down his window when he's smoking." This late in the day there is a never-ending supply of cars clogging up Archer Boulevard. Madison crawls out from hiding just enough to observe Hailey as she watches the traffic passing by, as if she were a spectator at a tennis match and only one player was hitting balls quickly and repeatedly from the left.
Although she doesn't want to, Madison figures it's time to go join Hailey. On the way the wind attempts something inappropriate with her skirt, and she pauses for a moment to corral the grey corduroy. Hailey is standing between a pair of parked cars with the hook in her hands. After sliding in behind her, Madison sets the stuffed elephant on the hood of a black hatchback. The elephant's trunk has a small pouch that opens and closes with Velcro, and that's where, for now, she stashes the stones.
"So—okay, are you really?" Madison asks Hailey.
"Really," Hailey says, all business.
"Okay," Madison says. "Okay—good." Both girls are practically yelling at each other to overcome the relentless flow of traffic. Hailey stands up, clasping the pole firmly in her hands as a white sedan approaches in the near lane with its window down. Madison steps back to give her room, and tries to picture the anonymous person who threw the bottle at her father—tries to picture breaking the bottle on the curb and marring his face with it—but she can't.
Nathan says, "I packed up shop and moved to Portland at the beginning of the year. I mostly write short stories, but I hope to complete a novel when the time is right. The city fucking kills me. This time of year it's basically just a big explosion of rotting wood and chimney smoke, and on the right night it seems like the rain emanates from some unknown source- like the moon soaked up some dark part of the ocean and then flung all these black-capped waves at the trees and rooftops and bridges."