Mullis: Selling out for pool privileges

My parents decided to move out of Detroit when I was 14. My siblings and I hated the idea. Then my parents found a house with a pool.

We quit pouting and started packing.

I’m not proud that we sold out for a pool, but we had been selling out for pool privileges for years.

My sister and I were the world’s most apathetic Girl Scouts, but we took the pledge because pool passes were part of the package. I wasn’t a big birthday party kid, but if the party involved a pool, I came early.

Only one kid in our neighborhood had a pool. She was cool and tan just like you’d imagine a kid with a pool to be. We hot, pasty kids were always courting favor. My sister ended up in her class and they became friends. That summer, on particularly miserable July afternoons, we would ride our bikes by her house, hoping she was looking for company.

Like I said, I’m not proud.

We moved in January. Snow blanketed the yard, but we knew the kidney-shaped, in-ground pool was there. We climbed the icy rungs of the water slide and argued over who would be the first to jump off the diving board.

Spring came, revealing murky waters and a damaged lining. We weren’t terribly patient with the repairs. We’d sit on the ground, legs dangling into the emptiness, waiting for the OK to jump.

When we finally jumped, it wasn’t OK. Chlorine meant to shock the water into submission burned our eyes and stung our skin, but it was worth it.

Having a pool was as advertised.

Summer after summer, we raced to be the first one in and the last one out. We played violent games of Keep Away, invented elaborate dives, and created epic whirlpools.

We broke the diving board. We broke the slide. We tore through a few more linings.
We swam at night when the water seemed like liquid darkness. We lazed away the day, draped over inner tubes, listening to the ballgame while my dad burned hot dogs on the grill. We learned the hard way not to stray too close to the edge with our good clothes on — someone was always lying in wait.

Splash!

I was the first sibling to leave home. The day before, I took a break from packing and dove into the pool. There is nothing like a splash to empty the house. Soon, all seven of us kids were out there, right down to my 6-year-old brother.

My mother snapped a picture of us with a disposable camera — elbows on the concrete, bodies in the water, eyes squinted from sun and chlorine. It was one of those moments that means more than you know when you’re living it, which might be why I still have the picture.

I was the first sibling to bring home an outsider. I was nervous that day, picking a fight with my then-boyfriend on the way to the house. My family was swimming when we arrived, including my dad. When my boyfriend bent down to shake my dad’s hand, I pushed him in. Chaos ensued.

The outsider was now an insider.

I was the first sibling to have a baby — a girl who spent the better part of her first birthday floating in a baby inner tube, smiling at her goofy aunts and uncles. By the time she was five, they had taught her how to swim, dive and, yes, push in unsuspecting bystanders.

That pool has welcomed six more outsiders and 14 more babies, the last of whom has yet to arrive. We just found out my sister’s expecting, a happy announcement given poolside, just the way we like it.

Pool privileges — always worth selling out for.

Nicole L.V. Mullis is the author of “A Teacher Named Faith.” You can reach her at nlvm.columns@gmail.com or www.NicoleLVMullis.com.