The Notorious R(uth) B(arakat) G(rimaldi)

Chapter 9: COMA Pool Party

"Dad? I was thinking of having some people over to swim Friday evening. You and Pop okay with that? Yea or nay?" Ruthie put her arms around her dad's neck as he sat at the computer in the den, working on a brief.

"Hold on, sweetie, lemme look at the chart," Todd answered, pulling up the family calendar.

"I already did, and I didn't see anything," Ruthie supplied.

"Yes, but did you check Saturday morning?" Todd asked with a chuckle. "Being free Friday night is important, but what if Pop has some important thing going on Saturday morning, hm? He can't show up looking like five kinds of shit because you and your awful friends kept him up all night with your music and shrieking, right?"

Ruthie laughed and gave him a little shake, knowing he was teasing her. He was right, though, about Pop needing sleep if he had something important happening on Saturday morning.

"And Saturday looks wide open as well," her father informed her. "Looks like your party is a go, Rosebud. Is this going to be a small, private affair, or a COMA party?"

"COMA, I think. There are lots of people I didn't see over the summer, and it's already starting to get cold at night, so this might be the last pool party until next year," she told him. COMA was their family acronym for "Come One, Come All," which obviously meant it would be casual and open to pretty much anyone, as opposed to a small, private party with just a few, carefully chosen guests. "I'll probably send out a group text to a bunch of people if you guys don't care about the noise?"

"We're good. Just give me a number so I know how much crap to buy, okay?"

"Okay. And thank you, Dad. I love you." Ruthie hugged her father, hard, and kissed the top of his head.

🍕🐳👙🌴👙🌴👙🌴👙🐳🍕

"You know how lucky you are?" Linda asked rhetorically.

She was sitting on Ruthie's bed, waiting as Ruthie changed her clothes for the pool party. It was Friday afternoon, and people were going to start arriving pretty soon.

"Hmm? Oh, for sure. It was supposed to be, like one fifty, but it was half off, then half off that, so I got it for, like forty dollars," Ruthie said, looking at herself in the mirror and adjusting the straps of her red polka dotted bikini. It was very retro, covered with ruffles, and in the words of Pop, "super cute."

"No, not the suit, Miss perfect bikini body I hate your guts," Linda responded, throwing a pillow at Ruthie.

"You know, you call me stuff like that all the time, but I don't notice you having a lot of issues in the body department, Miss Pedretti," Ruthie retorted as she caught the pillow and threw it back.

"Please, I have an ass the size of Texas," Linda said, looking glumly at her bottom for a moment. "Anyway, as I was saying, you're lucky that you have the parents you have, and the house that you have, you know? How your dads are always up for entertaining, how they don't care if you have people over, how they're always willing to buy the food and drinks and stuff for your impromptu get togethers? Your house is always spotless, your backyard lawn is always cut, your pool house is always clean and full of guest towels."

"Are you saying I'm lucky my parents are gay?" Ruthie asked with a grin. "Because that's kinda what it sounds like, you know."

"No!" Linda answered, shocked. "Craig and Cynthia Halvorsen have parents like that, and they're not gay. I'm just saying that some people live like that, and some don't.

"I mean, we have a house the size of yours, with a pool and everything. We even have a pool house. But our backyard lawn is never cut unless someone's coming, and then only because my dad yells at my brother until he does it, right before they get there. And the pool house never has clean towels unless we get in there and put them in, again, right before the guests arrive. And the pool is only clean when people are coming, just like the downstairs bathroom. In fact, that's usually how we know people are coming." Linda sat up, sounding indignant.