Super Trouper ｡ Steve Harrington

4 : Moving in Stereo

     The sky was empty, just an endless patch of cotton blue that stretched to the four corners of Hawkins. There wasn't even a puff or a wisp of cloud to dull the force of the sun. It was a perfectly picturesque summer day that teenage dreams were made of, and yet even Bronte Fontana had found something to complain about, something to pout about. While the sky was empty, the community pool was crowded with teenagers soaking up rays, children splashing around and mothers decked out on pool chairs reading magazines and paperback novels, flashing their eyes over the top of their sunglasses every so often to spot their frolicking kids.

     The Fontana sisters were wading in the middle of the shared pool, bobbing up and down as the sun glared down brightly, making the surface of the rippling water blinding. Jesse had been true to her words last night over a burnt plate of chicken swapped out for pizza: she was going to spend all day at the pool with Bronte. The girls had already been at the Hawkins Community Pool for three hours now, wasting time as the glowering sun sucked at their skin and energy levels. Jesse's skin was wrinkled from the turbulent water and she had swallowed more chlorine water than the Cherry Coke she had bought at the canteen. In truth, she wanted nothing more than to head home for a long shower before settling down in front of a pedestal fan as her locks dried with her mother's copy of The Bell Jar. However, she had made Bronte a promise and neither of the girls were folding like cards, not yet.

     "I swear if another child kicks me in the back, I'm going to drown them," Bronte remarked with sour disdain, sending a wave of pool water towards a group of children wearing blow-up floaties, kicking and screaming in delight. None of the kids had a care in the world and the only darkness they knew of were the monsters under their beds; both Fontana girls were jealous of their jewelled oblivion that would be tarnished one day. Bronte's auburn hair was braided into two wet ropes and she was sucking at a lollipop. One of the lifeguards working the gate—who had a face full of freckles and a cute smile—had been handing them out along with pumps of sunscreen, and the red food dye had tinted her lips a bruising pink. Bronte had shamelessly tried to flirt with the freckled lifeguard, but he was more interested in making his co-worker—a petite girl with raven-black hair and a gracious demeanour—laugh. And he had been doing a great job of it too because the girl's cheeks were filled with sweet, sweet colour. No summer romance for me then, Bronte had thought with a scrawl twisting her face.

     "You could probably get away with it too," Jesse replied, shielding her eyes with her fingers. "The lifeguard isn't even paying attention." Bronte twirled around in the water beside her older sister, spying the lifeguard in question. He was leaning against the lifeguard tower casually, his skin the colour of polished bronze with a mane of dark blonde curls. He didn't look like he belonged in Hawkins, but on a beach where nothing but the ocean was before him, untamed but natural, brutal but also beautiful.

     "I'd let that boy give me mouth-to-mouth any day," Bronte moaned dramatically. She was in half-a-mind to fake an accident just to get some action, or clear some space in the pool from all the red-cheeked children whacking around pool noodles and spraying water pistols.

     Jesse shrugged, cool water lapping around her torso smoothly. The boy wasn't really her type. No, he wasn't tall and lean with a tidal wave of hair or a goofy smile. "Not sure his girlfriend would be cool with that," she observed. The lifeguard was beaming down a teenage girl with long chocolate brown hair that waved in the summer breeze. They seemed to be chatting easily and freely, making plans of some sort. Like plans to drive out to a sun-baked field with yellow grass that mimicked rolling waves.

     Bronte rolled her glass-blue eyes. "There's not one damn cute person that's single in this dead-end town. And this pool doesn't even have a fucking slide!" It wasn't the first time that long, water-logged day that Bronte had enviously compared Hawkins Community Pool to Waterworks Park back home in Redding, California. Jesse was trying to choke down laughter when a kid kicked forward in an inflatable seahorse, smacking Bronte in the face with the taut plastic. The laughter in Jesse's throat got harder to keep down as Bronte threw up her hands, spending a waterfall of droplets ascending from her arms. "That's it," she huffed out, "I'm done! Let's go home!" The sun was still high in the sky as Bronte pushed herself out of the pool, irritated and folding like a house of playing cards. The teenage girl was seething, her grief and homesickness turning to poison in her blood. Jesse Fontana decided that even feeling dark grief and resentment for a small American town was better than hardly feeling anything, such as herself.