That Mountain You've been Climbing

6

"Hey, wait up!" I find myself kicking up water, chasing after Rhett a little faster as we reach the "shoreline". I stop when I see my mother and Winnie about three chairs away. I walk over to them and lean all my weight on one leg.
"Need any help with Winnie?" I ask her because I can't see being responsible for a little person the whole time you're at a pool, because quite frankly, I'm barely responsible for myself. That's just a bridge I'll have to cross when I become a mother myself.
"No, but I'll take your two people float" she says as the waves wash my noble steed back up my way, so I spin around and grab hold of it, handing it to her and she and Winnie head out into the lazy river.
Rhett is wide-eyed and motioning for me to come his way exasperatedly and I comply. When I reach him, we head towards the colossal slides, half-jogging as not to burn our feet off. We do a semi-circle until we reach the café area and snack bar, because just behind it is the back entrance to the lazy river and the entry way to the slides. When we get right up on it, I notice just how high up these slides actually are.
"Time to work these leg muscles!" I say, marching up the first of many steps to come. Rhett and I spot people toting double inner tubes.
"Should we get one?" I question, since the double person ride looked the most appealing to me. And then there are a collection of slick mats for the racing slides.
"The shortest line is the blue slide and you don't need anything for it" Rhett says, hopeful.
"Okay" I say, because I'll comply to basically anything when it comes to rides. But upon further inspection, I notice why there's a micro-line for the blue slide. The rider is put in a coffin-shaped rocket launcher and the bottom drops out from under them, relinquishing them into like a ten foot drop right off the bat, sending the rider up into a loop and then back down. It's short and sweet and slightly terrifying, if you are scared of terrifying things.
Rhett and I are a little over halfway up the steps when we start having to dodge people with inner tubes and mats. We "excuse me, pardon me, coming through" until we reach the top, breaking through the forest of people with gargantuan floats standing in every direction, in every which way.
I let my legs relax as we reach the top and I can feel my tummy turning when I see the slide. It's exciting and horrendous at the same time. In front of us, there stands a black boy in American flag trunks. He is talking up the ride, telling about it being his fifteenth time to slide down today, but all I'm wondering is how in shape he is to have walked up these steps fifteen times in a row. He is trying to convince this short, slightly chubby girl with all her hair looped in a tiny bun on top of her head to go down. She seems petrified, even with the boys calming words. She was in front of the boy in the American flag shorts, but she quickly scurries out of the way, allowing him in front of her. She nestles up beside the supervisor and just glancing at him, I start to understand her motives. Oh. This is why she's putting on this contrived show. It's just a sham show. That supervisor is somewhat adorable. And he's personable, like he laughs and talks. It's unbelievable. I can't help but giggle slightly to myself. She is really pouring it on thick. She's just standing there, babbling on and on to this poor boy who I can tell is only being nice.
"This girl" I lean over and whisper to Rhett.
He looks back at me and rolls his eyes, "I know."
"Just go on down, just go on!!" She tells the boy with the killer leg muscles.
"I'll be a while I think" she says through a series of laughter.
"We know" I say to Rhett who giggles in response.
"Which one of you goes first?" The worker says, smiling at me and Rhett. Rhett hops out in front of me and onto the scale for approval of his weight so he doesn't get stuck in the slide. He is approved and enters the launcher nervously.
"Nervous?" The boy asks and Rhett shakes his head no with a wild grin on his face.
"Don't worry there's only a slight chance of death" the boy says, running a hand through his wild brown hair, casting a glance at me.
I laugh and shake my head, looking over at Rhett whose expression is even more worried now.
"Watch this... WAIT!!" The boy hollers as he presses the button, ridding Rhett of his footing. He disappears in a matter of seconds and I can't even see his look of panic I know he was wearing. The tenacious female beside the prankster giggles hysterically. I laugh and shake my head, stepping into the portal for my turn.
"Don't break your neck" the boy says, smiling and nodding at me, running his hand through his mane multiple times. I smile and nod, and I can see through the clear barrier I'm behind that the girl is still trying her best to catch this boys attention. Poor thing.
"I'll try real hard" I say, crossing my arms as everyone before me has done.
"Oh! And you need to take those sunglasses off unless you want to lose them" the guy says, yanking his hand away from the button that will send me sailing. I take them off and blink into the light, leaning my back completely against the blue wall. The water slides down my body so smoothly, it almost feels relaxing if I hadn't the knowledge that I was about to go free falling in water. I hold my sunglasses in my right hand, crossing over the left, which has a stick-on copper tattoo from Earthbound starting at my middle joints on my fingers and spreading about 1/4 of the way up my arm. It's a beautiful Indian pattern and it looks pretty legit. I idly wonder if the boy and his little minion notice it until he wakes me from my daydream.
"Ready??" He asks, a smile still playing on his face.
I nod slightly and he acts as if he'll press it, pausing once and then grinning bigger before..
WAHH! I let out an excited yelp as my vision disappears along with the ground holding me. My senses are all completely messed up as water floods my eyes and mouth and nose. Why didn't he tell me to hold my nose!? Before I even have time to contemplate how long before I'll drown, the slide spits me out into sweet air and I sit up, gathering myself and pulling my bikini back up. I wipe my eyes and notice that my smile is broad. I casually tug my bikini bottoms from the inside of my crack before standing up and stepping out of the slide. Rhett waits for me close to the steps and I rejoin him.
"Did you like it!?" He asks vigorously.
"I would've liked it a lot better if I would've held my nose and not drowned" I retort. He just giggles and we make our way closer to the spiral slide.
"Time for this one!" I say, grabbing for a blue double tube.
"I got it" Rhett says, taking the tube completely away from me and I am surprised at his chivalry. It's very unlike him since he got into his jr high years. As we start up the steps again, I tug my ponytail down, letting my wet hair fall against my back and pulling the ponytail holder around my other arm with the other bands. I squeeze some water out of my hair, which only causes it to kink and curl up. I pull it over to the side and hold it with my tattooed hand so the sun still kisses my back. As we round the last set of steps, we get up onto the top. And since the spiral slide is neighbors with the slide we've just been on, we get to continue our entertainment of watching this girl make a fool of herself. He's still laughing and nodding her off as she chatters on about something we can't hear. We'd witnessed a full blown over exaggeration to say the least, but then this girl starts to slowly inch her way up towards the slide.
"I think I'm ready to-"
"Your turn to go down" a voice calls, interrupting her sudden spike of bravery, and Rhett and I turn to see a black-haired, curly headed, short and somewhat chubby supervisor coming to relieve the harassed boy.
"Thanks Sonny" I hear the wild-haired boy say and I believe he truly means it.
They exchange a few words and a laugh before switching places. Sonny steps up to the slide's operator and suddenly Miss Dramabomb decides she isn't brave at all and actually FOLLOWS THE POOR BOY BACK DOWN THE STEPS. Rhett and I shoot each other a can-you-believe-this-insanity look and then commence laughing.
"Wow. She was definitely only doing that because he was cute" I tell Rhett.
"Ohhhh, so you thought he was cute?" He bounces his eyebrows and I curl my lips into a smile and roll my eyes, pushing Rhett forward since it's now our turn. He flips our blue double float into the water with a splash and we step up on the scale. We are approved and start to board our float. Though he is almost my height by now, my muscles outweigh his and so he plops into the front of the float and I occupy the back, my legs hugging him.
"Push off these poles!" He says, as we're about to be approved to set sail, and I'm surprised the lifeguard doesn't have a problem with it.
"And pick your butt up!!" He adds and our float shoots forward. He yells the phrase "pick your butt up" at least seven times as we round the curves and descend the actual descending part of the ride. If Rhett's theory actually has anything to it, we actually are going faster than most of the floats. We're rather spinning out of control as we ride up into the spiral.
"WOAAHHH YASS!" I shout excitedly, because shouting just makes everything more fun. Rhett just giggles because jr high boys are too cool for childish things such as shouting from excitement.
Our float lashes out wildly before sliding us back down from our high and sending us across a pathway of water. It zooms straight ahead and nearly knocks the supervisor at the bottom over as he struggles to catch us. He holds on as the float tries to buck away from him and Rhett and I jump out, splashing him as we do so, and make our way back out onto the concrete surface as he passes our float off to the next lucky riders.
"Let's do the racing slides!" Rhett exclaims, pushing past me and grabbing himself a mat.
"Okay, but then I'm gonna go see if I need to take Winnie. Mother will bite our heads off if we don't" I say, reaching up and taking my own mat from the rack. I'm really just tired of traveling up these steps, if I'm honest with myself.
"Ugh" Rhett huffs, heading back in the direction of the mountain of steps.
The racing slides are a flight under the other two slides and Rhett and I nearly reach the top without stopping. When we get to the end of the line, I squeeze my foamed water mat. I wonder if this ride will drown me as well. Guess I'll have to cross that bridge when I get there. The line runs out soon and me, Rhett, and two other guys line up to jump into the tunnels.
"Now wait till the countdown is done before you go.." The supervisor says. The countdown to 3 strikes 2 and I run at my tunnel and jump in, cheating everyone out of the win and laughing, swallowing frightening amounts of chlorine as I round the sharp curves until I finally manage to close my laughing mouth. My slide spits me out at least .5 seconds before everyone else and I have to bend upwards with my bottom half in order to take my water mat with me and I hear catcalls behind me as the other two guys are spat from the slides alongside Rhett. I scowl and roll my eyes, stepping out of the slide's mouth as Rhett rejoins me protectively.
"And on that note, I'm getting back in the lazy river" I point casually.
"Aww" Rhett groans.
"Sorry bout it" I shrug and smile slightly.
We jet back across the bridge, too busy trying to save our cooking feet to overlook our view of the whole place.
"Do you even see them anywhere?" Rhett asks irritably once we're trotting back across the waves.
"Nope. Guess we'll have to swim back around and look for them" I say, latching onto another double float, and Rhett groans, but falls back into a single tube. The unauthentic tide swoops us back toward the larger mass of people and whisks us back under the bridge, then back out into the sunlight. My bottom half floats behind me, my legs about 13 inches apart, as my upper half has a loose grip on the float. The speakers are booming "She's So High" and Rhett is actually being chill for once. It's somewhat peaceful. I glance up as we start to float towards the canopy of slides we were just climbing up not too long ago. We float into the shadows from the steps and slides and I start to relax as the warm breeze is starting to dry my knotted hair. Just as my eyelids start to feel weighty, I feel a wild push and I am being beat to death by what feels like Hen Wallows. I kick myself wildly out of the hurricane and start to paddle after an idiotic, giggling Rhett.
"You better run!" I yell his way, splashing water towards him and soaking everyone in the vicinity.
I let out a faint giggle as I notice them.
"Sorry" I mutter, sinking back into my float.
A boy is giggling, looking in my direction. He's on a double float with a girl. Better keep your eyes and smiling lips to yourself, boy.
I turn and start to paddle away from them.