Uncertain Ground by Carolyn Osborn

water storage tanks, too small to do anything except float. If Emmett couldn’t swim, I doubted he could float and if he couldn’t do something, I was beginning to learn, he usually scorned it. That afternoon, without saying much, he established himself in a deck chair with a drink then fell asleep under a wide awning near the pool. He looked out of place there with his hat half over his face, his legs stretched out in jeans when the rest of us had on bathing suits.
    “Hard night?” Roby nodded toward him.
    “I guess so. He got involved in a rodeo somewhere outside Texas City.”
    “I’ve never been to one.” He looked as if I’d just given him a gift he couldn’t wait to open.
    “I haven’t been to one either,” Jane said.
    “Let’s go!” Roby’s voice rose.
    Marion agreed immediately.
    It was such a dumb idea I stared at the three of them, got up, and jumped into the pool.
    Leslie was already in. “What was Roby saying?’
    “He wants to go to a rodeo. I don’t know why. Once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.”
    “I’ve never seen one,” said Leslie.
    “Oh God!” I did a surface dive. The water was almost as warm as the Gulf ’s. The hotel, covered with pale orange stucco and a darker orange tile roof, faced the seawall. It had an air of twenties opulence. Waiters in white jackets carrying trays with elaborate care brought drinks. Though he was obviously the youngest one there, Marion signed for everything. No one else came to the pool. It was like being at a country club only less crowded.
    I wondered at this and asked Leslie if everyone staying at the hotel had gone to the Gulf to swim.
    “I don’t know. I guess so. Or maybe Marion had them put up the sign saying
CLOSED
. He usually does when he’s here.” She laughed and swam across the pool.
    What did the people who’d paid to stay there do? They were strangers, tourists on vacations, unaware that an owner’s sons took special privileges. Wouldn’t the manager, when somebody else wanted to swim, move the sign finally? Or was the hotel’s staff accustomed to Marion’s pushy habits? Maybe he, like Emmett, was trying to cover up a weakness. Emmett didn’t want anybody to laugh at him. I flipped over on my back to gaze at the blank blue sky. I liked that pool, liked its quiet emptiness, the breeze blowing in from the ocean just across the street. There weren’t many cars on the boulevard that day, so there was little traffic noise. Drifting aimlessly I raised my head now and then to hear gulls’ cries, wind-rattling palm leaves, clinks of glasses on heavy glass-topped tables. Many of the hotel’s windows overlooked the pool, yet they were set back so far there wasno feeling of intrusion. Slowly I began to hear the murmur of surrounding voices and began swimming again. When I reached the side of the pool near him I heard Roby chanting, “Let us arise and go now!”
    Jane sat on the edge nearby, her legs in the water, a Tom Collins in hand. “Roby,” she said in a lazy drawl, “you are too much! We just got here.”
    I pulled myself up out of the water and sat down beside her.
    “He’s ready to go?”
    “Roby likes to do things, likes for us all to do things.” She raised her eyebrows and drank.
    Marion, standing directly behind us, pushed me into the pool. I wondered why he’d bothered and decided he must be bored. Swimming to the opposite side, I climbed out, walked over, and sat down by Roby to tell him there was no use carrying on about the rodeo. We couldn’t arise and go to one since they were held generally at night in the summer and usually on weekends.
    We went to the rodeo the next Saturday—all of us together—because Roby wanted go. No one but Emmett wore boots. None of them owned a pair, and I’d left mine in Leon. Everybody had on blue jeans and loafers except Marion who’d stuffed himself into a pair of white cotton trousers.
    “He never knows what to wear,” Leslie said. “Most of the time Roby