Write about a memorable women

The sun bore down on my shoulders as I squinted out across the pool. I exhaled and wiped sweat off my forehead as I watched Simon break out in a sprint.

His bare feet padded across the concrete leaving a watery trail as he accelerated toward the snack shop, no doubt to charge a grilled cheese and French fries to his parents’ tab.

There was no point yelling at him now as he was already nearing the pool gates. But my skin bristled with anger. Not once had he listened to my pleas, scolds and yells when I tried to discipline him this summer. And not once had his mother stepped in to aid in curbing his unruly behavior.

She sat now, lounging with the other country club mothers with their chairs turned toward each other in a circle, oblivious to the pool, to their children, or anything else happening in the world.

I glanced at my watch and blew the whistle. Rest break.

I steadied myself as I climbed down the latter and grabbed the leaf skimmer leaned against my chair. Mary Ella would probably come down to check on things soon and would have a stroke if she saw the leaves floating by the circle of mothers.

I walked over to them, ready to give a friendly nod if one of them made eye contact with me, but they were too engrossed in conversation to notice my approach. Thank god, I thought as I reached the skimmer toward the nearest leaf. Forced congeniality was not my strong suit.

They were carrying on about Samantha’s daughter’s new beau—“Vanderbilt and studying to be a doctor, can you believe it?”—when Debra shushed the group.

“Oh god, here she comes,” she whispered loudly, peering over her tortoise shell sunglasses at the entrance. I glanced subtly in that direction, trying to not give away that I was eaves dropping.

It was Ramona and her son, Diego, new members of the club. Ramona paused at the gate to wait for Diego, reaching out her hand. He quickened his pace to reach her, and they entered hand in hand, choosing two chairs across the pool from the other mothers. She laid out her towel and then his, tussling his hair as he sat next to her.
 
Debra smoothed out her blue and white striped one piece shaking her head. “I’m not judging, I just can’t imagine wearing something like that in front of my children.” The mothers all murmured in agreement in their tasteful one pieces and tankinis. None of them would be caught dead in a leopard print bikini. "It's just not motherly."

"And you know, if Peter brought home a woman with tattoos like hers, I wouldn't stand for it," Susan joined in. "It's a clear sign that someone is impulsive and a poor decision maker. It would tell me everything I needed to know about that woman's ability to be a good mother." 

I contained the urge to scoff, thinking of the cross I'd seen tattooed across Peter's bicep when he practiced for dive team in the mornings. 

The woman continued chatting in hushed tones about Ramona — they'd made their disdain for her joining clear from day one.  

She was boisterous, loud and often spoke in Spanish with the staff at the pool. The space she felt comfortable taking up seemed to grate on the nerves of the other mothers. Rumors had even circulated that she might be gay after she brought Chloe Caldwell’s “Women” to read by the pool one day. No one had ever seen her husband, so reason stood that the book was given to her by a female lover.

But for all the vitriol I’d heard spewed in her direction, I couldn’t help but admire her. She was everything I’d been taught not to be, and her quiet, confident rebellion stoked a fire within me. And though the other mothers seemed to label her as unfit, she was the most affectionate mother I had ever seen.

Simon had pushed Diego down one day, his knee scraped and bloodied on the concrete. Ramona held him and wiped his tears as I cleaned the wound, and I found myself transfixed as she stroked his hair and kissed him on the top of his head. I’d never seen such tenderness from the other mothers before.