Riddles by the Pool

The Sphinx sat at the deep end of the pool, her legs crossed like she was meditating or maybe just plotting world domination. Her real name was Riley, but nobody called her that anymore—not since sophomore year when she'd spent an entire week speaking only in riddles during lunch period.

"Yo, Sphinx!" Jake called, doing a cannonball that splashed chlorinated water onto my phone. "You gonna sit there looking mysterious all day, or you actually gonna swim?"

Riley didn't even blink. Her sunglasses reflected the distorted versions of us all—Jake showing off, Chloe applying lip gloss like her life depended on it, and me, Maya, trying to look like I belonged.

"I'm not the one who needs to prove something," Riley said finally, her voice carrying over the splashing and laughter. "Some of us are content to just exist."

Jake rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Hey, whose house is this again?"

"My cousin's," I said, then immediately regretted drawing attention to myself. "They're in Europe for the month."

"Nice," Chloe said, but she was already back to fixing her hair in her phone camera. "Too bad the cable's out though. I was gonna livestream this."

That's when I noticed it—the thick black cable trailing from the house into the pool area, lying across the concrete like a dead snake. No WiFi, no service, just us and whatever happened when nobody was watching.

Riley stood up finally, her sundress flowing around her. She walked to the edge of the pool where Jake was surfacing, gasping dramatically.

"Want to know something funny?" Riley said.

Jake treaded water, looking annoyed. "What?"

"The ancient Sphinx asked riddles because she was lonely. You people think I'm mysterious because I don't talk, but maybe you're just not saying anything worth responding to."

She dropped her sunglasses on a lounge chair and dove in—not graceful like Chloe would've practiced for hours, but perfect somehow. In the water, Riley wasn't the Sphinx anymore. She was just another girl in a pool full of teenagers who were all pretending to be something they weren't.

I looked at the disconnected cable, then at my phone where my notifications had died an hour ago. For the first time all summer, I didn't check it.

"Hey Maya," Jake called. "You coming in or what?"

I looked at Riley surfacing nearby, at Chloe finally putting down her phone, at the way the pool lights were starting to flicker on as twilight set in.

"Yeah," I said. "I'm coming."

Maybe the riddle wasn't about who we were supposed to be. Maybe it was simpler than that. Some things don't need a connection to work.