Spinach Teeth & Starlight

The pool lights flickered across the water, casting everything in this electric blue glow that made everyone look either gorgeous or like a drowned rat. No in-between. I'd been hovering by the snack table for twenty minutes, nursing the same warm soda, trying to work up the courage to actually get in the water.

"You gonna swim or just guard the chips all night?" Maya appeared beside me, dropping into a lounge chair with the casual confidence I'd been trying to fake since seventh grade. She was wearing this bikini that looked like it was designed by someone who actually understood color theory, while I was in my one-piece that my mom said was "practical."

"I'm observing," I said, which was code for "I'm overthinking every social interaction and considering faking a stomach ache."

Then I smiled. And Jake—across the pool, laughing at something Tyler said—caught my eye. Maya's eyes went huge.

"Chloe, you've got—"

I bolted to the bathroom mirror. Sure enough. A giant piece of spinach from the veggie wrap was wedged between my front teeth like some kind of green architectural monument. I'd been walking around with it all evening. Talking to people. Smiling. I'd probably smiled at Jake.

I died inside. Actually died. If there was an afterlife for social embarrassments, I was currently being judged by a council of all my middle school mistakes.

The bathroom window looked out over the pool deck, where these palm trees swayed in the breeze like they didn't care about my dental tragedy. I spotted Mrs. Henderson's orange cat sitting on the back fence, watching the party with that judgment cats do so well. And behind it, barely visible in the shadows, a fox. Not a metaphorical fox—a real one, its eyes catching the light like tiny gold coins.

The fox and cat stared at each other, then both looked toward the bathroom window like they knew.

I washed the spinach out, stared at myself, and thought about how much time I spent worrying about how I looked to people who were probably worrying about how they looked to me. Maya's words echoed: "You gonna swim or just guard the chips?"

I walked back out, hair still wet from splashing water on my face, and cannonballed into the deep end right next to Jake.

"Finally!" Maya yelled.

Underwater, everything was muffled and blue and perfect. I surfaced, sputtering, and Jake laughed—not at me, but with me.

"Took you long enough," he said.

The fox on the fence slipped away into the darkness, and the cat curled up on a warm patio chair. I floated on my back, looking up at the stars through the palm fronds, and realized nobody was thinking about my spinach teeth but me.