His balance was nowhere to be found. Like me at a Tom Petty concert.
Gone.
Vanished.
Poof.
He stumbled backward. I leaned forward. We still didn’t balance out. His arms shot out. Candice and her mom, bless their cute little hearts, tried to reach for his hands and stop the couple hundred pounds’ worth of body from falling back.
Obviously, they didn’t do much. We went falling backward.
You know that moment on the swing, when you’re going way too high and your stomach feels like it’s about to squeeze out of your peehole? If you don’t, then maybe you never swung high enough. I, on the other hand, loved swinging like a Cirque du Soleil trainee, making both my parents and everyone else on the playground incredibly nervous.
I liked swinging in a playground. That was controlled.
This wasn’t.
Fear grabbed me by the throat as I fell through the air. I’d forgotten all about the rainbow pool and was shocked when my back didn’t hit cold hard concrete.
Instead, the both of us broke through the previously serene water, causing a splash of technicolor and drawing gasps from the gathered people. The pool just deep enough to cushion the fall without either of us getting seriously hurt.
Someone started clapping. I looked to Beckham, who had paint dripping down his face. We were sitting in chest deep rainbow water. I wiped some of it off his cheek, which didn’t really work since my hand was also covered in paint.
And then we both started to crack up.
11Beckham Noble
Iwas currently dripping wet in potentially toxic paint surrounded by a cluster of onlookers, some taking photos and video, others offering to help us out, and, all of it considered, I wouldn’t trade this moment for anything. Not when I look to my left and see a multicolored Oliver, laughing almost to tears. I couldn’t help but join, feeling the absurdity of the situation wash over me like the rainbow we had just destroyed.
There were a chorus of “oh my Gods” being shouted around us. I was vaguely aware of hands reaching out to help us. We were back on solid ground with towels being wrapped around us.
“I am so, so, sooo sorry.” It was the mother who had wanted to take the picture in the first place.
“I can’t believe my mom did that.”
“I didn’t push them into the pool, Candice!”
Oliver and I were both laughing. “Don’t worry about it,” Oliver said, dabbing his face with a previously white towel.
“My pool! My rainbow-lusion!” It was a man yelling. He had his hands to his face, looking at the destroyed art installation.
“Sorry, mate. It was a complete accident.”
The man, a thin guy with big eyes made even bigger by the circular glass bottles he was wearing, looked at us, then the pool, then back to us.
“You two fell in?”
“Hence the paint job,” Oliver said, his eyebrows raised like a puppy facing down his owner after being caught upending the trash bin.
“You two… it’s perfect. Completely perfect. It’s how I wanted this piece to end, I just didn’t know it. Thank you! Thank you.” He opened his long skinny arms and pulled us into a hug, smearing more paint on each other and him.
When we separated, even Candice’s mom looked confused as all hell. “Sorry, but… didn’t we just destroy your beautiful art piece?”
He vigorously shook his head. His thick black hair matted with paint sprayed some into the air.
“No, no, no. You two made it better. This was set to be destroyed in an hour and fifteen minutes, and I had no idea what I wanted to do to symbolize its end. It would have been quite anticlimactic if it had remained untouched until I stuck a vacuum hose into it. What better way of saying goodbye to this beautiful piece than two lovers falling into the illusion?”
Oliver and I shot each other a glance. Lovers, huh? We were that obvious I guess.