We went swimming, because she said she wanted to do that rather than go to the park. There was the usual gaggle of neighbourhood French girls, all 7 years old, forming their own clique, playing by the pool.
It's been a year since a ton of French families moved to this complex and they mostly keep to themselves, both the parents and the children. Chloe tends to just watch them play, always on the sidelines, not joining in, probably because of the language barrier but also because on the rare occasions when she tried to play with them, she was left out despite her best efforts to be friendly and included.
This time after waddling around in the baby pool for a while, she went up to three of them, the twins (who have ignored Chloe's greetings almost every time) and Gabby (who usually only smiles at Lexi, saying how cute she is) and asked them if she could play with them. They looked at each other before Gabby asked in English, "Do you know how to swim?" Then they explained the game rules briefly to her before talking to each other in French. Gabby's dad was the crocodile and the girls had to cross the pool without being caught by him.
Giddy, Chloe skirted around the side of the pool, neck craning over her raised shoulders, saying, "So scary! Oh oh so scary!" Her first move was to run all the way to the opposite end of the pool, where it was obviously outside of the game parameters, grinning hugely because she thought it was a smart move -- she was safe there. She looked across the distance, checking to see when the crocodile would go after her. Expecting him to come. No one paid attention, although one of the girls glanced over.
Still she ran back, gasping comically and smiling, dipping her legs in the pool before jumping back up. Once she even swam freestyle across the short end of the pool by herself, and it made me proud because she never did the rainbow fish unless prompted (even then, she often refused as it was the hardest). The crocodile went after another girl.
"Mommy, I swam by myself! Did you see my rainbow fish?" she called.
She was at least half a head shorter than all of them. She played for a while on the fringe, smiling with her goggles on, tiptoeing, eking out, "Uh, hello!" unacknowledged. She looked like my goofy Chloe.
I caught the French girls glancing sideways at her and could see her through their eyes. Gabby's dad wasn't making any attempts to catch her. She was all but ignored. And when the game ended and they left together, no one said goodbye. I wondered if Chloe felt it, or if it was just me and my own childhood memories -- all those times being left out.
