Allison Field Bell
Sun stuck to the sky like an egg yolk. A whole fried center casting its heat across the yard. Roasting every cactus, boiling the pavement, turning the pool into bathwater. Tucson in the summertime. My friend with her two-year-old beside the pool at a water table. I didn’t know what a water table was until children entered my life. My friends’ kids love them. Plastic shapes that contain liquid. A series of small-holed cups and buckets, a few plastic fish. Entertains a kid for hours. This kid—Scarlett—clanks plastic against plastic, splashes water on her chest, squeals in delight. My old friend smiles.
Not old but old. We were friends in high school. Back when we used to steal Smirnoff Ice from the local Safeway. We’ve stayed friends but only peripherally. I went to her wedding, sent her something off her shower registry for her kid, and I get the social media updates. But: here she is in southern Arizona. Well, she’s been here half a decade, but she’s suddenly decided to call me.
Today, she’s been gushing about motherhood. She also confessed she’s stopped watching the news. “Too damn depressing,” she said. “And I have this little one to raise.”
I stare at the perfectly manicured, cacti-riddled yard, the water table, the pool. The blonde-haired Scarlett, flushing redder than her name in the heat. Tucson will run out of water. It’s not a question of if, but when. My friend wears a straw sunhat and custom Ray Bans. Her husband floats around the pool drinking a beer. It’s Tuesday. He works from home. Something in tech.
They moved here from the Bay during the pandemic. Joining the ranks of Californians driving up prices across the country.
I dangle my feet at the edge of the pool. I’m not sure what to say to her. So much time has passed. I’m a professor at the University of Arizona now, still struggling to pay off student loans. I live in a small house in a gentrifying neighborhood. I do not have a pool or a cactus garden. Or a husband or a child.
My friend loves her life, she says, but sometimes, she gets bored.
“Sometimes, I wonder,” she says. “What to do with my time. When Scarlett naps, for instance. I don’t know what to do with myself.”
She laughs and sips her margarita through a straw.
I try to imagine not knowing “what to do with my time.”
“Sounds nice,” I say.
She looks at me critically. “You’re running out of it, you know. Time,” she says.
She knows I’m single and focused on my career because that’s how I explained myself to her. My career and whether it can survive the attacks leveled against higher ed.
“I’m writing a book, you know,” I say.
“Scarlett thinks you should settle down,” my friend says.
This is how she has been communicating all morning. “Scarlett thinks it’s hot out. Scarlett wants us to put a lawn in the front yard. Scarlett feels sad you haven’t visited.”
“I am settled down,” I say. “Settling just looks different depending who you are.”
I feel I am being quite diplomatic.
My friend says, “No, it really doesn’t.”
I’m not sure why my friend is harking on this point. She’s the worst kind of mother: the kind who thinks everyone else should do it too. Isn’t it enough that I brought Scarlett a book with a cactus and a handmade goatmilk soap? Made by a retired schoolteacher. Scented with Creosote and Saguaro blossom. My friend had said, “Thank you” and “this is such a you gift.”
“Maybe I don’t want to settle,” I say.
“But isn’t Scarlett just the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?”
I smile. Scarlett has poured from a red cup about a hundred times since we sat down. My friend sips her margarita while I nurse a bottle of water. I don’t drink margaritas before noon.
“Don’t you want one of these?” she asks, squashing Scarlett’s face with her own. Scarlett screeches, and I laugh.
From the pool, the father/husband calls for another beer. My friend sashays away to the cooler and passes him one.
“Scarlett loves this life,” she says.
I know her though. Maybe it’s been years since we were close, but I can tell she’s half miserable. I’m not even sure she likes the kid.
“What’s your book about?” she asks.
I wave her off. “It’s very esoteric,” I say.
“Tell me,” she says.
“It’s about the environmental impact of the decline of the Salt Lake on the indigenous Wasatch plant life. I’ve been to Salt Lake a dozen times to do research.”
My friend seems to be staring at me, but she’s wearing sunglasses so I can’t tell. Scarlett sneezes.
“Bless you baby,” my friend says. And to me, she says, “Sounds fascinating.”
I shrug, and feel my skin crinkle under the movement. Doesn’t matter how much sunscreen I slather on here.
“Well, anyway,” I say, feeling bold. “I’ll have a book baby before you have a teenager.”
Surprisingly, my friend laughs. “God, I’m not looking forward to that. The teenager part. Your book, on the other hand, can’t wait to get my copy.”
Her husband sets his beer on the pool ledge and dives under. My friend excuses herself to go inside to use the “ladies’ room.” She asks me to keep an eye on “her baby.”
I turn my attention to Scarlett. So taken care-of. So over-loved. Before I even realize what I’m doing, I snatch away her red cup. She looks at me for a minute, lip quivering. I am tempted to return the cup. Equally curious to see what happens next. I hide it behind my back, picturing her mother as a teenager stashing those Smirnoffs.
The sun beats down on us. The husband resurfaces and waves at me or at his kid—I can’t tell.
Scarlett locks eyes with me, then opens her mouth and wails.
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Allison Field Bell’s debut poetry collection, All That Blue, is forthcoming in 2026. She is also the author of three chapbooks, Stitch (forthcoming), Without Woman or Body, and Edge of the Sea. Find her at allisonfieldbell.com