Between the Tides (11 page)

“Greta, I asked for skim milk. Always skim milk.” I frown in a way that gives away my Botox. If anyone asks, I say that I do it for my headaches. I'm too young to have begun for any other reason.

“It is skim milk, Mrs. Howard. Your regular order,” Greta defends herself.

“I don't think so.” I push my cup toward the periphery of our tile table.

“I'll order another, Mrs. Howard.”

“Yes, please do.”

Greta scoops up the cup and vanishes. I turn my attention toward Lainie.

“I suppose she's never heard that the customer is always right,” I sigh.

Lainie waits, knowing as well as I do why I've invited her. We want to hear what each other has to say about Saturday night.

“My husband doesn't dance, thank God yours does,” I say.

“Yes, Charles is a good dancer,” she agrees, sipping her macchiato. “Jess, do you remember the summer that we worked at my father's marina?”

“How could I forget. I haven't done a stitch of clerical work since,” I say. “There was the one small window that faced the boatyard and the bay. To this day when someone uses the word ‘repair' I remember keeping track of the boats, the endless follow-up system we had to follow ‘to please the clients.'”

“We talked incessantly about what we'd do on our time off. I was always trying to sketch at Higbee Beach.”

“No, you also swam before the lifeguards were on duty. Your father used to go nuts. He'd say, ‘Every year, a local drowns, Lainie. Promise me you won't go beyond the markers.' Still you did; you would have lied and cheated for those swims.”

We both laugh.

“Didn't you work at the Pier that summer?” she asks.

“Yup, by the waterfront. I was seating customers and my grandmother kept saying I should waitress instead for the tip money. I wanted the prestige of hosting, it appeared to be classier. Then I'd go with friends to the different beaches—not to swim or with a charcoal pencil and pad—to be the babe in the string bikini.”

“You were. You and your friends had that contest, whose bikini bottom stretched most across her hip bones.”

“I won. I didn't have an ounce of extra fat on my stomach.” Three espresso machines make a loud swooshing sound at once. Greta returns with the skim-milk macchiato.

“You showed up sometimes in the early mornings when the lifeguards did their aerobic workouts. Mostly to flirt with Matt.”

“Ah, Matt. I'm not sure we should go there, Lainie.”

Matt, captain of the Cape May lifeguards, whom I've pushed out of my mind for years, along with much of my experiences in Cape May. Once our repeated trysts were known up and down the beaches, Lainie announced how little she cared for him, how his swagger bothered her.

“Don't you see that everyone likes him, everyone wants him, Lainie, everyone?” I had said to her. She warned me that my fling with Matt would end badly, and it did when I swallowed sixteen of our friend Alice's birth control pills in Lainie's mother's guest room. Lainie was my confidante first and then my nurse that afternoon I spent almost bleeding to death.

“Oyster roulette,” Lainie had said while I cramped and writhed in pain. “Matt makes me think of oysters, you know, irresistible and almost sly going down your throat. People act like they're winning when they devour them. Not everyone wins.”

“The summer of '90…” I say now, as if none of it had been that traumatic.

I take a thin purple plastic hairband out of my purse and point to it. “Liza's. Three for two dollars at CVS.” I put it on and push back my hair to remind Lainie that my widow's peak, my one feature she ever commented on, is intact.

“We go way back, the two of us, Lainie, lots of history.” I lean toward her. “How is it being in Elliot? The Y is the best pool, right?”

“I love the pool, Jess. It's been a saving grace.”

“The water is oxygenated, and that's much better for our skin, our hair. I was on the committee to get that kind of filtration.”

Women are getting up again, exiting, others are entering as if it's a directed play and the first round of performers concede the stage to the second. Every one acknowledges me with an extensive wave. Half of a new round of women come to the table and interrupt our conversation.
“Let's get something on the calendar! So glad to see you. Will you be at the luncheon on Thursday? Do you need any more volunteers? How is next week looking?”

They move beyond us and settle in their chairs. Then the pause. “Where were we, Lainie?”

“We've gone from Cape May to the Y pool.” She looks at her phone and then away, toward the window.

“Hey, Lainie, I'm able to help you. Elliot is a standoffish place—you're in the room with me, I don't need to tell you. It must be tough on you, on the marriage—a move.
All the driving.
I know, and I'm used to it—it is
too
much. By evening I'm exhausted half the week. That's with two children, not four.
Four children,
Lainie! How do you keep track? Well, at least your husband has a good position at a very fine hospital. William has made Elliot Memorial the caliber it is, you know.”

“You must be very proud of him,” Lainie says.

“He's well respected and smart, if a bit deficient in emotional intelligence. I admit, I
had
to marry him.”

“I know that feeling. I felt that way too about Charles. I had to be his wife, had to have him as my husband. I thought he was my best friend.”

“And? Is he?”

Lainie laughs a dry laugh. “Well, he would like me to be his pal when he watches cable TV or a Jets game. He thinks that a room with a seventy-two-inch plasma television is a badge of family life—bigger, better, and improved. He loves the den so much that it hurts his feelings when I try to escape it. Little does he know what it's like to be a referee there earlier in the evening, or else maybe he too would avoid it. What he gets is a room that the children have vacated. The other night he was watching Sean Hannity on Fox News. I swear that Charles was a Democrat when we met. He used to watch CNN.”

“You are a wife and mother, Lainie. That's what we do,” I say.

Lainie holds up her hand to stop me. “We've lost years, Jess. I don't remember how long ago we were last sitting together. I brought Charles to Cape Henlopen, where he caught more sea trout than the fishermen. He was tossing back the sand sharks. I'm trying to remember … that was after we'd graduated college … after your grandma died and you said you wouldn't be coming down the Shore again.”

“I meant it. I haven't been to Cape May since she died.…” I say. Still I haven't forgotten Lainie, nor does she disappoint since she appears remarkably the same and unscathed by time and childbirth. I must have had a hunch that it would be like this if we were ever to cross paths again. I have resisted googling her too frequently and I haven't paid enough attention to her husband, it turns out. That is what happens when you land a successful one of your own and you live in Elliot. Then again, Charles on the dance floor not two nights ago. One of the few surprises of my life that doesn't seem overrated.

“How exactly did you meet Charles?”

She squirms and squeezes Aquaphor onto her lips from a small tube. “He came to my first opening.… He bought my largest piece of art ever.… He claimed he couldn't live without it, without me.”

“Well, that's inventive.” I smile encouragingly while fantasizing about his shoulders and his V waist. Although I have no basis for knowing, I'm confident that Charles uncorks a bottle of wine without a hitch, that he understands the crux of the topic before the speaker is finished explaining. He has sparkling surgeon's hands.

I repeat what she said several minutes ago. “Your best friend? That's rich. No husband is a best friend to his wife in Elliot.”

“I thought that Charles could be that to me.… It was years ago.… Tom is fourteen, Jess.”

“Marriage works on another plane. If you need a best friend, I'd be the one, not your husband.” I glance at my iPhone; almost an hour has elapsed.

“I'm fine in Elliot, Jess. All okay.”

“I don't believe you.” I pour my macchiato down my throat. “Around here every adage we consider out-of-date holds true. Wives depend on husbands, wives look the other way if they have to. Children are not egregiously spoiled, just privileged. Charles needs to be happy, meaning you need to be happy. I offer help.”

“I'm sorry? Help for me or help for Charles?”

“Lainie, if I bring you into the Elliot fold, Charles will be pleased. Trust me, Lainie, that is very important. And I've had the chance to speak with him—during the dance on Saturday. That's what I mean by help.” I feel rushed. Greta is at our table, her face unreadable. “A check, Greta, and a splash more?”

Back to Lainie. “I offer my help.”

“Sure,” she says. I watch her compute her reality. The rivalry rises in both our guts. She pushes it back down while I position myself most expediently.

“You should come to the Arts Council kickoff meeting next Tuesday, Lainie,” I suggest. “As my guest; I can arrange it, I'm on the board.”

“That would be appreciated, Jess.” She sounds lyrical. Because whatever our reunion conjures up, I'm her only friend for miles around, for better or for worse.

 

FOURTEEN

The sun still isn't shining by midmorning and a pall is cast over the center of town when Lainie and I meet in the parking lot of the Arts Council.

“Lucky for us that they decided to call this for early in the day—much easier with our kids. I honestly believe this is the one place that you'll find your niche.”

“Thank you, Jess!” Lainie is almost giddy. “Charles has been saying all along that there could be an opportunity in Elliot for my work to be shown. I'm very hopeful.”

Lainie carries her iPad close to her chest, undoubtedly loaded with her latest pictures, and her portfolio is tucked beneath her arm. The building, a Victorian mansion, stands alone at the top of Birch Street. Outside is a sign that sums up the council's mission, to fan the flames of culture. There is a signboard to the right of the large oak door that reads
ESTABLISHED IN 1898 TO NURTURE YOUNG ARTISTS IN THE TOWN OF ELLIOT
. There is a list of advisors and board members, thirty people in total, including three heavyweight women artists and two men who paint portraits, whose work Lainie would know. I adjust my best Gucci sunglasses to better appraise her. Maybe she won't be as disappointed about the move to Elliot. Maybe her husband will be off the hook if this happens, and while it is early in the game, I'd like to see Charles less burdened.

I push open the heavy front door. We are three minutes late for the meeting and members are already engrossed in a tacit conversation; they've been at it a while. I count fifteen women and eleven men, the old-and-retired constituency.

“I'm sorry that I'm late,” I say.

They stop talking to ooze their hellos. “Jess, we are
thrilled
that you're here,” calls a man from the back. “Excellent, Jess!” calls a man to his right. “Jess! Jess!” Everyone is effusive, including the dourest of the bunch.

They watch Lainie, who comes well recommended in her own right. Apparently her friend Isabelle has arranged that Lainie be introduced to Edna Abre, the director. Isabelle and Edna were together years ago at Skowhegan as artists-in-residence.

Edna, a sage docent for patrons around town, is fifty, with gnarled fingers and a long neck. She adjusts the knot of her Herm
è
s scarf.

“Hello, Jess. Good to see you!” Edna says. “And Lainie! Lainie Smith Morris! We are pleased to meet you.” She spreads her hands as if to explain her position. She is the one to promote art, to invite artists in, to include a precious few on the council. The group quiets as she clears her throat. No one mirrors her welcome, rather they are stony, unkind. Lainie looks stunned.

“Listen, they aren't as bad as they look. Behind their facades everyone here has the same everyday worries the rest of us share—children, health, money,” I say.

Edna claps her hands. “Everyone, I'd like to welcome Lainie Smith Morris. She hails from New York City and has recently settled in Elliot with her five small children. If you can believe that. Why, you look like a child yourself.”

“Four,” Lainie corrects her. “Four, not five children. Two of them are not that small—more in the middle. Thank you for your welcome.”

No one moves.

“Lainie, have you shown your work frequently? Isabelle has e-mailed some information. A few illustrated books, graphics, logos … You seem to have had success in both fine arts and commercial art. That's not easy to finesse.”

I wonder where Edna is taking her point. Is she critical of book illustrators, or showing her group that Lainie is versatile?

“I've shown at a few galleries over the years,” Lainie says. “Most recently at the Paul O. Gallery. I do illustrate children's books from time to time. I have a book for three- to five-year-olds that will be out next June.”

“Excellent.” Edna beams. “Exactly what we are looking for, Lainie! Perhaps you can describe your settings for the group. I know you paint the sea, seascapes.…”

“I started with large forms. For a long time I've been painting smaller canvases, collages. Whatever size, miniatures, twelve-inch squares, the theme is the same—water. Not only the Atlantic Ocean, but the New York waterways. I'm influenced by the locale. I'm drawn to the Upper New York Bay, the Gowanus, Red Hook. I love the Narrows, the Hudson River, the East River. My favorite is the town of Cape May—the Jersey Shore. I view water as the story. Sometimes the sky blends with the water and it becomes a huge part of the canvas. I imagine Turner skies while I do this.”