Between the Tides (6 page)

In the fast lane Lainie remains the connoisseur of water. She passes me at least ten times—the only other butterfly swimmer—without so much as a bit of interest. I jump out of the pool, check out the crowd's whereabouts since a good shower is hard to come by. I beat her to the locker room, minor victory that it is.

Most of the women congregate at the open showers—I wait for a private stall, but the large clock on the wall reads 9:45. Obviously Lainie is also feeling too fraught time-wise to concern herself with privacy. She peels off her bathing suit and soaps up in the very public middle shower on the left. The women of assorted ages and shapes, vigorously scrubbing themselves while chatting about recipes, children, dinner plans, and the weather take notice of a stranger to town who doubles as an exhibitionist. That's before she starts her Academy Award–winning demure. Time to make myself known.

“Lainie? Lainie, is that you?” I shout in her direction from the opposite end.

I turn the spigot.

“Jess, is that you? I can't believe it!” Lainie is astonished. “Do you live here?! What luck! I never imagined I'd find someone I know. But to find you again, Jess! We just moved in. We are in the midst of unpacking.…” She smiles. “A crazy time…”

Is it her emphasis on “moved in” and “unpacking” that gets to me and causes the past to bite me in the ass? She shuts her eyes and water pours over her face and body. I squeeze out my hair, which feels suddenly inadequate in its blondness and wispiness. Lainie's hair always weighed ten pounds. She races across the shower path with too much ardor, standing unclothed, lanky and smooth, dripping wet. Clearly she drinks some kind of Pollyanna Kool-Aid, not much different than back in the day. Without exchanging a word, I know that Lainie will welcome memories of our shared summers at the Jersey Shore and one year together at RISD before I transferred out. Not everyone has Lainie's talent and her Zen attitude. I admit over the years she's been infuriating. That's why I feel like shaking her by her shoulders and shouting,
What makes you so special?
I bring it down a notch, in the spirit of “there is nothing like an old friend.”

“Aren't you a brave soul,” I say.
Oh, la-di-da.
I wrap my towel around my head, but I do not cover my body. I do a puffed-up march toward the dressing area.

I note with satisfaction that her locker is in the last row, the one saved for newcomers and paltry visitors. It will take her weeks to realize that mine is in the desirable part of the locker room. I dress quickly and saunter by in jeans and a leather jacket.

“I'm in such a rush to pick up my daughter,” I say. A sincere sentence, not calculated or untruthful.

Lainie's eyes light up at the mention of my daughter and I hate myself for giving her the opportunity to gush. “Oh, Jess, how nice! How many children do you have?”

“Two,” I say. “A girl and a boy.”

“How old are they?”

“Nine and eleven,” I reply. I would offer up more details but I'm late.

“What are their names and where do they go to school?” She's interested but it's a turnoff. Damn, I'm rude.

“Another time, Lainie. You know how it is.…”

“Well, I'd love to get together. I don't know a soul in Elliot. I thought you lived in Princeton. I guess I wasn't up to speed.… I should have done an Internet search.…”

“You mean Facebook?” I ask.

“I suppose. What has happened these last ten—no, fifteen years for you?”

“A saga,” I say. “Except I have to go.”

I could explain quickly as I search for my car keys that we moved to Elliot because William, my husband, had a hard-on for the suburbs and for stately towns. William thought that running a hospital here would be pleasant enough, believing there isn't the kind of stress in Elliot that seems to shorten one's life expectancy. Not to say that life isn't taxing around here or that being the quintessential Stepford wife isn't limiting. Still, there are plenty of opportunities in Elliot. The Elliot Junior League could stand some new members. Especially a woman from the city, I'm sure. She could volunteer as class mother for each child, although that might push one to open a vein. Only yesterday I had to say to William why I won't be a class mother for both children; I relinquish that honor to someone who truly wants it, it's only fair.

I say none of the above and she looks discouraged anyway. She'll be worse when she witnesses how unfriendly everyone is, how insular and full of themselves. How they are full of shit.

“Call me, Jess, and we'll catch up, have coffee.”

There is no pity party for Lainie.
Lainie, the heartthrob, Lainie, the genius artist in college, Lainie, the innocent, Lainie, the one and only.

Nonetheless I do take her card when she hands it to me.

“That's my cell. Obviously I no longer live in the city.” Again the damn smile.

I begin rooting around for a card and come up empty-handed. That's what happens when you let yourself go, when the idea of your son's soccer match outshines your own ability to work so much as part-time. Losing oneself in Elliot is inevitable. I will be kind, I will not mention how the days get frittered away.

“You'll reach out? My info is there.”

I look at her eyes once more. “We'll get something on the calendar,” I reassure her, although we both know how slippery I can be. Or has she forgotten—a case of selective memory—how she had the boyfriend I had to have, the friends I had to have, the body and face I had to have. Yet she never had the hair or the coloring. Even today it remains a plus to be a frizz-free blonde with blunt ends and sporting a tan. Who would want that pale skin and mass of tangled dark hair around her face? No matter that on Lainie it's exquisite.

In a millisecond I'm gone, dragging my towel and bathing suit in a canvas bag that reads
GO HERONS
for the local girls' basketball team. I move fast through the swinging doors that lead to the lobby.

 

FIVE

On Saturday morning, not two days later, I find myself in a line of vehicles on the long private drive to the Crawford estate. As I glance in my rearview mirror I realize that Lainie Morris, in a worn, nasty Jeep, is directly behind me.

We're several miles beyond town for a swim party. Both of us are with our sons; Billy is invited as the best friend of the youngest of the Crawford boys and Lainie's son must be in ninth grade and one of the guests. I wonder if Lainie understands that the mothers are expected to mingle for the first half hour.

Lainie catches up to me in the center of the wide circular driveway where we are idling, abreast of each other.

“Never mind, we're here now, Tom,” I hear her say to her son. “Let's go.” They open the doors to the Jeep when the butler comes running toward them, waving his hands.

“Miss.” The butler points to Lainie. “You'll have to park behind the guesthouse. You aren't allowed to leave a car in front. Not that vehicle. The nannies are dropping off, only the mothers are staying and allowed to park.”

“Excuse me? I'm with my son. Aren't we at the drop-off area?” Lainie's voice sounds strained, tight.

“Mom! Mom! Stop being embarrassing,” her son is muttering. She motions for him to walk with her and they troop up the stone steps together, disregarding the butler.

There is movement behind us as other mothers pull up with their sons to the front door. I quickly relinquish my Mercedes sedan to the valet and watch as sedans and SUVs are whisked away. The mothers congregate outside the grand front door to greet one another while waiting to step inside. To Lainie they might appear clannish, although I welcome a social morning. What is the point of Elliot if not for these get-togethers? Billy runs ahead and I mark time alongside the mothers who stand at the entrance.

In a surge we move into the anteroom with a throng of mothers and a few straggler sons who haven't yet gone to the pool. Lainie is behind me, I notice, and I'm torn. Should I be inclusive, welcoming, or should I gravitate toward the center of the crowd and make the most of the hour without the burden of Lainie and her strange ways? Her outfit alone is enough to disgrace me.

That is when my friend Tia, who is walking ahead of me, turns to Audrey, another mother, and says, “Who is that woman, dressing as if she's in SoHo? The wrong address in SoHo?”

“Well, I don't know,” says Audrey, taking her in. “It's refreshing.” She marches up to Lainie, and I stand to the side.

“Excuse me,” says Audrey. “What cute boots. I've never seen anything quite like them in mid-August. Although seventy-five degrees does remind one of how imminent autumn is.”

Lainie smiles doubtfully at Audrey. They are incongruous together, Lainie in her garb and Audrey in her purposely understated sheath and sandals, a cardigan casually draped over her shoulders.

“Please come in,” Tia says. “I'm sure that Christie will want to meet you.”

“Christie?” Lainie asks.

“Christie Crawford. You know, the host.” Tia leads Lainie into the center of the anteroom. Lainie stiffens and I remember that she could become awkward in a millisecond, ungainly rather than graceful.

I'm about to make myself known to Lainie and to be sympathetic when a glint of activity catches my eye. Christie's two golden retrievers are charging her, separating her from the surge of guests. The dogs start pulling at her clothes, chewing at the beaded hem of her Indian-print skirt and the fringe of her purse. They drool on her booties, yapping at her.

“Help! Somebody, please…” No one so much as faces her direction. “Someone, please?”

I watch, frozen, as the first retriever puts his entire mouth around her ankle, his slobbering tongue slipping inside her bootie.

“Please, I'm being attacked.…”

I watch with a perverse fascination as the dog gnaws at the suede and at her flesh at the same time.

“Lainie,” I say. “Move back.”

“Jess! Please … do something.”

Christie Crawford comes after the dogs, putting a hand on each of their collars. “There, there,” she coos. “Down boys. Down!” Christie proffers Lainie an indiscernible smile. “Maybe they like you.”

The dogs withdraw as if the incident never happened. Neither of the retrievers so much as pants or lolls his tongue. Both sit at their mistress's feet. She is patting their heads.

“Christie, you saved the day,” I say. I hope that Lainie appreciates my going out on a limb for her.

“Yes, thank you so much,” Lainie says. She holds out her hand to Christie, the dog lover. The gracefulness returns—she is ethereal.

“My dogs are being friendly.… Your booties seem a shoe toy. That's all.…” She leads them away with dog biscuits up her sleeve and they become docile, their tails wagging as they follow her. Her entourage is behind her and the place thins out. I'm the last of the women to leave when Lainie's son appears, gorgeous boy that he is. He stands against the wall, almost in tears.

“Mom!” he says. “What are you doing?”

Lainie walks over and speaks softly, as if to set an example. “Tom? You should go back to the party.”

“The party? I'll never be invited anywhere ever again, Mom!”

“You saw what just happened, Tom? I've just been attacked by the host's dogs.”

“My life is over,” Tom says. “I'll have no friends at school. Thanks to you.”

He clutches his SwissGear backpack as he disappears into the fray.

 

SIX

Lainie texts me the morning after the machinations at the Crawford estate, to see if I'll be at the pool.
Sure,
I text her,
9:30
. I'm right on time when I observe her from across the lobby. She's firmly situated at the snack bar with her twins and older daughter, a clone of Lainie's for certain, a reminder of our childhood, as if I'm looking backward.

I'm a pro, and since it takes one to know one, the way that she is fortifying her younger children with Luna Bars (is there a child around who eats them?), books, and iPads is familiar. She's frantic to be in the pool and hardly able to pay attention to them in her quest to be underwater. That's why those twins are bickering loudly—it's their chance to show Lainie that they exist.

I come over. “Hi, Lainie. Hello, children.”

“Jess!” She's utterly enthused. “I'm almost ready.”

“She kicked me,” the little boy says. “Mommy! Claire kicked me!”

“Can you tell me your name?” I say to him.

He scowls.

“Jack?” says the Lainie-carbon-copy daughter. “Can you tell the lady your name?”

I extend my hand. “Let me introduce myself. I'm an old friend of your mother's; she and I go back decades. I'm Jess Howard.”

The daughter shakes my hand as if she's had a few lessons, not too firm but no pushover. “Hi. I'm Matilde.”

“Matilde. Lovely.” I smile at her and then at the younger twin sister. “I know that you are Claire because I just heard your brother shouting your name.”

Lainie is riffling through her gym bag, the one with endless creams and hair products. She takes out two lollipops—the freebies from the bank, which should be banned in America.

“Here, Matilde, please distribute these.”

Matilde dutifully hands one to Claire and one to Jack. Jack looks at it and promptly drops it on the floor. Claire begins to rip at the plastic wrapper and Matilde intervenes. Claire misses her mouth and slides it against her cheek. She starts to laugh and Jack laughs too.

“Jess and I are about ready for the pool, Matilde,” Lainie says. “Why don't you take your sister and brother to the little snack bar and get them something nourishing. They must be hungry.” She reaches into her pocketbook and hands Matilde a small packet of nifty wet wipes and a credit card.