Social Lives (6 page)

Barlow took a step back and conspicuously scrutinized Mrs. Halstead.

“Mmmm.
Nice!
”

Nearly his height, Jacks looked him dead in the eye and swatted him playfully on the arm. “I think you're in enough trouble already. Now be a good boy and drink your scotch.”

Barlow raised his glass, then took a drink. “Yes, ma'am.”

They stood there for a moment, silently watching, drinking, and enjoying the comfort of each other's company. Within the boundaries of married couples, they were as close to being friends as was possible for men and women in such a tight-knit community. Their daughters were in the same grade at the Academy. The Barlows and Halsteads had for years been thrown together at school functions, playdates, birthday parties, and the like. Then came the formal dinner invitations to the Barlow estate, swim parties, long weekends on the yacht. Despite their vastly divergent personalities, they worked well as a foursome and after fifteen years were far beyond the formalities of the other acquaintances they had cultivated.

“What's with all the sundresses?” Barlow asked after a while.

“It's a summer theme: Surf's Up. Didn't you read the invitation?”

Barlow looked himself over. Dark blue suit. Red tie. Standard business attire. “Clearly not.”

Jacks smiled and shrugged. “Only you, my dear Barlow, could get away with it.”

“Not according to my wife.”

Jacks took another sip of gin and nodded silently as she turned her eyes to Rosalyn, who was stationed across the room. Also dismissing festive attire, Rosalyn was incredibly subdued. And it wasn't just her beige suit, subtle hair, and restrained makeup. It was everything about her, the way she nursed a glass of white wine, holding her other hand around her stomach as though she were protecting the injury this incident had caused. It was in her facial expressions, the slight cheerless smile and exaggerated interest in the conversation of others. As Jacks watched the woman work the audience, she found herself surprisingly impressed. She was a tiny thing, but every inch of her was fully engaged tonight. This was a command performance, even for Rosalyn.

“Wow,” Jacks said.

“Yes. Incredible, isn't she?” Barlow's tone was sarcastic. “But tell me, Jacks. Honestly. Do you think all of this is really necessary? Do people really care that much?”

Jacks shrugged, thinking that this was precisely why she and Barlow were such good friends. They were both, in their own vastly divergent ways, former outsiders.

“Some of it is. Some of it is probably just . . .”

Barlow watched her face as she struggled for the right way to say what they both were thinking.

“Just my wife's imagination?”

“No,” Jacks muttered, turning her eyes back to Rosalyn. “Not imagination so much as anticipation. She's been burned before, and she has the scars to prove it.”

Barlow drank some scotch. “Ah, but her most fearsome foe is dead and buried. It's been almost two years.”

“And sometimes a ghost can be more powerful than anything that walks among us. Especially the ghost of one's own mother.”

Barlow looked at Jacks carefully as he took in this bit of wisdom.

Smiling warmly now, Jacks changed the subject. “So, all of this bullshit aside, how is Cait doing?”

Barlow shook his head. “Honestly, I don't have a clue. She won't talk about it. Not that I really want to—
believe me
. But I know she's talking to her new friends and I'm afraid they're the ones who dragged her into all this.”

“At least it's not just Cait. Hailey said there's a lot of talk about it.”

Barlow turned to face her. “Is Hailey doing it?”

Jacks thought about her oldest daughter. She was overweight for her age, and a bit of a geek. Two things Jacks was grateful for. “No—though I guess I should say I don't know, because we don't ever. Do we?”

“That's the damned truth of it. I just never thought my little Caitie would be vulnerable. And now her mother is making it into a national crisis. Global warming, the shitty economy, and hallway blow jobs. Somehow I don't think that's exactly what Caitie needs right now, to be the poster child for teenagers gone wild.”

Even in the midst of his deepest worries, Barlow managed to find humor. It was his way, his defense against the pain that was floating through his body, looking for a place to anchor.

“I don't know. I doubt she'll even notice it. It's really for
them,
isn't it?” Jacks said, drawing her arm across the room.

As Barlow peered out into the crowd, Jacks studied his face. They should be nothing to him now. He no longer needed them, having made his fortune, and his contempt for the very world he still envied in spite of his every effort to stop was now crawling beneath his skin.

“Does it help to know that most of the women here performed similar favors before leaving high school?”

Barlow laughed. “And look how well they turned out.”

“Oh, come now. These are some of the finest ladies in Wilshire.”

“And not exactly the life plan I had in mind for my daughters.”

Jacks looked at him wryly. “And yet, here you are.”

“Here
we
are.” He turned then, to meet her eyes. The irony had never occurred to him, but it struck him now, hard and cold. He drained the glass of scotch, then did what he always did when too many adult thoughts entered his brain. “So getting back to hallway blow jobs . . .”

Jacks laughed out loud and shook her head, though she was far from being embarrassed. “Oh, no. Not a chance. You'll just have to use your imagination.”

Barlow grinned flirtatiously, lowering his eyes then raising them again to meet hers. It was the look that came as close as any ever did to crossing the invisible line, and it was now, at the line, that one of them always stepped away in search of a spouse. Or another drink.

“I think I'll need more scotch to do that.”

“Actually, it looks like we need to sit for dinner.”

Barlow slid his arm around her waist as she moved in front of him. “After you, Mrs. Halstead.”

Their table was in the front of the room, of course, the unofficial head table that was always reserved for the school's chairwoman at these events. And what a lovely table it was, with white linens, bright colorful peonies and roses in a round vase, and little menus shaped like surfboards. Cheery, cute. Perfect.

Jacks found Rosalyn standing by her chair, engaged in conversation with the school director.

“Lovely party,” she said casually.

Oblivious of, or perhaps merely indifferent to, her husband, who had dashed off to the bar, Rosalyn reached out and kissed Jacks on the cheek. “Hello, there. Where have you been hiding?”

Jacks smiled. “Nowhere. What a fabulous setup!”

The director smiled. “Thank you. I hope you enjoy it. And don't forget to bid—the tables close at ten.”

Rosalyn and Jacks nodded in agreement. “Of course!”

“Well, I'd better mingle. Nice to see you both.”

The two women smiled as they watched the director move on to the next potential deep pocket. Then they turned to face each other.

“So,” Jacks said, her expression one of genuine concern.

Rosalyn continued to smile, though Jacks detected the traces of weariness she knew must be lurking inside the woman. This just wasn't in Rosalyn, this contrite, apologetic tour de force. It was effective, to be sure. And necessary in Rosalyn's mind. But there was no doubt Wilshire's reigning matriarch was growing tired of it in a hurry.

“So,” Rosalyn replied.

Jacks smiled reassuringly. “This won't be just about Caitlin much longer.”

Rosalyn was slightly relieved. “The natives are worried, are they? Now I have to follow through.”

Jacks touched her arm. “You will. I know you will.”

“I had other plans for the fall. And the winter, and the spring.” Her voice sounded irritated, as though that was all this was to her, an annoyance. An inconvenience. Jacks played along, though she knew her friend was using
her social concerns as a distraction from what was really eating at her from the inside out. Cait would always be her little girl.

“Well, who knows? Maybe it really is an epidemic and you'll be doing all of us a favor.”

Rosalyn waved her hand in the air as though she could somehow magically erase the whole incident. “Let's sit down. Do we know who else is at the table? I'm hardly in the mood for surprises.”

“Just us, the Ridleys, and the new family.”

“New family?”

“They're friends of David's. And they're
new
.”

Jacks studied Rosalyn as she pulled out her chair and gracefully placed herself in it, obviously contemplating the situation.
Yes
, she was most definitely thinking
. New could be good.
They wouldn't know a thing about anything, and the rest of the room would see how generous Rosalyn Barlow could be. Inviting the new family to her table would go beautifully with her theme for the evening. She had that look, the intensity of obsession, that Jacks understood well. The ghost of Rosalyn's mother might as well be sitting right there beside her.

“What are their names?” Rosalyn asked, now fully committed to the idea.

Jacks sat down, leaving one chair between herself and Rosalyn. Boy-girl-boy-girl. That was the rule.

“Nick Livingston and his wife. Susan, I think.”

Rosalyn was not satisfied. “Is it Susan?”

Jacks shook her head. The gin had calmed her nerves but had done nothing to improve her memory. “I have no clue, to be honest. But she's
young.
Late twenties. Princeton, then Columbia for some journalism degree. Met Nick at a bar in New York.”

“Christ. You know all that but not her name?”

Jacks shrugged. “What's more important?”

Barlow appeared with a fresh drink in hand. He pulled out the chair next to his wife, but was stopped when she grabbed his arm, nearly causing him to spill the scotch.

“Shit,” Barlow said under his breath, steadying the drink. “What now?”

“You can't sit there.” Rosalyn looked at him incredulously. How drunk was he? Spouses never sat beside one another. That was also the rule.

“Oh, fuck it.” Barlow walked around the table and planted himself next to Jacks, who patted his knee—briefly—beneath the table.

They sat in silence, Jacks and the Barlows, sipping their drinks and waiting for David Halstead and the Livingstons to make their way through the crowd. And as they sat there, pleasant expressions pasted on their faces from a powerful force of habit, their sheer beauty cast an invisible shield against a reality that was discernible solely in the air that surrounded them, air that was thick with worry. When the others appeared, still engaged in the amusement of shared stories from years past, they were stopped in their tracks by the unsettling sense of contradiction they had stumbled into.

“Hello, David,” Barlow said first, standing to greet his friend.

“Barlow.” David reached out and shook his hand. “Good to see you, man.”

“And you.”

Then, turning to the table where the ladies had remained seated, David made the introductions. The Barlows to the Livingstons. The Livingstons to Jacks and the Barlows. And after this seemingly harmless interaction, they all took their places at the table.

 

 

 

 

 

“M
EET
N
ICK AND
S
ARA
Livingston.”

Eva Ridley and her husband, Marcus, both smiled warmly as they joined the table moments later. “It's a pleasure!”

And no one doubted this was true. Eva Ridley loved to meet new people. Moving fluidly through the details of others' lives, she was the woman who eventually came to know everyone in this town. At first glance, she was a walking suburban stereotype. Long red hair, chiseled cheekbones, and a size 2 frame (accessorized, of course, by designer D-cup breasts). A confound-ingly solid marriage. Five well-behaved children. She was funny, pleasant, and made it her business to know everyone else's. But contrary to the practices of other accomplished gossips, Eva collected knowledge not to malign, but to befriend. She remembered people's birthdays and anniversaries. She knew their favorite restaurants and which drink they would order at any given occasion. She sent small thoughtful gifts, planned surprise luncheons. And as a result of her tireless efforts, her collection of friends was vast and, like Jacks, her encyclopedia of facts about nearly everyone in Wilshire accurate to a T. She had become, simply, the refined oil that kept the Wilshire social machine running.

She glanced at Jacks, then at Rosalyn, then back to Sara Livingston, who smiled as she shook Eva's hand.

“So . . . ,” Eva said, settling into her chair. “What's with this theme? I'm freezing my ass off.” She pretended to shiver in her strapless mini-sundress. “And what's with the two of you?”