The Invaders (2 page)

I felt a tap on my shoulder as I moved through the bodies looking for my name and turned around to see a smiling Mary Ann.

“Oh, Cheryl, there's been a mistake.”

“Did my clothes get lost?” I asked, laughing.

“Well, it's just that we don't need you. We have enough people,” she said.

“Oh.”

“I overbooked, thinking some people would say no. Stage fright or vacations. I guess this year everyone wants to play Victoria's Secret angel,” Mary Ann said.

“Mary Ann, it's fine. I hadn't prepared my signature move anyway,” I said. I wondered if she ever felt left out. If anyone ever made her feel like deadweight. Perhaps being on top for so long made her forget that it felt terrible. I smiled through it, though. If I told anyone, it would just get back to her and I'd fall even further down her golden list. I wondered if Mary Ann had the same hierarchy for her friends who wintered in retirement homes in Florida or if it was a free-for-all. We had never been invited, but I knew they all bought near one another. I shuddered at the thought of spending a retired eternity with them, but Jeffrey jokingly referred to his retirement as his “me” time and made no mention of a second home.

“I'm doing you a favor. Do you really want to be up there and judged?” she said, smiling.

I leaned in conspiratorially and said, “These ladies are vicious, aren't they?”

Mary Ann was taken aback and I knew I had said the wrong thing. “No, of course not, they're good friends,” she said.

I slid behind the curtain and saw a few open spots at the round tables. Everyone looked sharp and I felt terribly underdressed in my walking clothes. I took a seat next to Christine to wait for the show to start. Christine had chopped off her sandy blond hair a few years ago. The bowl cut was favored by the older women, but she wasn't one of them yet, so it just made her look unfeminine. She really had been beautiful once, but after child number three her waist disappeared. A waiter brought me a mimosa and I asked him to stay close. The waiters were clearing plates when I realized I was starving.

“You got the boot, huh?” Christine asked.

“Oh no, they had too many girls this year.”

“Sometimes I think they just do that to put people in their place. Give them hope and take it away.” She motioned with her hands, nearly spilling her sweating white wineglass on me.

“I did it a few years ago,” I said, trying to save face. I had been chosen once, right before Jeffrey's first wife had died and they wanted to give me a go. See if I could be one of the girls. This was just the latest attempt at putting me in my place. It had started suddenly and passively when Mary Ann had forgotten to add me to the ticket list for
Jersey Boys
a few years ago. I wandered Times Square for hours waiting for the show to finish, fingering I Love NY and Statue of Liberty snow globes and wondering if anyone I knew would appreciate one. Afterward, they wanted to have a drink and dinner to talk about the performances. Debbie Picard told me I hadn't missed much, she would have preferred shopping, but when I showed her what I had bought, the pewter-finish Statue of Liberty for me and the I Love NY T-shirt for Jeffrey, the girls all laughed. Didn't I know about Madison Avenue? they asked. The shops around Times Square were the only ones I could find. They said it was marvelous that I had never been to New York before. They really thought it was cute. I found the most inexpensive item on the menu since I had spent so much money just walking around: a fancy grilled cheese sandwich with arugula and purple tomatoes, while they all got duck and rabbit and different things I would never think to eat. They ordered wine by the bottle while I stuck with tap water.

When the bill came, Lori said, “Split it down the middle!” And we did. I didn't want to be the one shoving twenty dollars at them, saying that it was for my portion and looking cheap or, worse, poor. Jeffrey later lectured me about spending one hundred and fifty dollars on a sandwich, and that had been my first and last visit to the city. I threw the gifts away before he could see how foolish I had been.

“I did it last year and it was a disaster. My clothes were two sizes too
small and I could feel everyone's eyes on me. I still had to walk, though. They don't choose you again if you run into trouble,” Christine said.

“It just seemed like a scheduling thing, that's all.”

“Of course. It's not you,” Christine said, patting my leg.

The models started down the makeshift runway and all the women started oohing and aahing at their friends, daughters of members, bridge partners, and golf-foursome girls. The fashion was coming to us, even if it was just from the downtown shops and featured the usual gauzy linen capris with hidden elastic waists, the tropical-colored knit separates accessorized with chunky necklaces, and the latest golf trends. They were starting with the golf fashions with breathable fabrics and I watched the models spinning and twirling in sherbet skorts. Some of them were really hamming it up.

“ ‘Look at Karen in her divine melon skort and athletic shell. Ladies, throw a cardigan over this look and you'll be ready to go from golf course to main course in minutes,' ” Mary Ann said, reading from a card.

There was clapping and laughter.

“Look at that gorgeous skirt,” Christine said. “Like I need another one.”

“I think Mary Ann said skort, but it'd look good on you,” I said. “Treat yourself.”

“Not with my hips. You, you have no hips, that would work on you.”

I looked at Karen as she took a fake swing with a tiny crook in her knees, illustrating the breathability of the fabric, and wondered if that shade of melon would make me look revived.

On their return, the parade of women raised their arms as if they were winners in some unspoken competition. They had been picked. They were models all of a sudden. The rest of us guzzled mimosas and fresh midmorning sangrias and filled out forms specifying what fashions we wanted to buy.

“These things really wear me out. All the fun. I need a nap and a benzo.”

“I don't think they're called that anymore,” I said.

“Whatever Larry calls them, I need one.”

“Maybe you shouldn't mix alcohol with them,” I said.

“Oh, I do it all the time. They just have to say that. For the kids.”

Christine found what she was looking for at the bottom of her purse. Her husband was a doctor who medicated her so that she'd turn a blind eye to his side projects. We all knew it but didn't say anything. No one took Christine's hand and asked her if she was okay, we always just smiled politely and ignored her confused ramblings when we realized the dose for the day was too high. Although we were complicit in her humiliation, we were all very concerned with ignoring our own.

“Bunny, everybody!”

Bunny Fogherty, nearing seventy-five, walked with purpose, with long strides and an exaggerated head toss, as if she was born for this. Big chunky jewels glittered around her neck. The other models who came through all wore an enormous amount of dazzling costume jewelry, because they knew we needed to find a way to adorn ourselves while covering the crinkle of neck skin, the dotting of sun spots on our décolletage. They led with sparkle and the tables of women were awed. “I think Bunny's found her new calling,” Mary Ann said. “ ‘This dress is straight from the Paris runways to you, ladies. Just because we live on the shoreline doesn't mean we can't be high fashion from time to time.' ”

She smiled, looking up from her card.

I saw someone with scraggly hair wander through the bodies of waiting women and walk up to one of the waiters holding a tray of drinks. He peered around, confused, and I saw that it was Teddy and inhaled sharply. He was disheveled, glassy-eyed, and he was trying to get a drink off the tray as the waiter whooshed it away from him. I think I heard him say
It's for them.
Teddy actually had the nerve to wink at a newer club member as she strutted by wearing a caftan poncho thing for rainy summer evenings.

“ ‘You never know when you're going to get wet,' ” Mary Ann breathed into the microphone.

What was he doing here? I waved to get his attention and instantly regretted it when I saw him barging his way through the pushed-together chairs to walk toward me.

“Yo, Cheryl. What the hell is this?”

All the other women turned around, and I thought I felt Christine grasp my hand in support. He sat down next to me and the women stared. He was wearing jeans.

“You guys are throwing fashion shows now?”

“It's our own little Milan!” Christine said.

“You know you can't wear jeans in the clubhouse,” I said.

“I'm locked out of the house.”

“Does your father know you're home from school?” I asked.

Teddy laughed and said, “Nah. Who doesn't like surprises?”

He leaned back in his chair and spread his legs wide as he watched the models go by. Everyone looked away and furiously scribbled their choices on the order forms.

“Is that Mrs. Picard?” Teddy whispered. I looked to where he was looking, which was at Debbie Picard, who was sending air kisses hurtling through the air. I was embarrassed for us all.

“That's pretty good,” he continued.

We had paid the summer rent on his apartment in Dartmouth in full. What was he doing here?

“Are you just visiting?” I asked.

“I got kicked out. Do you have a key to the house?”

“What do you mean, kicked out?”

“Can you believe I don't even have the key to my own house?” he asked Christine, smiling. I was mortified.

“It was a temporary thing,” I assured her.

“Revoked privileges,” he said.

We weren't running a prison. He just could not be trusted at home when we weren't there. I fumbled in my purse and then closed it. I started to tell him that the key was under the seashell near the front door and he got up before I could finish the rest.

Christine held my hand tightly and said, “It's okay,” as if she knew what we were dealing with.

“See you at home, Cheryl. What's for dinner?”

“The club, I guess. I hadn't planned—”

“I'll find pants,” he said and nearly knocked someone over trying to leave.

I looked around at the ladies and Christine said, “What a nice surprise!”

It wasn't a nice surprise at all.

The models were standing around, waiting for their drinks as the sales reps from the various boutiques started infiltrating the crowd. Everyone was pulling out credit cards and eyeing each other's selections. The whole process would take forever. I considered giving up on buying a new tennis skirt, but Christine said I absolutely could not leave without ordering one. It almost seemed like she was working on commission with the young, hungry girls.

I needed to go find Teddy.

LITTLE NECK COVE WAS
an only-good-in-summer place. The streets were too narrow for cars, but drivers always tried it anyway and brought down tree branches as they passed. Everyone was playing at having old money here. Grandsons of presidents, cousins of senators, doctors and salesmen. Walking through this neighborhood made me want things suddenly—a reminder about success and what it got you. I didn't have a family business to join, but there was a spot for me in a successful corporation that sold things to keep people alive. “All of this is for you if you want it,” my father always said. I didn't have to be a doctor or a lawyer, too much school. But I could excel at selling. I didn't really care if that pacemaker saved your ass; I just got off on getting people to listen to me and trust me.

Things had changed for me at school, though. They didn't want me around at their parties anymore and I was suddenly known for having bad drugs—too cut with under-the-sink garbage. I was just aggressively
pursuing my natural entrepreneurial skills for pre-MBA practice, I wanted to tell them. But I got the boot anyway, reasons kept quiet, thankfully. There was no need to add further stress on my poor father's heart. They kept it simple—I had missed too many classes. It sucked to know that no one gave a shit that I was leaving. No one was crying at my door or begging me to stay in my apartment, to be with them, to pretend I was still enrolled in school to keep the party going. I mean, there were people I knew still needed me. They were just preoccupied when it came time for me to leave. No one was telling sentimental stories about sophomore-year bullshit or laughing about the time I convinced the freshman guys who followed us around like puppies to slap each other until they threw up Jager. They all did the same thing. Why was I the one getting forced out? Well, fuck them. I was moving on early. I didn't need to be dwelling in a broken-down house with vomit and turds floating in the bathroom toilet. I didn't have to scrounge for burrito money, either. I was coming back to being taken care of. Laundry done. Dinner set. Lounge chairs poolside.

I could live my future state now. Isn't that what they taught you in sales? It was all about future states and stretch goals. I drove past the club and saw the last sailing group of the day pulling their boats into the water. I parked and walked along the seawall, ignoring the No Trespassing signs tacked to the concrete. Everyone around here used to make sure you knew you weren't welcome in less obvious ways, but this was a nice touch. Let's just be direct with it. You are not wanted. Stay the hell out. Especially against the punny names of the houses around here like Wander Inn or our house, Dew Drop Inn. Was Cheryl serious? No one ever came around.

I sat on the wall and watched the kids on the Sunfish boats amble around in the bay, trying to keep themselves steady and their masts from rocking right to left as they fought to catch the wind. They were already allowed to sail without a partner, the teacher nearby in a Whaler. Who
was the guy they had teaching this year? He didn't even seem to be making sure they were in control of their boats. I could do better, but they didn't let club members work here. They had to keep the divisions clear and not confuse anyone about their place in the hierarchy.