Between the Tides (15 page)

Then I see past lovers, those who were playthings and boy toys, trinkets, a method to leave the tyranny of my marriage for a few hours. If the here and now with Charles, Lainie's husband, is forbidden, it is also irresistible. I know the stirrings of love and war—I know the conflict ahead. I also know that for me it is not a one-time event, the result of a physical attraction, a flirtation. Isn't this what I've been waiting for since the night we were introduced? I sign on—I will go to great lengths for the stolen hours of our future. An addict for her drug, the drinker for her drink, the robber for her heist. That is why I let Lainie go, I let William go, I let the one-night stands and passersby, faces I cannot recall, all go.

Charles flips onto his back with his arms over his head. We are about to begin the conversational portion of our afternoon. Our appetite momentarily sated, true confessions are about to kick in. I resist the urge to sit up, naked, and pull the sheet up to my chin in order to explain:
I don't want you because you are Lainie's, I'm not interested in seducing you because she and I were girls on a beach together. We fought over the boys, she had a better body, better profile. She is kind and I am mixed. I want you because of you. It is a misfortune and sheer coincidence that you are Lainie's husband and that I'm fastened to my own unmerciful mess.
Can I take the Charles out of the Charles Morris, husband to Lainie? I wait.

“Your husband is a very smart man. An excellent administrator, Jess.” Charles speaks first.

“You like him? I thought that surgeons despise the CEOs.”

“Despise?”

The thought never entered his mind, too consumed with the stance of a savior.

“William is…”

“William is very dedicated, Jess. I came to Elliot Memorial mostly because of my meetings with him.”

I burrow my head in the hollow of his shoulder and move my body closer to his body, trying to melt into him, shut out the conversation. Jesus, what is wrong with me?

“Yes, he's very dedicated. Plus, Lainie is my friend. My dear friend from when we were kids. Summers. College. You know, right?”

“Jess … Jess…” He is kissing the back of my neck, his arms around me. “You fill my head.”

“And you mine, Charles.”

Together we are over the line.

“We'll work it out, Jess. We'll figure it out.”

I decide to do my best so that Lainie shall never find out. Then he starts again. There is nothing else in the world except this moment.

 

TWENTY

I'm becoming a soapy sort of person, one who thinks in platitudes and on occasion has a few scruples. A relatively recent occurrence that began when the Morris family became my pet project. Many ways to skin the cat, from charming Tom, the only child of theirs with the good sense to value me, to pleasing Lainie, for myriad reasons. The most obvious being that my discovered compassion makes me aware of Lainie's need for help. A fish out of water, a woman on the verge every time I see her, especially at the Y pool, I realize how she struggles with the unremarkable: food shopping, school meetings, driving children around. She travels with a map, the kind purchased on the Parkway at a road stop, rather than her GPS. What does one say to someone who doesn't see the forest for the trees?

Finally, the Charles factor. Charles, who sends chills up my spine, who lingers where no man has gone.
Charles.
I end up on the busiest of days as the prissiest, most consequential Elliot wife (the one who weighs in on the shade of the cocktail napkins at the hospital benefit), aching for him.
Passion without longing. Too late.
I go no further with these thoughts and feelings. I'm as removed from a solution as I've ever been, in the moment as I've never been in my life.

*   *   *

When I drive up to the Morrises', Mrs. Higgins, the find of the century, lets me in and directs me to Lainie's studio. The original plan was to come at one o'clock because Lainie believes that in mid-November it is best to observe her work in the “purest daylight.” I'm delayed due to Matilde, whom I consider Lainie's child, not Charles's. Apparently she has cannonballed everybody's morning by professing to be an act at Waterworld.

The door is open and Lainie is looking at a pair of pastels leaning against the wall. The colors are gorgeous and the rawness is uncharacteristic. Not the Lainie I used to know.

“These are striking.” I startle her.

“Jess! I'm glad that you're here.”

I point toward the pastels. “How unlike anything you've ever done before.”

“Not mine, Matilde's.”

Despite my newfound empathy that bubbles over in enough circumstances to believe there is to be a special place in heaven for me one day, I'm green with envy. Someone else's child did these pictures—Matilde in particular.

“They're exquisite,” I say.

“Well, talent is one thing, but today was wicked at school,” Lainie says.

As if I haven't heard already. Nonetheless I sigh for her, with her, and engage. “What do you mean, Lainie?” The sympathetic tone rolls off my tongue.

Lainie is rueful, hesitant. “I'm worried about her, Jess. She's not making friends—it could be my fault. She's trying to be me and she's not acclimating. Maybe on purpose.”

“Since you don't fit in?” There, stated, out in the open.

A normal person in a normal universe would blush and defend herself. Instead Lainie tilts her head and ponders, as if it is meant as a real question rather than a jab. My goodwill quotient diminishes slightly and I'm my usual self again. I'm in Lainie's studio to look at her art and to inquire about Mrs. Higgins.

“How is Mrs. Higgins working out?” I choose the better method of starting off.

“Mrs. Higgins…” Earth to Lainie.

“Mrs. Higgins. You know, the nanny who is more than phenomenal? She may seem drippy after Candy, a popcorn blond bombshell if I ever saw one, but Mrs. Higgins is skillful.”

“Skillful?”

Not certain if Lainie is doing her “lost in translation” act or if she should know more. It occurs to me that I only told Charles of Mrs. Higgins's accolades. “Well, Mrs. Higgins is much more than a nanny. You said that Candy had dropped out of Juilliard, yes?”

“When she was twenty. She was a part-time babysitter who became our full-time nanny when she couldn't get any work in music. I kept saying she should go back to school. Every year I would urge her to return or to apply to some kind of college, Hunter or Brooklyn College. Something. She was absolutely devoted to the children, Jess. Really. She wanted to be with our family, that was her choice. I feel awful about what happened.”

“Eh,” I say. “I'm sure that Candy is fine. For Elliot life, Mrs. Higgins is a better choice. Look at her credentials. She speaks French, spent a year at the Culinary Institute of America, she's worked with children of every age, babies through teenagers. She's the Mary Poppins of New Jersey. Let's face it, Lainie, if you only have one person, not two, Mrs. Higgins is the answer.”

To say nothing of how she suits Charles's vision of what should be. That I do not share.

“Two people,” Lainie says. “In a fantasy life I have a driver.”

“A driver? Lainie, what kind of mother in Elliot would do that?”

Lainie is by the window and I realize what she means about the hour and luminosity. Her skin is flawless and her eyes so deep a blue that the light can't flicker through them. I shouldn't push the conversation toward motherhood since I already imagine the group e-mails and texts that will be flying all afternoon into evening about Matilde's peril at the pool this morning. I'd say to her, “Corral your daughter, Lainie,” if I thought she'd comprehend it.

I take a not-so-subtle look at my iPhone. “Lainie, we should start talking about your new work and plans for a show.” Besides, she must have asked Mrs. Higgins to prepare tea if not lunch—blueberry scones and tea, I would imagine—the table set with silver and fine linen. A reward for my driving to her part of town. We should make our decisions regarding her art first.

Lainie points to the two white sheets across the large canvases on the right side of the studio. “Well, I'm about to uncover my latest work. What I'd like to show at any venue that you're able to finesse, Jess. The hospital benefit, the library fund-raiser. My first choice would be the Arts Council.…”

The Arts Council is the most prestigious, most bona fide exhibit hall. She is no fool. “Let's see, Lainie.”

She pulls the sheets away to reveal three panels. She's completed the first and half of the second. They are staggering and unique—gateways to the harbors, water as a life force. The swamps and marshes of the first painting, the piers and boats, catamarans and Jet Skiers of the second. Everything is framed in heavy rotted wood with eccentric sea life attached. Beyond anything she has shown in the city—those delicate portraits of fog over the bayou.

“I've never seen paintings like these.… Both you and Matilde are so gifted.…”
Freaks that you are in other parts of life,
I think.

I stand close to the canvases, I stand away. In either case, there is an agitation told through women painted beneath what rivals a Turner sky. Kara Walker and Barbara Kruger in terms of scale. Suddenly I'm not doing a favor, I'm discovering a talent,
I'm
bringing the talent to Elliot. She deserves a solo show. Who is to scoff at the irony—that my good deed goes rewarded and my desire for her husband is separate.

“Okay if I take some photos?” I start focusing my iPhone.

“What for?”

“The Arts Council. I'd like to submit a proposal. Perhaps a one-person show if you're able to finish.” I point to the panels. “Then produce three or four smaller works by end of March.” I take a few pictures.

“Jess, I'm very … superstitious about photos being shown at the stage I'm in. I haven't shown these canvases to anyone yet. Not even my sometimes dealer. Charles has seen what you've seen.… That's as far as I've taken it.… Would you mind waiting? I will commit to the spring. What date are you thinking? I will have the new canvases by then and I'd love a one-person show.… I'll deliver photos of everything.” She spreads her hands. “In a few weeks. Meanwhile … I'm beyond thrilled. I can't thank you enough.”

My altruism is exhausting, my patience thin. “Fine, Lainie,” I agree. My Longchamp scarf has gotten crinkled beneath my purse somehow, very unlike me and slightly annoying. I remind myself that I've entered the world according to Lainie, one where nothing is exactly what I expect.

“I'll take it up with the committee based on my viewing today, Lainie. I'm fairly confident it will happen for you. If anyone presses for photos, I'll placate them.…”

Lainie smiles. “Jess. I'm so excited about the offer. Something special … incredible. I won't disappoint you, I promise.”

She comes toward me and I flinch. Up close there is the essence of her hair, her body. We are standing face-to-face, a close-up. I pull my coat around me and bend the collar toward my face.

“The weather has turned cold. Mid-November has never been so chilly.”

God forgive me that Charles flutters through my mind, Charles's warmth against me.

“Yes, almost winter. A favorite season. I miss the waterfront in winter.… There is a melancholia about it.…” Lainie says.

“What water in winter? Do you mean down the Shore?” Why are we talking about the beach? I suppose there is little else to discuss. She doesn't seem to have anything left in her that would spur her on to a designer bag sale at Bloomingdale's or a Sunday afternoon en famille at the Elliot triplex, watching the latest
Iron Man
. The ordinary is slipping away. I glance at her paintings again.

“The water in winter? It could be anywhere.…” Lainie says. “I mean, it
starts
in Cape May.…”

Time to dodge her dramatic gestures. “Okay, I'm off then, Lainie.”

“Let me see you out.”

We take the steps of the slightly grand stairway. The house, although not elegant, suffices as a rental. Lainie seems content while I suspect that Charles, given his druthers, would prefer a more palatial home with a perfectly majestic vestibule.

“Jess, would you want a Kind bar? I'm about to have one before I go back to painting. No time for lunch with pickup for the twins starting at three thirty.”

“A Kind bar?” I follow her into the kitchen. Mrs. Higgins is measuring flour into a bowl and boiling chicken.

“Hello, Mrs. Howard,” she says. Then she drops carrots and celery into the boiling pot. “Chicken pot pie for dinner tonight.”

“Delicious.” Not that I would serve such a caloric dish. “Is that a favorite of yours, Lainie?”

“Tom loves it,” she says.

Lainie, at the cupboard, reaches for two bars from a box. A paradigm of how the mothers in New York City conduct themselves.

I shake my head. No protein bar for me, who knows what the ingredients are. “I'll let myself out.”

Lainie remains on cloud nine over the plan. “Okay, Jess. I'll text my husband and tell him the good news. I'll sing your praises.”

Husband.
Coming from her, the word cuts through me. I remind myself I too have a husband. Who doesn't?

When I shut my car door, I check my text messages and with a rush of excitement I read the first one—from Charles.
Rendezvous? Name it.

 

PART
SEVEN

Lainie

 

TWENTY-ONE

Ever since Mrs. Higgins came to live with us two months ago, I have devoted more and more time to my art. I'm structuring my triptych, each of the three canvases meant as a scene of the beach, framed in dried seaweed and sea creatures from my salvaged
Trespassing: Driftwood
. I've overscaled the women. Some are in black coats, others are dressed for summer although there is a prevailing bleakness, winter. My intention is a battle between the women and the jetty, a way for the viewer to hear the wind, to find fragments among the whole shells.