Between the Tides (28 page)

I'm not in the mood. “Let's not go there, Lainie. Let's talk about the Arts Council. Let's talk about it for the next two days … my forty-eight hours!”

“Tonight was quite a hit. A hit, right, Jess?” Lainie washes down another glass of Perrier-Jou
ë
t. Quite the celebration.

“Sure it was. I put you on the map—what a show!”

“Unbelievable!” Lainie agrees. She burps a small burp. “And I put you on the map!”

We both start laughing as if this is humorous—a throwback to those coastal summers when we were in college.

“We should get some rest, Lainie.” I pour myself more champagne from the bottle that we uncorked a half hour ago. I like that everyone is asleep under one roof—Lainie's children, my children, our Charles, despite her ignorance. Quite an occasion to be drunk, and since neither of us drinks often, we're sloshed.

I'm not anesthetized, and the undrunk part of me has my ears peeled for noises, movement, any hint that Charles is awake, which is not likely. So what that Liza, Billy, and I are here? There is a tacit understanding that Charles and I will be appropriate. Immeasurably appropriate: no covert glances or stolen kisses under their roof. If he doesn't confirm this Wednesday at the Gansevoort, I might just goddamn lose it. Charles returned from the exhibition hours ago and told me he has rounds early tomorrow for patients who must be discharged. The life of the surgeon precludes any languid Saturday mornings.

“Nothing like the Cape May shoreline in early spring,” Lainie says. “Not any other water will do. I haven't been there since we moved to Elliot.”

“I know.” I know the drama of it, that she's always been “the artiste” since we were teenagers. Her face is close to mine. Her eyeliner and eyeshadow are blurring together and that makes Lainie seem young, more vulnerable than ever, and in need of a cup of black coffee. I place my hands on her cheekbones; they are ice cold and satiny. I blow on the hair that is across her forehead and it automatically falls into the right place. She blows back at me.

“Hey, Jess, we should go to Cape May, you and I. We should forsake Charles, right? I mean, he's no William, but let's go without him for a road trip.
Tonight
.”

“Lainie, you're drunk.”

“I might be. Still, I want to go down the Shore.” She comes within three inches of my face and I glimpse how her face must be when Charles is kissing her. Her eyes dilate; the dark blue of the iris is showing, there's little white. In return she sees how my face looks when Charles is kissing me. I pull away.

“No, Lainie. It isn't a good idea.”

“Really, Jess, I
have
to go. I owe it to myself, to us, after the show's success.”

“And leave the children?” I am clearheaded for that part of the plan. “Besides, it's glacial in Cape May this time of year. Virtually Siberian.”

Cape May. Smooth waters, schools of minnows, flounder, the sea floor, sailing in a Hobie Cat on the open bay.

“No, no, let's take the children. We'll leave soon, drive through the night. Get there by early morning. Who cares if it's cold?” Lainie plunks down on the couch and pushes the mohair throw to the floor.

“You tell Charles, Jess. He'll be okay with it if it comes from you.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” I ask her.

“Tell him. Tell him the plan, Jess.”

We put it into play and before daybreak I'm completely coherent and warmed up to the adventure. We scurry around, packing a few necessities per child, and load our own vehicles. At the last minute we decide to take Mrs. Higgins. Charles comes down to the kitchen where we're grabbing every wrapped food from pretzel sticks to protein bars from the pantry, any unopened bottle of green tea or Smartwater that we can manage.

“I'm appalled by this idea of yours, Lainie,” he says.

Lainie keeps hurling the snack foods—hummus, bags of carrots and celery—into a white canvas tote bag that is seasonably unchic and may be wishful thinking for summer. Use it early and the months will be upon us.

“This is
our
plan, Charles,” I say. “For old times' sake.”

“The older children have assignments … schoolwork for Monday,” Charles insists. Hey, he's not my husband, but he's as irrational as if he were.

“It is four o'clock on Saturday morning, Charles. We'll be back by Sunday after dinner, at the latest. The kids know to bring their assignments. There won't be any distractions there; it's a good thing.” I take the risk, I say what I think.

Mrs. Higgins is behind me, an overnight duffel dutifully packed. She is my conscience, in her mind at least. She may feel secretly smug with her knowledge from Christmas week in Vermont. I give her a tight insincere smile that gives credence to my lack of agency.

“Why exactly is Mrs. Higgins going?” Charles asks as if the woman doesn't exist, isn't standing in front of him.

“To start sorting out things at the house for May, June, July.…” Lainie says. She sounds exhausted. Sober too.

Charles is displeased. Obviously he isn't planning much summer time in Cape May this year and surely not until the warmer weather.

“Charles.” His name echoes through me. “The solitude will be yours with everyone gone. Including Mrs. Higgins. A nice respite.” I spread out my hands to convey the house. “You'll have two SUVs' worth of children off your hands.”

How did I become the referee for Lainie and Charles? How did I turn into her advocate?

*   *   *

Our caravan heads south, breezing along the Garden State Parkway with few vehicles in sight. The night lifts and there is the drive across the causeway to Cape May, a homecoming for Lainie, whose desire to be here is palpable. The dusty beach roads, the historic district, the Fisherman's Memorial, each reminds me of the days spent together with Lainie decades ago. I'm not quite prepared for how exquisite Lainie and Charles's home is, a revamped Victorian house. Lainie has said that she honored the old from the outside while the inside has been gutted into fresh and open spaces. I follow her up the driveway to her house facing the open bay—Lainie's water garden. The ground is dank with the promise of green to come and beyond it the waves are volatile.

Lainie's crew are already on the porch, jumping around gleefully. Alive at last in some twisted reality where I hide from William in my lover's homes and suspend time. Lainie is at my side, dreaming of sea glass, starfish, and seahorses—her newly famous palette, thanks to me.

Her children are graceful, lily white and lithe. Lainie alights up the brick steps to the clapboard house while they follow—as if one squall could change everything. I should not have doubted her, I should not have made the slightest noise to Charles about her deficiencies. She opens the door and motions to us. I'm standing on the pavers at the bottom of the steps, my arms around Liza and Billy.

“C'mon, Jess, check it out! C'mon!” We walk into a stunning house on the waterfront.

Her kids are running bonkers and she is opening the blinds with Mrs. Higgins, who is a quick study. She yanks a bit too roughly, in my opinion, on the cords of the Hunter Douglas shades. The exposure is more fabulous, the kind of water and sky and land that meld until the hardest of hearts, including mine, are transformed.

“Lainie,” I say. “It's wonderful.”

I put Mrs. Higgins to work at a crackerjack speed since the house is coated with a thin layer of salt and sand. I poke around, checking out the contemporary living room with a stone fireplace and the dark wood bookcases. Although I search the family room and then the kitchen for signs of the prosaic or something to criticize or find deficient, there is nothing of the sort. I admire the eat-in kitchen with the titanic window, which faces the bay side and the eddies. Lainie has placed printed children's bedsheets atop the couches and chairs, including the cherry dining table, to protect them from the sunlight that streaks through the highest casements of the double-height ceiling. The sheets are themed: lions and tigers in a jungle cover one couch; an ocean theme, her favorite, covers the other, larger couch. Over the first wing chair is a meteorite theme of bursting stars, and on the second wing chair she has placed a girly print of hearts and flowers.

Together Mrs. Higgins and I open the sliders and crack open the smaller windows a few inches so that the rimy sea air fills the rooms. Then we raise the heat to dry out the moisture. Lainie is immutable; she has opened the double doors from the living room to the deck and is bundled up in a sweatshirt and jeans. She and Matilde face the foamy water. Tom is upstairs with the twins and Liza and Billy, holding court. An unforeseen realization that I could live like this, women and children, for much longer than an overnight escapade. The Lainie sway has superb force.

A half hour later we climb up and race down the deserted dunes with the children. Claire and Jack scramble sideways on the wide beach, howling and giggling. Matilde and Liza jump off the highest dune while Tom and Billy are at the top, staring down. I swear Tom's scowl is rubbing off on Billy. The boys next in line to become men.

We are wrapped tightly in scarves and boots, jeans and gloves, bucking up against the blasts off the ocean. Lainie and I lead as we head north to the state park and the lighthouse. Lainie, her black hair tangled around her face, is ecstatic. She alternates her iPhone and her Olympus for shots that seem too close together, almost redundant, of the horizon, of the children too. Hasn't she always had a camera in Cape May, has there ever been a day where the churning sea wasn't enough to alter her mood?

“I'm a feather!” Lainie does that laugh. The day is taking a direction that happens only in the cleanse of water, not in Elliot. She is near me again—triggering memories. Has it not occurred before, on this very beach with Lainie—the boy talk of yesterday, the winner takes all. Confusion over who the winner is, who the winner was.

I befriended her early on. Call me courageous or a show-off, call me curious. I figured that Lainie was unlike the others, a Cape May native, for chrissake. It turned out that despite her unfathomable origins (who grows up year-round in a place like this?), there was something about her. Obviously neither of us got the beach boy or the summer love, neither of us married the man of our dreams. Or did she?

“Remember Clark?” I ask her as we leap together across the widest expanse of beach.

“Clark.” Lainie stops us. The children travel farther north. Their hoods are flying off their heads, their laughter ringing in our ears.

“I loved how much he loved Cape May, how he came down every summer and winter weekends.”

“Right. We used to watch him from the marina, from your father's office. He'd get off the ferry those muggy Friday nights,” I say.

“Yeah, that curly light hair. He was slight, boyish I guess. I mean, compared to Charles, who is taller, sturdier. The first night that Clark got here we'd have sex anywhere we could. We were always sneaking around.”

Here is the moment to confess that I liked Clark because she did; there was no one special in my life that summer and the lifeguards weren't as attentive as they might have been. If Lainie and Clark went to the gazebo and I was with a crowd on the dunes, I could hear her noises—her moans and sighs unintentionally wafting in my direction. I watched Lainie pull it off seamlessly, sex with a boy who also promised his devotion. Back then she was from another stratosphere, transcendental—how did she manage to ensnare him? Not that I remember him as alluring in any manner, more that I wanted him
because
Lainie had him. Clark himself was irrelevant. My attempts to entice him were about Lainie. When I couldn't take him away and he remained faithful, I let her know he wasn't worth it, I made Clark into less and sabotaged her hopes.

“What never goes away, y'know, Jess, is the last one before the husband. Clark … always somewhere in my being. That's how first love is. I googled him when Charles was adamant about moving out of the city.”

“What did you learn?” I'm all ears.

“Predictable news. He lives on the water in Seattle. Remember, he loved the water. He has two sons. A wife. He's a scientist. She's a social worker.”

“A scientist?”

“Yeah, well, he had that brainy side,” Lainie laughs. She takes off her Ray-Bans. I follow suit as if she's directing me in a film. Or maybe it's reality TV—with a local spin.
The Hapless Housewives of Elliot
.

“You did me a favor with Clark,” Lainie says. “Or else I would never have met Charles. There were days when I loved Charles to the point where I couldn't breathe without him. Back then I loved him so much that I put my work aside … half aside. There were the children—that is the life we built together. Then the light dimmed, clouded over … too much shadow.”

“I know what you mean, Lainie.”

“No, Jess, how could you? Did you ever love William?”

“William,” I sigh. “William is…”

Lainie flicks her head to indicate that William is not part of the conversation. “I'm starting to get who William is, Jess.”

“Sometimes I wish that we could do it over again,” I say. “Then I remember the children, the children we have with the men we married. What we endure for our children.”

The children are set loose at the jetty and have strung themselves together by holding hands. Tom is leading, then Billy, then Liza, who holds Jack's hand, then Claire and Matilde at the end. I admit it's a photo op of nature, children, and family. They are lovely together.

“Look at them,” I say. Matilde waves at Lainie, who waves back. Lainie and Matilde and their secret society.

“This time it's different, right, Jess?” Lainie says. Her voice is peculiar. “Different. Right? With my husband, not my old boyfriend. Another kind of allure. Charles isn't about taking away my chances or about competing for the prize. It probably started like that … the first time that the two of you met.… You always seem to want what I have.…”