Between the Tides (7 page)

Instinctively I know that Matilde finesses breakfast better than her mother and if there is no brown sugar in the house, it would not be the daughter's fault.

“Well, shall we?” Lainie motions for us to follow her toward the pool desk.

Matilde leads the twins and Jack begins to do a jig, then Claire does the same. Lainie ignores them while Matilde is keenly concerned that there are too many people noticing them, including other children. One of the twins drops her mother's iPhone on the floor.

“Stop, please,” Matilde whispers to Claire. “A few kids from my class have come in. They're by the food with their little brothers and sisters. Their mothers are about to swim laps. Or yoga. Please?”

A line has formed at the snack bar despite the fact that what they serve is inedible. Have I not force-fed my children their grainy egg salad, tuna fish with coagulated mayo, and packaged chocolate chip cookies? Standing there are a boy and a girl who are most likely Matilde's classmates.
The girl.
I know it immediately, a blond, curvy number whose hair swings when she walks. Matilde must want to disappear, must be praying that they don't notice her. Circumstances would be different had she washed or at least brushed her hair today. Moreover, she is wearing what looks like her older brother's sweatpants. Lainie owes her daughter a few lessons in public appearance.

*   *   *

“Where is that charming son of yours?” I ask Lainie as we close our lockers.

“He's at a father/son Rotary breakfast in town. They're doing it to meet people. My husband isn't a member, but he could join.”

“Matilde doesn't mind being here? I would imagine that some of the girls from her class will be at the football field in about an hour.”

“Oh, she doesn't mind, Jess.”

“Well, she needs to be with the girls in order to have friends, Lainie.”

“Sure, sure. My nanny left last night for the city until tomorrow. Without a swim I'm useless—I can't think. Matilde is missing Sunday school for this. So are the twins. Once I'm finished, the day will be Matilde's.”

“Why didn't you drop them off first, Lainie?”

“I tried. The twins wouldn't leave Matilde to go into the class. Besides, if Tom can miss it, why can't the others?”

It is too early in the game to explain that it doesn't work in a pristine town, a holier-than-thou suburb, to make your own rules. Should she care to know, my children were both dropped at Sunday school on my way here.

“Let's swim,” I say.

While I collect my paraphernalia from the side bins—flippers, weights, a kickboard—Lainie jumps in. She's careening through the water, outswimming the swimmers in the fast lane in a dizzying swim to tomorrow.

I pause at the side of the pool to observe as Claire and Jack run down to the bottom of the bleachers with Matilde at their heels. She plies them with cookies and they become surprisingly docile. Then the lifeguard walks toward her. He is pure machismo—total crush material, although I doubt he ever finished high school. When he smiles at her it is evident that he hasn't had proper dental care.

“Who ya waitin' for?” he asks Matilde.

“My mom.” Matilde points to Lainie, who is flipping around like a dolphin. Her muscles ripple more than the water does.

“Wow. Do you swim that fast?”

“Me? No, no. Almost like that.”

He smiles with his crooked teeth and points to a wide chart against the long wall. “Well, maybe she's swimming the Raritan River.”

“What?” Matilde squints to read the chart. “What is it?”

“For swimmers to get to the other end of the Raritan River. Maybe she's part of it, one of the ones swimming the river.”

“I don't know,” Matilde says. “She didn't tell me and she usually tells me stuff like that.”

“What's your mom's name?” He's holding a black-and-white grainy notebook from the year one, the kind that would date me if I dared to bring it out in public. This one is marked “YWCA” in pink Magic Marker on the front.

“Lainie Morris. Lainie Smith Morris.”

He thumbs through the pages. “Yup,” says the lifeguard. “She's in it and … hmmm … since she started she's swum farther than anyone else. Anyone. Farther than the men who are in the competition.” He closes the notebook.

“Yeah, that's about right. She'll probably win,” Matilde says.

“The last two years the men swimmers won. The winner and runner-up.”

Matilde watches Lainie's crazed swimming, then she taps Claire and Jack, who look slobbery, even from a distance. “We have to go. We'll go back to the snack bar and wait. Mom will be finished soon.”

“Soon?” Claire asks. At the age of five this child knows that it isn't true. And signing on for the Raritan River swim makes the swim longer and more enthralling. I glance at Lainie and remember her tireless swims, her indefatigable devotion to water. I resist telling Matilde that it's another forty minutes at least. Matilde leads the twins to the wall and points to Lainie's name.

“Look, Claire and Jack, Mom has the most filled-in blocks to show how far she's gone. Thirty miles so far.”

How could I have not known? Would I have not learned it sooner or later since little passes me by when it comes to the stratagem of Elliot life, including what happens at the Y?

Claire starts to cry. “I don't want her to swim away, Matilde!”

Matilde points to the map and speaks in a soothing, adult way, although she looks distraught herself. “Claire, look. The river is three hundred and thirty miles. Mom has a long while to go. See the parts that haven't been swum yet?”

“No, Matilde, she's swimming away!” Claire is too loud; everyone can hear her unless they are underwater. As Lainie's head is—Lainie, who is absolutely missing her own daughters' drama. I resist the urge to rush to Matilde and explain that many days will pass, months, a year, for Lainie to get to the red-flagged finish line. Instead I strap on my flippers and within seconds I'm also moving through the water.

 

SEVEN

With the unseasonably warm October weather, I stand on the front step of my gray stone and green-shuttered home, sneaking a cigarette. Lainie pulls up in her Jeep, and while nothing could be more unlike the beachy summers in Cape May that Lainie and I shared, she is blasting Bruce Springsteen's “Rosalita
.
” As she claims her parking place in our driveway, she backs up and lurches forward, one of the worst parking jobs I've seen in ages. How could she possibly parallel park in the city? At the same time, she pumps up the volume and sings along, unaware that no one in Elliot drives with the windows down.

Tom is in the passenger seat looking bored out of his mind. Matilde is sitting in the back between Claire and Jack.

“Mom!” Tom says. “The song. Stop!” He switches it off.

“C'mon, everyone out of the car.” Lainie turns off the engine and waves at me. She adjusts her rearview mirror and applies liner and lipstick so quickly it has to be uneven. I'm more conscious than usual of my glamour—had they wanted to cast a refined version of
The Real Housewives of New Jersey,
friends tell me I'd have been chosen.

There is the possibility that the Morris clan is on good behavior. Lainie has Claire and Jack dressed in twin outfits, the kind most people would save for Easter and family birthday dinners that include grandparents.

She turns to me. “Hello, Jess. How nice of you to invite us all tonight.”

I give Lainie a hug and kiss and a lukewarm hug to each of her limp children.

Tom disarms me with a smile. “Hi, Jess. We meet again. Cool house. And guesthouse. I noticed your striped awnings. Dad loves those, right, Mom?”

I lead the way into the kitchen. My own children, Billy and Liza, are hovering beside me. I do the introductions as if I'm entertaining long-lost cousins from out of state. Lainie's blandness today in those tan jeggings and cream cardigan looks incomplete. I'm managing to move around the kitchen in my stilettos, a cream lace T-shirt, and the tightest jeans that I own. The message being that I'm not rushed, I'm stylish, a mother who balances her life skillfully. I put out the food that's been prepared by Therese, our cook, while our nanny, Norine, engages the twins with packets of Silly Putty.

Therese hops between the kitchen, where she shapes hamburgers, lines up the hot dogs, and slices the marinated chicken into breasts and thighs, and the gas grill on the back porch. Tom's and Jack's eyes light up at the blazing red coals.

“Mom?” says Matilde. “Is that carving board made of wood? We're not allowed to use wood carving boards and plastic bowls for raw meats. Right? Won't we catch some kind of bacteria?”

“Matilde, it's fine. Don't worry, darling girl.” Lainie laughs a tinny laugh. “Jess, your outdoor table is wonderful … very wide and long. It would be perfect for our family. Whenever we sit down to eat we become a dinner party.”

“Another perk of Elliot life—large spaces, large tables. Do you like the sloping hills, Lainie? How about you, Tom, what do you think?” I ask.

“Since I don't care about a water view, it's good. My mother and Matilde like creeks and rivers … at least creeks and rivers … the sea…” Tom says.

“Mrs. Howard?” Therese calls from the porch.

I walk gingerly in my stilettos toward the screen door. “Yes?”

“Are we ready?” Therese asks. “If not I'll be transporting food the night long.”

I'm about to remind her of what her job entails when Norine comes to her rescue, dragging the platters outside.

“That will do, Norine.” I point to the side table. “Right there.”

I do my best at charming drill sergeant, smiling as if I'm in an ad for Whitestrips, the two-hour application. “Everyone, sit down.” I point to Lainie's children and then to my own.

“Lainie, you and I will sit at the head together—there's room. Claire is next.” I snap my fingers. “Matilde, you're with Claire and then Jack is across.… Tom, I'm certain my children would appreciate your company. Perhaps you can squeeze in between Liza and Billy.”

Liza is excited, she does a young-girl flirt look and Tom is ridiculously pleased.

“Perfect, Jess,” says Lainie.

Tom, tonight's VIP, a singer in a band, my favorite of the Morris children, smiles at Billy as if he means it. Matilde, so Lainie-like it's frightening, asks where the bathroom is.

“Down the hall, dear,” I say. “Do you want somebody to show you?”

Norine is on top of it. “Here, Matilde, follow me.” She motions for her to follow. “Why don't you use Liza's bathroom instead of the guest bathroom?”

“Thanks, Norine. I'll be fine.”

I watch as she moves toward the bedroom wing.

“Excuse me, Lainie,” I say, and get up to go into the house. Lainie nods and begins to cut Jack's chicken.

Matilde is sneaking into my bathroom with the stealth and flare of a robber in a bank vault. I admire her instincts as she opens my side of the medicine cabinet in a bathroom larger than most master bedrooms. She's a pro as she sorts through the pills. Pills that I doubt her mother has, pills that I'm confident other mothers in the city have. I sense that she has seen them before and that she is in search of Klonopin, the drug of choice. I'm about to make myself known when she pops two into her mouth and places a handful in the pocket of her jeans. She is ready to return to the dinner table, certain that no one has noticed. That's when I stop her, my right hand held up.

She is indignant and the blood drains from her face.

“Is that what you need, Matilde?” I ask. “A few pills to get you through the week?”

“Jess, I'm not—”

“Matilde, please. Don't insult me. Are things that bad?”

“No, I'm okay.”

“What's in your pocket?” I hold out my hand.

Matilde forks over perhaps six pills, probably not all of her stash, yet I've made my point.

“No matter what you think, Matilde, I'm your friend.” The way that Matilde looks at me, the word “friend” sticks in my throat.

 

PART
THREE

Lainie

 

EIGHT

“She's pretty, Mom, prettier than your friends in the city.”

“What do you mean, Tom?” I'm speeding. The sooner I get home, the more time to be in my studio. “There are plenty of pretty women, pretty mothers, in New York.”

“Right,” Tom snorts. “The ones at those piers with your painter lady friends.” He pronounces piers “peeeers.” “Cher? Gillian? Isabelle? They're dogs compared to Jess.”

“Tom, what are you talking about?”

“Jess! Jess is cool, Mom. Really cool, really pretty.”

“She's not that nice,” Matilde gurgles. “She wears tons of makeup, Tom. Did you see it caked on her face and neck?”

“Okay,” Tom laughs. “Let's look up-close at the waterfront friends. Nice, huh? Those crevices and lines.”

“Tom, I haven't heard you speak negatively about a mother before,” I say.

“She's a mom, Tom, not only an old friend of Mom's,” Matilde says.

“Duh, Matilde. She's a babe!”

“Tom! Stop it!” Matilde says.

The car curves through the streets of Elliot.

“Yeah, stop it.” Tom gives Matilde the finger.

“I'm not going to finish your Spanish paper tonight,” Matilde announces. “I heard you tell Jess that you speak Spanish fluently. That means you can do the paper yourself.”

“You'll do it since it's easy to write a paper for
any
teacher in Elliot, Matilde, and you promised. I don't care what you write, but you owe me, Matilde,” Tom says. “Just do it. Knock yourself out.”

“Tom! Matilde! What are you talking about? Who is writing a paper for whom?”