The Girl Next Door (19 page)

That was significant. David and her mother hadn’t always seen eye to eye. Truthfully, she didn’t think her mother had ever really thought David was good enough for her, although whenever he’d asked, and he’d asked often, in the early years, she’d denied it vociferously. She’d never been sure whether her mother’s opinion of her husband was just the stereotype, and would have been applied to any man, or whether it was specific to David. At the beginning, it had irritated him. He said her mother made him feel inadequate. She’d worked hard to negate that. It had irked her, too. Her mother was quick to criticize. It was most annoying when she amplified things that Rachael might have felt herself – made it impossible to ignore them. She’d told her once – one Thanksgiving, when her mother had put him down at the table. She’d smiled and followed her into the kitchen and then, when no one was listening, she’d hissed at her to stop it, to get off David’s back. And her mother had smiled back, a rictus smile, and gone back out into the dining room without a word, though she had behaved impeccably for the rest of that holiday, and ever since. She’d softened again when Jacob was born – David was the father of her grandchild now, and it elevated him, and, to a degree, made him immune.

Now, years later, it moved her to see the two of them together, as so many things about today moved her. Friends she’d grown up with mingled with newer acquaintances. This year, for the first time, she’d invited a few people from the building. Eve and Ed because they were nice, and she thought they might be at a loose end on this most American of days. They’d gone away, though. Todd and Greg had breezed through earlier, on a tour of progressively more fabulous parties, they’d said. She’d invited them when she’d discovered they’d be out in Sag Harbor for the holiday weekend, and Todd had said he’d die for the chance to check out the house. She hoped he hadn’t been disappointed – it was all very wicker and chintz, and little had changed in the last ten years – but he’d exclaimed about the proportions of the rooms and the stunning views, and if he thought the whole thing could be improved by $500,000 worth of Manuel Canovas and Philippe Starck, he at least kept it to himself. They’d just left, heading for the fireworks in Amagansett in Greg’s soft‐top BMW.

She’d been surprised when Kim had called and said she, Jason and Avery would come. She’d invited them, but only in that way you invite someone when you think there is almost no chance of them accepting. She wouldn’t call Kim and herself friends. Excellent neighbours. But not really friends. They’d had a few slightly awkward playdates out here last summer, trying to get Mia and Avery to find each other interesting or sympathetic, largely unsuccessfully, but they’d never had coffee on their own, or lunch in the city, and she couldn’t imagine that they ever would. Rachael had precious little time for the women she really enjoyed – old friends from school and from college – let alone for someone like Kim. She found Kim prickly and uptight. Rachael struggled with women who seemed to define themselves only by motherhood. She had no idea what career Kim had had before she stopped work to have Avery. She knew it was judgemental, but she disapproved, vaguely, of Kim having Esme. Why did she need a babysitter, who seemed to be almost full time, when she wasn’t working and was home herself? What did the two of them do all day? Avery was demanding, she knew – but two adults, all day? Esme and Milena had chatted as babysitters do, on park benches and sidewalks, and Rachael knew Esme was frustrated by Kim, who was controlling, and untrusting. That couldn’t be easy.

She watched Mia now, in a red, white and blue striped sundress and the small tulle wings she’d been wearing like a backpack all day, wrestling in the sand with Sadie, the next‐door neighbour’s granddaughter, and remembered that Mia hadn’t been a natural match for Avery, any more than she felt herself to be for Kim. Avery was whiny and demanding and a lousy sharer, and Mia, the youngest of three, breezily confident and grown‐up for her age, had no patience with her. They weren’t daft, kids. They were pretty good judges of character.

But they were here now, all of them. That was some commitment – their part of Long Island would have been a long schlep on a day like today. Kim actually looked prettier than Rachael had ever seen her before, in a coral‐pink dress that showed off her golden shoulders, and a lacy white shawl. And she had a little make‐up on, which was rare for her. Jason wasn’t a bad‐looking guy, but he could never have been Rachael’s type. He was blandly good‐looking – a catalogue guy – blond and relatively chiselled, with greenish eyes, she thought. But not an interesting face, and that was what she liked. She could look at David for hours – into the deep brown pools of his twinkling eyes, and at the fine lines between his eyebrows and either side of his nose. At the million types of smile he had, each one slightly different. And the small scar on his right cheek.

The Kramers were deep in conversation, it seemed, with elderly bridge friends of her parents, although Kim’s eyes constantly flitted to where Avery was planted in the sand flinging an arc of sand all about her with a small blue shovel. Rachael thought that they might need to be rescued – the old man was a terrific bore, and utterly Republican, and they ought to be talking to some of the younger guests. She sauntered in their direction.

Jason watched her walk towards them, his heart racing slightly. She looked so good. She was nut brown already, so early in the summer, and she had amazing shoulders, strong and muscled, but still feminine and, he knew, silky soft to the touch. She was wearing a pale, short shift dress that left her arms and most of her legs bare, and little diamond disks sparkled at her ears. When she leant in to kiss him, she smelt wonderful, and familiar.

‘Jason, Kim! I’m so happy you made it! So great to see you! And hi, Avery!’ She bent down and ruffled Avery’s hair. Jason saw the outline of a thong beneath the thin fabric of the dress, and felt his knees tremble just a little. He wasn’t permitted to see Kim in underwear often these days, but it had been some time since he’d have wanted to. She wore thongs once. But not now. She was horribly self‐conscious about the little pouch created by the Caesarean she had when Avery was born. He hadn’t minded that, but she had always hated it.

‘Thanks again for inviting us. We’re a little late, I’m afraid.’ Kim was stiff and as awkward as ever.

‘No such thing as late! Unless you miss the fireworks, which you clearly haven’t.’ She gestured at the sky, where the sun was still up and beating down. ‘Have you found some food?’

Jason answered. ‘Not yet.’

‘You’ve got to get up there and grab some. My mother goes nuts on the fourth of July – she always has. There’s lobster and shrimp and filet…’

‘Sounds delicious.’

She was searching for conversation. She always had to, with these two. It could get quite exhausting. ‘You just missed Todd and Greg – they breezed through on their way to Amagansett.’

‘Ah.’

Jason was standing a little too close, and staring at her just a little too intently. Rachael wondered whether Kim had noticed. He did it in the apartment elevator, too, sometimes – if David wasn’t there. It wasn’t exactly ‘creepy’, as Mia would say, but it did make her feel uncomfortable. She figured he was just one of those people who had a slightly different concept of personal space.

‘So… how’s your summer?’

‘Avery and I are out at the house now, until Labor Day.’

‘And I’m back and forth on the Jitney,’ Jason added. ‘You?’

‘We’re in the city and Connecticut mainly. I grew up out here, and so there’s lots to do when we come out, but I’m not truly a Southampton girl any more. I guess we’re lucky we have the option. I mean, I couldn’t imagine not being here for the fourth of July, for example. I don’t think I’ve ever missed one.’

Jason nodded as though she had just said something profound and he’d been the only person listening who’d understood her.

‘But you’re not full‐time in Connecticut?’

‘No.’ She shook her head ruefully. ‘That’d be great, but with work,’ she shrugged, ‘I try and spend at least a part of each week up there with the kids. Millie has them, and they go to tennis camp and science camp, and all that good stuff, you know. But I gotta work.’

Kim smiled tightly. When she spoke, her voice was strident. ‘Got to? Or want to?’

Jason and Rachael stared at her, both astounded by her rudeness. In her mind’s eye, Kim moved backwards from the remark which hung in the air. In reality, it was out, and she could go nowhere but forwards. Rachael was too shocked even to be angry. The full force of Kim’s obvious unhappiness hit her squarely for the first time. Only someone truly miserable would be so vile. She actually felt sorry for her.

‘Seems a shame, that’s all, to be apart from them for so long.’

Rachael sighed. How many times had she heard that tone in the voice of a non‐working mother? It didn’t even make her feel defensive any more – she’d been over that since Jacob had been a toddler. It just made her feel a bit sad, that women weren’t as good as they should be at considering other women’s decisions. Or at recognizing that, for a woman, every decision (and how lucky she knew they all were to have so many choices) was a compromise. She dug a fingernail into her palm, forced a smile, and tried to remind herself that she judged Kim, too.

Jason was still glaring at Kim. He had actually moved a foot or so away from his wife. ‘I’m sure they have a ball.’

Rachael smiled at him gratefully. ‘I think they do.’

‘I’m sure that if you went back to work, you’d do the same, Kim.’ Now he’d gone a little further than she’d have had him go in defence of her, and Rachael was again aware that she was caught in the barbed, bloody crossfire of a couple at odds.

‘I don’t think I’ll even consider going back while Avery is so young.’

Kim knew perfectly well that Rachael had been back at her desk when Mia was three months old. She didn’t want to be having this conversation today. Today was not for squabbling. She turned her head slightly, to see if she could catch David’s eye, but he was laughing at something someone had said, and he didn’t see her.

Kim smiled, through only slightly gritted teeth. ‘It’s just that Avery was so hard won, you know. I couldn’t bear to leave raising her to someone else.’

Jesus. The IVF card. She was really playing with a full deck today. She’d seen Kim play it before. It infuriated her. As if conceiving, carrying and delivering a child the more conventional way was no big deal – like those babies weren’t ‘hard won’. And the scorpion sting in the tail. ‘Someone else raising them.’ If she’d had more respect for Kim, that might have hurt. But then, if she’d had more respect for Kim, Kim would have had to be the kind of person who would never say such a thing.

Rachael smiled vaguely in Kim’s direction, allowed her eyes to meet Jason’s, and turned. ‘I’ve just seen someone I was at summer camp with a million years ago! You must excuse me – I have to go and say hi. Do go and find some lobster, won’t you? And make sure you get a great spot for the fireworks. They’re pretty amazing from here!’

More than anything, Kim wished she could take the last five minutes back. Jason was looking at her with such disgust on his face she felt like she might melt away with shame, into the sand.

‘Did you have to be such a bitch?’ He spat the words at her, then turned away. And those were the last words he said directly to her that night.

Kim

In the car on the way home, with Avery slumped in the back seat, fast asleep, Kim could feel Jason’s disapproval. She’d felt it for the rest of the evening, sitting next to him and watching the fireworks light up the cloudless sky, wishing that he had his arm around her like so many of the other couples she could see, leaning in to each other, cosy and united. She knew she’d been cruel and vindictive, even if she’d said only a handful of words to Rachael. He had every right to be angry. To hate her, even. She didn’t know why she’d done it.

That wasn’t true. She did know. She’d never say so, to Jason, or to Rachael. She struggled even to say it to herself. She was so far beyond jealous of Rachael Schulman that sometimes her jealousy felt like a tumour inside her. She had everything. She was beautiful, she was slim and tiny and immaculate. She looked good in everything. She had a husband who adored her, and
three
children it hadn’t half killed her to produce, who behaved. She had a thousand friends, a career and parents with money and she had choices. She could say she wasn’t a Hamptons girl, and make Connecticut sound like such a sane, cool choice, but damn it, there she was, holding court at some Camelot‐like mansion… in the Hamptons. Rachael had everything. She wasn’t a mess. She wasn’t perpetually afraid that the whole thing might collapse around her like a house of cards at any moment. She wasn’t unhappy.

‘I’m sorry for what I said to Rachael. It was unforgivable.’

Jason was driving, staring straight ahead at the road. He didn’t turn to see her face when she spoke, although she was looking directly at him.

He could let it end there, or he could carry it forward into the rest of their night, their weekend and their whole damn lives.

‘It was, pretty much.’ Forward then.

Earlier, when she’d showered, Kim had thought about making love tonight. Even imagined a tiny jolt of lust as she’d thought about it, pulling on her underwear and thinking he might be pulling it off again later. They’d have had fun at the party, they’d have driven home companionably. He’d have noticed she’d made an effort to look nice. He might even have told her. It might have happened that way. They might have ended the night lying together under his mother’s magic quilt.

It seemed ridiculous now, even to have thought it. It hadn’t happened that way, and they wouldn’t. Again. She remembered how it used to be. Always. But out here, she remembered more. The way it used to be haunted her, especially here. Did he remember it, too?

Silence. Treacle thick, dark and impenetrable.

Then, ‘Why would you feel the need to do it?’

Answers bubbled in her throat. Defensive, petty, unjustifiable reasons. Small answers. ‘I don’t know.’ Her voice broke.