The Things We Wish Were True (3 page)

JENCEY

The girls were coming out of that dirty bathroom sans flip-flops, and she’d been about to go warn them (again) about the dangers of foot fungi when someone called out to her. She turned to take in this person who knew her name, her brain taking a few seconds to register just who she was seeing. She hadn’t expected to run into Bryte here, though now she realized it had always been a likely encounter. Bryte had never intended to go far.

Deep down she’d known that this moment—or one close to it—would come. She couldn’t wind up back in her childhood neighborhood and not run headlong into the people
from
that childhood. In hindsight, taking the girls up to the pool might not have been the smartest move. But she’d been desperate to take their minds off things. When they were playing in the pool and making new friends, they weren’t asking her what would happen next. And at the pool she wasn’t under her mother’s watchful, concerned eye.

Bryte had married Everett. Of course she’d known that. Her parents had gone to the wedding, urged her to come, too. “Bring Arch,” they’d said, as if Arch’s presence would alleviate the awkwardness. But she’d been nursing Zara and begged off, saying it was just too hard to travel with a nursing baby. It had been a lie that no one could argue with. She’d sent the happy couple an expensive silver tray.

She examined the little boy holding on to Bryte’s hand—Bryte and Everett’s child, how strange it all was—and looked for a trace of Everett. The hair and eye colors were the same. But mostly he just looked like Bryte. This heartened her some, gave her the courage to keep standing there making small talk with the girl she had once both loved and betrayed, and who had ultimately betrayed her right back. But could it really be called betrayal? Now that they were older, she wasn’t as certain that’s what it had been.

She knew what real betrayal was now. An image entered her mind: Arch behind the glass in prison.

The lifeguard blew the whistle, and she watched as the girls and their new friend dove back into the pool. Bryte urged her to come with her into the pool to appease the little boy and continue their conversation. They gave the older woman they were awkwardly standing near a wave as they followed the little boy—she’d already forgotten his name, or maybe she’d blocked it out on purpose—over to the shallow area. She’d been thinking of getting in anyway; it was so hot, and it was only June. She’d forgotten the heat and humidity of a southern summer. But she’d also forgotten her mother’s tomato sandwiches (white bread, peeled and sliced tomatoes, Duke’s mayonnaise, liberal salt and pepper), the way peaches fresh off the tree tasted, and chasing lightning bugs at dusk, the air at night as warm as midday in Connecticut. The home of her childhood could still offer the comforts of that childhood, comforts she welcomed.

“This is so great!” Bryte said. She looked at the boy. “Christopher.” Her voice dripped with the kind of gentleness only a first-time mother can muster. “This is one of Mommy’s oldest friends. We grew up together.” She looked over at Jencey, seeking validation that her claim was true.

Jencey nodded and looked away, pretending to look for her girls even though she knew precisely where they were: on the little diving board. At their club back home, they had a high dive, a curving slide, a snack bar with waiters to deliver drinks to your chaise. She and her friends practically just held out their hands and the drinks appeared like magic. She wondered if Bryte knew the truth about why she was back. She had yet to hear that unmistakable note of pity she’d heard in the voices of her former friends in Connecticut the unfortunate times she’d run into any of them before she’d left.

She hadn’t wanted to tell anyone what had happened to Arch, including her parents. But when it became apparent that she might end up needing her folks’ help, she’d filled them in on all the gory details. Her father, good man that he was, had asked if he should come up there and kick Arch’s ass. She’d laughed in spite of herself and assured him that, no, his ass-kicking services would not be needed. The federal government was doing a fine and dandy job of that, thank you very much.

“Just know we’re here if you need us,” he’d said. The kindness in his voice had brought tears to her eyes. It had made her remember the support he’d offered before, back when the hearts had started showing up everywhere and she’d had no choice but to go somewhere that her “admirer” couldn’t find her anymore. It was her father who’d driven her up north, to a college they’d told no one about, since no one could figure out who’d been stalking her. They couldn’t afford for the wrong person to know, the wrong person to find her. That had been a long, quiet ride, the radio on low, the mood in the car pensive, not unlike her ride back all these years later.

“I can’t believe my mom didn’t tell me you were here!” Bryte said, her focus intent on Christopher instead of Jencey, which was a good thing.

“She probably didn’t know,” Jencey said.

“Didn’t know?” Bryte repeated as a question. She looked up at a plane making its way across the wide blue sky and nodded an answer to Christopher’s (incessant) questions.

“I sort of asked them to keep it quiet. That I was here.”

“Oh no, did something happen?” Bryte’s face registered legitimate concern, but in spite of that, Jencey couldn’t tell her. She could tell Bryte was trying to be her friend, but things weren’t the same between them for a lot of reasons.

She waved her arm in the air and forced a smile. “Just didn’t want a big to-do. You know, after all this time.”

“It has been a long time, Jencey.” Bryte’s voice got quieter. “I never thought you’d stay gone so long.”

Though she tried to hide it, Jencey picked up on the hurt in Bryte’s voice and attempted to lighten the mood with a joke.

“Well, you know, I met this man, and I got pregnant—oops!” Jencey grinned, expecting Bryte to laugh, but Bryte didn’t even smile over her standard joke, which usually got a better response. She continued talking, her words tumbling over themselves. “So we got married and had the kids, and things were crazy. We made a few quick trips back, but we never stayed very long. It was easier to have my parents come to us.” She took a breath. “So what about you guys? How’d you end up back here?”

Bryte watched as Christopher barely put his face into the water, then she applauded as if he’d just swum the length of the pool. “We bought a house here when I got pregnant with Christopher. Wanted him to have the same kind of childhood we both did. You know . . .” Bryte’s words died on her tongue as she realized what she was saying. This wasn’t a place full of happy memories for Jencey. For her, this was a place to run from, not to.

Bryte recovered quickly, her voice confident. “I mean, we love it here.”

“Of course,” Jencey found herself saying. “It’s nice.” She looked around at the handsome lifeguard on the stand in his
Risky Business
sunglasses, the rippling water, the assortment of children playing together, and the older woman who’d been so nice—JJ’s mom. If she tried to recall some happy memories of this place, she might come upon them. She might see things differently.

“Look, Mom!” she heard Zara call, and turned to see her youngest, most cautious child standing on the diving board. Back home Zara never went near the high dive or the slide, hanging out in the splash pool for babies instead and insisting that was all she wanted. Maybe this short diving board was more her speed. “Watch this!”

“I’m watching!” she called back brightly.

Zara sprang into the air and gathered her feet to her, forming herself into a compact little ball just before coming down with a loud splash into the water. All the other kids clapped as Zara popped back up to the surface, blinking to clear her vision so that she could make sure Jencey was still watching.

BRYTE

On the way back to her chair, Bryte stepped on a discarded juice box, and the remaining contents squirted her foot. She grimaced and sat down to wipe it off with her towel. Her friend Karen had arrived with her daughter, Sarah, while she was catching up with Jencey. Karen sprayed the child with SPF 100, coating the air more than the kid. Bryte waved the mist away and handed a cup of water to Christopher, who was already whining that he wanted to go back in the water.

“We need to say hi to our friends,” she coaxed. She looked at Karen and sighed with exhaustion. “Hi,” she said.

Karen laughed and pointed over at Jencey. “Who was that?”

Bryte smirked at her. How to explain who Jencey was? She didn’t have the energy to go into it now, so she gave as brief an explanation as possible. “That was someone I grew up with. She’s in town with her girls for a visit.” She made her voice sound light and carefree as she said it.

Karen checked Jencey out surreptitiously from behind her dark glasses. “She’s pretty,” she said. “Really pretty.”

Bryte flopped back on the chaise. “She always was,” she said. “And besides, her kids are older. She has more time to spend on herself.”

Karen pointed at herself. “Don’t I know it—this bathing suit?” She gestured to the plain black tankini she wore. “When I put this on today, it was the first time I’d been out of sweats in two days! When Kevin wants to have sex, I’m like, ‘Dude? Have you looked at me? Have you smelled me?’”

Bryte laughed. “Preach, sister,” she said.

Karen began the arduous process of pulling the floaties onto her daughter’s arm as Sarah twisted and whined. “You can’t go in unless you have these on,” she said. “You know the rules.” She gave up when the floaties were just above the elbows instead of at the biceps where they belonged. She waved Sarah toward the pool. “Let’s go,” she said.

She motioned for Bryte to get up, and Bryte moaned good-naturedly. “I will pay you one hundred dollars to take both kids in the pool for one hour.”

Karen shook her head vigorously. “If I go, you go. It’s the motherhood code. And besides, I’m the one who’s pregnant. I should be the one who gets to lounge.” Bryte didn’t need reminding of her friend’s current state. It was Karen and Kevin’s announcement that had started Everett on his quest to add to their family. Ironically or not, Karen and Kevin’s last name was Jones. And Everett was committed to keeping up with them.

They passed the time in the water, talking about the latest neighborhood happenings, revisiting the same subjects they always covered. Should they resume bunco game nights in the fall? Who was bringing what to the Fourth of July potluck? Would the women of the neighborhood respond to the idea of doing a painting class in the clubhouse once a month? And what books should they select for this year’s book club when it started again in September? Karen was the Energizer Bunny of the WOSG (Women of Sycamore Glen).

“You think your friend over there would want to come to book club?” Karen gestured at Jencey, who was, in fact, reading a book.

“Oh, she’s just visiting.”

“Got it,” Karen said, but she gave Bryte a look that told her she’d responded just a little too passionately. Karen could smell a good story from fifty paces, and if Bryte wasn’t careful, she’d sniff this one out, too. Bryte didn’t need to share their complicated relationship with anyone.

Bryte glanced at the clock on the clubhouse wall. “Ugh. I gotta go.”

“But I just got here!” Karen said. “You can’t leave me!” She made a dramatic, desperate face and playfully tugged on her arm.

“I’d stay—believe me—but I promised Myrtle Honeycutt I’d walk Rigby.”

“It’s too hot to walk that dog!” Karen argued, looking legitimately horrified.

“We’ll drink lots of water, and we won’t go far, Mom.” Bryte smirked at her. “Besides, if I don’t take him, she will try to.” She shrugged. “It’s become part of our routine.”

Karen poked her in the shoulder. “You, my dear, are too nice.”

Bryte waved goodbye and pulled Christopher from the pool. As she collected her things, she glanced at Jencey one more time, catching her eye and waving goodbye, wishing she could ask her so many questions, wishing the years hadn’t turned them into strangers.

CAILEY

We had a summer routine, Cutter and me. We got up, and I made Cutter some breakfast. Usually it was just cereal, because Mom didn’t like me using the stove when she was at work. But sometimes I made him toast because I was allowed to use the toaster. When Mom got paid, she bought us Pop-Tarts, even though they are very bad for you and you should not eat them. It was only once a month, so she said it was OK.

After breakfast, we did our chores. I cleaned the dishes, and Cutter swept the floor, though mostly he just hit the floor with the broom until I told him to stop. Then we vacuumed or cleaned the bathroom or did something to make the house look nice inside. When we first moved in, I went outside and looked around for something I could do to make the outside of the house look nice, but I didn’t have any money for paint or flowers or anything like that, so I decided to stick to the inside. I learned to just walk really fast inside the house so I didn’t have to see how ugly it was on the outside.

I knew what people said about our house. I listened to the conversations at the pool when they thought I wasn’t listening. They called it “the eyesore,” and they talked about how
that
house should not be in
their
neighborhood. Truth be told, I’d had the same thought the first time I saw it. Driving past all the pretty houses had filled me with hope that maybe this time things would be different and we’d have the better life that Mom was always dreaming about. But that wasn’t to be. Instead, we had to walk into that house, the one people looked at like a black tooth in the middle of a mouthful of pearly whites.

Our house probably used to be gray, but it looked kind of white now since most of the paint was gone. It was basically no color at all. The bushes (if you could call them that—they were more like trees by then) had grown up so high they covered half the windows in the front of the house. Other than the overgrown bushes, there were no trees in the front yard, just scrubby grass, where there was any grass at all. And to top it all off, there were some shutters missing, and the mailbox leaned like it was thinking about falling over any second.

The neighbors hated that house; they wanted to knock it down. And they weren’t too happy about us living in it, either, on account of how they
could
knock it down if folks would just stop renting it. The people at the pool said stuff about the kind of people who would rent a house like that. They said that we were white trash and how they’d heard me and Cutter’s daddy was in prison. (But they were wrong about that. Cutter’s daddy was in prison. I don’t have a daddy. At least, not one I’ve ever seen.) Our new neighbors didn’t like us even though they’d never met us, never came over and brought us a casserole and introduced themselves like people do on TV. The sign on the entrance to the pool said
W
E
’
RE ALL FAMILY HERE
.
But that was just not true.

I tried to tell Mom what people were saying, but Mom said it was a better life for us and that we’d just have to learn how to get along. She told me to stop eavesdropping if it was going to upset me so much. “My little snoop,” she said, ruffling my hair. “This is a good place.” But she also said to keep the door locked and reminded me about a hundred times not to talk to strangers. A girl disappeared from nearby right before we moved in, and my mom was all freaked out about it. So, since all our neighbors were strangers, and that didn’t seem like it would ever change, we didn’t talk to anyone at all.

After we finished our chores, we did our reading. I made a rule: we had to read for thirty minutes every day. Mom took us to the library when she could so we would have books to choose from. I would get as many as my arms could hold, and Mom would say it was too many, but I would promise to read them all. And I did. Cutter always got picture books, and I told him he should get harder books, but Cutter didn’t like to read. Sometimes when it was reading time, he would argue with me and say he wouldn’t do it. I told him that if he didn’t, he wouldn’t get TV time. And he knew I meant it. So he usually went in his room and looked at the pictures, which made me happy because I got to be alone in my room with no Cutter to pester me for thirty whole minutes.

A good thing about the new house: we each had our own room. At our old apartment, Cutter and I slept in the bedroom, and Mom slept on a pull-out sofa in the den. Sometimes her boyfriend, Joe, slept with her on the pull-out sofa, and if I needed something from the kitchen, I had to walk past his sleeping self. I didn’t like the way he smelled up our den with his oily man smell. I was glad when Joe went away. The best part about the house in Sycamore Glen—eyesore or not—was there was no Joe.

After reading time was over, we turned on the TV. We alternated days of who got to pick what we watched. Cutter liked animal shows, and I liked reality TV. We were both happy with animal reality TV, like the ones where they catch wild animals that get in people’s houses or the ones where they wrestle alligators. Sometimes we’d just watch cartoons. The TV company made a mistake and gave us more channels than we signed up for, so there was a lot to choose from, more than we’d ever had before. I told Mom we should probably tell them they made a mistake, but Mom said what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them and that sometimes life just works out. That had not been my experience, though. When I told her that, she laughed and laughed. I liked it when my mother laughed.

After TV time, it was time to eat again. Mom said Cutter and I were eating machines, so I tried not to eat too much. But Cutter didn’t give it a second thought. He scarfed down food, and he usually didn’t care what kind. Mom said he had a hollow leg. At lunch, I made him eat some fruit, even if it was just canned fruit cocktail. Sometimes we had chips to go with our sandwiches, and once in a while, we had cookies. I like homemade chocolate-chip cookies, but we only had those if Mom was in the mood to bake, which was hardly ever because she was always so tired from working. Mom worked one job during the weekdays and one on the weekends, so she was at work pretty much all the time. She had to do that, she said, so we could have the kind of life we had. Sometimes when I saw people with their fancy cars and their nice houses, I wondered how many jobs they must have had to work to have
that
kind of life.

After lunch, it was finally time to go to the pool. Cutter was not a very good swimmer, so I made him wait as long as I could to go to the pool, even though he started begging to go as soon as his eyes popped open in the morning. He made me nervous in the water, and it was hard to watch him all the time. I knew there was a lifeguard there who could save him if he started to drown, but Cutter was my responsibility. That’s what Mom said every night when she kissed me good night. She said the same thing: “I’ll be gone when you get up. Be good, be smart, and watch out for your brother.” Then she said, “I love you more than life itself.” And even though she couldn’t be home as much as I wanted her to be, I knew she meant it.

I didn’t like it when people said bad things about my mother. Her old boyfriend, Joe, said a lot of mean things about her, and about Cutter and me, too. He was not very nice to her, and that night after he’d said the worst things ever, I gave her a hug and told her not to listen to him. I felt bad because he’d caught me snooping in his wallet, and that’s what caused their fight. But she said it wasn’t my fault, even though I shouldn’t snoop in people’s stuff. (I was still working on that.) Then she hugged me and made me promise I’d grow up and have a better life than she did. She wouldn’t stop crying until I pinkie-swore I would. The trouble was, I wasn’t real sure how to get a better life or even what she had in mind.

At the pool, the moms and dads didn’t talk to me and Cutter. I didn’t really expect them to. They were parents, and parents usually don’t talk to kids unless it’s to their own. But it was more than that. They looked at us as if we were sand that got in their bathing suits. When I told Mom about it, she said, “Well, then, just don’t go up there, Cailey.” She had her tired voice when she said it, the one that told me I should just drop it.

But even though Cutter couldn’t swim very well and the people ignored us, I liked being there. I liked the water and the sunshine and the sound of people laughing. Even though we didn’t talk to each other, we—Cutter and I and all the moms and kids—were all there together. It was
our
pool. And so Cutter and I went up there every day after lunch. We walked a long way to get there, we swam, and we walked a long way back home. And then we did it all over again the next day. And that was, I expected, the way we’d spend that whole summer of my eleventh year and Cutter’s sixth. I was, of course, as wrong as could be.