When he stops to consider life’s struggles—everything from trying to pay the mortgage to dealing with physical pain—it’s no wonder that so many people are turning to the things that can furnish relief these days. Life is so hard. His students tell him this all the time. Everyone is dealing with something, he reassures them, though he’s not sure that it helps. He suspects psychiatrists with adult patients hear this complaint even more often. Life is hard. Getting through can sometimes be rougher than people are equipped for, and without good support systems like a family or friends, it’s easy enough to find yourself turning toward whatever vice will help to dull the pain. In Joel’s case, it’s usually food and beer. And though he doesn’t tag them as addictions per se, these are his vices, what he “takes” when he needs to chill or decompress. Like downing an extra beer after he bumped into Kat the other night.
He watches Cody goofing around with his friends in the pool. His stepson was pretty adamant about there being no drugs in that backpack, and yet, history suggests otherwise to Joel. If he knows anything about adolescent behavior, it’s that denial often presents the first path of resistance. And he’s a little ticked with the kid for putting them through all that stress and drama yesterday. As far as he’s concerned, Cody got extremely lucky. This time. If that Eddie kid hadn’t corroborated his story, the result might have been one hundred and eighty degrees different. And even though Joel understands that the dean couldn’t deny Cody his diploma without any hard evidence (and certainly not with the famed Roger Landau in his office), Joel’s not willing to let Cody off the hook quite so easily.
The photo seemed pretty damning to him, particularly the caption that accompanied it. Why would someone go to all the trouble of taking a photo and then sending it to the dean? He supposes it could be sour grapes, but it smells like something else to him. What Joel wants to know is this: Does Cody have a drug problem? Because if he’s doing drugs, something like oxy or heroin, then his whole college career has been one big joke. And if he’s in trouble, Joel wants to get him help. Into a treatment center, probably. He knows the best in Connecticut. That means Cody’s summer job as a camp counselor will be a wash—and maybe even Bora-Bora—but no matter. If he’s in trouble, they need to intervene before it’s too late.
He has half a mind to corner the kid and get the real story right here, right now. But he knows Meredith would kill him. The storm has passed for the moment, and she should be allowed to relax, to enjoy the party. Any confrontation with his stepson will have to wait till later. But it’s coming. Joel can feel it. He’s watched too many kids go down the dark path of “trying out” a drug and then finding themselves hooked. Parents, well-meaning and well-off, who are dumbfounded by their children’s downward spiral into addiction and denial, who drag their children into rehab only to get a call from the center telling them that their child has run away. Again. No way is he going down that path with his own son.
For the moment, he’ll keep an eye on Cody, watching what he gets up to with his friends today. This morning the kid looked positively exhausted, but Joel couldn’t smell anything on him, not even cigarettes. If Cody is smoking something, it’s not marijuana. Which both relieves and worries him. Because if he smelled the earthy scent of pot, at least he could rest assured that’s probably what they’re dealing with. Nothing but marijuana in that backpack. Not ideal, but not necessarily life-destroying either. At the same time, the fact that Cody seems clean might indicate something more serious is going on. Heroin. Cocaine. If it’s one of those two, Joel doesn’t know if he can forgive himself. He’s trained to notice the very symptoms of addiction in his students—sluggishness, weight loss, track marks on the arms, crazy eyes—and here he may have missed it in his own kid. He’s going to get a good look at Cody’s bare arms at some point today. If he’s been shooting up, Joel might have to strangle him right here at his own goddamned graduation party.
SEVENTEEN
Saturday afternoon, 2:30 p.m.
When Meredith excuses herself from the pool, Lily grabs her chance to escape upstairs. No one will miss her for a few minutes. She hardly knows anyone here, anyway. Of the roughly one hundred guests, Lily recognizes a mere handful, including Dawn and Cody. Alison and a few other friends were invited, but since most of Lily’s pals work in the restaurant industry, they weren’t available today. How she wishes Alison were here to talk her through any potential land mines! Her conversation with Meredith went all right (no wineglasses hurled her way), and yet whatever information she was hoping Meredith might share with her about nursing wasn’t exactly forthcoming. Maybe talking about the infants she works with is upsetting to her.
Whatever the issue, Lily will not allow herself to get worked up over it. She has reached out to Meredith twice at this party, even congratulated her on raising great kids! It’s clear that, while she might not despise Lily outright, Meredith has zero interest in getting to know her better or in becoming friends. If Alison were around, she would tell Lily that winning over her husband’s ex-wife is an exercise in futility—and why does Lily even care so much in the first place? Something must be wrong with her that she wants to befriend Meredith. She knows precisely what she needs: one more little pill to get her back to Even-Steven, Steady-Freddy. Her nerves are jangling again, that ugly self-doubt licking at her thoughts. There will be no succumbing to self-doubt today. Absolutely not.
Back in the kitchen, Donna busily orders the waitstaff around and pulls out an extra tray of hors d’oeuvres from the fridge.
“Party’s going great!” she sings out when Lily passes through. “Don’t you think?”
“Yes, fabulous. Thank you, Donna. Everything’s perfect.”
She hurries up the main staircase, nearly tripping as she takes two at a time. When was the last time she popped a painkiller? Right before the party started? But was that before the prep began after the rain let up, around eleven, or when people started arriving, around twelve thirty? If it’s two thirty now, she’s early either way. She tries to remember. She’s certain she took a pill around nine thirty, as soon as she paid for the bottle in the parking lot. Regardless of when she took her last pill—eleven o’clock or twelve thirty—she has already surpassed the prescribed dosage of one pill every four to six hours. Oh well.
The pesky thought gets easily swept away by the nagging craving in her mind. Rules are made to be broken anyway, she thinks. And with this party swirling all around her, she’s in desperate need of a good, soul-soothing rush. No one can blame her for any of this weekend’s almost catastrophes, the near misses. Lily is not the wicked stepmother here. Quite the opposite. If anyone should shoulder the blame, it’s Cody or even Roger for not protecting her, for not running better interference. Lily may never measure up in Meredith’s eyes, but who cares? She’s the one who lives in this beautiful house. She’s the one who might make another baby with Roger someday. So. Let Meredith walk around feeling superior today, Lily thinks. Tomorrow the kingdom will be mine and Roger’s again.
She rummages through the top drawer of the vanity for the rogue bottle, pulls it out, and shakes a tablet free. (Regardless of what Roger thinks, she’s not worried about the kids sneaking up here to steal her stash—they wouldn’t dare cross that line, just like she’d never snoop through their drawers.) She fills a glass with tap water and is about to swallow the pill when it occurs to her that it usually takes a while for the oxycodone to work its magic. But she’s already a nervous wreck! If she waits for the oxy to take full effect, the party might well be halfway over. Somewhere she remembers reading that if you crush it up and snort it, the drug delivers quicker relief, shooting straight into your bloodstream.
But, whoa. Hold on a minute. Does she really want to go there?
Snorting it sounds like something only an addict would do, and Lily’s definitely not an addict. On the other hand, how different can it be from swallowing the pill? It’s practically the same thing, only with express
delivery. For a moment, she considers chewing the tablet, but she’s afraid the taste might make her gag. No, mashing it up is the better way to go. With the bottom of her hair spray bottle, she smashes the pill into powdery bits on the counter. Then she rolls up a tissue blotting paper, her fingers shaking slightly—and sniffs the powder, feeling it scoot directly up to her brain.
There’s a flash of white lights, and her nostrils feel as if they’re on fire as she grips the countertop, light-headed and panicking for a second. What the hell have I done? But after another moment, the world comes back into focus, and her face stares back at her in the mirror. She still looks like herself. No one can tell, Lily thinks. One nostril has a dusting of powder on it, and she swipes it off with a tissue. Wow. She wasn’t expecting such a rush. But the sense of calm beginning to envelop her right now is heavenly. She stands there another minute, luxuriating in the almost weightless sensation that’s taking over her body—until gradually, the most intense sense of euphoria glides over her. It’s as if someone has opened a window onto an entirely different party, beckoning her to come take a look.
And suddenly, Lily realizes how wonderful this day really is. All of Dawn and Cody’s friends are so nice! And Roger is delighted with the party. Lily has been paranoid this whole time, but why? Everyone seems happy. And the weather has turned out to be glorious. Finally, Lily is part of a family, something she has longed for ever since she was a little girl. She can almost imagine their comforting arms wrapping around her in a hug.
She opens the bathroom door, feeling as if the very air lifts her as she floats down the stairs back to the party. Not once does she consider the bottle of pills that has rolled off the vanity and onto the bathroom floor.
* * *
“You wanted to talk to me?” Roger, apparently discharged from his grilling duties, hovers above her.
“Oh, hi, there.” Meredith straightens in the Adirondack chair she’s commandeered for the last fifteen minutes while Roger slides into the chair next to her. “Thanks for coming over,” she says. “Mostly, I wanted to apologize for attacking you last night about the trip.” Above them, frothy clouds tumble lazily across a brilliant blue sky, this morning’s thundershowers long forgotten.
She watches him pull a hand through his thinning hair, his eyes trained on some faraway point on the beach, and can’t help but think that her ex-husband has aged. They all have, of course, but Roger’s face has thinned and unfamiliar lines crease his forehead. Even his hands, always so masculine and strong, are flecked with liver spots. “Consider it forgotten,” he says now. “It was a long day.”
Meredith nods.
“You were right, though,” he admits. “I should have run the trip by you first. It’s just that when my assistant found the deal online, it seemed like I should jump on it. I wanted to do something special for the kids, you know?”
Meredith laughs softly. “And this wasn’t enough?” She gestures to the party going on around them.
He smiles, his eyes focused back on her now. “You know me. I like to one-up even myself.”
“Ah. As if I could forget.” She plays with the metal ring tag that circles the stem of her wineglass, identifying it as her own. For whatever reason, Lily handed her the tag with a tiny metal boot, not so dissimilar from a Monopoly piece, though now the thought occurs to her that maybe it was Lily’s subtle way of giving Meredith the metaphorical boot.
“Anyway, it’s okay,” she says. “I’ve had some time to adjust to the idea, and the kids seem excited to go. So long as it’s all right with their summer employers, I don’t see why not.” She pauses. “Maybe going forward, though, we could both work at being better communicators. Open the channels, you know? When the kids got older, we started relying on them to pass along information, but too much stuff gets lost in the pipeline as a result.”
“But they didn’t even know about the trip,” protests Roger. “It was a surprise.”
“I realize that, so it’s not the best example. But still. I think we could do a better job. You seemed to have no problem texting me about this party, for instance. I don’t appreciate being flabbergasted by news in front of my own children.”
For a moment he’s silent before nodding solemnly. “Fair enough. Understood.”
“And now that they’re going away, like really away.” Her voice has turned wistful, which she fights to check. “Who knows how much they’ll confide in us?”
Roger cocks an eyebrow, as if it’s a novel idea. “You think they confide in us now?”
She shrugs. “Probably not everything. Cody, obviously not. But Dawn usually talks to me about stuff, especially this last year. I feel like she’s grown up a lot.” And that’s when it hits her. It’s not just Dawn, her baby, she’s saying goodbye to at this graduation; it’s as if she’s waving goodbye to a new best friend, someone whom Meredith actually enjoys talking to and spending time with now. “Anyway, I hope they’ll still talk to us about the important stuff.”
“Such as when they need money,” Roger offers.
Meredith laughs lightly. “That’s how it’s supposed to work, though, right? When you let your kids go? They contact you only when they need something from you?”
“Well, that depends. I don’t think you can ever fully let them go. That’s one of the things I’ve always admired about you, Meredith.”
She sighs and leans back in her chair. It’s true. She would be the first to admit that she’s greedy when it comes to her own children. She wants the world for them, the whole kingdom. The job. The life partner. The kids. The happiness and inner serenity. If someone is going to foster world peace, why not Dawn or Cody? She has spent a lifetime worrying about them—at the park on the swings, at the swimming pool in the deep end, when they first walked home alone from school. And then the more nuanced kinds of worries snuck up on her, such as, were they growing up too quickly? Were they involved with the mean kids? The countless hours Meredith has devoted to fretting about her children probably exceeds the total number of hours they’ve been alive. If that’s even possible. But somehow it feels like the right calculation.
“I just want them to be happy,” she offers finally.
“I know. Me, too,” Roger says. “Remember when we took that trip to Disney World and Cody said it was the best week of his life?”
Meredith smiles. “I do.” That had been one of her favorite vacations. The kids were in second grade and had been humming with excitement. For three days, they’d raced around the park, packing in as many rides as they could, Cody and Dawn insisting on riding the Thunder Mountain roller coaster Again! Again! as soon as they got off. And when the park doors opened, they were back the next day, staying through the fireworks until both kids, so tuckered out, had to be lugged back to the hotel on piggyback. That was when things had been good between her and Roger. “Are you saying that we can never top that week? That it’s all downhill from here?”
Roger throws his head back and laughs. “I hope not. But the memory makes me smile. I’ve been thinking about when the kids were little a lot lately.”
“Mmm. I know what you mean. Me, too.”
“You were so amazing with them. Still are.” His hand reaches out and rests on top of hers, surprising Meredith. “I don’t know that I ever told you that back then. I’m sorry about that. I was too caught up in work, but even that’s no excuse. I couldn’t see the forest for the trees.”
It occurs to Meredith that it’s the perfect metaphor for Roger’s wandering eye, his desultory heart back then. He, indeed, had too many “trees” in his life, most of whom wore a size 40D cup. She places her hand back in her lap. “Thank you,” she says. “I’ll take a compliment anytime, and they are pretty spectacular kids.”
“I hope we’re around to celebrate a lot more occasions like this going forward.” He pushes up out of his chair and leans over to plant a small peck on her cheek, so light it’s almost i
nfinitesimal. “The demands of being a host call. I’m glad we had this little chat, though. Enjoy the party. You deserve it, probably more so than the kids.” When he leaves, her eyes follow him back to the barbecue and that’s when she spots Joel, staring back at her from across the lawn. Meredith shrugs innocently—it was only a quick peck on the cheek. Still, her husband looks slightly annoyed.
She gets up and heads over to do damage control in the one place where she wasn’t expecting to.
* * *
The oxy has kicked in, leaving Lily feeling relaxed and totally, completely, blissfully happy. Thank goodness she decided to crush it up this time—the sense of euphoria swoops in much more quickly, which is exactly what she needed. A teensy extra hit. She wanders through the party without a care in the world. Nothing and no one can upset her now. And look how happy everyone is! A few people approach her to congratulate her on a fantastic party. See, she thinks. No one is whispering about me, calling me a trophy wife or a gold digger. People like her! They’re grateful for all her effort, the gazillion hours she has spent planning this gala. Maybe she should go into party planning instead of nursing? One of Roger’s friends told her she has a real flair for it, and even though he delivered the compliment while staring at her chest, he seemed sincere.
She should really be getting ready for the kids’ slideshow, but why interrupt a good thing when everyone seems so content? Maybe they can premiere it later tonight, when dusk begins to settle. Yes, that’s a better time for a slideshow, anyway. She winds her way lazily over to the pool, where the boys and a few of Dawn’s friends play keep-away. Lily is more than open to being a part of this whole messed-up family, if they’ll let her in. In case they haven’t noticed, she’s been more or less killing herself on their behalf—and she has half a mind to point it out to them.
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