Stay Where I Can See You

by Katrina Onstad

  Then came a knock at the door. “Joshua, can we eat? The show’s over.”

  They pulled apart.

  Maddie felt a surge of power: she was going to be in love, maybe, someday. Or maybe not. But either way, she was going to have sex, and for now—maybe this was almost better—in this weird new place, she had made a friend.

  Oh God, she thought, cringing at herself: You are lame!

  GWEN

  Tom stood on the dock, grinning whitely.

  “You made it!” he barked.

  Gwen’s limbs noodled as she made her way down the slope from the parking lot, her bags swinging.

  On the bobbing dock, Gwen anticipated the quick descent of Tom’s hand on Seth’s back. Sure enough, down came the man-slap. Seth’s body quaked along with the dock.

  Tom and his grin hopped in and out of the boat lightly, grabbing the suitcase, tote bag and the large picnic basket that Gwen had packed. Seth imitated Tom’s dexterity with slightly less assurance—bounce, bounce, stumble—while Gwen struggled awkwardly with the gunwale, her midsection flopping over the edge at one point like a towel on a rack. Tom caught her and placed her lightly on the banquette. Gwen stiffened at the touch of another man’s hands on her torso.

  At the wheel, Tom called behind him, “You guys don’t need life jackets, do you?” He winked, and the boat’s engine roared, drowning out any possible answer.

  The bow tipped upwards and Gwen gripped the seat.

  The boat accelerated through black water. Seth gave Gwen a smile from his seat. Another boat went by, and the driver beeped and waved, which Tom reciprocated.

  “Water levels,” Tom shouted back to them, slowing the boat through a narrow channel. Water lines were etched one atop another on the rocks, markers of the lake’s past. How low could the watermarks go? Gwen wondered. How many years or months until the mucky bottom revealed itself?

  The leaves were a whorl of yellow and red, as promised. The entire weekend was predicated on the fact that the leaves were changing, and this was worth observing. Seth had assured Gwen that also, it would be fun. But on the drive to the dock, she worried about Eli and Maddie. It would be their first time at home alone for the night. She had made Maddie walk next to her through the house with a man in a jumpsuit showing them how the new security system worked. He stopped at several windows and doors, shaking his head in disbelief at how much danger they were in, repeating the phrase, “Point of vulnerability.”

  It wasn’t just business, Seth had pointed out, but a chance to get away, to maybe make some new friends to go along with the new life.

  The boat lurched forward, and Gwen flew up, her hip slamming into the wall. Neither man noticed, gesturing toward a dock that moved closer, until the boat bumped up against it.

  Tom swerved and cut the engine. “The abode,” he said, hopping out, rope in hand.

  Gwen was surprised: the house was new but quite modest, and attached to the dock.

  Out of earshot of Tom, Gwen said to Seth, “It’s smaller than I thought.”

  Seth laughed. “That’s the boathouse.”

  Gwen looked again. A staircase jutted up the rock face, and on top of the cliff, a house peered down at them. It wasn’t a cottage, a word from fairy tales and England, a place for gnomes and trapped children. It had sleek mass, grey polished stone, with decks on all sides. Either it had just been built or just been polished, because the windows gleamed beneath the birch trees. On one of the highest decks, a woman in gym clothes—a woman too solidly built and casually dressed to be Julia—stood flanked by two little boys. Gwen squinted: a nanny. Gwen waved at the children, but they didn’t wave back. The nanny did.

  * * *

  Gwen tried to look as comfortable on her lounger as Julia did on hers. It was turning cool, but Julia’s pale legs, free of bumps and nicks, were in shorts. People used to call women’s legs “pins,” Gwen remembered, and thought it was appropriate: Julia’s could pop a balloon.

  Gwen wore linen pants and a floppy hat that she’d purchased for the weekend. She had not anticipated how much she would like to shop, turning out to possess a high tolerance for change rooms, and quietly enjoying the subservience of salespeople in expensive stores. She preferred earth-toned fabrics with wizard-y sleeves and wide ankle cuffs. All those years in yoga pants and sweatshirts had made her crave release. She felt, in this new unbinding wardrobe, like a strong wind could turn her into a kite, her clothes flapping crisply in the sky, and she might go anywhere.

  “It’s a beautiful place,” said Gwen, for the fifth or sixth time, sipping her white wine.

  The men had gone out in kayaks, and Julia had suggested that the women read on the dock. But Julia wasn’t really reading; she was clicking away on a laptop, flipping between it and her phone. Gwen had her paperback, a nothing historical romance that she had picked up at the bookstore because it was on the table marked “Inspirational Bestsellers.”

  Gwen recalled with a wince the awkward presentation of the picnic basket upon arrival. In the kitchen, the nanny, Flor, had been tenderizing steaks with a tiny hammer—thap, thap—as Julia unpacked the items Gwen had brought, one after the other, gasping excessively at each. “Seth should have told you not to bring anything! Look at all the work you did!” Jam. Gasp. Baguette. Gasp. Cheese. Gasp.

  “I just did some baking . . .” said Gwen, realizing that she had cemented her reputation as a housewife. She had brought homemade muffins and cake. Goldilocks’s grandma’s food.

  “Oh my God!” said Julia, removing a plastic Tupperware dome.

  Thap, thap, went Flor, who glanced over at the uninvited baked goods with a little hostility. Gwen didn’t disagree: the cake looked ridiculous now, a hulk of white icing and fondant flowers. A birthday cake without a birthday.

  “You’re such a Martha Stewart!” said Julia. “I’m so embarrassed. I could never do anything like this.”

  “Anyone can bake. It’s just chemistry.”

  Julia shook her head. “We had a cook where I grew up.”

  “Where was that?”

  “British Virgin Islands, for a while,” said Julia.

  Of course. A plantation. Julia as a child, arms extended in a lacy white dress, spinning through fields of sugar cane.

  On the dock, with her nurse protagonist lusting for a wounded soldier, Gwen asked Julia, “Where are the twins?” She was beginning to wonder if she’d actually seen them at all.

  “Nap time,” said Julia absently, frowning and pounding at the laptop. She looked up. “I’m being rude. I apologize. We have a little crisis. Work—it doesn’t stop, really. I keep thinking it will but it doesn’t. Not ever.”

  “Let me leave you to it then. I think I’ll go for a walk.”

  “Is that terrible? Am I being an awful hostess?”

  Gwen knew the answer she was supposed to give to these uptalking rhetorical questions that women asked. She remembered the ways of the Shadow Pines mothers, seeking affirmation when none was needed; performing insecurity when they were, in fact, fiercely in charge—fiery lead singers who required no backup at all. Gwen murmured that no, no, Julia was a great hostess.

  “Oh, Gwen, you’re so sweet,” said Julia.

  Gwen felt hungry to find the kids. She needed someone to watch over.

  There seemed to be a path along the edge of the water, a rug of pine needles and moss. It was beautiful. Seth had been telling the truth. On foot, the landscape cancelled out the opulence of the house. Leaves rustled on the edge of falling. In the distance she could see Seth and Tom, bobbing in two tiny red kayaks.

  An island across the water stood uninhabited. The shoreline was too craggy, too rocky. No one could build there, Tom had pointed out, but they’d bought it anyway, just to make sure no one tried to.

  Gwen turned back to the house, feeling good. Seth had been right: a little break was important. A step away from things, to make sense of all that had happened in such a short time. She should stop resisting so much, stop being so outside of
everything and appreciate her great good fortune and this beautiful place, the grace of an invitation. Look where she was! Crazy!

  Halfway up the path, she saw a shape—a crouching figure. Gwen halted, swallowed, turned up the brim of her hat to see better: it was a kid, one of the twins presumably, shoeless, wearing only shorts, his naked upper body covered in dirt. He looked at Gwen and grinned, revealing soil-smudged teeth.

  Unattended children set off Gwen’s panic centre. Gwen thought of pinworms from the dirt in his mouth, and the deep lake where a body could sink. “Hello, are you Louis? Or Henry?”

  Henry nodded. “Hen. Louis is my brother.”

  “Where’s your—where’s Flor?” Gwen asked, scanning the woods for anyone else, a real adult.

  “Nap time,” said Hen, licking his lips.

  “I’m Gwen. I’m a friend of your parents’.”

  Henry wiped his face with the back of his hand, getting even dirtier, and looked at her neutrally.

  “Maybe we should go up to the house and get you cleaned up. I don’t think you’re supposed to be out here by yourself.”

  Hen stood up. He held out to Gwen a plastic bucket of dirt, pocked with branches and leaves.

  “I made a cake,” he said. “Pretty yummy.”

  “It is. You know, I made a cake, too.”

  Henry’s eyes lit up. “What kind?”

  “Do you want to come see it?”

  Henry nodded. He gave Gwen the bucket to carry, then stuck out a hand for her to take, as if they had known each other forever. Gwen had missed this, her hand folding over his gritty little one. She wanted to scoop up Hen’s small body, to have him rest his arms around her neck. She hadn’t carried one of her own kids in a few years, and wished she had commemorated the last time somehow, with a photo or a poem. No, she wanted an oil portrait, a Madonna and child, titled: The last time I carried Maddie. The last time Eli sat on my shoulders.

  At the back door, Hen dropped Gwen’s hand, split away and ran inside. Gwen followed, entering a gleaming white mudroom, with baskets of plastic beach toys and a row of coloured raincoats on hooks by the door. The scale of a small shower confused her: too small for any regular sized human. Henry stepped inside.

  “It’s for dogs,” he said. “We aren’t allowed to have a dog, though, so Louis and me use it for our feet.”

  He stood in the shower expectantly, and Gwen realized it was she who was supposed to clean his feet. So she unhooked the hose and knelt down, running the warm water over Henry’s muddy legs, soaping up his toes, rinsing his muddy cheeks. He giggled.

  They sat next to each other at the kitchen island, eating their cake in the silent house. Henry talked about the dog he imagined they would get (a rescue who needs a home, black because no one wants black dogs). Out on the lake, Gwen couldn’t see the kayaks anymore.

  Flor rushed in, bleary-eyed as if she’d just woken up.

  “Where did you go?” she demanded.

  “He was with me,” said Gwen. “It’s okay.”

  But it didn’t look okay. Flor’s face tightened, and she lashed out. “I only sleep for twenty minutes! He knows better!”

  Henry, unaffected by this outburst, said, “Flor, would you like some cake?”

  “Wow, Henry, you have excellent manners,” said Gwen.

  Flor looked at Gwen expectantly. These transactions were another addition to her life, Gwen thought. The built-in deference. The bitter-edged interactions where Gwen was perceived to have power over someone who was paid to make her life easier—did have power, she corrected herself. And with it, something like responsibility, a responsibility to be kind, if nothing else. Kindness was a sort of power, too, perhaps.

  “Yes, please, Flor, have some cake,” said Gwen.

  Released from the need for consent, Flor resumed her slightly haughty tone and said, “I’m going outside to clean the mess.” But she took a piece of cake with her onto the deck, placing it on a table, pointedly uneaten. Henry followed, babbling while Flor gathered toys.

  A bird made a loud sound, and Gwen watched Flor stop for just a moment, looking up at the sky, hand above her eyes to block the sun. She said something to Henry, who stopped, too, imitating her gesture, hand on his forehead, gazing upwards.

  * * *

  Tom tended the firepit on the beach. Gwen was on her third glass of wine, very good wine, she thought, noting that she had learned to tell the difference. Tom, beer in one hand, poker in the other, was proud of the cast-iron firepit, and Seth asked many questions about its construction. Men and gadgets, Gwen thought. The two had already discussed at length a machine that emitted sound waves to deter mosquitoes. Seth and Eli could spend hours playing video game basketball, as if the obligations of the day weren’t calling. Last week, Gwen had come home from grocery shopping, and there was a brown box in the foyer. What was more exciting than a brown, unopened box, really? Gwen cut through the cardboard to reveal a small stainless steel, glass-fronted object, like a small refrigerator. It perplexed her. No grooves for wine; too small for food. When she called Seth, he told her, sheepishly, that it was a humidor.

  Gwen didn’t know what to make of this. “Do you smoke cigars now?”

  “That’s the next step,” Seth had said.

  Gwen thought of her own new toys: the soft wardrobe, and the Danish dining table that she’d bought. Even when they didn’t have a lot of money, Seth wasn’t chastising, or controlling. He was matter-of-fact before, and matter-of-fact now.

  “Did you solve your work problem?” Gwen asked Julia, who was wrapped in a silky shawl, her bare feet tucked under her, as tightly bound as a French pastry.

  “Oh, it doesn’t stop. You put out one fire and then there’s another one.”

  “Julia’s always working,” Tom said. “Gwen, you must like being at home.” He and Seth were moving around the fire side by side, avoiding the smoke.

  “I did, when they were younger,” said Gwen.

  “Well, I think it’s important, a woman who’s so committed to her family like that. My mom sure as hell wasn’t. Julia doesn’t make it home for dinner most nights.”

  Gwen assumed that the same could be said about Tom. She snuck a look at Julia, waiting for marital crossfire. But Julia looked relaxed, smiling.

  “I’m making up for lost time professionally,” Julia said, and then, to Gwen, “I lost a few years in my twenties.”

  “Julia had a lesbian party-girl moment,” said Tom, almost proudly.

  Julia rolled her eyes. “Bi, actually.” She jutted her chin, that thin clavicle poking out from beneath the scarf.

  Seth cleared his throat, drank from the beer bottle.

  “Does—do you just stop being bisexual?” he asked.

  “You get married, and you make a choice,” said Julia.

  Gwen wondered if Tom was threatened by Julia’s sexuality, the sheer vastness of it. But Tom didn’t seem threatened, not ever.

  Julia had dropped out for a while, lived in Paris working as a model. But no matter how skinny she got, it didn’t make her taller. While she was in Paris, she met a woman, a photographer from Morocco. “The sex was phenomenal,” said Julia.

  Gwen’s spine straightened. She saw Seth drink quickly.

  “Jesus, Julia . . .” said Tom, but he looked a little pleased.

  “Well, it’s true.”

  Gwen tried to imagine what current ran back and forth between them. Her own sexual experience was limited, curtailed by young motherhood. Seth had had a few girlfriends before her. Two of them were math students. One left for grad school, and he didn’t want to move in with the other. Lukewarm relationships—until Gwen, he’d told her.

  “What about you? What’s the best sex you ever had?” Julia asked, looking right at Gwen. “You can’t say your husband.”

  On the beach, the fire flickered. Seth sometimes rushed in to protect her when conversation got too close to her past. “Gwen’s private,” he’d say.

  But tonight, lake pulsing gently, wine
in hand, Gwen didn’t feel private. “I haven’t slept with many people,” said Gwen. “I was . . . I left home young. I was on my own at seventeen.”

  “Intriguing!” Julia said. She smiled in Seth’s direction.

  “Where did you go?” asked Tom, dropping down in the chair next to Gwen.

  Seth remained standing, clutching his beer. He looked different in the fire shadows, his face in and out of light, his hand hooked in the pocket of his jeans. He was handsome, Gwen thought. So was Tom, next to her, with his jaw tilted expectantly. And Julia—beautiful Julia. They were all so good-looking, she thought, her mind sprawling from the wine.

  “I was homeless,” said Gwen.

  Tom tilted again. “Oh, wow,” he said.

  “Oh, wow” wasn’t much, but Gwen preferred it, maybe, to “I’m sorry.” With an apology, Gwen imagined a second part, unsaid and steeped in blame, I’m sorry you’re such a mess.

  Julia asked, “How did you . . . leave that situation?”

  The true answer—“I got pregnant”—would have dragged the whole family into the light, revealing Maddie’s background, launching questions about her birth father. The real story was too enormous for anyone to hold, and too many people depended on the version Gwen had written long ago. To tell the truth would be a betrayal.

  “I went back to school. I just—I had to change my life,” said Gwen. “It wasn’t long after that I met Seth.”

  “Ah,” said Julia, a little triumphantly. “Mystery solved. That’s why your daughter is so old, and you’re so young. Young mom.”

  Tom looked deeply at Gwen. “That must have been tough.” He put a hand lightly on her arm and held it there.

  Suddenly Seth said, “My best sex was with Gwen. Is, I should say.”

  “Awwww!” said Julia.

  Tom removed his hand.

  The wine thickened Gwen’s thoughts. She heard the three of them drop the topic, moving on to real estate. Gwen leaned her head back. Strangely, it had felt good to speak just this little bit, this variation on the truth. It was more than she’d said in years, out loud or to herself, and it had wrung her out. She was exhausted. Now she would let the three of them talk, and she would listen. She looked up at the stars, feeling the chill.