by Cook, Claire
Lorna handed me a napkin. "Sarah, worse things have happened, we all know that. You give it everything you've got, but you can't always protect them."
I dabbed at the dress I'd managed to ruin, too. "And now all they're going to remember are dead butterflies. Did you hear Kate Stone tell the parents that the school psychologist will be available all weekend?"
Gloria shook her head and reached for her glass. "No pun intended, but I think that was overkill."
June wiped another tear from her cheek. "I've got the first appointment."
I put my elbows on the booth and buried my head in my hands. I stayed like that, in time-out mode, letting the conversation swirl around me: Gloria's plans to drag her family to the Grand Canyon before summer camp started and spend a week on Nantucket after it ended. Lorna's plan to spend all non-camp hours at the beach and her determination to get her husband, Mattress Man, to go with her at least once. June sniffling away some more.
I felt a tap on my head. "Honey," Gloria said. "We can't let you have your dessert pomtini until you finish your dinner pomtini."
I sighed and managed to lift up my head and locate my drink. It was tart and strong, just the way I'd like to be. There must have been a design flaw in my glass because another small stream ran down my chin. I caught as much of it as I could with one finger and licked it off. Lorna handed me another napkin.
"Thanks," I said, "and in case you didn't notice, apparently I'm even a failure at drinking."
"Look on the bright side," she said. "Your liver will outlive you." She drained her glass and held up four fingers in the waiter's direction. "And speaking of the bright side, as much as we'll miss you, a break might be just what the doctor ordered. Maybe it's a good thing you're not doing summer camp with us this year."
"Right," I said. "At least with borderline adults somebody has already screwed them up before I got there." I reached past June for one of the straws nestled into the top of the napkin holder and managed to drain the rest of my pomtini.
"Good job, honey," Gloria said. Gloria was one of those preschool teachers who mothered everybody who crossed their paths. The biggest challenge of being around her was that you had to resist the urge to curl up on her lap with your blankie and start sucking your thumb.
"Thank you," I said.
June took another sip of her drink and finally stopped whimpering. "What is it you're doing this summer, Sarah? You've mentioned it a few times, but I still don't really get it."
I switched my straw over to my fresh pomegranate martini. "That's because I don't quite get it yet either. Basically, my boyfriend's boss hired me as a consultant. Some of the younger geeks at the company never leave their computers and he's worried that if they don't develop social skills, there will be no next IT generation because all the internet technology people will stop procreating—"
Lorna leaned forward. "And you're supposed to help them procreate? I must have missed that the first time you said it."
"No," I said. "I'm supposed to run a geek charm school summer session."
"Not to be pessimistic," Gloria said, "but I think there could be an oxymoron in there somewhere."
"Wow, Sarah," June said. "Your life is like just so interesting."
Lorna rolled her eyes. "Yeah, if nothing else, it's got to be a big step up from dead butterflies." She crossed her arms over her chest. "Okay, moving on. So what's the scoop? Are you and the new boyfriend shacking up together yet?"
"Huh?" I said.
Gloria crossed her arms, too. "You know, honey. Cohabitating, living together, sharing a remote?"
My straw made a slurping sound against my martini glass. Apparently I hadn't even fully mastered straws.
I stalled while I took another slurp, then I looked up and smiled brightly. "So, how about that cute new male teacher Kate Stone hired for next year."
"I know," June said. "Totally hot. Did you see his—"
"Not falling for it." Lorna shook her head. "Answer the question."
I sighed. "It's just that things are a little bit convoluted right now. You know, complex. Problematic. Dense. Thorny. Knotty."
"Eww," Gloria said. "His or yours? And by the way, good vocabulary, honey."
"Don't encourage her," Lorna said. "She sounds like a freakin' thesaurus. Come on, Sarah, spill. It's a simple question."
I closed my eyes and tried to come up with a simple answer. "It's just that my house is close to my work and his condo is close to his work. And his puppy needs a lot of attention. And his puppy hates me. And my brother's marriage is breaking up and he's living with me and he needs a lot of attention, too. And his daughters, well, you know how vulnerable kids are when their parents' marriages are falling apart, we see it all the time, so when he has them I feel like I should be there with them to help normalize things, and when they're not with him, he's completely depressed, so I feel like I should be there with him. But not as part of a couple, which will only remind my brother that he's no longer part of a couple." I gulped some air. "So, well, everything between John and me is basically on hold until my brother gets a new leash on life."
Somebody let out a bark of laughter.
I opened my eyes. "What?"
They were all staring at me.
I closed my eyes again. "Oh, and my father changed John's name to Jack."
"Wow," June said. "If my parents ever got divorced, I'd call you in a second, Sarah."
Gloria reached across the booth for my hand. "Honey, you're afraid, that's all. Just keep taking one little baby step at a time."
Lorna made a horse-like sound, complete with vibrating lips. "You don't think your brother will drop you like a hot potato as soon as he finds a new wife? You don't think that puppy can hate another girlfriend just as easily? Here's your plan: weekdays at his condo for the summer, and weekends in Marshbury. When school starts up again, you flip it. And if it doesn't work, you put both places on the market and buy something halfway between them. You fit in your brother and his kids between the hot, steamy sex."
"There's that," Gloria said.
Lorna paused for a sip of martini. "Come on, Sarah, get it together. This is your life. Go for it. Seize the diem. Carpe the day. You're not getting any younger, so—"
"Poop or get off the potty seat," Gloria said.
When I made it back to my house, it was family-free for a change. I started singing a spirited if slightly off-key version of "Another One Bites the Dust" to fill the silence. I headed straight for my bedroom, kicked off my shoes in the general direction of my closet.
I unbuckled the thick faux leather strap of my watch to officially put it away for the summer. My students loved its oversize analog face and delighted in pointing out the numbers they recognized. Occasionally one of them even made the connection that both hands pointing to the twelve meant it was time for lunch. Not a few parents over the years had insisted that their brilliant preschool progeny could tell time. The truth is that knowing the numbers on the clock is one thing. Conceptualizing time and doing the math is another thing entirely. Most students don't master it until seven or eight, and it's not unusual for kids to be pushing nine or ten before they really get it. One thing I'd learned as a teacher was that parents love to give their offspring imaginary superpowers.
Instead of tossing the watch on top of my dresser the way I usually did, I decided actually putting it away in my jewelry box would add a nice end-of-the-school-year ceremonial touch. I shoved a pile of clean underwear that had never quite made it to my underwear drawer off to the side and unclasped the carved wooden lid.
My mother's favorite butterfly brooch glittered up at me. It was made out of rhinestones that ranged from aqua blue to peridot green—mostly round but with teardrop-shaped stones set into the four points of the wings. It was a lovely vintage piece, but I was always afraid to wear it. Anything could happen.
I lifted it out of the jewelry box. I sat on the edge of my bed and held it carefully in both hands. My mother had believed in my super
powers, too. She'd never thought a challenge was too far over my head, a situation couldn't be made better with my touch.
Once when I'd found a baby bird limping around the front yard, she'd let me keep it in a shoebox and feed it bird food and water. "What if I can't fix it?" I'd asked, the weight of the responsibility heavy on my six-year-old heart.
"It's okay," she'd said. "What matters is that the rest of its little life will be better because it has you in it."
I squeezed her butterfly pin tighter, the tarnished silver pin poking my palm. When I closed my eyes, Painted Lady butterflies fell from the sky like a rerun of an old television show. I heard the screams of the tiny graduates and their families all over again. Hot tears ran down my cheeks.
"I'm sorry I let you down, Mom," I whispered.
Chapter
Five
Michael was pushing one grocery cart, and Annie and Lainie were pushing another. I was wearing my darkest sunglasses and my floppiest hat in the hopes that I wouldn't be recognized. And possibly tarred and feathered and run out of Marshbury for butterfly abuse.
"How are we doing on milk?" Michael asked as he held up a gallon.
"Shh," I said. "Don't talk so loud."
My head hurt. I wasn't a big drinker and two pomegranate martinis on an empty stomach yesterday had definitely not been my most brilliant move.
We turned the corner. One of the Bayberry students, who wasn't even in my class, pointed at me from the other end of the cereal aisle. His mother scooped him up and turned away as she averted her eyes, pretending they hadn't grazed mine first.
"Great," I said. "Young, impressionable children are no longer allowed to look at me. And they're out of Cheerios, too."
"They can't be out of Cheerios," Michael said. "Nobody's ever out of Cheerios." He located the Cheerios and dropped them in next to the milk.
"Show-off," I said.
My cell phone rang in the middle of the aspirin aisle.
I finished wrestling the childproof cap off a bottle and counted out a double dose. "What," I said to my phone as I headed for the seltzer aisle to find something to wash them down.
"What were you thinking?" My sister Carol's voice collided with my headache somewhere in the vicinity of my right temple. "Next time try bubbles. Bubbles don't die."
"Who told you?" I asked.
"Oh, please. It's all over town."
Another call beeped in.
"Way to go, Sarah," my sister Christine said when I used her for an excuse to ditch Carol. "I've got two words for you: white doves."
"Listen, Christine, I have to go. I'll talk to you later."
When Michael spotted me, I was just standing there with a half-chugged bottle of seltzer clutched in both hands waiting for the aspirin to kick in. He picked up the speed on his shopping cart and rolled toward me. Annie and Lainie barreled around the corner at the other end of the aisle. My brother and nieces surrounded me with their shopping carts like stagecoaches in an old Western.
"Are you all right?" Michael asked.
I shook my head. "I'll meet you in the car, okay? I think I need to lay low until things die down."
"You mean the butterflies?" Annie said.
I scrunched my eyes shut. "How do you know?"
"We helped start a memorial page on Facebook," Annie said. "It has over three thousand likes already."
Lainie bowed her head and made the sign of the cross. "Poor butterflies. My friends and I are writing a song about them. We're going to put it up on YouTube and get famous."
I was rubbing my throbbing forehead and letting it sink in that my biggest teaching gaffe was out on the Internet for the whole wide world to see, when Michael's wife, Phoebe, pushed a shopping cart around the corner.
Phoebe froze. The good-looking guy with his hands next to hers on their shared cart froze, too.
"Mommy!" Lainie yelled.
"Hi, Mom. Hi, Uncle Pete." Annie said.
"Loveyouhavefunwithdaddy," Phoebe said. By the time the last fast syllable was out, she'd backed her way to the end of the aisle and disappeared.
"Don't," I said to Michael.
"Don't what?" he said.
"Don't anything." I turned to the girls and switched to my singsong-y teacher voice. "I know, what if we meet you over in the ice cream aisle? Make sure you don't forget the chocolate chip cookie dough-oh."
They looked at me like they weren't buying it. Then they made a U-turn with their cart and drove off in the direction of the ice cream.
As soon as they turned the corner, I put my hand on Michael's shoulder. "Listen," I said. "Maybe there's an uncle you missed."
He shook his head as if he were trying to get water out of his ears. "That guy is no uncle." Then he let go of our cart and took off after Phoebe.
I took off after him. We dodged a cart left stranded in the middle of the aisle and headed for the front of the store. Michael bounced back and forth from one foot to the other, looking like an unkempt boxer warming up for a fight, as he searched for them in the checkout lines.
"Michael," I hissed. I tried to grab his arm, but he shook me off. A couple with a child in Lorna's class turned to look. The wife's eyes slipped past mine. She blocked her mouth with one hand and whispered something to her husband. In an instant they'd both turned away.
Michael bolted for the exit. When I followed him through, the whoosh of the sliding doors made my head hurt even more. I closed one eye against the bright sunny day trying to sneak around the edges of my sunglasses and pulled my hat down lower as I chased my brother.
Phoebe was just climbing into the passenger seat of a jet-black low-slung sports car. Randomly, I knew it was a BMW Z4, because Kevin had lusted after one the whole time we were married. Shit, he would have to drive a nice car, I thought as Michael lunged for the door. Like it would somehow make this a better situation if Phoebe and a good-looking guy were climbing into a beat-up old minivan.
The beamer roared to life. Michael yanked the passenger door open.
Phoebe held onto the door.
Michael pulled harder.
Phoebe let go. The low-flying door propelled my brother backward until another car stopped him with a dull thud. I took a good look at my brother, wedged between two cars, his dark hair flecked with gray and sticking out all over the place, his beat-up old half-zipped hoodie, his ancient gray sweats, his smelly untied sneakers, the heavy metal edge of a Z4 car door wedged dangerously close to his private parts.
Phoebe leaned out of the BMW and a ray of sunshine caught her freshly foiled hair. When she tilted her head up at Michael, it also played up the dark circles under her eyes.
"Leave. Me. Alone," she said. Her voice was flat and icy cold.
"I don't want to leave you alone," Michael said. "I love you. I want us to be together." He rubbed a fist against the corner of his eye and my own eyes teared up. "I want you to get out of that pretentious asshole's car and come with me right now."
The look Phoebe gave him brought me back to my final days with Kevin, when the rage between us was such an overwhelming presence that you could almost put a collar around it and take it out for a walk.
"The real problem," Phoebe said quietly, "was that you never gave me any space to breathe."
Michael made an ugly face. "Oh, so that's what they call it now, huh, breathing. Listen, if you're going to screw around on me while we're still married, at least call it what it—"
I grabbed his arm. "Michael."
He shook me off. "Stay out of it, Sarah. Say it, Phoebe. Tell me what you're going to do with Uncle Pete."
The driver's door opened.
Phoebe whipped her head around. "Get back in the car. Now." The car door clicked shut.
Phoebe and Michael glared at each other.
"Make sure you get the license plate, Sarah," my brother said. "So my lawyer can run a check on him."
Phoebe and I made eye contact. "Grow up, Michael," Phoebe said without taking her eyes off me. "And, Sarah, please check on
the girls. My lawyer will want to know they're not being abandoned in grocery stores."
"I know," I whispered into my cell phone to John Anderson. "I know I promised I'd stay at your place tonight. But you should have seen the look on Michael's face when Phoebe tore out of the parking lot with that guy. I can't leave him—he's a mess. And now that he's told Phoebe he has a lawyer, I think maybe I should help him find one for real. And my nieces are here until tomorrow morning, so . . .."
I paused for a breath. Elementary school was still in session, and Michael always dropped the girls off at school on Monday mornings on his way to work, and then Phoebe juggled her job as a portrait photographer to make sure she was waiting for them when they took the bus home. This was Annie and Lainie's last week before summer vacation, the best week of the whole year, filled with fun end-of-the-year activities like field day and beach day. I wanted to keep things as normal as possible for them so they could enjoy it.
"So," I said, "I was hoping you wouldn't mind if I just met you at the office, and then I could stay over tomorrow night instead? If your sleepover card isn't already filled, of course."
John Anderson let out a laugh, but I had to admit it sounded a little bit forced.
I took a deep breath. "Thank you for understanding. I promise this won't last much longer."
There was a pause on the other end. "I don't think it can," he finally said.
Chapter
Six
Nothing was simple. I thought about leaving my car at the Marshbury station and taking the train to Boston so my car would be waiting for me when I got back. But with my luck the train would be filled with Bayberry families on an early summer jaunt to New England Aquarium or Boston Children's Museum. And if I paired my floppy hat with my sunglasses so they'd be less likely to recognize me, I'd have hat hair when I arrived at John Anderson's office.