“To be honest, I’m not even sure. They were identical with those incredible brown eyes and both soooo hot. Whichever one he was kept calling me bonita and sexy, over and over,” Ivy said dreamily.
I had hoped once daylight came I’d wake up to find what had happened on that boat to be the hallucinations of a totally stoned mind. But the more I heard them speak, the more I knew it had all been very real.
“Carolann, that reminds me, you never finished telling us about your soirée in the upper-deck bathroom,” Tami said.
“Wait a second, the one with the outdoor shower?” Alyson said. “Brad and I were in there too. The view of the stars was incredible. Like a planetarium. And the tiling was exquisite; it must have been straight from Italy. It made me think we should build an outdoor shower. I think there’s space, next to our pool house. I’ll bet I could find those tiles online.”
A mosaic reminder of her wild night—in her own backyard?
Tami sat down on the couch at my feet, crossing her legs. She took a rubber band off her wrist and tied her hair back in a loose bun as long blond tendrils fell onto her sunburned cheeks. “So, Jess, let’s hear the skinny about Steven. Or hopefully it wasn’t so skinny.”
I desperately needed a glass of water before I could break it to her that there was no skinny, that Steven had dropped me off in a cab hours ago and all we had exchanged were work e-mail addresses, not bodily fluids. I tried to clear my throat. “Nothing happened,” I said in a hoarse whisper.
Tami grinned like a Cheshire over the rim of her steaming coffee cup. “Come on now, chica, we need some scoop. So we can give out the awards, like Most Improved. Carolann, I think you win that hands-down this year. And for Best Ass. Steven’s definitely in the running for that prize. Most Likely To Hunt You Down on Facebook Even Though You Told Him Not To? That one might actually be a tie, between Ivy’s Venezuelan dude and Aly’s Brad, don’t you think?”
“Plus, you’re the last one for our poll: Circumcised or Not?” Alyson added. “Ivy’s twin had a definite hoody. Brad, no; Tami’s short little Romeo, no.” Tami shot Aly a look. “Carolann—you said Colin’s wasn’t, right? Gotta love those Irish guys. So now we need yours. I have five bucks Steven’s hot dog was kosher style, but Tami begs to differ. So am I right or am I right?”
“I didn’t see his penis,” I mumbled, feeling ridiculous to have even said so.
Tami rolled her eyes. “Look, Jessica, there’s nothing wrong with admitting how pretty fucking awesome it feels to experience a little pleasure for once. God knows, you needed it. We all do. Once a year, a little sun, a little fun, a little something to help you recharge. It’s just sex; it’s a physical release for your body that makes you feel good. Like yoga.”
“Maybe hot-box yoga,” Alyson clarified.
Carolann chimed in, “When we got back from South Beach last year, Peter thought I was so into him because I was relaxed and rested from lying out on the beach and going to the spa. If he only knew.”
Now I knew, thank you very much. Now I’d be going home knowing everyone’s secrets, including their pubic coiffures.
Tami nodded. “Shit yeah, Carolann. The more sex you have, the more you want it. We all know it’s impossible to keep it red hot your entire married life. Everyone needs some outside stimulation, and if they say they don’t, they’re full of shit. Husbands are useful for a lot of things, but by definition, they can’t give you what we all need: novelty.”
“That is so true,” Ivy nodded. She squeezed herself on the couch between Tami and me. “And you know you don’t have to worry, Jess, once we get on the plane, the record’s sealed—it’s totally separate from h-o-m-e.”
I wasn’t so naive to think people didn’t cheat—I knew it happened a lot more than I ever wanted to admit. But I didn’t think it happened like this, in a Team Mom cheating competition. With penis prizes afterward.
Maybe in their world it was just sex, a quick catch-and-release and in a few hours they’d be heading h-o-m-e happy with their orgiastic souvenirs. If that was their ultimate goal of the trip, from what I’d seen, they definitely got their money’s worth.
And, bonus, it was all a donation to the school.
The four of them sat there looking tan and satisfied, albeit a bit tired, waiting for me to add another juicy dollop to their morning-after salacious sundae, assuming my night with Steven ended the same way—that I was with them, really with them on this weekend’s ride. Maybe I had been on board for a little sun and a little fun and maybe I had taken my flirting well past the point of where I ever would have taken it if I was home and sober, but actually having sex with strangers was not what I thought I had signed up for.
I wasn’t sure how to convince them that I hadn’t slept with Steven, but before I could start to try, I needed a supersized dose of caffeine.
“Can I have some coffee?” I asked, and my voice cracked again. Tami sighed and walked into the kitchen.
I felt Alyson’s eyes boring into me and when I caught her stare, I could have sworn I saw an edge of worry start to appear on her forehead, a faint crease above her eyebrow I’d never noticed before. Did she know I had seen her up close on the deck of the yacht last night with whatever-his-uncircumcised-name-was? Or maybe she was just zoning out after pulling an all-nighter. She took out her iPhone and flicked her finger across the screen. “Ivy, you are going to love this one.” She laughed and passed the phone over.
“Ay, caramba, I do not remember that,” Ivy cringed, and gave the phone back to Alyson.
Alyson flipped through a few more pictures. “Here’s a classic one of you,” she said, and handed the phone to me.
There I was, eyes half-closed in those terrible positions with Steven’s hands on me and mine on him, on his ass, his arm, his crotch, laying across a pile of strangers with my shirt hiked up. I knew what I did and I didn’t do last night but anyone looking at those pictures would assume I had participated. I didn’t technically cheat, not physically, but I was more out of control than I’d ever been in my life, and seeing those pictures made me regret how far I’d let myself go. I regretted all the drinking and, ugh, the smoking that left my throat scorched.
Tami handed me the cup of coffee and the burnt smell made my stomach turn. Then Alyson grabbed the phone out of my hand and I could see her worry line turn wicked. “Yep, these are priceless,” she said, and I fully understood: she had pictures. If she suspected I was the only one who didn’t cheat, if I broke the pact I didn’t even know I was making—god only knew what my punishment might be this time for not quite fitting in. In jest, or even worse, in a moment of anger, in a click, she could send those images right to Aaron or anyone else’s inbox. Or post them online. My marriage, my reputation, my career could be ruined, just like that.
I had to get home to Aaron, I had to tell him that nothing happened. And I knew I had no choice: I had to play along with the morning-after tell-all and act as if nothing was askew. Record sealed or not, with those photos I couldn’t risk Alyson or Tami or anyone else thinking I hadn’t been all-in.
So I sipped my coffee and pretended the best I could, Yep, that was some party, as I crumbled inside. There was no way I was going to lie and say out loud that I cheated on Aaron, but I didn’t say that I did and I didn’t say that I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t say much of anything: my voice was so spent, it was easy to pretend I’d come down with an acute case of morning-after-pot-smoking-laryngitis. “Oh my god, my voice is totally gone!” I think they bought it, I hoped they did, and I kept telling myself I had to keep it up until we got home, until I could talk to Aaron and explain.
Alyson kept passing her phone around the room to grimaces and grins, mighty as a queen, high with her power.
Don’t press send, I silently begged her. Whatever happens, don’t press send.
Chapter fifteen
But I couldn’t tell Aaron, not right away. When I got home I was surprised to find our nanny Samina in the kitchen feeding Phoebe and Madison dinner.
The girls toppled me with tight missed-you hugs, which turned out to be even more delicious than I had imagined.
“Where’s Daddy?” I asked.
Samina explained that Aaron had left two hours earlier to catch a plane to California.
“But he wasn’t supposed to leave until tomorrow morning,” I said. I knew it was the week of his annual Silicon Valley start-up conference, three days jammed with back-to-back business-development meetings, panels, and networking events. It wasn’t that strange that he needed to fly out early, but he could have called and told me. Or at a minimum, sent me a text.
I tried his cell and it went straight to voice mail. He was probably in the air, and would be for the next five-plus hours.
I tried to hide my disappointment with a smile for Phoebe and Madison. They oohed when I took their swirly lollipops and Palmetto tree snow globes out of my bag, and my heart started to melt as they showered me with welcome home cards decorated with stickers and glitter and tiny pieces of tissue-paper confetti, spelling out my name in big, capital letters: MOM. I almost hit the floor when I found a card Aaron had made for me too.
Tucked inside I found the best surprise.
It was a homemade photo book—printed-out pictures of Buttercup, my childhood teddy bear. I remembered how nervous I had been, revealing to Aaron early in our relationship that yes, I was one of those people who still had a stuffed animal. But his reaction was the opposite; in fact, he told me about his own, Mr. Boots the monkey, and wished his mother hadn’t carelessly thrown him away. He looked at me with those hazel blues and told me I was his Jessy-bear, and the nickname stuck, taking my love to a place I’d never imagined it could go.
Buttercup usually sat on a shelf in Phoebe’s room, a special guest at tea parties and for good-night snuggles when I told the girls stories about my childhood. A past-and-present piece of who I was and dreamed I would be, now keeping watch over my real-life future. I flipped through the pages of pictures and my eyes filled with tears as I saw that Aaron had taken Buttercup over the weekend to visit all of my favorite places while I was away. There she was, propped on the counter next to the muffins at the Muddy Cup; snug in Madison’s lap in the playground swing. At my favorite stand in the farmers’ market—How did he know?—the one all the way in the back with the best strawberries and blueberries, hands down. Page after page, place after place, there was Buttercup, right there with them as a surrogate me.
And in the last picture, at the end of her long day Buttercup rested on my pillow, with a note scribbled in Aaron’s handwriting underneath. How sorry he was that he had to run out early. Telling me how much he missed me; how much he missed us, together.
I love you, Jessy-bear.
He had spent the weekend dreaming up this book and making these cards and taking care of our daughters while I was poisoning my body and mind in Kiawah and Gomorrah. Searching for the affection and love I thought I was missing when it was right there at home, waiting for me. And always would be.
Each speck of glitter reflected my guilt tenfold. But you didn’t technically do anything wrong, I reminded myself.
I got the kids down to sleep way too late and lay in bed, replaying the speech I had rehearsed the whole way home explaining to Aaron that nothing had happened, despite what it might look like in Alyson’s pictures—and he’d take me into his arms and say, Of course, I understand. But then I started to panic. What if telling him put a crack in our foundation instead of bringing us closer? Or what if he didn’t believe me? That would be a disaster way worse than never saying anything at all.
Still, it wouldn’t be as bad as him seeing those pictures first.
I heard the patter of feet coming down the hall and turned to Phoebe’s silhouette next to me.
“I can’t sleep, Mommy.”
“Jump in,” I said, too exhausted to walk her back to her room. She curled comfortably in the center of our bed, and I had the feeling she’d probably spent the past two nights in that same spot.
Within minutes she was out cold but I wasn’t even close; the disjointed images of the weekend kept flashing on the backs of my eyelids in a tortuous private slideshow. I went into our bathroom and searched the medicine cabinet for something to make me sleepy and wished I hadn’t flushed the rest of those hospital Xanax. I didn’t even have a Tylenol PM in the house.
Maybe a bath? I turned to admire our beautifully restored claw-foot tub. It’s like art we can bathe in! I remembered telling Aaron when we bought the house. But we’d never once used it.
I let the water fill the tub and slid into the hot bubbles, noticing the back tilted a little too upright to fully recline comfortably. I looked around the bathroom from my new tub-height perspective and noticed the light from outside threw an eerie gray shadow across the white tile wall, like a soiled ghost waiting to jump in.
I never liked this cavernous bathroom. I wanted to love it, the porcelain we spent months choosing and those towel warmers we just had to have, but never turned on. All the special features of the house we’d been so excited about before we moved in—the bonus attic storage space and the formal dining room I had pictured us throwing elaborate dinner parties in sat bare and unfinished, a repository for unwanted toys. Our neighbors certainly seemed to love filling their houses with more than enough stuff—and when new wore off and the parties ended, they went out and found other ways to keep the boredom at bay, a constant stream of drinks and thrills and pills and once-a-year binges in pursuit of the shiny and new as if they were still teenagers, upping the ante to new highs to make them feel alive.
And I’d convinced myself I needed it all too.
All those nights out at the bar at Varka well past midnight—Come on, Jessica, have another—swept up in their gimlets and makeup and boot cuts that in those moments made me feel attractive and connected and a lot less lonely. But I always woke up the next morning feeling bloated and parched. I should have realized well before our trip that what turned them on never made me feel as good as I thought it would. I should have listened to that voice telling me all along that I didn’t fit in, but I had been so weak and needy that I let them drag me out and into the belly of their discontent.
Now I’d landed where I thought I wanted: smack dab in the middle of their inner circle. I hated the pressure of keeping their secrets and managing my own lies about what I did and didn’t do, yet another layer of deceit hanging over my head. I hated feeling complicit. I hated imagining the chitchat and fake smiles at school pickup and dinners out with husbands, the birthday parties and the backyard gatherings, trying to pretend nothing was different when now I knew so much.
We were tethered in so many ways, I couldn’t say See ya and poof, just like that, find myself with new friends who were more like the me I wanted to be. It was going to be complicated, trying to figure out a new paradigm. There were strings, there were carpools, there were end-of-the-school-year picnics. Phoebe and Emmy played together nearly every day; Alyson lived right next door.
I could be busy with work, send the nanny for pickups. Begin to extricate myself in that gradual way that friendships start to wane. Opt out of those couples’ nights—Sorry, the sitter isn’t free. I knew sidelining myself would mean I’d be alone a lot more often, at least for a while. But maybe if I took a turn inward and let them all pass by, I’d discover it was possible to find lasting pleasures in loving what I already had.
Toweling off, I looked down at my bathing suit tan lines—and my huge, coarse bush. I stared at myself in the mirror: it did look kind of grizzly. Until yesterday, I’d never given it a second thought. That was only yesterday. How crazy, it felt like weeks ago. There was no way I was going to get lasered or, god forbid, vajazzled—and I certainly wasn’t ever going to set foot in Waxarama—but, I had to admit, it probably would look better with a little trim.
I searched through the bathroom drawer but couldn’t find the cuticle scissors. They weren’t in the medicine cabinet either. Huh.
I
put on my robe and went down to the kitchen in search of the scissors, riffling through the junk drawer, through the scrap paper and broken crayons and a few errant wine corks. But I couldn’t even find a pair of the kids’ craft scissors. I stood there racking my brain on where to look next and was about to just let it go when the light through the window above the sink illuminated my kitchen utility chicken shears hanging on the wall.
I stepped into the downstairs guest bathroom and put my leg up on the toilet seat, noticing the wallpaper was already starting to peel behind the sink. How was that possible? We’d just put it up a few months ago. I sighed, adding another task to our never-ending fix-it list, and focused instead on my little grooming project. With each snip, big chunks of hair fell into the toilet, and I was psyched—it was so much more efficient than those cuticle scissors would have been.
I stood up on Madison’s step stool to get a look at my work in the mirror. It did look better trimmed down. But the right side was a little denser than the left. I went back to the toilet, pulling the hairs up between my fingers on each side like a stylist, to make sure they were even, going a little deeper to cut the ones closer in on the sides, and then all of a sudden . . . OW. I looked down and saw blood trickling down my leg. Oh my god, I cut my vagina lip! With the chicken shears!
I quickly grabbed gobs of toilet paper to put pressure on the cut, but it wouldn’t stop bleeding. A hundred panics flew through my head. What if I passed out on the bathroom floor in a pool of blood? Or what if I actually needed stitches? And oh my god, it was the chicken shears—I could have salmonella! Could I drive myself to the hospital, get there and back without anyone knowing?
I held a wad of toilet paper on the cut and slowly made my way back up the stairs, careful not to bleed on the carpet. I closed our bathroom door and cautiously checked the cut—it wasn’t as bad as I thought, just a nick, and had almost stopped bleeding. I put on clean underwear and a T-shirt and was about to get back into bed when I heard my phone vibrate on the nightstand.
City Mouse Page 23