Between the Tides

by Susannah Marren

  “I’ll stay inside and help you with the broken painting, Mom,” says Matilde.

  “You know, there’s a rose bed in the back yard,” I say.

  “Yes. Yes, it is beautiful in late summer with the lawn and the terrace. A little like an English garden,” Candy says. Then she starts playing “Greensleeves,” the song that Henry VIII wrote for Anne Boleyn. Or might have written for Anne Boleyn. It is my favorite “old song,” one that I sing when Candy plays it. We are not a singing duo today.

  “Children in the suburbs run around the backyard,” I say, wondering if Charles failed to emphasize such an advantage.

  Derrick comes into the family room and Candy stops playing.

  “Mrs. Morris? We’ve put the boxes of your broken picture where you asked. Want to come check and make sure it’s okay?”

  I wave my hands at the children. “Go. Go ahead. Matilde? Tom?”

  “Thank you so much, Derrick. I’m following you.” I move quickly out of the room with him, ready to focus. Although I don’t look back, I sense Matilde’s eyes on me as she leads the twins to the swing set.

  * * *

  At twilight the doorbell rings. We’re shocked, too accustomed to apartment living to know how to react or what to do without a doorman to intercept. Tom and Jack race to the front door.

  “Don’t open it, boys, wait.” Candy is on their heels. Matilde and I stay in the kitchen with Claire.

  “Mom,” says Matilde, “really, Claire is eating too many gummy bears. After the Twinkies.”

  “I know, Matilde. Only a few more.”

  The door opens and we hear Candy. “Dr. Chuck! You’re home early!”

  Charles detests it when Candy calls him that and she does it whenever she can. Charles comes into the kitchen with Tom, Jack, and Candy behind him.

  “What’s for dinner, Lainie?” he asks.

  “Oh, hello, Charles.” I do not look up from the counter where I’m still unpacking. “I don’t know what’s for dinner. I mean, there’s no pub or French bistro around the corner.”

  “Family dinner! Family dinner!” Jack shouts out. A prize event in the city where parents are delineated by those who do family dinners and those who are always out at that hour. I prefer family dinners to any evening event, the idea of twenty-five uninterrupted minutes of collective civility. There are rules: no name calling, no reading at the table, including iPads, iPhones, and actual books, and no food throwing. Toward the end of the meal when at least one child is nearing a meltdown, we play charades in teams, miming and hamming it up for the “guessers.” I doubt the game will last much longer since Tom has conveyed how boring and out of style it is. Either way, by the end of these dinners, despite how I believe in them, I’m usually there in body only, dreaming of watercolors or oils, of frames consisting of sand glued on wood.

  “Dinner?” Charles asks, checking out the scene. The twins have scattered jigsaw puzzle pieces and LEGOs everywhere. Tom ordered the first Harry Potter movie on Netflix and is blaring it although no one is interested. The regular movers have signed off, having shoveled boxes into every room as well as the entryway and garage.

  “Dinner. Sure, Dr. Chuck, nothing special about today,” Candy says. “All good around here.” She’s got an armload of pots and pans and is looking for the best storage place. She bends down at the cabinet under the stovetop.

  “Maybe we should order a few pizzas,” Charles suggests.

  “That’s a nice thought, Charles.” I’m wondering what he’s missing about how exhausted we are. Or the possibility that we’ve already thought of it.

  Candy moves to the island where her iPad rests and taps on the screen. “We live in the Monroe section of Elliot. No one delivers.”

  “Charles? Why don’t you go into town with the children, Candy can go too, and eat at the pizza place. I’ll stay at the house.… I’ll keep unpacking.”

  “Too dark, the streets are very dark by now,” Charles answers.

  “Dr. Chuck, you’re the one who wanted to move to the country!” Candy says. “Didn’t you know there are no streetlights here?” She starts making up a song. “Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!” she sings.

  Charles starts rummaging around the cupboards. “Where’s the gin?”

  “We didn’t find it yet,” I say. “I don’t know where it is.…”

  Was it only this morning that Charles carried me to the front door and swept me away? When Charles slides into a mood I remember that my grandmother used to tell me that we are born alone and die alone, although no one ever wants to be alone. She advised me to marry the right man, a man who would be my friend, first and foremost.

  Charles traipses toward the back entrance and then turns to us. “Are the boxes marked in the garage? The boxes for the wet bar?”

  “Dad, what about the pizza?” Tom freezes Harry Potter.

  “Ask Mom.” He disappears into the garage, slamming the door behind him. A half hour later Charles pulls my Jeep to the front of the house. I watch from the window as my children and Candy pile in to go into town for dinner. Charles shines the light from his iPhone app as they buckle up, illuminating each of their faces. Then they are progressing, my family, whom the move has rendered unrecognizable. I am alone in the empty house, as desolate as I’ve ever been. Derrick has neglected to place the last box of shells and shards from my broken work with the others. I open it, overcome with grief.

  PART TWO

  Jess

  FOUR

  Just my luck, a newbie at the front desk and Stacy is taking her own sweet time registering her. Why this transaction, which is more the Stacy Power Show than anything else, has to affect me is beyond my belief.

  “Is it possible to get a locker and to leave my things here?” the newbie asks, holding a gym bag that appears dreadfully dense—possibly loaded down with a blow dryer, soap—filched from five-star hotel bathrooms—John Frieda shampoo, and two accompanying conditioners, Nivea—the extra-rich version—and La Mer for her face. A brew of immaculate and high maintenance. She shifts her weight and the gym bag thuds to the floor. Beyond the desk, by the snack bar, sits a bevy of young mothers who have purposely arrived early for their toddlers’ ten o’clock swim class. They chat it up—the complexity of motherhood is riveting and perhaps unique to them.

  I turn back to the raven-haired woman and her narrow body, the profile people always thought was the result of a plastic surgeon. Without having this glimpse or having heard her voice, I’d know her anywhere. The high pitch, the slightly pleasing tone, the confidence. Lainie. A wave of nausea ripples through me. There she is, standing in front of me, and as usual, doesn’t notice that I’m here. What the hell is she doing in Elliot? For twelve years I’ve built it into my turf. My husband is a big man in town, my soirees are the coveted invitation. Lainie the righteous, Lainie the beautiful, whose mere actuality trumps the rest of us.

  “No, not right now.” Stacy, with her downturned mouth and weak chin, is and always will be behind the desk. Her eyes fall upon Lainie and her bulky gym bag. “I can put you on the waiting list for a permanent locker.”

  “Thank you.”

  Stacy will do nothing of the sort. Who acclimates to such abuse but the locals? No surprise that transplanted New Yorkers fall into a quick and deep depression when they relocate. Voilà, the latest of the batch. Lainie. The one who constantly wins while feigning she isn’t in the game. I would leave immediately and get my swim in at noon if I could work it into my day. Besides, why should I move aside for her—those days are long gone. I watch anyway, mesmerized as Lainie is handed a small key while Stacy files her check away in the drawer and gives her a membership card, handwritten, not computerized.

  I flash my own card and walk on Lainie’s heels into the locker room, which has the aroma of clean soap and Lysol. An unfriendly locker room that is more sterile than the one she left behind in the city. How I know without exchanging a word, let alone a glance, is easy. When you’re married to William and ensconced in Elliot, you�
��ve seen everything. New York women expecting the same level of women as the Y buddies they left behind. That would be the camaraderie of women, young, middle-aged, old, rich, and poor, those who complain constantly, others who give unsolicited advice on any topic. It comes back to me, that kind of mix that is not possible in Elliot, the crème de la crème capital of New Jersey. Lainie takes small key to locker 74 and begins to strip out of her black Theory pants, white button-down shirt, and jean jacket into a Speedo swimsuit.

  Who wouldn’t be thrilled with the Elliot Women’s Y Olympic-size pool, painted a cool aqua and filled to the edges? Who wouldn’t overlook how the water splashes onto the tiles when the aggressive swimmers are there and the humidity causes your goggles to clog up for the thrill of the swim? Most newbies sneeze from the up-to-the-minute chemicals. Lainie plunks herself down at the end of the fast lane and sits at the side of the pool, tucking her heavy hair into her latex cap and spitting into her goggles. Odd how she hasn’t so much as glanced in my direction. Is she kidding?

  I’ve seen more aggressive butterflies, although none more fluid or stoic. I know the feeling—this respite is how to endure the rest of the day. She’s at one with the water. Her buoyancy is enviable; then again, it has always been true. Whatever Lainie did was enviable. Lainie Smith Morris, who went from cause celebre to cosmic dust in less than two years. I wasn’t sorry when it happened, right after college. While her work may no longer be the “visceral, evocative collage-scapes of the sea” of the early reviews, she’s not hidden from sight. She travels in a tamer circle of miniatures and quiet paintings. All that raw ambition and then a bait and switch. Wouldn’t it have been better to have fallen off the face of the earth? Then again, Lainie never disappears. The proof of that is at the pool.

  She has no idea that I’ve wondered about her these years—followed her without reaching out, a perverse curiosity that would not result in a “friending.” Why friend someone who has always gotten what she wants? Specifically when I was on the sidelines, the antiwinner. That gnawing sensation begins again, plucked from the recesses of my mind. I remember vividly that Lainie is preferred, that whatever she wants she gets. She was known to catch the lifeguard’s eye at the Shore or the best guy of the summer. I have not forgotten her victories nor have I forgotten her parents’ beach house, how everyone filed through there barefoot in wifebeaters. The boys drooling for Lainie, the rumors that she invoked, how every teenage girl had to be her friend. How her popularity was random, almost shocking to her, not hard-earned and challenging to keep up. Lainie situated at the top of the heap. I’ll need a good look at her skin to check out her crow’s-feet—perhaps she’s gone scot-free.

  Then I realize that today is different. Today she is the outsider and I understand what that entails better than she does. I know what she has yet to learn about Elliot, that the supposed payoff is the house, emblematic of one’s success in the world. With the house comes the accoutrements of success—educated, attractive wives who burn their brain cells arranging playdates, tuning up their SUVs, bossing around their full-time household staff and a gardener or two.

  Did I not hear her tell Stacy that she lives on Longview Way? Has she stormed into town and planted herself in the Monroe section of Elliot without so much as a few years in a more modest area—the price the rest of us have paid? No, Lainie arrives, catapulting herself among the social elite, five-acre-minimum neck of the woods, slam dunk. Yet I know the house that she’s in, and it’s a rental. The owners practically abandoned their home when the husband was relocated last minute. Not that Lainie would pay much attention. After our long separation, I doubt that Lainie’s take on the glittering prizes has altered, that Lainie in her own quiet way views it as where she is supposed to live. I can’t imagine how she’ll acclimate to time spent with women who mention their horses and houses, their pit bulls and Dobermans before their children, when immersed in deep conversation at the Ivy, the restaurant on our main street.

  In the fast lane Lainie remains the connoisseur of water. She passes me at least ten times—the only other butterfly swimmer—without so much as a bit of interest. I jump out of the pool, check out the crowd’s whereabouts since a good shower is hard to come by. I beat her to the locker room, minor victory that it is.

  Most of the women congregate at the open showers—I wait for a private stall, but the large clock on the wall reads 9:45. Obviously Lainie is also feeling too fraught time-wise to concern herself with privacy. She peels off her bathing suit and soaps up in the very public middle shower on the left. The women of assorted ages and shapes, vigorously scrubbing themselves while chatting about recipes, children, dinner plans, and the weather take notice of a stranger to town who doubles as an exhibitionist. That’s before she starts her Academy Award–winning demure. Time to make myself known.

  “Lainie? Lainie, is that you?” I shout in her direction from the opposite end.

  I turn the spigot.

  “Jess, is that you? I can’t believe it!” Lainie is astonished. “Do you live here?! What luck! I never imagined I’d find someone I know. But to find you again, Jess! We just moved in. We are in the midst of unpacking.…” She smiles. “A crazy time…”

  Is it her emphasis on “moved in” and “unpacking” that gets to me and causes the past to bite me in the ass? She shuts her eyes and water pours over her face and body. I squeeze out my hair, which feels suddenly inadequate in its blondness and wispiness. Lainie’s hair always weighed ten pounds. She races across the shower path with too much ardor, standing unclothed, lanky and smooth, dripping wet. Clearly she drinks some kind of Pollyanna Kool-Aid, not much different than back in the day. Without exchanging a word, I know that Lainie will welcome memories of our shared summers at the Jersey Shore and one year together at RISD before I transferred out. Not everyone has Lainie’s talent and her Zen attitude. I admit over the years she’s been infuriating. That’s why I feel like shaking her by her shoulders and shouting, What makes you so special? I bring it down a notch, in the spirit of “there is nothing like an old friend.”

  “Aren’t you a brave soul,” I say. Oh, la-di-da. I wrap my towel around my head, but I do not cover my body. I do a puffed-up march toward the dressing area.

  I note with satisfaction that her locker is in the last row, the one saved for newcomers and paltry visitors. It will take her weeks to realize that mine is in the desirable part of the locker room. I dress quickly and saunter by in jeans and a leather jacket.

  “I’m in such a rush to pick up my daughter,” I say. A sincere sentence, not calculated or untruthful.

  Lainie’s eyes light up at the mention of my daughter and I hate myself for giving her the opportunity to gush. “Oh, Jess, how nice! How many children do you have?”

  “Two,” I say. “A girl and a boy.”

  “How old are they?”

  “Nine and eleven,” I reply. I would offer up more details but I’m late.

  “What are their names and where do they go to school?” She’s interested but it’s a turnoff. Damn, I’m rude.

  “Another time, Lainie. You know how it is.…”

  “Well, I’d love to get together. I don’t know a soul in Elliot. I thought you lived in Princeton. I guess I wasn’t up to speed.… I should have done an Internet search.…”

  “You mean Facebook?” I ask.

  “I suppose. What has happened these last ten—no, fifteen years for you?”

  “A saga,” I say. “Except I have to go.”

  I could explain quickly as I search for my car keys that we moved to Elliot because William, my husband, had a hard-on for the suburbs and for stately towns. William thought that running a hospital here would be pleasant enough, believing there isn’t the kind of stress in Elliot that seems to shorten one’s life expectancy. Not to say that life isn’t taxing around here or that being the quintessential Stepford wife isn’t limiting. Still, there are plenty of opportunities in Elliot. The Elliot Junior League could stand some new members. Especially
a woman from the city, I’m sure. She could volunteer as class mother for each child, although that might push one to open a vein. Only yesterday I had to say to William why I won’t be a class mother for both children; I relinquish that honor to someone who truly wants it, it’s only fair.

  I say none of the above and she looks discouraged anyway. She’ll be worse when she witnesses how unfriendly everyone is, how insular and full of themselves. How they are full of shit.

  “Call me, Jess, and we’ll catch up, have coffee.”

  There is no pity party for Lainie. Lainie, the heartthrob, Lainie, the genius artist in college, Lainie, the innocent, Lainie, the one and only.

  Nonetheless I do take her card when she hands it to me.

  “That’s my cell. Obviously I no longer live in the city.” Again the damn smile.

  I begin rooting around for a card and come up empty-handed. That’s what happens when you let yourself go, when the idea of your son’s soccer match outshines your own ability to work so much as part-time. Losing oneself in Elliot is inevitable. I will be kind, I will not mention how the days get frittered away.

  “You’ll reach out? My info is there.”

  I look at her eyes once more. “We’ll get something on the calendar,” I reassure her, although we both know how slippery I can be. Or has she forgotten—a case of selective memory—how she had the boyfriend I had to have, the friends I had to have, the body and face I had to have. Yet she never had the hair or the coloring. Even today it remains a plus to be a frizz-free blonde with blunt ends and sporting a tan. Who would want that pale skin and mass of tangled dark hair around her face? No matter that on Lainie it’s exquisite.

  In a millisecond I’m gone, dragging my towel and bathing suit in a canvas bag that reads GO HERONS for the local girls’ basketball team. I move fast through the swinging doors that lead to the lobby.