Between the Tides

by Susannah Marren

  “I’m happy.” I smooth my skirt and check the fit, which is impeccable, although the impact is lost on Charles. I put on lipstick and smack my lips together. Charles is at the doorway, adjusting his tie and blazer.

  “What about the children? Will I be disappointed in their attire too?”

  “Christ, Charles. We’re going to someone’s home for Thanksgiving where tons of children are expected … and five or six couples … the men watching football.… Jess said it’s a buffet.”

  “This is business for me, Lainie.”

  Somehow Matilde has appeared and is sitting on the floor with her legs stretched out and her back pressed to the base of my makeup table. I stand up so quickly that I almost trip over her.

  “Matilde. Honestly.”

  “Charles, would you like to approve the outfits for Claire and Jack? Mrs. Higgins is dressing them, before she leaves for the holiday. I don’t know where Tom has gone. He might be playing one of Jack’s video games, although I asked him to read a book. He has my Kindle.…”

  “I’ll check it out,” Charles says.

  “Matilde, am I that dreary?” I ask once he is gone.

  Matilde shrugs her shoulders then starts yanking at her tights as if testing them for the body-paint effect.

  “How do I look?” I ask. “We have to leave in fifteen minutes.”

  “You look fine, Mom. You do.” Matilde straightens and glances at herself in the long mirror. “I’m drab too.”

  “Not drab, exactly; I don’t think that a dress that hugs your body that way can be described as ‘drab.’ Maybe the color?”

  “Mom! The color is old lady!”

  Matilde starts hiking the dress, which is already well above her knees, up to her thighs. I count the years since I was her age.

  “That works, Matilde,” I say, secretly appalled while determined to be supportive. “We should have gone shopping—to the mall, both of us. I should have thought of it.”

  Matilde stands behind me and in the reflection from my makeup mirror, she and I are strikingly similar. Her hair is almost as dark as mine and she has my bone structure. The jetties in the sun by the ocean flit through both our brains, that I know.

  “Lainie? Matilde? Let’s round up everyone and climb in the car,” Charles shouts from below.

  * * *

  I have been invited to Jess’s home three times and every visit an image of a castle in Scotland comes to mind. Charles’s dream come true—the apogee of success. That it wouldn’t be possible without William’s family money is beyond him. Charles, who will someday at best inherit his parents’ dairy farm, while the likelihood that I get anything from my parents’ marina is absurd.

  There is an abundance of mirrors in every room—more mirrors than in any other house, yet who would dare to interpret that the owners have a serious crush on themselves. The long hallways lead to turrets, double ceilings, round staircases in the back and on the sides of the house. The guesthouse is a mini version of the main house, with an indoor squash court and flanked by a tennis court and a pool. Every room echoes, and as winter approaches, the sound is colder and louder. The five-inch thin-heeled boots that the wives/mothers wear make it worse, as do the rampant children shrieking through the rooms. There is what Jess calls “staff,” including a white-gloved waiter carrying silver trays of hot hors d’oeuvres and a bartender who seems overworked shaking the mixed drinks.

  Despite how lavish the house is, a strong turkey odor pervades every room, as if there is no escape. Jess, the prison guard of the day, struts by and her Joy perfume almost effaces the scent.

  PART EIGHT

  Jess

  TWENTY-THREE

  I am perpetually flattered to be pegged “the hostess with the mostest.” Thanksgiving happens to be the pièce de résistance for my talents, a Hollywood set, my favorite time of year. Although some believe it’s early in the season, our beautifully adorned Christmas tree is trimmed the night before. I remain the one to kick off the season with a tree that rivals living theater. I’ve been told that the tree reminds guests of the Christmas tree that grows to a giant beanstalk onstage at the Nutcracker ballet—while the children dance around it. My guests dance around me today.

  As people arrive, I greet them in a new print wool Dolce dress and Louboutin boots. Deline, who has colored and blown out my hair the past three years, has finessed streaks of blond sculpted into waves that fall across my shoulders. I’m wearing William’s grandmother’s drop tourmaline earrings and several strands of Van Cleef clover around my neck. The other women today are, naturally, my followers. Except for Lainie, who is not only ultraplain but dreary. How difficult could it be for her to buy a few proper dresses, to radiate a little style? She knows better, we know that. Poor Charles, who appears not to be perturbed, but seems happy as a clam. He’s loosened his tie and is drinking Jack Daniel’s, entrenched with the other men sitting deep in the leather chairs in the den. They root for the football teams, jumping up and shouting in a surprisingly high pitch. Charles is well situated between William and the head of neurosurgery. Twice now William has clapped Charles on the back.

  In the formal living room, where the women and children have congregated, Lainie is acting okay—on her own raft until the day is over. I instruct the thirteen children to go to the playroom. It is no coincidence that among the most savage of boys is Jack, trumped only by Seth, a seven-year-old monster who bites everyone. Then who can blame Matilde, Lainie’s protégée, for shying away from two girls who are in her class. I myself overhear Sidney Darvis and Aimee Sax in their blatant rudeness.

  “She’d be pretty if she didn’t wear such … dorky clothes,” Sidney says.

  Aimee rolls her green eyes and yanks on her script necklace as she assesses Matilde. “Very dorky in every way,” she says.

  “Matilde.” I practically drag her away from her perch half behind the living room door, where she hears every word without being noticed. We face the entrance. “Take no heed of what they say. They are nice girls.… Their mothers, one is sitting beside your mother … are very nice.… You know, I think that one of the fathers was a patient of your father’s. Your father is his hero, he made him as good as new. These girls would love to be your friend.”

  “Love to be my friend?”

  “Be all you can be, Matilde,” I say. “I’m sure that your mother would agree.”

  “Why? Why, Jess?” Matilde asks.

  “I know you’re thinking that I can’t remember seventh grade. I remember it very clearly.”

  “Does Mom remember?”

  I pause. Lainie didn’t live on dry land back then. She had no best friend, no boy she hoped to be with after school, no popular crowd to follow. She was in Cape May at the family marina where her father winterized the boats every November.

  Sidney’s voice interrupts our conversation, traveling to us via the airways. “Or if Matilde wasn’t so fucking queer.”

  Matilde is tightlipped, and as much as I’d like to shepherd her, dinner is about to be served. My majordomo is giving me that flashing smile.

  “Excuse me, Matilde,” I say when Claire comes up to us and tunnels her head into her older sister’s thigh. Matilde starts feeding her candied pecans from her palm like she’s her pet pony. Candied pecans that she’s taken from the crystal bowl in the living room. “Mommy! Mommy!” Claire is off in search of Lainie.

  “I’m about to announce that dinner is served.” I waggle my small silver bell several times for the room to quiet down. Matilde backs away as Liza appears beside me.

  The men begin to filter into the dining room, jovial, inebriated, pleased by their televised Thanksgiving Day football. Next the women stream in, some, such as Lainie, holding tight to a younger child. Matilde is alone, racing through the Great Hall to stand on line for the powder room. In front of her is Diana Reeve, a classmate of Tom’s, waiting and arguing with her father. I pass them to access the upstairs wine closet since despite my efforts, I’ve just noticed that the six
bottles of carefully selected Château Lafite 2011 are missing from the sideboard in the dining room.

  The lights are dim in the empty pantry. I glance in the mirror and primp although it is too dark for me to be discerning. I’m on my way to the wine racks to open the glass doors when there is a shadow to the right. Charles is behind me, his hands on my waist, my thighs, twisting me around. We kiss one of our breathless, endless kisses. Then we pull apart. “We shouldn’t be doing this, Charles. It’s lunacy.” He puts his hand over my mouth to quiet me, to remind me of our furtive moment. “Imagine this.” His hand travels up my skirt.

  “We are risking a lot, Charles. I have to get the wine.” I start to move across the room.

  “Relax, Jess.” He stops me, kisses me again, harder. I open my eyes—his face is temptation, raw energy, hope. I see him how he must have been years ago, when Tom and Matilde were small, before the twins were born, what it might have been to have known him. Suddenly there is someone in the room, a swift movement as the person tears out, clanking against the glass doors of the wine cabinets. Charles almost drops me to the ground, he lets me go so fast. “Matilde!” he calls out. “Wait!”

  * * *

  Having found her place card, Matilde is seated at the dinner table before I walk through the double doors to the dining room. Charles too is at his place, angling toward Matilde, trying desperately to get her attention. Matilde’s face is ashen, not the pearly paleness of her mother’s skin, nor her own paleness that is quite beautiful. She is fidgeting, unsnapping her tortoiseshell hair clip, her black hair falling heavily on her shoulders. Her seat is more than twelve feet away, the length of the table—at the opposite end. Within minutes of the kiss, I take my place, the hostess with the mostest. Then Matilde faces Andrew Jacks, one of the more popular, charismatic boys in Tom’s class, next to whom she is seated. She presses her teeth against her lips for that bee-stung, bruised effect. Her methods remind me of Lainie, who used to stare down the boys “for an adventure.” Before she met Charles.

  Matilde turns to catch my eye.

  PART NINE

  Lainie

  TWENTY-FOUR

  I pull into our garage at twilight in tree-laden Elliot. The cumulus clouds roll into the night and the stars are almost within reach. Through the kitchen door, I carry bags of groceries. Usually I hate to food shop, but ever since Jess was over last week admiring my new paintings, I feel lighter and the mundane isn’t quite as burdensome. Oddly enough the kitchen is empty; I hear the children’s footsteps above, emanating from Tom’s room. Before me on the granite counter is Liza Howard’s birthday cake, a perfect jewel. Emerald green, three tiers with strands of gold. White buttercream flowers with green leaves adorn the top. Although my baking skills are limited and green is inland for me—not part of my palette—I appreciate Mrs. Higgins’s creation. I had no idea that she was capable of such artistry. The minute I see her work I know that she can do a beach cake for any of our birthdays, with the dunes, the coastline, beach chairs, and a rainbow umbrella.

  Until today I thought of Mrs. Higgins as too dissimilar from Candy to give her a chance. With Jess singing her praises and constantly suggesting what Mrs. Higgins should do next, I mostly miss Candy and the easy dialogue that she and I shared—a team effort now sorely lacking.

  Jess should have such a charming cake. First she produced Mrs. Higgins, next she promised the Arts Council for my work in the spring. Beyond that, offering our family a connection in Elliot, a social standing in a frosty town. Mrs. Higgins’s intentions and her talent—shown to me in a birthday cake exquisite enough to rival the work of the best pastry chefs in New York—come from Jess.

  Jess keeps referring to Liza’s tenth birthday party tomorrow as a coming-out party. She dreads the end of the small-daughter/single-digit tranquility. I know that she is right—how the innocence dissolves and there’s no solution, no method of avoiding the reality that our daughters will grow up. Matilde, the most demure young girl, now morphed into a swimmer in turbulent waters who has little mastery, no knowledge.

  “What do you think, Mom?” Matilde’s voice is in the room before she is.

  “I love it.”

  Matilde snaps pictures of the cake from every angle with her iPhone. I’m aware of what energy is required for “the” day and how the cake plays a part in it. A centerpiece of the weekend, the cake will bestow family birthday tidings that take place tomorrow afternoon at Liza’s “family” party. Her “big girl” party that evening, for kids only, will be held in the sumptuous lower level of Jess’s home—with a DJ and a few hired dancers. Tom and Matilde are invited to that too and are surprisingly open to a ten-year-old’s party. All four children are anticipating the weekend. Charles is pleased and believes in my good fortune in rediscovering Jess. Especially since he works with William. Jess is remarkably preoccupied with tomorrow. If I don’t pull off a full throttle on Liza’s two parties, it will be seen as a failure. I should be more zealous, I too should be planning my outfit and exhilarated by what is ahead. I should have some gratitude for what it entails to be part of a rarified world.

  More surprising is Charles suggesting that I stay at home with the twins tomorrow night to catch up on my painting. He offers to take the older children there and back, fraternize upstairs with a few other parents.

  “They have a ride already, both ways, Charles,” I said, for the second time.

  “Not necessary, Lainie,” he had answered. “I’m totally available.” Totally available? He was knotting his tie and it was only six A.M. Then it occurred to me that Charles wants to take Matilde and Tom, he puts stock in the activity, especially at the Howards’. In the city, he never knew where the children were going or where they were to be collected.

  I take another look at the cake—the rich green shade is fitting, emblematic of the copious greenery of Elliot in season. The first few weeks after we arrived the trees and hedges were ubiquitous and thick, insular. Before fall foliage, the advent of winter.

  “Aren’t you taking the birthday cake to Jess’s tonight?” Matilde asks. “Won’t it be hard to balance in the car?”

  “I’m going in a half hour. Does anyone else want to come—the twins or Tom?”

  “I’ll stay here,” Matilde says.

  “Really?” I’ve become too accustomed to Matilde’s company in the car; maybe I’m not paying enough attention to her schedule lately. Fair of me or not, with the relentless driving in Elliot, she’s become my companion.

  “No, I’ll stay with the twins. Tom’ll go. He’ll be glad to go, Mom.”

  Tom comes into the kitchen with a twin in either of his arms. Tom is getting so tall that I imagine him with a driver’s license sooner than he’s eligible for it. Then he could put the cake on the floor of the back of the car and he could deliver it to Jess’s. It isn’t lost on me how much he likes going over there. For tonight Mrs. Higgins might drive over with Tom to protect the cake. If that happens, she can be complimented firsthand for her stylish cake. What I want to do is disappear into the studio.

  Tom places Jack on the ground and Claire on a stool. Claire gazes at the cake. “Mommy, I want the green leaf with the flower at the top. The big white flower and one necklace. One necklace.”

  “No, Claire, my darling girl, the cake is for Liza. You know she will be ten. That makes her five years older than you are, and she will be a big girl! Mrs. Higgins made this cake especially for her birthday party tomorrow. We’ll be there for the party and you can ask Jess for the white flower then. That’s when you get to eat the white flower, when Liza’s cake is cut and the candles have been blown out.”

  Claire frowns. “No,” she says. “No,” she says louder. “No! Now!” she screams.

  At that moment the landline rings. Matilde picks up the phone and reads the name that comes across the screen.

  “Abre.” She gives me this look. “Who’s that?”

  Abre! The name triggers the good that came of Jess’s visit and a reminder of Edna Abre’s
expected call by dinner hour. I snatch the phone from Matilde and dash into the den. I sit down in Charles’s favorite leather wing chair, facing the window, as far from everyone as possible.

  “Hello, this is Lainie Smith Morris.” I am placid, ready. I will myself to have the conversation with Edna Abre. As if I’m in a swim meet where I’m too psyched to lose, where winning is imperative.

  “Why, Mrs. Morris,” her very cultured voice purrs. “We are beyond excited to feature your art for our spring gala. I have not heard Jess Howard quite so enthusiastic about any painter.…”

  A cacophony of screams interrupts what this woman is saying, first Claire’s voice and then a guttural cry from Mrs. Higgins. The screams are pitiless and the sensation that I have no effect on my children seeps into my soul.

  “Mrs. Abre? I have to go, I’m sorry, I apologize. May I call you back tomorrow morning? I don’t wish to be distracted … but it is a bit hectic. You might remember, I have four children and the twins are only five—”

  “Yes, my dear. I believe that you are needed,” she interrupts. “With your children needing you, a call at dinner hour isn’t reasonable.”

  Astutely, Edna Abre hangs up first.

  With the portable phone in my hand, I rush into the kitchen. Claire has climbed from the stool to the counter where the cake sits. She is swiping her hand across the emerald green leaves atop the cake; the entire first tier is demolished. Already her mouth and chin are covered in green icing.

  “Get off my cake! Off of it, you spoiled child!” Mrs. Higgins’s face is purple and she is wringing her hands in her apron. “Off!” screams Mrs. Higgins. “Get out of my sight!”

  Claire regards each of us for a split second. Then she spins herself close enough to put her elbow through the center, sinking the entire cake, a triumphant smirk on her face. I go swooping in and rapidly yank Claire from the counter, dragging her into my arms, holding her too tightly. She begins to howl and with enough green icing on her hands to fingerpaint the walls, she smudges icing on my face and in my hair. I clamp down on her wrists with my hands. She is so forceful I barely stop her. None of us moves, including Jack, who seems fascinated for the first time ever with his twin.