Between the Tides

by Susannah Marren

  “Exactly. That’s how I feel. Let’s face it, we showed up for Jess, not Lainie Smith Morris.” The woman with her coiffed red hair deceives the crowd by baring her teeth.

  “Word has it that Jess would do anything for the Morris family,” yet another woman, a blonde in turquoise, remarks.

  They cling to each other, their bodies huddled together, their necks straining for more action while their heads are pulled apart, reminding me of a set of Siamese twins. I force myself to nod hello and then to cruise the room at Jess’s instruction. I embrace the strangers, those who have come for my art and not for the curiosity of it. I notice how the crowd inevitably floats and becomes the social animal it is. I almost don’t mind since six guests have asked if I’m selling my Triptych.

  “Your Triptych is your comeback.” Anthony Laris, the dealer, stops me and presses his business card into my right hand. He is close to my ear. “Do not sell anything without consulting me first.”

  Jess inserts herself into the moment. “Anthony, Lainie? No introduction necessary, either way? Lainie, for the record, Anthony and I have been friends since—”

  “Since I moved to Elliot for a short time and milked the Arts Council dry for some culture,” Anthony finishes. “Jess is the only person I bother with in the entire town.”

  “I’m delighted to meet you, Anthony.” I turn to Jess. “Jess, how can I thank—”

  “Call me your fairy godmother, Lainie,” she interrupts.

  Charles appears. “Or your guardian angel,” he says. Which strikes me as odd for Charles, and no time to ponder why. A surge of guests propels us forward and there is Jess, ready to introduce me to Samantha Hall, another New York dealer.

  “Lainie, Samantha,” Jess begins.

  “Lainie, you have outdone yourself,” Samantha says. Anthony is observing us and that is why she waves her business card before pressing it into my palm. “We should meet for lunch, and I hope that you won’t negotiate any sales before that.” Her mouth is next to my ear too.

  Anthony Laris and Samantha Hall liquefy into the corners of the exhibit, my exhibit. William is lurking about too, not around the perimeter but in the midst of guests, not only on his iPhone but schmoozing. I watch him—he doesn’t glance at the artwork; it’s as if it doesn’t exist. Jess strides up to him, poses for a photo of the two of them, his arm around her waist, their smiles radiant. More guests arrive and gravitate to the triptych and point at the framing, at the pictures. I look away from Jess and William. I am lifted upstream tonight; it is a most extraordinary sensation.

  * * *

  Halfway through the cocktail party Jess holds her champagne glass up and with a swizzle stick bangs against it for attention. The two hundred guests settle down and are her captive audience. She is elegant, beautiful in black, her diamond drop earrings, her long smooth legs in the sheerest of stockings, her blond hair in an upsweep, her lips pursed in concentration. She is my friend; she has given me this. I’m so intent on Jess that I follow her gaze before she begins the introduction and summons me to the wall where my triptych hangs. Jess, positioned in front of my beloved three canvases, the narratives that have carried me through these months when I’ve been an outsider. Yet perhaps being out of the loop was the answer. Triptych is your comeback, Anthony Laris said minutes ago.

  Jess stands in front of the third of the three, what I have not disclosed before tonight, not even to Matilde. My third canvas, of the jetty without a soul around. Whether Jess knows it or not, she is obliterating the black rocks, the salt sea and arch of sky. She is cluttering my work.

  “Welcome, everyone, to a special evening at the Arts Council. I’m very proud to introduce the latest work of Lainie Smith Morris.” Jess holds up her hands as guests begin to clap. “Lainie and I go back as far as summers in Cape May during high school. Although we were incommunicado for many years, these past few months that we have been reunited have been a gift for me, and I hope for you too, Lainie.” Jess radiates benevolence.

  “The art speaks for itself … and I ask that you join me in welcoming Lainie to the art world of Elliot and to the good that is generated by her merit.”

  The applause is authentic, resounding, as I join Jess. We kiss and hold for the briefest time, then I take the microphone. However she and I connect, whatever we yearn for, the night is mine—the culmination of my work. Beyond this oasis—the exhibit tonight—Jess has softened the blows of suburban life and engaged my children. Jess is self-satisfied as she slips into the third row of the crowd after her introduction. She walks to where Charles stands blockaded by guests. Although Charles is waiting along with everyone else for me to begin, I watch how he and Jess almost sink into each other. Their shoulders touch and linger in a pose. Then his right hand laces with Jess’s left hand, their fingers weave together. The crowd, the critics, the dealers, and the patrons fall away. It is simply Jess and Charles and I. Charles, who I have forgiven for my long hiatus from where I belong. Jess, who mounted my comeback tonight. Jess and Charles, Charles and Jess. A dam bursts in my brain and the pouring water threatens to decimate life as I know it.

  My husband, my best friend.

  My eyes scan my paintings before I begin to speak. I know that tonight I soar, and this knowledge is too rewarding to be sidetracked by anyone else’s spectacle. I have no choice; I push Jess and Charles further away—into silhouette, then outlines. I swat them out of my sight. I clear my throat; the room silences.

  “I want to thank everyone for coming tonight, and a special thank-you to the Arts Council for hosting this event and presenting my most recent seascapes. As some of you may know, I’m new to Elliot, and had it not been for Jess Howard’s unflagging commitment to my work and Edna Abre’s tireless support, I would not feel so welcome. The response tonight is overwhelming and my gratitude is complete.”

  There is a round of applause. I count to ten before continuing.

  “The atmosphere of water is a mystery to me, to any of us. Though I have devoted my craft to its nature—the tidal streams, surges and crests, the surreal quality of gale winds forcing the currents, impacting our lives—water remains elusive, water gives, water takes away. What we seek is the restorative quality of water, of healing and forgiveness.”

  The champagne leaches through my mind and the room gets slightly muddled. Jess and Charles stand in the same spot, no longer touching. Their joining was so brief, I could convince myself it never was. I remain engaged with the guests; their last round of applause is my salvation.

  PART SIXTEEN

  Jess

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Who is able to ascertain what Lainie knows or feels? The event tonight was stellar from anyone’s point of view. Yet there seems an intangible frost from Lainie once we are back at her house. The two of us are in the living room, where I feel tipsy enough that I might be misreading her—how could she not appreciate the show, the results, the potential for her paintings? Or am I simply overly concerned that she might know, know something. Beyond the house, it’s as if winter has not dissipated. Lainie faces the windows, where the blinds remain up.

  “I’m searching for stars while I check out the moon’s position,” she says without moving.

  “Tonight is endless,” I say.

  “How endless, Jess?”

  “Infinite and with a bitter end. I’ve got about forty-eight hours to figure out what to do about William. He’s given me this ultimatum.”

  William, who has just driven home after trying his best tonight. William, who is beseeching me to forget, to overlook our latest episode. To this end, Liza and Billy are at Lainie’s for a sleepover: an arrangement I made in order to be at the Morrises’ after the opening, after the after party, into the wee hours. The idea would be that Charles has to drive me home at some point, or that I too will crash here.

  I unlatch the new pearls that William gave to me this morning. Three strands, Mikimoto, ten millimeter. I received them with a note that read, Forgiveness, Jess? At any cost, forgivenes
s. I finger the pearls, more fitting for Lainie than for me—a gift from the sea, aren’t they? Then again, what would Lainie do with this type of status symbol?

  “He’s asking for forgiveness,” I say. “These pearls are the olive branch.”

  “Forgiveness … well…” Lainie looks at the pearls, then starts one of her contemplative faces. “Maybe … Jess … you’re right.…”

  I’m not in the mood. “Let’s not go there, Lainie. Let’s talk about the Arts Council. Let’s talk about it for the next two days … my forty-eight hours!”

  “Tonight was quite a hit. A hit, right, Jess?” Lainie washes down another glass of Perrier-Jouët. Quite the celebration.

  “Sure it was. I put you on the map—what a show!”

  “Unbelievable!” Lainie agrees. She burps a small burp. “And I put you on the map!”

  We both start laughing as if this is humorous—a throwback to those coastal summers when we were in college.

  “We should get some rest, Lainie.” I pour myself more champagne from the bottle that we uncorked a half hour ago. I like that everyone is asleep under one roof—Lainie’s children, my children, our Charles, despite her ignorance. Quite an occasion to be drunk, and since neither of us drinks often, we’re sloshed.

  I’m not anesthetized, and the undrunk part of me has my ears peeled for noises, movement, any hint that Charles is awake, which is not likely. So what that Liza, Billy, and I are here? There is a tacit understanding that Charles and I will be appropriate. Immeasurably appropriate: no covert glances or stolen kisses under their roof. If he doesn’t confirm this Wednesday at the Gansevoort, I might just goddamn lose it. Charles returned from the exhibition hours ago and told me he has rounds early tomorrow for patients who must be discharged. The life of the surgeon precludes any languid Saturday mornings.

  “Nothing like the Cape May shoreline in early spring,” Lainie says. “Not any other water will do. I haven’t been there since we moved to Elliot.”

  “I know.” I know the drama of it, that she’s always been “the artiste” since we were teenagers. Her face is close to mine. Her eyeliner and eyeshadow are blurring together and that makes Lainie seem young, more vulnerable than ever, and in need of a cup of black coffee. I place my hands on her cheekbones; they are ice cold and satiny. I blow on the hair that is across her forehead and it automatically falls into the right place. She blows back at me.

  “Hey, Jess, we should go to Cape May, you and I. We should forsake Charles, right? I mean, he’s no William, but let’s go without him for a road trip. Tonight.”

  “Lainie, you’re drunk.”

  “I might be. Still, I want to go down the Shore.” She comes within three inches of my face and I glimpse how her face must be when Charles is kissing her. Her eyes dilate; the dark blue of the iris is showing, there’s little white. In return she sees how my face looks when Charles is kissing me. I pull away.

  “No, Lainie. It isn’t a good idea.”

  “Really, Jess, I have to go. I owe it to myself, to us, after the show’s success.”

  “And leave the children?” I am clearheaded for that part of the plan. “Besides, it’s glacial in Cape May this time of year. Virtually Siberian.”

  Cape May. Smooth waters, schools of minnows, flounder, the sea floor, sailing in a Hobie Cat on the open bay.

  “No, no, let’s take the children. We’ll leave soon, drive through the night. Get there by early morning. Who cares if it’s cold?” Lainie plunks down on the couch and pushes the mohair throw to the floor.

  “You tell Charles, Jess. He’ll be okay with it if it comes from you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask her.

  “Tell him. Tell him the plan, Jess.”

  We put it into play and before daybreak I’m completely coherent and warmed up to the adventure. We scurry around, packing a few necessities per child, and load our own vehicles. At the last minute we decide to take Mrs. Higgins. Charles comes down to the kitchen where we’re grabbing every wrapped food from pretzel sticks to protein bars from the pantry, any unopened bottle of green tea or Smartwater that we can manage.

  “I’m appalled by this idea of yours, Lainie,” he says.

  Lainie keeps hurling the snack foods—hummus, bags of carrots and celery—into a white canvas tote bag that is seasonably unchic and may be wishful thinking for summer. Use it early and the months will be upon us.

  “This is our plan, Charles,” I say. “For old times’ sake.”

  “The older children have assignments … schoolwork for Monday,” Charles insists. Hey, he’s not my husband, but he’s as irrational as if he were.

  “It is four o’clock on Saturday morning, Charles. We’ll be back by Sunday after dinner, at the latest. The kids know to bring their assignments. There won’t be any distractions there; it’s a good thing.” I take the risk, I say what I think.

  Mrs. Higgins is behind me, an overnight duffel dutifully packed. She is my conscience, in her mind at least. She may feel secretly smug with her knowledge from Christmas week in Vermont. I give her a tight insincere smile that gives credence to my lack of agency.

  “Why exactly is Mrs. Higgins going?” Charles asks as if the woman doesn’t exist, isn’t standing in front of him.

  “To start sorting out things at the house for May, June, July.…” Lainie says. She sounds exhausted. Sober too.

  Charles is displeased. Obviously he isn’t planning much summer time in Cape May this year and surely not until the warmer weather.

  “Charles.” His name echoes through me. “The solitude will be yours with everyone gone. Including Mrs. Higgins. A nice respite.” I spread out my hands to convey the house. “You’ll have two SUVs’ worth of children off your hands.”

  How did I become the referee for Lainie and Charles? How did I turn into her advocate?

  * * *

  Our caravan heads south, breezing along the Garden State Parkway with few vehicles in sight. The night lifts and there is the drive across the causeway to Cape May, a homecoming for Lainie, whose desire to be here is palpable. The dusty beach roads, the historic district, the Fisherman’s Memorial, each reminds me of the days spent together with Lainie decades ago. I’m not quite prepared for how exquisite Lainie and Charles’s home is, a revamped Victorian house. Lainie has said that she honored the old from the outside while the inside has been gutted into fresh and open spaces. I follow her up the driveway to her house facing the open bay—Lainie’s water garden. The ground is dank with the promise of green to come and beyond it the waves are volatile.

  Lainie’s crew are already on the porch, jumping around gleefully. Alive at last in some twisted reality where I hide from William in my lover’s homes and suspend time. Lainie is at my side, dreaming of sea glass, starfish, and seahorses—her newly famous palette, thanks to me.

  Her children are graceful, lily white and lithe. Lainie alights up the brick steps to the clapboard house while they follow—as if one squall could change everything. I should not have doubted her, I should not have made the slightest noise to Charles about her deficiencies. She opens the door and motions to us. I’m standing on the pavers at the bottom of the steps, my arms around Liza and Billy.

  “C’mon, Jess, check it out! C’mon!” We walk into a stunning house on the waterfront.

  Her kids are running bonkers and she is opening the blinds with Mrs. Higgins, who is a quick study. She yanks a bit too roughly, in my opinion, on the cords of the Hunter Douglas shades. The exposure is more fabulous, the kind of water and sky and land that meld until the hardest of hearts, including mine, are transformed.

  “Lainie,” I say. “It’s wonderful.”

  I put Mrs. Higgins to work at a crackerjack speed since the house is coated with a thin layer of salt and sand. I poke around, checking out the contemporary living room with a stone fireplace and the dark wood bookcases. Although I search the family room and then the kitchen for signs of the prosaic or something to criticize or find def
icient, there is nothing of the sort. I admire the eat-in kitchen with the titanic window, which faces the bay side and the eddies. Lainie has placed printed children’s bedsheets atop the couches and chairs, including the cherry dining table, to protect them from the sunlight that streaks through the highest casements of the double-height ceiling. The sheets are themed: lions and tigers in a jungle cover one couch; an ocean theme, her favorite, covers the other, larger couch. Over the first wing chair is a meteorite theme of bursting stars, and on the second wing chair she has placed a girly print of hearts and flowers.

  Together Mrs. Higgins and I open the sliders and crack open the smaller windows a few inches so that the rimy sea air fills the rooms. Then we raise the heat to dry out the moisture. Lainie is immutable; she has opened the double doors from the living room to the deck and is bundled up in a sweatshirt and jeans. She and Matilde face the foamy water. Tom is upstairs with the twins and Liza and Billy, holding court. An unforeseen realization that I could live like this, women and children, for much longer than an overnight escapade. The Lainie sway has superb force.

  A half hour later we climb up and race down the deserted dunes with the children. Claire and Jack scramble sideways on the wide beach, howling and giggling. Matilde and Liza jump off the highest dune while Tom and Billy are at the top, staring down. I swear Tom’s scowl is rubbing off on Billy. The boys next in line to become men.

  We are wrapped tightly in scarves and boots, jeans and gloves, bucking up against the blasts off the ocean. Lainie and I lead as we head north to the state park and the lighthouse. Lainie, her black hair tangled around her face, is ecstatic. She alternates her iPhone and her Olympus for shots that seem too close together, almost redundant, of the horizon, of the children too. Hasn’t she always had a camera in Cape May, has there ever been a day where the churning sea wasn’t enough to alter her mood?

  “I’m a feather!” Lainie does that laugh. The day is taking a direction that happens only in the cleanse of water, not in Elliot. She is near me again—triggering memories. Has it not occurred before, on this very beach with Lainie—the boy talk of yesterday, the winner takes all. Confusion over who the winner is, who the winner was.