“Because they just met.” Perry began unrolling the pairs of socks. All were solid black; it was the only color Perry would wear. But some had gold threads across the toe and some had white. Perry could not stand for them to comingle. The housekeeper, Estelle, however, seemed to embrace such chaos. He had to remind her every time not to mix the two. “What does Jake really know about her? And her child?”
Amelia raised an eyebrow in the mirror. “You mean Luci?”
“And that dog.” Perry shook his head. “They’re rushing. Jake is too rash.”
“He’s in love.” Amelia sighed. There was the flicker.
“And what does he know about parenting?”
Amelia set her hairbrush down. “Well, that I’ll give you. Getting married is one thing. Having a stepchild is another entirely. And Luci has special needs.”
“Exactly.” To his dismay there were two strays at the bottom of the basket, one with a gold toe and one with a white. Perry flinched. Estelle had done it again. He’d have to unfold the entire pile and find their mates. “Why doesn’t she speak?”
“She does, just not to us. It’s kind of like an anxiety disorder.” Amelia turned to him. “Imagine the strain that places on Olivia.”
“Well, she certainly made the rounds at the party explaining Luci’s condition. Shouldn’t that stuff be kept private?”
Amelia considered this. “I thought that was brave. She doesn’t make apologies. I don’t know that I could handle having a child with mutism with such grace.”
“Luckily we don’t have to.”
Amelia and Perry were blessed that way. Emma had always been a healthy, well-adjusted child. Granted, Perry likened much of that to their parenting. Not that that had happened overnight.
If he were being honest, Perry would have said that he’d been paralyzed with fear the moment he learned they were expecting. He’d always wanted a child. But as the months passed and Amelia’s belly swelled, Perry began to develop a significant twitch in his left eye. It happened every time they talked about the baby.
“Honey, are you sure you shouldn’t go to the optometrist?” Amelia had asked. It was becoming rather noticeable. But Perry knew better. There was nothing wrong with his eye. Perry did not like change. The baby hadn’t even arrived, and already everything around him seemed to be changing at warp speed.
It wasn’t just the obvious transformation in Amelia’s body and demeanor. Gone was the woman who worked until eight p.m. in her office and met him at a restaurant for a late dinner. Instead, Amelia started coming home by five o’clock, bedraggled and exhausted. And starving. They began eating dinner in, earlier and earlier each night. And gone were nice meals, like poached salmon and wine sauce, his favorite. Once Perry arrived home to find his wife bent over a saucepan shoveling boxed macaroni and cheese into her mouth. She’d looked up, her lips tinged orange with powdered cheese, and smiled. “Sorry. I didn’t save you any.” Who was this woman?
In an effort to restore the slipping sense of balance, Perry responded the only way he knew how. He prepared as if for disaster. During his daily commute to the city, he pored over baby books. Sleep books. Feeding books. Behavior books. At night he and Amelia lay in bed, shoulder to shoulder, paging through them. If the arrival of their child was a black hole of the unknown, Perry would make it his job to fill as much of it as possible with information. His favorite book focused on structure. “Babies thrive on predictable routine. Schedule naps and feedings, and don’t deviate. Adherence to routine makes for a happy baby!”
Amelia, reading over his shoulder, had snorted.
“What’s so funny?” Perry asked.
“It’s like they’re talking about you, honey.”
Perry was used to this. He felt no shame in his philosophy. Life was all about preparation. Something his brother, Jake, had always balked at.
Now when Perry thought about the time and planning that he and Amelia had put into raising Emma, he shuddered. And that was for their own child. A child he’d held since the day of her birth. Who’d known him every day and night since. What about a stepchild?
Perry wondered what Luci thought of all this. What it meant to her to have a strange new man in her life, soon to be in her home. She’d lived the whole of her five years with just her mother. It was all she knew.
How could Jake expect to just stumble into fatherhood? It was the worst kind of foolishness. It wasn’t a job you could charm your way into. “I need to talk to Jake,” he said, as Amelia climbed into bed beside him. “No one else in the family is going to.”
“Just don’t expect to change his mind.”
Amelia slipped beneath the sheets just as Perry finished the refolding. He held up the last two socks. There was still one gold toe and one white. He sighed.
* * *
The next day he didn’t get to speak with Jake as hoped for. Thanks to MTA work, his train was behind schedule, and by the time he arrived he was late for a meeting. The day continued as such, and by the end of it he climbed back onto the train and loosened his tie. Just outside the windows, on the dim platform, Perry saw a flash of color. A woman in a bright yellow dress. Like a buttercup, Perry thought.
Her back was turned, but Perry noted her elegant carriage, briefly, before another passenger slid past him and into the window seat. The passenger blocked his view, and the pretty woman standing on the track disappeared.
The whole ride home Perry could almost feel the exhaustion radiating through the car along with the smell of the fumes. It was always like this on the way home, a sharp juxtaposition to the morning train, where voices were crisp, postures erect, and phones dinging the entire ride in. Now, as the train bell chimed and the doors slid closed, Perry allowed his eyes to do the same. The train hurtled toward Connecticut, the only sound the hum of cable on track and whispers around him. Except for the soft voice of a child, a few seats behind him on the opposite side of the aisle.
Perry tried to tune the child’s banter out, to let his thoughts wander. He was reminded of when Emma would sit beside him on the train on the occasions he brought her to the city for a day. When was the last time they’d done that? Perry had taken her to see Wicked, and they’d gone out to dinner at Keens Steakhouse afterward, lingering over Bananas Foster, but that was at least a year ago. Maybe two. He deflated. In two more, she’d be out of the house and off to college.
The little girl behind him was still talking, her small voice rising and falling animatedly. Curious, Perry peered over his shoulder. The child’s mother was the woman in the yellow dress. He could not see their faces, only the curve of the mother’s neck as she bent toward her child to listen. At that moment, the child leaned forward and peeked around her mother. Perry found himself looking back at a familiar little face. Immediately she stopped talking. It was Luci.
Olivia turned, her face lighting with surprise. “Perry?”
Perry jerked to attention. “Well. Hello.” He’d never heard the child speak before, and felt thrown off. But Olivia played it down.
“You’re on your way home?” she asked.
Perry nodded, careful not to stare at Luci, who was now leaning against her mother shyly. “Yes, heading home from work. What brought you girls to the city today?”
“We went to see my father, Luci’s grand-père.” She glanced at her daughter. “Isn’t that right?”
Luci stared back at Perry.
“Well, that’s wonderful.” Perry didn’t know what to say. Here was Luci, who only moments before had been chattering away, right in front of him. And the lovely woman in the buttercup-yellow dress—it was Olivia. He felt himself flush.
“Are you all right?” Olivia asked.
Perry cleared his throat, and coughed. “Yes, just warm.”
Olivia reached into her purse. “Would you like a drink?” She held out a bottle of water.
Perry coughed again. He had not needed a drink, but suddenly his throat had turned to sand. He could feel the heat rise up around his collar,
and indeed into his cheeks. What was happening?
“Here, please.” Olivia thrust the water bottle in his direction and he took it, aware that others were glancing their way. Perry took a deep swallow, then another. The cold rush of water revived him.
“Better?” Olivia nodded encouragingly. Perry felt like an idiot; he did not need to be mothered. And yet he was grateful.
“Yes, thank you.” He looked at the half-drunk bottle of water in his hand, suddenly unsure of what to do. He couldn’t exactly return it to her, having used it. Could he?
“Keep it,” Olivia said, as if reading his mind.
The train stopped, and thankfully they were interrupted by passengers disembarking. Olivia returned her attention to her book. Luci, however, kept her eyes trained on Perry; he could feel the weight of her stare. When he looked back, their eyes locked. And then something happened. She smiled.
A signal chimed and the doors slid closed. The announcer came over the speaker: “Next stop, Mount Kisco.” Passengers rose, again blocking his view of Luci and Olivia. But when they cleared, there was Luci, still staring.
When the seat across from them vacated, Olivia turned to him. “Care to join us?”
Perry cleared his throat again. He glanced at Luci, then Olivia. Then back at the empty seats. He hated sitting on a freshly vacated seat. They always held the body warmth of the previous sitter. It was so unhygienic, so intimate. Perry cringed.
Olivia, however, pet the seat as if he were her dog. “Come. Chat.”
Perry wasn’t sure if it was the cool recesses of her large brown eyes. Or the peculiar smile he was certain her child had offered him. Or the liquid-yellow folds of her dress. But he found himself rising from his perfectly good seat, crossing the aisle, and sitting down across from the two of them. The vinyl cushion was indeed still warm. But Perry did not flinch. He turned to Luci. “So. How was your visit to see your grandpa?”
* * *
That night as he sat in bed, waiting again for Amelia to join him, he did not think about socks that might need re-sorting. Or about his myriad concerns over Jake. Or the Super Bowl halftime contract that was sitting in his briefcase downstairs, unfinished. Overcome by a wash of exhaustion, Perry closed his eyes. The color that flickered behind his lids was buttercup yellow.
Emma
This summer was turning out to be like every other summer. That was the problem.
Emma tromped downstairs, still in her pajamas, and through the formal foyer. The marble was cold beneath her bare feet. On the kitchen island was the usual note from her mother: Good morning, sleepyhead! Fruit, yogurt, and eggs in the fridge. Have fun at camp!
She was fifteen, heading into her junior year. And yet, aside from a summer leadership program at George Washington University at the end of August, Camp Candlewood was about the only thing she had going on. The internship had been her father’s idea. He was a GW alum, and the fact that his daughter had beat out thousands of applicants from some of the best schools in the country had tickled him greatly. How many times had she heard him mention it to friends and neighbors since the acceptance letter had come in the mail? At first it was sweet. Just stealing her father’s attention had been nice. But it was starting to wear on her. And she was beginning to have doubts. How much fun could it be to attend seminars and debates for a whole week in August? At least the camp job would be enjoyable.
When she was younger, she’d been a camper at the community clubhouse herself. It was where she learned to swim, sail, and play tennis. Now she’d be working there teaching neighborhood kids to do the same.
Emma’s position was as a counselor in training, or CIT, which meant she would be doing a lot of the gopher jobs. Craft prep. Walking a kid from the lake to the bathrooms. Lining up the kayaks and helping kids get their life vests on and off. Having been a camper herself, she already knew the ins and outs. And she loved working with little kids. She just hoped she wasn’t assigned to Amanda Hastings’s group.
She arrived at the clubhouse at 8:45, freshly showered and with her lunch packed. Already most of the other CITs were gathered around the main room. She scanned the area. Alicia came bounding over. “Hey, did you get my text?”
Like Emma, Alicia was in honors classes and did well in school. Also, like Emma, she wasn’t part of the cool crowd. But she was sarcastic and funny and had a thing for Adam Levine. “No, sorry. I was running late.”
“That’s cool. I was wondering if you want to swim after work.”
Which meant Emma’s house. “Sure. My parents won’t be home, though.”
Alicia’s parents were still of the mind that an adult needed to be around at all times if they went down to the lake. Emma’s father shared the same concern, but the thing was he was never around. So he asked that she text before she swam and immediately after. But since he was always in a meeting of some kind, it was another one of his useless rules.
“We can bring our towels down to the dock and do pedis.” Emma glanced down at her freakishly pale feet and bare nails. “I forgot to do mine.”
Alicia rolled her eyes. “Oh look, the princess has arrived.”
Emma glanced up in time to see Amanda Hastings breeze into the rec room. The boys playing Ping-Pong paused. She was wearing the shortest white shorts, and already her skin was a golden bronze. Emma groaned. She couldn’t see from there, but she was sure Amanda’s toenails were freshly painted. Probably Kiss My A’s red.
“Who wears white shorts to camp?” Alicia said.
A handful of girls surrounded Amanda, and they squawked together.
“She can afford to. We’re the ones who do the dirty work. I pray I’m not assigned to her.”
“Yeah, me too. That’d be a summer killer.”
The office door opened and the camp director, Bob Kline, came out. He was a textbook camp director, with a whistle around his neck and his camp hat pulled down over his eyes. Most of the kids had nicknamed him Smokey the Bear.
Bob called everyone in. It was the usual rigmarole of rules, expectations, and safety. Alicia and Emma were not in the same group, but neither were they with Amanda Hastings. Her two CITs were Brandon Fisher and Alex Cummings. Both cute sophomores looked like they’d won the lottery when their names were called out. Alicia whispered, “They think they’re lucky. But she will treat them like slaves.”
They were about to break up into their groups to head down to the lake for a kayak test when the screen door slapped shut. Emma looked up. Sully McMahon stood in the doorway.
“What’s he doing here?”
Like Alicia, Sully didn’t live in the private neighborhood or belong to the Club. Unlike Alicia, as far as Emma knew, he didn’t have any connections to the Club who would’ve sponsored him for the summer position. Unless…
Emma watched Amanda pop up off the bench and wave. “Sully! Over here.”
But Bob Kline beat her to it. “Mr. McMahon?” he barked. “How nice of you to join us.”
To Emma’s surprise Sully went right up to Bob Kline. “Sorry, Mr. Kline. I got behind a bus and was stuck in traffic.”
Bob Kline didn’t want to hear it. “Then you need to get up earlier. If you’re late again, don’t bother coming in.”
Emma watched as Sully stood toe-to-toe with the camp director. “It won’t happen again,” he said. Emma stared straight ahead as Sully ducked past her. If he noticed her or recognized her from the dock the day before, he didn’t show it.
Behind her, Emma heard Amanda whisper to Sully. “Bob’s a douchebag. Don’t let him bother you.”
“Nah, I was late.”
They spent the morning doing CPR training and reviewing water safety in small groups. For the most part it was focused work, and Emma had to pay attention. But she stole occasional glances across the beach to Sully’s group. Sully had been assigned to a senior, Tucker Owens. Tucker was a football player at school and, like Amanda, popular. The two seemed to like each other. The other CIT in that group was Brad Adams. Brad was shy and quie
t, and not at all outdoorsy. His freckled skin was untouched by the sun, and he ate lunch alone at a picnic table in the shade with his book. “Poor Brad,” Alicia said, as they finished their sandwiches. They were sitting on an overturned kayak by the grass. “I wouldn’t want to be in that group.”
“Sully seems nice enough,” Emma allowed. She tore off a piece of bread crust and tossed it to a little sparrow who hovered nearby.
Alicia eyed her. “Seriously? He kind of loves himself. Like the rest of them.”
Sully was standing at the edge of the water looking out across the lake. Emma watched as he bent to pick up a rock and flicked it across the surface. It skipped five times before disappearing into the inky water. “I don’t know. He seems okay.”
She ignored Alicia’s curious gaze. Now was not the time to mention the Wild Turkey under her bed. She’d only taken it out once after retrieving it from the bushes. When she opened it and sniffed, she’d winced. Who would want to drink that stuff? Ever since, it had sat under her bed like a secret. At first, she was scared her parents might find it. But she didn’t want to get rid of it, either. Technically it wasn’t hers. And what would she say if they wanted it back?
Briefly, she’d wondered if they’d pull into her driveway to get it back. She imagined Amanda Hastings’s blond hair whipping out behind her like a flag as her BMW roared up the driveway. But that was ridiculous. So she’d held on to it and waited for some kind of sign. Only now here they were at camp, and none of that group had even glanced in her direction. They probably had plenty of other bottles of booze. They’d probably forgotten all about it. As she watched Amanda laughing with the counselors, a wave of embarrassment washed over her. She’d been a dumping ground for evidence. Sully would never come up to her and ask for it back.
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