Bodies of Water

by T. Greenwood

  “What’s going on, Eva?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Teddy’s been saying things. He worries.”

  I felt my skin go cold and clammy, the blood draining from my head and pooling in my stomach and hips. “About what?” I could barely get my words out.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, dismissively, brushing her hand in front of her face.

  “Eva,” I said sternly. I needed to know what he was saying.

  “About other men,” she said, rolling her eyes and grimacing. “That’s why he drives to work. Why he won’t leave me with a car. He’d rather pay twenty dollars a month to park his car than take a chance that I might drive off and find some other man.”

  “Are you kidding?” I said. “What does he think you do with Johnny and Rose while you’re off having these affairs?”

  She looked at me and laughed. “You know that’s what every man is looking for. A woman with two little kids in tow. Very sexy,” she said, giggling.

  “Nothing says romance like Cheerios in your brassiere,” I said, starting to howl with both relief and laughter. “What does he think you’re going to do in Vermont? Find some handsome farmer to run off with?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, her smile fading. She shook her head. “I need you and Frankie to talk to him, Billie. Convince him this will be good for the children. For me. Tell him he doesn’t have anything to worry about.” When she touched my hand, it was as though I’d been struck by lightning.

  I had never spoken alone to Ted Wilson. I avoided Ted like I avoided most things that frightened me, especially after the camping trip. But Frankie wasn’t afraid of Ted Wilson, and I would have done anything to get him to let Eva come to Vermont. And so the plan was hatched.

  “You ought to take Ted to a game,” I said to Frankie. “Maybe if he felt like he had a friend in the neighborhood, he wouldn’t feel so alone when Eva comes to Vermont. And you know how much happier we’d be up there. The girls would have playmates. I’d have someone to keep me company.” I felt my skin growing hot as I said this and had to look away.

  Frankie worked with a guy who had season Sox tickets, and when he couldn’t make it to a home game would offer them to us. I figured this would be a good place to start.

  “I’ll give it a shot,” said Frankie, shrugging. And surprisingly, he came home that very afternoon with a pair of tickets for that weekend’s game against the Cleveland Indians.

  On Saturday morning, I watched them drive off in Ted’s car, Frankie looking a little like he’d been kidnapped, and I hoped for the best.

  They didn’t get home until almost midnight. I was dead asleep when I heard their voices outside the window. It became clear as soon as I came out of the heavy fog of slumber that they were both thoroughly inebriated. I knew this could be either a good thing or a terrible thing. Frankie’s voice echoed loudly through the neighborhood, and then I heard our garage door opening. “Oh, sweet Jesus,” I thought, knowing this could only mean trouble.

  I got out of bed and peered out the window at the street below, illuminated only dimly by the gas lamp streetlights. Frankie had a baseball bat in one hand, and for a moment, as he marched back across the street to the Wilsons’ house, I thought he was about to beat the sense out of Ted. But then I saw Ted coming out of his own garage with a leather mitt on one hand and a baseball in the other. They met in the street, and the next thing I knew they were playing ball. At midnight, in the middle of the street.

  The lights on the Bouchers’ porch went on. The lights at the Bakers’ lit up. And then Old Man Castillo was out on his porch and screaming bloody murder. “Take it somewhere else, you goddamned drunks!”

  Frankie and Ted roared with laughter and disappeared into the field behind our house. From upstairs, I watched them play a crazy, drunken version of baseball, using some flagstones as bases, until, as expected, I heard the crack of the ball against the bat and then the crack of the ball against my dining room window. The sound of glass shattering was followed by silence and then one big “Oh shit!”

  And then they were tromping through my azalea bushes and plucking the broken pieces of glass out of the grass. I would have been livid, but it seemed like our harebrained plan had actually worked. Because then they were walking back toward the front of the house together, and Frankie was patting Ted on the back.

  I don’t know what Frankie said to Ted that night, and I didn’t care. I only cared that one week after the girls and I arrived in Vermont that August, Ted’s red Caddie pulled up into the grass driveway by the camp and he presented Eva, Donna, Sally, Johnny, and Rose on the doorstep of the camp like a gift.

  That first night at the lake, the kids were all exhausted. Johnny was so tired he fell asleep in the kitchen nook, nodding off into his plate of spaghetti. Ted carried him out to the living room and laid him on the couch. The girls curled up together on cots, and I helped Eva set up the playpen for Rose. I was too afraid to even look at Eva as I bustled about. I knew that if I did, my face would give away every emotion, all that wild longing and aching and happiness that I was feeling. I was terrified that Ted would see through me.

  “Time to hit the hay!” he said finally. I had given them the big bed upstairs where I usually slept and made my own bed on the porch. He motioned for Eva, who led the way up the stairs, goosing her and she giggling and slapping at his hands, as they disappeared up into the loft.

  I couldn’t listen. It would have killed me if I’d heard even a sigh from Eva. And so I went out to the lake and swam until I was certain that they had fallen asleep. And later in the quiet camp, I lay awake for hours, listening to the sounds of their slumber, the old iron bed creaking every time Ted rolled over. He snored, and his snores were voluminous, like an animal’s. I didn’t know how Eva got any sleep at all at home. Morning couldn’t come quickly enough. Ted wouldn’t be staying; he had to get back to Boston for work and then we’d have the place to ourselves until Frankie came two weeks later to visit, and then he would bring them back home with him.

  I was the last one up the next morning, having finally been consumed by sleep in the final hours before dawn.

  Eva had made blueberry pancakes for breakfast, and the kitchen smelled heavenly. She stood at the stove, flipping the next batch of pancakes on the griddle. Ted came up behind her, as if I weren’t there, as if the kids weren’t all piled into the kitchen nook. He stood behind her, meaty hands wrapped around her waist, thick chin resting on her shoulder. He whispered something in her ear, and I felt my skin flush. Eva shook her head, and I longed to know what he’d said to her. I felt my knees go liquid with jealousy. With fear. For one awful moment, I wondered if I’d only been entertaining some wild dream.

  “You sure you’ll be all right out here in the sticks?” Ted asked then, addressing the question to both of us.

  “We’ll be fine,” she said, looking at me and rolling her eyes, as if she sensed that I was feeling left out. I was so grateful for this acknowledgment I could have cried.

  Rose crawled across the floor and pulled herself up, clinging to Ted’s pant legs, though her presence didn’t seem to register with Ted, who was still holding on to Eva. Rose was almost a year old now and just starting to walk. I’d moved everything at her eye level that might hurt her up to higher ground. I’d put tape across the outlets and made sure all of the cleaning supplies were out of her reach.

  Finally noticing Rose, Ted released Eva and reached down to scoop her up. “Well, if it isn’t Rosie O’Grady,” he said, gently lifting her up and tossing her in the air. She squealed with delight and then he set her down, patting her diapered bottom as if to send her on her way.

  Ted turned to Johnny then, who was running a Matchbox car across a mountain of pancakes and along a maple syrup road. “Johnny, you going to take care of my girls?” he asked, and Johnny nodded.

  “Well, all-righty then. I’ll be off,” he said, to no one in particular.

  “You’ve got the number here, right?” I aske
d him.

  “Sure do. And maybe I’ll try to pop on by for another visit. Sure is pretty here. Slept like a baby last night.”

  Now it was my turn to roll my eyes.

  There really wasn’t enough room for all of us. I knew this would be the case, but hadn’t really come up with a good plan for how we would accommodate all of these bodies for two whole weeks. Finally, we decided to give the sleeping porch over to the girls, two on the daybed and two on cots. Johnny would sleep on the couch in the living room. And Eva and I would share the large bed in the loft, with Rose in a playpen.

  My heart trilled like a plucked guitar string, vibrating endlessly at the thought of being so close to Eva each night, of waking up to the smell of her instead of the stink of Frankie’s wine-soaked skin. I was excited and terrified, and that entire first day I felt like I was living inside of a dream. A dream inside of a dream. A dream from which I couldn’t bear to wake up.

  The children, of course, were in heaven as well. After a week at the lake with only each other for company, my girls were thrilled to have someone else to play with. And I was so grateful not to have to listen to their bickering anymore. Johnny, as expected, was captivated by the tree house and quickly claimed it as his own. There was also a little boy staying at a camp down the road about Johnny’s age who, like a dog, sniffed out his playmate only minutes after we shooed them outside to play. That first afternoon after we sent Ted off with sandwiches and a cold beer for the ride home, Eva and I set up the lawn chairs on the front lawn, laid down a blanket covered in toys for Rosie, and collectively sighed.

  “I love it here,” she said, as if speaking to the lake. “I don’t think I’m ever going home.”

  “You don’t have to,” I said. I meant it as a joke, but it came out sounding serious and strange. “I mean, not for a couple of weeks anyway.”

  “Thank you for having us,” Eva said, and reached for my hand.

  Every moment of the day felt somehow fraught with import. Time slowed. Every minute was imbued with the distinct possibility of something enormous. But somehow, the anticipation of whatever it was I hoped for, longed for, was almost enough. The suspense was exquisite. I could have lingered in these charged moments forever.

  That night, we built a fire in the stone fire pit that Frankie had helped Gussy’s Frank make a few summers before. The kids cooked hot dogs on long sticks they found in the woods behind the camp, and then toasted marshmallows. Ted and Eva had picked up some sweet corn from a farm stand on their way up, and we ate all ten ears dripping in butter and crunchy with salt. Eva and I drank cold beers we kept in a bucket of ice, and the children played. There was something so delicious about all of this. Even the air tasted sweet.

  Later, when the air grew chilly and the children were ready to collapse, we tucked them all into their respective, makeshift beds and returned outside to the yard. The picnic table was still littered with dirty plates and crumpled napkins and empty soda bottles. Rose’s toys lay scattered across the lawn, and the children’s bikes lay like hulking metal skeletons on the grass. We each had three empty bottles of beer next to our seats.

  Eva stood up and went to the picnic table. It was dark, but the moon was nearly full. It reflected brightly in the still surface of the water. Her silhouette was familiar but new in this backdrop. She was wearing a pair of red Capri slacks and a white sleeveless blouse, but she’d kicked off her shoes earlier. It was hard to believe that it had been less than a year since she’d had Rose. Her waist had returned to its tiny circumference, though her breasts remained large. Her body was everything mine was not: soft, curvy, inviting.

  She started to clear the dirty plates, and I shook my head. “You don’t have to do that,” I said.

  “Oh, I don’t mind.”

  “No,” I said, my heart swelling with something I barely recognized: a sense of defiance, of freedom. “I mean, we don’t have to do any of that. Cleaning up. Washing dishes. We’re on vacation. We can make up our own rules.”

  She looked at me suspiciously, but I nodded, feeling suddenly bold. “Rule number one: No cleaning the dinner table until morning.”

  She stood back and put her hands on her hips. “Okay then, rule number two: Bikes and toys should only be put away in the event of rain.”

  “Rule number three,” I declared, my heart pounding hard, my throat thick. “Every evening must end with a swim.” I was thinking about the night at the Rippling River Campground, wishing I’d joined her in that freezing water. Here was my second chance. I also wanted to remain in this place, in this twilit aching place, for just a little longer.

  “I like that rule,” she said, smiling at me warmly.

  And so we swam.

  This is what I remember about that night: the warm surface of the lake, the freezing, murky water below, the way it took my breath away, the way my heart stopped beating when I felt the cold shock of it on my legs, my hips, my waist. I remember the sharp rocks at the bottom and the way they hurt my feet, the minnows that tickled my skin. And I remember Eva. Eva like some sort of mermaid, dipping and diving and surfacing. Her hair, relieved of its chignon, running down her back like dark water. I remember the sound of our voices echoing even though we were trying so hard to be quiet. I remember feeling my body grow in strength in the water, as it always did when I was swimming; water made me feel powerful. Invincible. Sure of myself. If not for the water, if not for the welcoming embrace of the lake, I might not have done what I did.

  Eva swam to me, under water, teasing. She didn’t think I could see her, as her body moved stealthily beneath the dark surface. I knew she intended to surprise me, to startle me. And I couldn’t see her, but strangely, I felt her. I knew exactly where she was. I could sense her body the way I could always sense where my girls were in the house. It was instinctual, animal.

  And so when she broke the surface of the water, just inches from me, I had to feign surprise. To pretend that I hadn’t known she was coming. That all of this was coming.

  “Boo!” she whispered loudly. Water dripped down her face, her eyelashes were stuck together with it. Her lips were wet, parted slightly, coyly mocking me as I pretended to catch my breath.

  If it hadn’t been for the water, for the darkness that concealed us, for the safety I always felt when submerged, I wouldn’t have dared. But we were swimming, our bodies no different from the lake. We were somehow a part of it, and so my hands reached out and grasped her waist, that tiny little waist. I could feel the small bones of her hips just beneath my grasp. She was weightless, so when I pulled, her body floated toward me without resistance.

  And then her body was pressing against mine. I could feel her breasts, so much larger than my own, unfamiliar, soft and yielding, pressing against me, my arms holding on as though she might just slip through and be carried away by the water. And so I held on, and she held on, and then I was burying my face in that soft place. (I remember the smell of the lake, after all this time; I can still smell the incredible scent of the lake on her skin.) And our lips, finally, finally were touching. I was so hungry. Like a prisoner given only gruel for years and years suddenly being presented with filet mignon. And she returned my kisses with her own fierce hunger. I was crying, I think, though it could have only been the lake. And she was crying too. I could feel the shudder and tremble in her chest. Later, inside the covers of our shared bed, I dreamed we were still swimming, the soft sheets lighter than water. And the entire night I held on, like someone afraid of drowning.

  The following two weeks with Eva at Lake Gormlaith passed somehow both slowly and in an instant. Normal time was suspended without the usual obligations and concerns: without men, without lunches to pack and meals to make and arguments to be had. We were breaking every single rule that usually prevailed at home in Hollyville. We were living in an upside-down world, a world of our own making. I even told my mother we wouldn’t be able to visit, that we had company. I didn’t want anything, or anyone, to steal even a moment of this fleeting, fl
oating time.

  Our days were sun-dipped, Kodachrome days. When I recollect that summer now, I see only the dazzling constellations of light on the water, Eva holding her face to the sun, her body patterned by the shadow of leaves. I see the children running one by one down the old wooden dock, leaping into the water. Carefree. I see my own heart swelling inside my chest, like a buoy, holding me up.

  We clung to each other in the mornings, quietly, as the children stirred in the other room. We were both afraid, though we didn’t ever say it, that one of the children would hear us. We were so careful. Vigilant. And somehow, this only heightened our longing. It was like a game, how quietly we could kiss. How silently we could make love. And instead of getting up and making breakfast for the children, we gave Chessy and Donna domain in the kitchen, where they concocted children’s ideas of breakfast: French toast every day, peaches gritty with sugar, giant glasses of chocolate milk. We told them that we were on vacation and wanted to sleep in. Under covers, we moved so slowly, the bed barely creaked. And we listened to their laughter, relied on their laughter, to mask the sounds that sometimes escaped us.

  After breakfast, while the children played outside, we tidied up whatever mess was left from the day before and then retired to our respective chairs on the front lawn in our bathing suits. But while Eva quickly turned the golden color of a ripe peach, I simply watched as a thousand more freckles appeared like scattered constellations on my skin. At night, Eva played connect the dots with her tongue.

  We watched the sun move across the sky, in and out of clouds. On the rainy days, we sent the children to the tree house and hunkered down inside.

  We read. Alone and to each other. She whispered lines of E. E. Cummings and Pablo Neruda into my hair. We drank beer in the middle of the day and took naps whenever we felt sleepy. Once, we left Chessy and Donna to watch the little ones and took the boat out to the little island at the center of the lake and made love on the rocky shore beneath an enormous willow tree. It was a dangerous and breathless afternoon. But in the safety of the trees, I felt both safe and emboldened.