“Sounds hellish,” I say.
“Indeed.”
“You know what would help?”
“What?”
I lift up my empty margarita glass. “One of these.”
“Oh, no. I can’t. I’m not drinking.”
When you are thirty-two, and you are a woman, and you suddenly stop drinking, it can mean only one thing.
“Are you . . . ?” I look at her belly, hidden behind Ivan, who has his thumb in his mouth and the kind of heavy-lidded blank stare kids get seconds before falling asleep.
She looks down at her midsection and then back up at me. “Oh, no. No, no, no. Not that. I have my hands full already with this one.” She gives Ivan a squeeze. He snuggles deeper into her embrace, and then he’s out.
Having never had a boy, I think all boys are handfuls. I’m not saying Clementine was a perfect child, but she played quietly with toys that mimicked real life—houses, buses, schools, farms and little plastic figures to inhabit these places, onto which her primary goal seemed to be imposing a sense of order. When Ivan or other boys play, they typically want to smash, crush and kill. This is a big generalization, I know, but look at that cushion. Clem never would have wiped her sticky hands on a couch cushion. She would have reached into my bag for a wet wipe or found a sink, or, more likely, she would have skipped the mango altogether because she hated few things more than having sticky hands.
“I’m on a new health regimen.” Ingrid kicks off her clogs and pivots on the couch, moving Ivan with her, bringing her long legs up and stretching them out. Her toes are painted sky blue. I meant to get a pedicure before leaving, but we needed a new suitcase, and Clem needed a new bathing suit, and I had to arrange for someone to feed the cat, and also there’s the matter of my book deadline that came and went two months ago. “My nutritionist has me off sugar and alcohol.”
I don’t understand why you’d need to hire a nutritionist to tell you to avoid sugar and alcohol. That seems like basic, entry-level stuff. “She took you off sugar and alcohol right before a vacation?”
“It’s a he. And it’s been a few weeks, actually.”
“But . . . why?” I also don’t understand why someone with Ingrid’s body would consult a nutritionist in the first place.
“Oh, just general health. I’ve been tired. Lacking energy. A little foggy.” I want to say—Welcome to your thirties, or Welcome to motherhood, or Just wait, it only gets worse—but after my last comment, I don’t trust myself to sound appropriately jokey. “He’s got me on proteins and limited complex carbohydrates,” she continues. “I think it’s actually working.”
Whatever Ingrid is or isn’t drinking, is or isn’t eating, shouldn’t have any impact whatsoever on my capacity to fully embrace my fuck it I’m on vacation attitude and fulfill my destiny of gaining five pounds in the next seven days.
“Well, that’s good,” I say. “At least it’s working.”
“And it’s been great for my writing,” she says, managing to braid her hair expertly while lying down beneath a sleeping child. “My word count has been off the charts since I started. Or at least off the charts for me. I know there are people who do three thousand words a day and I’ll never be one of those people, but I’m hitting almost a thousand, even on the days when I have to pick up Ivan early from preschool, so for that alone it’s been worth the deprivation.”
It never takes Ingrid long to bring up writing. It’s my cue to offer advice as the seasoned YA novelist with three books published and a fourth that’s two months overdue. But I haven’t written anything in ages so my word count is roughly zero, and also, I’d do anything to delay the inevitable ask of would I consider sending the draft of her book to my agent when she’s done, so I change the subject.
“Why is it that all children look like angels when they’re sleeping?” I nod toward Ivan. It’s true. His shaggy blond hair frames his face, his cheeks red from heat, his long dark lashes, the blue-gray tint of his eyelids. It occurs to me that I haven’t seen Clem’s closed eyelids in years. I no longer know what she looks like when she sleeps.
Ingrid laughs. “Because looks are deceiving.”
* * *
• • •
I’M A BIG BELIEVER in unpacking. I don’t care if the vacation is for only one night; I always put my clothes away in drawers, my toiletries into bathroom cabinets, and my suitcase in a hidden spot so it can’t serve as a reminder that too soon it will need repacking.
Peter does not share this compulsion. He’d live out of a suitcase for months. The upshot is that I inevitably end up unpacking for him because the sight of his suitcase is just as disruptive to me as the sight of my own.
Once I have everything put away neatly and our luggage tucked under the bed, I change into my tankini and the new pink gauzy cover-up I bought when I took Clem bathing suit shopping at Nordstrom. The department where she found her suit and I found the cover-up is for “juniors,” but I convinced myself I could pull it off by choosing to take Clem’s silence as approval.
I put the expensive sunblock on my face and the cheap stuff on my body. My complexion tends toward olive, yet I try and model sun safety for my daughter who gets her fairness from her father. More than a few times when Clementine was younger I was mistaken for the nanny. People saw my dark hair and brown eyes and my pale golden child, and things just didn’t add up. Now that she’s older, and she is getting my high cheekbones, I can see the ways in which she is starting to look (just a little) like a more beautiful version of me. But Clem rejects this observation wholeheartedly.
I finish by applying the sunblock to the tops of my feet, the one place I do tend to burn, and then reach into the drawer for a hair band before remembering that although I didn’t get that pedicure, I did manage to get my hair cut just short enough that I can’t wear it up anymore. I told my stylist to go for something a little edgy, but instead I walked out with a full-on suburban-mom bob.
Peter is lying on the bed, reading his book, still in his clothes from the flight. His eyes look like Ivan’s did just before he passed out with his thumb in his mouth.
“Aren’t you going to come down to the pool?” I ask.
“Eventually.”
“But everyone is headed there.”
He puts his book down on his chest. He looks me up and down. “I like that thingy you’re wearing.”
“It’s a cover-up.”
“Come here.” I walk closer. He takes the edge and lifts it, examining my tankini underneath. “I like the suit, too. You didn’t wear the one I hate. The one with the built-in skirt that looks like something my mother would wear.”
“I didn’t even pack it. Happy birthday.”
He smiles, takes my wrist and pulls me down onto the bed next to him. His shirt is still damp with sweat and he smells. “Take a nap with me.”
“Come to the pool with me.” I try to wriggle out of his embrace, but he has me in a tight lock.
“You’re a bully,” he says.
“And you’re lazy.”
“And a little bit misanthropic. Don’t forget that.” He kisses me quickly with the first hint of what will be a full beard by the time our week comes to an end. Forget a five o’clock shadow—Peter grows stubble by noon, and he didn’t bother to shave yesterday in anticipation of our trip. His beard will come in white, just like his thick head of hair. He went white before I met him, somewhere in his early twenties, so he long ago made his peace with it. I don’t tolerate it on my own head—I packed a brown touch-up stick for my roots that looks like a lipstick and doesn’t really work—but I do love his white hair. I always have.
“Want one?” Peter is holding out a half-eaten pack of Life Savers. Butter rum. My favorite flavor. Peter always buys a pack of Life Savers for each of us before we board a flight. It’s a strange superstition he inherited from his grandmother that we have fully adopted i
n our family. We suck on them as the plane takes off and believe that this small act guarantees us safe passage.
I open my mouth and he pops one in.
“Hey,” he whispers in my ear. “Do you think Richard Nixon did it with Pat in this bed?”
“I’m pretty sure when Richard Nixon stayed here he got the master suite with the rain forest shower and volcanic tub.”
Peter gives me a little shove and I stand up. I grab my hat and sunglasses. “I’m going to go sit by the pool.”
“I’ll be down in a few.” I know this means it’ll be at least an hour, probably more. He’ll nap, he’ll spend an inordinately long time in the bathroom, he’ll probably pick up the New Yorker from the desk where I left a copy and stand in the middle of the bedroom reading an article from beginning to end. It doesn’t matter. This is vacation, and the whole purpose of this particular sort of vacation is that there is no corralling to do. Everyone can and should move about at his or her own pace. Except for showing up to the dinner table at the agreed-upon hour, there is nowhere anybody has to be at any particular time.
“No hurry,” I say. He likes this. The vacation version of me. He takes a pillow from my side of the bed, props it under his head and goes back to his book.
* * *
• • •
CLEM IS STILL STARING at her phone, but she’s not on FaceTime with Sean, she’s scrolling through whatever app she’s into these days. She doesn’t ever email, or use Facebook, because, as she’s pointed out, “I’m not, like, a hundred years old.” I follow her on Instagram and Snapchat. There are YouTubers whose channels she subscribes to and sites she combs for deals on vintage T-shirts. She still texts with some of her friends and obviously with Sean, but I notice that she texts far less frequently than she used to. I’ve learned from reading about teenagers, which I do because I have one and because writing about them is my vocation, that there are new apps and sites and ways to communicate and share information that I can’t see or uncover, even though, like any good parent, I try to keep a close eye on everything she does online.
Solly is the only other person down at the pool. He’s sporting a straw fedora and American flag swim trunks. He has a fresh margarita and some sort of toasted sandwich on a plate with tortilla chips.
“It’s a torta,” he says, holding it out toward me. “And it might be the most delicious thing I’ve ever put in my mouth. I stopped in the kitchen. I met Luisa. She doesn’t speak English and I don’t speak Spanish but I was able to communicate, through the international language of gesturing to my stomach and making a pouty face, that I was nursing a monster hunger. And so she whipped this up for me and changed my life forever because, I’m telling you: She is a fucking magician. Here. Have a bite. Don’t ask me what’s in it because I don’t know and I don’t care.”
“He tried to get me to taste it, too, and I was, like, ewww,” Clem says without looking up from her phone.
I walk over to Solly and I take a bite of his sandwich. He’s right. It’s delicious.
“Shall I have my new best friend, Luisa, make you one?”
I look at my watch. It’s 3:15. In an email exchange with the rental company we settled on dinner for our first night to be served at 6:30. I figured we’d all be tired from traveling and might want to turn in early.
“No, thanks.”
I want to bug Clem to put down her phone, to make eye contact and conversation, to maybe turn her chair around to face the gorgeous private beach and calm waters of the bay, but I decide to give her a one-day pass. Good for today only. Tomorrow I will nag. I will threaten to take the phone away. I will hand her one of the three YA novels I brought along that I know she’d love if she’d only give them a try. None of them was written by me, because I know how she feels about my books, but two of the titles are by writers I know a little bit, and they are all three about teen love and angst, which she’s in the thick of with Sean, so she’ll relate. She’s the kind of kid who wants a mirror in a book rather than a window. Assuming, of course, she wants the book at all.
“Jenna, you’ve outdone yourself. My hat is off to you.” Solly takes his hat off, then puts it back on again. “This place is spectacular.”
“Thanks, Sol.” I settle into the chair next to him, across the shallow end of the kidney from Clem. “You only turn fifty once.”
“Thank God for that.” He lowers his lounge chair and turns his face up to the sun. “You know . . . I’ve been thinking . . . as I reach this midpoint in my life—”
“Midpoint? Just how long are you planning on living, Solly?”
“Don’t be a buzz kill. I know that’s hard for you, but try, okay?” He squeezes my knee affectionately. “As I was saying, as I reach this midpoint in my life, I realize that these are the moments that matter. Time with the people I love the most. In a place that is beautiful. With a sandwich that’s sublime. What could possibly be better?”
“Aw, fucknuggets.” Clem tosses her phone onto the towel by her feet. “The wi-fi is down.”
“Clementine. Language.”
“Please, Mom. Spare me. Solly just dropped an F bomb, like, thirty seconds ago.”
“You’re sixteen. Solly is fifty.”
“Solly is still forty-nine!” He raises a toast with what’s left of his margarita.
Malcolm unlatches the gate from the beach. I’d assumed he was holed up in his room, probably on a device similar to Clem’s, but no, he’s already been out for a walk. He’s holding a starfish in his hand.
“Whatcha got there, champ?” Solly asks.
I think I see Malcolm bristle a little. After all, he’s seventeen. Not five. And Solly’s forced camaraderie can annoy anyone, so why shouldn’t it annoy the son he sees only twice a year, the son for whom he’s done little to earn that camaraderie?
Malcolm holds up the starfish. “It’s for Ivan. I thought he’d like it.”
“Oh, he will. Knowing him, he’ll probably try throwing it like one of those Japanese star-shaped weapon things.”
“A shuriken.”
“A what?”
I’m about to tell Malcolm to rinse his feet so the pool won’t clog, but I don’t need to. He’s already found the faucet and he’s doing it on his own.
“A shuriken. That’s what those Japanese star-shaped weapon things are called.”
“Look who’s a smarty-pants.”
“I take martial arts, Dad.”
“Of course. Of course. I know that.”
“Clem? Did you say hello to Malcolm?” I ask. “It’s been a long time since you two have seen each other. You know, you used to bathe together.”
“Yeah, Mom, you’ve only mentioned that, like, a thousand times. And I saw him earlier on his way out. Of course I said hello.”
“She did,” Malcolm says. “I can confirm it. And I can confirm that I said hello back. And I can also confirm that we used to bathe together, because my mom has a picture of us in the bath.”
It’s nice to hear that this old picture of the kids survived Maureen’s move to her new apartment with her new boyfriend, Bruno, whom she has told me she will never marry because marriage is bullshit.
“I know that picture,” Clem says. “We have it, too. You had an Afro.”
I’m not sure it’s still okay to say Afro, especially in the presence of someone whose mother is African American, so I shoot Clem a look.
“Why are you staring at me like that?”
“Nothing. Never mind.”
“Because I said Afro? For your information, Mother, Afro is not a bad word.”
Malcolm laughs and rubs his hand over his short-cropped curls. “That was an epic Afro.”
“Yeah, but . . . I think I like your hair better now,” Clem says, looking at him from behind her sunglasses. He’s shirtless, with baggy khakis rolled up to his knees. He’s lean, but muscled, with a t
attoo on his right calf, some kind of swirling pattern in black ink that barely stands out against his light brown skin. I can’t believe he got it with Maureen’s approval. Can you get a tattoo without parental approval? I make a mental note to look that up.
Malcolm takes the chair next to Clem, turning it around so he’s facing the ocean. She gets up and turns hers around, too.
“It’s nice to see them together again,” Solly says. “Feels like the old days.”
* * *
• • •
EVERYONE SHOWS UP TO DINNER on time. The table is set with multicolored napkins, blue and white Talavera pottery plates and a large pitcher filled with birds-of-paradise. I wear the nicest dress I packed, the one I planned on saving for Peter’s birthday on Wednesday. I bring my pashmina in case I’m not warm enough. I worried about all this openness when I studied the website. Doesn’t it ever get cold? What about rain? The description said only something vague about the house being built for comfort as well as unsurpassed luxury, which I took to mean that nobody is going to freeze to death at Villa Azul Paraiso.
Roberto and Enrique stand ready to take our drink orders, freshly slicked back hair and tropical flowers pinned to the collars of their white coats.
“Please.” Roberto gestures to the open balcony. “Enjoy the sunset and the appetizers before we sit down for the dinner.”
I suppose I should make very clear here that this is not a level of service with which I have any sort of familiarity. At home, I prepare our dinners. Peter can step in if the need arises with an excellent three-bean Texas chili and a perfectly passable repertoire of soups. At home, nobody offers us drinks—Passion fruit or hibiscus margarita, anyone? At home, nobody beckons us to the balcony to enjoy the sunset while we nibble on mini shrimp tostadas. At home, nobody sets such a whimsical dinner table. We do have someone who comes to clean our house once a week—Alice, a fortysomething cranky musician from Seattle who never figured out a plan B and resents every minute she spends folding our underwear—but that’s as far as we go with the domestic staff. So while I may be enjoying this level of service, I’m not 100 percent comfortable with it.
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