The Best of Enemies

by Jen Lancaster

  “Eat a dick, thundercunt. Or don’t. Nah, you wouldn’t. I bet that’s why Sean slept with me.” She whirls around and plants herself on the sidewalk, taking a highly aggressive posture. She’s acting just like that angry silverback gorilla the kids and I saw the last time we went to the zoo, thumping her chest and stomping the ground. Please, someone shoot this ape with a tranquilizing dart!

  I gasp, “My goodness, such language! I’m glad there are no children around to hear your potty mouth!” A couple of Betsy’s neighbors have to walk on the median to pass by us.

  Jack rolls her eyes. “No one cares what you have to say, Soccer Mom. Hey, don’t you have any balls to inflate? No? That must be why Sean picked me.” Then she grabs my wrist, squeezing the dickens out of it, and tells me, “Listen, I don’t want any of your shit because I’m here for Sars.”

  I gently take her other wrist, as though to calm her. We appear ready to do the fox-trot. Fortunately, I understand how to de-escalate a situation, having learned from raising boys. This conversation is getting out of hand and I want to make sure we’re both mellow, so I come in close to speak slowly and clearly. “Please, Jack, Betsy doesn’t need you starting yet another scene.”

  “And Sars doesn’t need some broke housewife sniffing around after her money,” she says. “That’s right, I learned all about your finances. I’m a famous reporter, you know.”

  Before I can defend myself, Betsy reaches us on the sidewalk. She throws herself between the middle of us, hugging and saying, “The only thing that’s keeping me from shattering into a million tiny pieces right now is seeing the two of you get along. Thank you. I understand the depth and breadth of this sacrifice. I love you both so much. Now let’s hurry home before the rain hits.”

  • • •

  Despite Jack’s terrible attitude on our walk over here, I pledge to not let her suck me into anything. I will be the adult here, even if she won’t.

  Betsy’s being so stoic, so strong. She barely shed a tear during the service. I admire her so. I thought I’d have to be her pillar, but she’s the one maintaining a brave facade for us. Right now, surrounded by so many people who love and support her, she has to feel buoyed, but I imagine once the last car pulls away, the impact will hit her. And I’ll be there for her, as long as it takes.

  I decide that I’m simply not going to think about Trip’s e-mail again. That’s the only way I can deal. Somehow it was a prank or a joke gone wrong. Perhaps a glitch in the system. Didn’t happen. Even if there were bad intentions on his part, nothing came of it. When Trip knew he was at the end, in those few precious remaining moments on the plane, I bet his thoughts were of his one great love, and not some unrequited crush.

  I’m done obsessing.

  It’s over. Moving on.

  “That you, Kitty?” Jack’s brother Bobby sits down next to me in the solarium. Rain falls in earnest now, running down the glass roof in rivulets, coming so thick and fast that the view of the lake is obscured. Earlier, the wind whipped so hard that the normally gentle waves of Lake Michigan bashed against the seawall, sending sprays upward of six feet.

  Bobby looks desperately uncomfortable in what are surely someone else’s clothes. The neck on his white dress shirt is too tight, so he’s left it unbuttoned behind his sloppily knotted tie, while his pant cuffs hang onto his shoes. Likely he’s not the only Jordan to have had assistance dressing today. “Been a while, huh? How ya doing?”

  One might imagine I despise the entire Jordan clan, but I don’t. Mr. Jordan is a jovial old soul. I’m embarrassed on the rare occasion I bump into Teddy (things went a bit too far too fast during our brief courtship) (before completely going sideways, I mean), but I don’t hold any animosity and he’s always pleasant. Bobby’s my favorite—he’s a genuinely nice person, and I wish I could have spent more time with him way back when. He’s always been kind. After the carnage known as the Fourth of July at Steeplechase, Bobby was the first to find a steak for my eye before he whisked Jack away. He’s good people. (John-John, I can take or leave.)

  I tell Bobby, “I’d be better if we weren’t here for my best friend’s husband’s funeral.”

  He clinks his beer against the glass of chardonnay I’ve been carrying but haven’t touched. “Word.” He takes a sip and the dense foam gets caught on his upper lip.

  “You’ve got a little . . .” I point to my lip.

  Bobby swipes at his mouth with the back of his wrist and I laugh because it’s the same unaffected gesture he’d have made twenty years ago. “Wait, that called for a napkin, didn’t it?” He begins to look around at the crowd in the other room. “Shit, did my dad see me do that?”

  “No one’s paying attention to us in here.” I lean in to stage-whisper, “Don’t worry, I won’t tell on you.”

  “Kool and the Gang.” He takes another pull on his beer. “Hey, how come you’re not drinking your wine? It’s bad luck not to take a sip after you toast.”

  “Not into wine today, I guess. Tastes bitter.”

  “Wait here.”

  He sets down his glass and trots off to the bar. A minute or so later, he returns with a highball filled with a creamy, iced concoction. “This is what I serve when people seem sad. I call it a Jordan Almond. Didn’t have crushed nuts for the rim, so you’ll have to pretend they’re there. Now we’ll toast again and then you won’t have bad luck.”

  I taste the blended drink, which is really more of an alcoholic Frappuccino. There are coffee undertones from the Kahlua and the rich, nuttiness of actual almonds from the Amaretto. Between the sugar and the alcohol, it feels like a hug in a glass.

  “This is delectable,” I tell him.

  “I normally hide some lychee nuts in there, too. Good source of vitamin C and they add a real nice perfume to the whole thing,” he says. “I don’t tell anyone I put ’em in because they’d just argue. They don’t know what’s good.”

  He and I chat about his adventures over the past few years. Seems like he’s been everywhere, even the beach I’m dying to see in Little Cayman. Said it’s one of his favorite places in the world.

  Sigh.

  Anxious for more travel-by-proxy, I ask, “Where are you off to next?” envisioning some new, exotic locale.

  He sets down his beer and begins to unbutton his shirtsleeves, rolling back the cuffs, as though he’s ready to really dig into our conversation. He was the best listener years ago, which worked well when I was such a talker. I notice he already ditched the sport coat after the service and figure it’s only a matter of time before the tie comes off, too. I always did appreciate his sincerity.

  He tells me, “I was in Nantucket when I heard about Trip. Gotta be honest, his death hit me pretty hard. We hadn’t met more than a dozen times and we weren’t best buds or anything. But something about him going out like that really made me reassess.”

  I wrap a napkin around my glass to catch the condensation. “How so?”

  “Well, there I was, doing my regular summer share house, working my bartending job, having a good time, like ya do.”

  I smile. “Like ya do,” I repeat.

  “Then here’s this guy on the screen and I’m all, ‘I know him.’ See, the networks are covering the story all over the place about his plane going down. Like, he mattered. His death was important enough to break into the baseball game. The Red Sox. On a Boston station. Trust me, that’s a big deal. So Trip dies, and he leaves so much behind—a wife and an industry and a home like this. He created this whole legacy, you know? Even though the both of us were close to the same age, he had, like, a permanence about his life.”

  Now that the napkin’s damp, I begin to roll little bits between my thumb and forefinger. “There isn’t a permanence about yours?”

  Bobby sighs and begins to pick at a loose thread on his pants. I see that it’s hard for him to sit still. Know the feeling. “Nah, not in any kind
of way. I thought, ‘I’m not tethered to anything.’ Being unattached always made me so happy, up until Trip’s passing. Didn’t know what else to do, so I packed up all my shit and came back here. Not planning to return to Nantucket this summer, and I’m not sure what’s next. Staying with Teddy and Terry until I figure it out. Being footloose has been the plan ever since I got done with college.”

  I touch his knee briefly. “Not to interrupt, but did you ever actually graduate?”

  “Yeah. With a 3.85, not that anyone believes me. The family was going through some stuff back then, so I didn’t want ’em all having to come out to Cali just to see me in a cap and gown. Should have, though, ’cause I’ve never heard the end of it.”

  “What was your major?”

  “Chemical engineering. That’s why I’m a great mixologist.”

  I’m surprised to hear this. Last I knew he was majoring in General Studies. “I had no idea! Quite impressive.”

  He waves me off. “Eh, it’s not. Originally I wanted to be a chemical engineer so I could make my own drugs. Didn’t. But could have.”

  We both laugh. “I miss being twenty-two,” I admit.

  Bobby sighs. “Yeah, but I’m perpetually twenty-two and that’s no great shakes, either. That’s why Trip dying hit me so hard. Makes me wonder if I didn’t miss something in my life of no house, no kids, no big job, no obligations.”

  I take another sip of my Jordan Almond. “Houses and obligations and jobs are overrated.”

  Bobby tilts his head and looks at me. I’d forgotten he has the same multicolor-eye thing as Jack. The gold and green and blue all swirl together in a crazy tapestry of color. “How so?”

  Bobby was always good people, and this conversation reconfirms it. He’s so guileless and without judgment or agenda that I find myself opening up to him, letting the real Kitty shine through all the exaggerated PTO President, SecretSquash, Super Mom veneers.

  “Consider yourself lucky that you didn’t get sucked into the matrix, Bob. Growing up on these towns along the lake, well, you know. You get what it was like here. We had expectations of what our lives should be like as adults. We’re the first generation who hasn’t actually done better than their parents and that’s . . . hard to swallow.” I wad up more napkin bits as I make this admission.

  He looks at me intently. “Hard to swallow how?”

  “For example, my husband and I didn’t want the crummy little bungalow in our price range. We wanted the nice five-bedroom place like our folks had. Actually, better than our folks had. Felt like we deserved it because it’s what everyone else has. So we overextended ourselves in order to keep up with our peer group and now I live in constant fear that it’s all going to come crashing down.”

  I glance down at the growing pile of shards on the floor.

  “Whoa,” I say lightly, trying to lessen the impact of the truth I’ve just spoken. “Not sure I’ve ever said any of that out loud. This drink must contain truth serum or something.”

  What’s going on with me? I haven’t even shared these thoughts with Betsy. Why am I comfortable enough to say this now? Is it that Bobby’s basically a big kid, so he feels nonthreatening?

  Bobby’s still intent on speaking seriously. “So you don’t own your stuff. Your stuff owns you?”

  “Exactly.” As we talk, I can feel my chest start to loosen, like my lungs aren’t being pinched in a vise quite so firmly. “You have to keep up around here or you’ll be a social pariah. God forbid you don’t have the best car or house or washer and dryer.”

  His eyes grow wide and I notice that tiny splotch of gray on the lowest part of his right iris. He used to call it his “paint spill.” “You don’t really compete over washing machines, right? That’s nuts.”

  I nod, remembering how much traction I gained when everyone saw my laundry room for the first time. “Believe it. Everything’s so competitive, even parenting. No, especially parenting. I mean, we go into debt to make sure our Littles have the right backpack, the right shoes, the right jeans, because if they don’t, they’ll be bullied.”

  Bobby finally removes his tie and shoves it in his pocket, the end flap still sticking out. The effect is that of his shirt blowing a raspberry. Did I not totally call it? “That sucks. I think we had it easier growing up.”

  “My God, yes, because we didn’t have the online component. Our bad behavior never ended up on Reddit or BuzzFeed or YouTube. Thing is, the nature of bullying has changed, too. Your kid isn’t safe anywhere. Used to be if someone didn’t like you at school, you go home, they can’t reach you. With social media, your kid can be harassed twenty-four-seven, across a dozen different platforms. The flip side is your child might be the bully, and a whole lot of parents are too involved trying to make enough money to buy the right backpack, shoes, and jeans to be around to keep that behavior in check.”

  I think about Brooke’s daughter, Avery, who’s already showing signs of turning Mean Girl. I worry for Kassie.

  Listening intently, Bobby nods. “And then there’s the whole privacy thing, right?”

  I drain my drink and fight the urge to lick the froth off the sides of the glass. “What do you mean?”

  “I meet people all the time when I’m tending bar. People talk to me like I’m a priest or hairdresser or something. Having a whole bar between us makes them feel safe. So they tell me about their lives. Most folks out there are well meaning, but they’re not content with just making sure their kids have needs met. They gotta put it all online. I know, because they show me their Facebook pages.”

  I swallow, my throat suddenly very dry.

  He goes on. “Like, it’s not enough to bring their kids to meet Mickey Mouse at Disneyland. They have to take a billion pictures, put ’em all over the Internet, and rub the vacation in everyone’s faces. I gotta wonder, at what point does the trip stop being about you and your family and start being about showing off to the rest of your timeline? It’s weird. That’s why I don’t do social media. Not my thing. Mostly I use the Internet for Skype and checking snow reports. I do like where they put captions on pictures of cats, too. My favorite is the one where the cat’s in a suit, all, ‘I should buy a boat.’ He’s holding a newspaper. Cracks me up.”

  I clear my throat. “Bobby, you know I have an online presence.”

  “Yeah, but you post about vegetables and stuff, right? You’re not making documentaries of yourself, selling your life off to the highest bidder, one picture at a time. You wouldn’t plaster your veggie site with shots of your kids because there are too many pervs out there living in their mom’s basement.” He stops himself. “Wait . . . shit. I currently live in a basement. You know what I mean.”

  I’m afraid I do know what he means.

  Bobby’s addressed a topic that I’ve preferred not to examine too closely. I was vehement about never publishing photos of the Littles online. But then I made this amazing fondant-covered Cowboy and Indian carrot cake for Kord’s tenth birthday and he was so cute in his fringed leather vest and ten-gallon hat that I broke my own rule and posted the shot. My page views jumped exponentially, so once in a while after that, I’d let through the occasional snapshot until it became a regular thing.

  I’ll be honest—I didn’t hate the positive feedback. I liked having people recognize my labors and tell me I was good at something. Parenting is so hard sometimes, so thankless, that it’s nice to have the effort appreciated.

  While I’d never, ever embarrass the Littles by sharing their potty training stories or showing them, say, having a bath, I wonder if I haven’t done them a disservice by allowing my pride to overrule my better judgment and letting their images be seen at all?

  Or is just being referred to as a “Little” in and of itself fodder for bullies?

  By turning SecretSquash into more of a lifestyle blog, I’ve definitely improved our day-to-day existence. Yet in so doing, I wonde
r if I’ve sold out somehow. Is it possible that Dr. K has grown distant because I’ve been too busy trying to document a perfect life, rather than actually live it?

  Considering this possibility gives me a shooting pain in my temples. I press down on the area with my fingertips to see if that relieves some of the pressure.

  “You okay?” Bobby asks.

  I’m done spilling my guts for now, so instead of explaining, I say, “Changes in the weather can make my head ache.”

  He stands, ready to spring into action, as always the gentleman. “Want me to find an aspirin for you?”

  I grab my abandoned wineglass, gesturing for him to sit. “I’ll try this medicine first.” This time, the wine doesn’t taste so bitter.

  “Good call.”

  We sit quietly, each of us working on our respective drinks.

  Bobby breaks the silence that has yet to grow awkward. “I’m proud of you and Jack. If there ever was a time to put your differences behind you, today’s that day.”

  I nod, saying nothing about our horrible scene on the sidewalk. But we got past it, and that’s what’s important. Bobby lowers his voice and moves in closer as though he’s about to confide in me, but I don’t feel tense like I did that time Trip hit on me. Instead, I feel comforted and familiar, pleased that he wants to reveal some small, private truth.

  Bobby says, “I gotta be honest—you and Jack are a lot alike.”

  I snort into the chardonnay. “We couldn’t be more different,” I argue.

  “I’ve always said it and you never agree, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong. You have problems because you’re both really strong willed, you know? You’re both so sure you’re in the right that you likely come away from situations with wildly different perspectives. You say black, she says white, and then you fight to the death over something that’s actually gray. You ought to compare notes someday. I bet what you think you hear is way different from what’s actually said, and vice versa. Come to terms with that and you two might be friends yet.” He drains his beer and sets the glass on the coffee table. A waiter immediately squires away the empty.