Keep Me Posted

by Lisa Beazley

  I survived the weekend at the shore, despite a continual undercurrent of dread. I was especially uneasy the first night as the five of us women made small talk during after-dinner cleanup. Emma, with her stack of gossip magazines, was a risk, but I knew I could count on her to corner me privately.

  Becky was another story. She had lost major points in Leo’s book when it was discovered that, in fact, she did not enjoy college football as much as she had let on while she and Rob were dating. As soon as they were married, it was clear all she wanted to do on Saturdays was watch bad reality TV. She was a fan of the Real Housewives franchise, and even knew one of the women from the New Jersey edition quite well—a fact that she loved to sprinkle into seemingly unrelated conversations. Becky wasn’t my biggest fan because I couldn’t bring myself to act impressed about her Housewife connections, and also because her younger sister once had a fling with Leo and carried a torch for him for quite some time after he started dating me. If Becky knew something about the blog, she would find a way to say it in front of the whole group—or, worse, tell Mary or Leo behind my back. I made sure to offer up plenty of conversation topics, fearing a lull might give her or, heaven forbid, Mary, an opening to say, “Hey, that reminds me—those Slow News Sisters—is that you?” I found myself imagining ways in which I could seal the family off from reality. Stealing all the phones, computers, and iPads and hiding them until the end of the weekend, or maybe systematically knocking all the devices into the pool and blaming the kids—it all crossed my mind. By the second night of our three-night stay, I had begun to relax, hopeful that the Costa family had remained insulated from the Slow News Sisters phenomenon, and starting to talk myself into the idea that it wasn’t a phenomenon at all. And yet every time I saw someone scrolling through a phone, my stomach tensed. As it turns out, Leo’s uncle Sal was the one who had me quaking in my Havaianas. Uncle Sal is Mary’s younger brother and the main reason for Emma’s and my organized-crime suspicions. We call him Sawed-off Sal, on account of his missing the two last fingers on his left hand, which no one ever talks about. We’ve presented our theories to Leo and Stevie, and they laugh at us—but they’ve never denied it either. At home, the worst time of day is between dinner and bedtime, when the boys are wound up and restless and my patience levels are at their lowest. But down at the shore house, it’s different. With everyone fed and the kitchen cleaned, the kids always play peacefully, as if we adults had forgotten about bedtime and if they just don’t draw too much attention to themselves, they’ll be free to play all night. And they’re right—we let them go until they can barely keep their eyes open and have to be carried off to bed half or totally asleep. It happened during that relaxed postdinner period on our second evening. The dinner was cleaned up, the wives were relaxing, and every single male member of the family and a few of the girls were gathered at the wooded section at the edge of the yard where a garter snake was in the process of eating a toad. Poor Sophie, Emma’s four-year-old daughter, ran back and forth from the moms to the dads, pleading for someone to save the toad. Mary was still futzing around in the kitchen, tidying here and there, while Alyssa and Becky retired to the two chaise longues in the yard. The Costa house was two blocks from the beach, but the air smelled of salt and the sky turned orange as the sun sank lower into the clouds. Emma and I sat on the steps that go from the wooden deck down to the yard, discussing the possibility of adopting a more interesting signature drink, perhaps the Bellini. But that would have to wait until next time, because we were on the final sips of our last bottle of cheap sparkling wine. I went inside to fetch us a couple of beers and as I rounded back onto the patio, I came face-to-face with Sawed-off Sal. He spread his arms and cocked his head to the side. “Doll! You shouldn’t have!” Usually, you can hear Sal before you see him and have time to deviate from your path, because he often wears one of those swishy nylon tracksuits. But today, in his oversized ST. FRANCIS PANCAKE BREAKFAST 1999 T-shirt over baggy black board shorts, he was able to catch me off guard. He did really clichéd things like go around with a toothpick in his mouth and wore a thick and shiny gold chain that matched the band of his Rolex. He dressed like a slob and accessorized like, well, like a Jersey gangster. I handed him the Corona meant for Emma, but when I attempted to head back to the cooler, he said, “Whoa, whoa, what’s your hurry, Wednesday?” (He thought Wednesday was a clever nickname for me, like he couldn’t remember my surname or maybe I didn’t deserve for him to since I was the only wife who hadn’t taken the Costa name.) I tried to beckon Emma over to join us, but she was comforting Sophie, who had broken down into sobs over the toad’s imminent swallowing. “I heard something about you . . . What was it?” he said, though I clearly wasn’t expected to answer. He did this humming thing to hold the floor between statements. I shrugged and sipped my beer, waiting. To stave off a panic attack, I told myself that there was no way Sal would be the one to read the blog. Mary hovered just behind him, tidying the glass patio table. She seemed to be straining to listen in, which set me ill at ease. “Ah, forget it. I can’t remember nothin’ these days.” “Oh, well!” I said. “Maybe it’ll come to you later.” “Oh—I know what it was. So you used to be a workin’ girl, didn’t you?” “Yeah. My corner was 116th and Broadway. It’s how Leo and I met,” I deadpanned. I noticed Mary stifle a smile; she loved a bit of crude humor. It took him a moment, but Sal’s head jerked back and he let out a roar of laughter, his reaction a bit much for my lame joke. Behind him, Emma was sitting Sophie down with a bowl of ice cream at the table Mary had just cleaned. When she looked over at us, I gave her a “save me” look. But Emma just did her best goombah stance, cracking her knuckles and rolling her head around, quickly shifting to a self–neck massage when Mary reappeared with a dry cloth to finish off the table. When Mary saw that Sophie was about to mess it all up again, she shook her head and doubled back to fetch the Windex. Poor Emma, I thought. There go another ten points from her daughter-in-law score. “You always were a funny one,” he said finally. “No, no, I mean, what was it that you did when you worked? Was it something with the Internet or blogs?” I felt the blood drain from my face. Now his ridiculous laughter fit seemed like the one the mob boss does to lull you into a false sense of security just before he offs you. He tongued his toothpick and stared at me, waiting for an answer. Suddenly nervous, I replied, “I worked for a magazine. We did have a blog—” “Reason I ask,” he said, cutting me off. Oh God, here it comes, I thought. “. . . is that I been doing some writing. Like a memoir. Stories from growing up in the old neighborhood, that kinda stuff. I haven’t been able to get a publisher, so Deena says I should just put it on the Internet. She figures way more people would read it than would read a book. Isn’t that right, D?” he called over to his longtime girlfriend, who was crouched down, filming the toad-versus-snake battle on her phone. From the breathless reportage being shouted from the huddle, the toad had extracted a leg from the snake’s mouth and looked to be making a slow break for it. “What’s that, Sally?” Deena yelled. “That if I put my stuff on the Internet—as a blog or somethin’—lots more people would read it that way.” “Oh, definitely. Definitely,” she said in her deep, husky voice, nodding affirmatively as she continued to film. “You gotta see this, Sally. This toad is gonna make it.” Ignoring her, he maintained eye contact with me. “So, Wednesday, you’ll help me out?” What I wanted to say was, Not for all the tiramisu in Little Italy, but instead out came, “Oh, it’s really simple. But sure, I can help you get set up. Leo probably could, too, or even Stevie. So any of us, really, could help.” “Aw, Stevie and Leo are busy. They got jobs,” he said. Now it was my turn to laugh, which seemed like a good way to wrap this up, so I feigned a sudden interest in the toad’s survival and joined the fray, promising to talk more about it later. I spent the next day at the beach, building sand castles, playing chase with the waves, applying and reapplying sunscreen, and wondering whether
Sal really did want to post his personal memoirs online or if he was just really bad at making threats. We had packed a cooler with lunch, and after chicken-salad sandwiches, grapes, potato chips, and juice boxes, I retreated to the blanket under the umbrella and pulled out the letter from Sid I had saved as a treat. Bintan, Indonesia

  August 24 Darling Cassie,

  We’re in Bintan, Indonesia, right now—Lulu, River, and me. It’s an hour’s ferry ride away, and there’s this old resort with tiny stone cottages right on the beach. It’s just a bedroom and a bathroom, but we love coming here. The cottage is infested with ants, and the food at the restaurant is horrible, but we just walk and play on the beach all day, go to bed early, then do the exact same thing the next day and get the late ferry back to Singapore. Lulu’s asleep inside, and I’m sitting on the porch while River sits on the beach and reads. It rained for an hour earlier, and River and Lulu and I played tag in the cool rain and then got into the ocean to warm up. The sand here is the extra-fine kind that seeps into everything—fingernails, bathing suits, hair, notebooks—it’s everywhere and I love it! Adrian’s actually been kind of decent about this whole thing. I mean, he’s a shit and possibly a sex addict, but he didn’t try to deny it or cover anything up. He just faced the music and let me say everything I needed to say. He has crumpled and begged for forgiveness a few times, but he hasn’t made excuses or tried to justify his actions in any way. And I guess in some small way, I respect that. In this freshman ethics seminar back in college, I remember my professor saying “Walk merrily to your execution.” I always thought of that line when I did something stupid. Just live with the consequences of your actions and try to make the best of the situation. I think that’s what Adrian’s doing. It’s funny that I’m just now fully getting what that meant. Love, Sid I loved feeling like we were both at the beach at the same time, if on different ends of the earth. Of course, her letter had been written two weeks earlier, yet I’d come to see her life as unfolding in real time as the letters arrived. But what was this about walking merrily to my execution? Did she know? Was she telling me to plaster a dumb smile on my face and come clean? While Leo and the boys buried Stevie in the sand, I drifted in and out of sleep, dreaming that Sid had found out about the blog and hired Uncle Sal to execute me. The boys both fell asleep on the way home from the beach and were up until nearly eleven p.m. that night. They rewarded us by sleeping past nine the next morning. But at seven forty-five, I was awoken by the buzz from my phone. It was the world’s longest text message from Rachel. Hi, Cass! Hope Quinn is on the mend. Brooke’s been having nightmares so I took her to a therapist, who advised me to draw a picture book of the accident and emphasize how everyone is okay at the end. Not sure if your boys are similarly traumatized, but it’s been helpful, FYI. Anyhoo, I would really like to replace my Noguchi coffee table before Brett’s 40th birthday party next month. (Invite to come!) What would be easiest for you—to PayPal me $$ for the table plus the $100 for the cleanup crew? (Don’t worry about the therapist bill—I’ll take care of that.) If it’s better for you to use a credit card, I can send you a link to the coffee table and you can order it for me online. Let me know—I’d love to get this taken care of ASAP. Thx so much! XO—Rachel

  I found this incredibly annoying on several levels. First, that it came through in four separate text messages, the final one being a helpful link to the coffee table. Second, I had told her at the hospital that of course we would pay for the coffee table, so she didn’t need to act like she was broaching uncharted territory. Third, I was secretly hoping she would ignore my offer and take care of it herself, which is what I would have done had a friend’s child hurled himself through a piece of glass in my apartment while I showed off my giant bathtub. Fourth, Leo and I had been pinched financially lately, and this was not in the budget—especially if I was going to fly to Singapore to tell Sid about the blog face-to-face, which was becoming the only way I could imagine this going down. Lying in bed, I followed the link to Design Within Reach, where the table was listed at $1,600. Leo wasn’t in bed, so I crept out of the room with the boys still asleep in their Lightning McQueen sleeping bags on the floor. All of the adults were already up and drinking coffee in various places around the kitchen and adjoining den. I helped myself to a mug, sat at the big farmhouse table across from Leo, and told him about the text. Naturally, it became a whole family discussion. Stevie, always the conspiracy theorist, piped up. “That’s bullshit. I wouldn’t pay that. I bet her table was a knockoff. What does Quinn weigh—thirty pounds, maybe? He’s supposed to so easily shatter a sixteen-hundred-dollar coffee table? They’re gonna use tempered glass on a table like that.” Then Becky chimed in with, “I don’t understand how this even happened in the first place. Where were you?” “Oh, you know, lounging in the tub,” I said, with panache. “And eating bonbons—right, dear?” Mary laughed. “Boys will be boys, Becky. These things happen.” I couldn’t resist shooting Becky a rueful look. She had three girls and simply couldn’t share the soldierlike bond that Mary and I did. “Come on,” Stevie said. “Let’s go throw a watermelon through the patio table—that thing was three hundred bucks and I bet we couldn’t break it.” “You will not,” barked Mary. “Your friend is pulling one over on you,” said Stevie. Leo just laughed, but I could tell Stevie’s comments had his wheels spinning. “Did it look real to you?” Leo asked. Honestly, I had my doubts. “I don’t know. But if it was a knockoff, she probably didn’t know it,” I said. I was tempted to jump on Stevie’s bandwagon, if only to ally myself with Leo against a common enemy. Then Sal spoke up. I hadn’t even noticed he was there, but he was leaning in the doorway, filing his nails with a big pink emery board. “You need a designer table? Why didn’t you say so? I got a guy.” “Of course you do,” said Emma, smiling brightly at me, practically rubbing her hands together in anticipation of more mob clues. Leo’s always been a Boy Scout—he doesn’t even download pirated music—but he looked at me with his thick black eyebrows raised to the sky, and I shrugged. We were in a tight spot, so why not avail ourselves of one of the perks of being related to a low-ranking official in the Italian-American organized-crime syndicate? I spoke up. “Really?” Emma jerked her head around and bulged her eyes at me. She was either thinking that this was finally our chance to find out for real if Sal lived up to our Sopranos fantasy, or just shocked that I was about to hop into it. But what I was thinking was that maybe I was simply taking my natural place in the world. So far this year I had become a cheater and a liar. So why not a receiver of stolen goods? Accepting my fate, I took the lead on making the arrangements with Sal. He said he could have it for me in a few days. I texted Rachel back and told her I’d order her the table this week, and felt the rush of satisfaction of having a project. CHAPTER NINETEEN