by Kaira Rouda
“That doesn’t prove it’s my dad, just that your mom’s messed up,” Marni said, standing up.
“I Googled the cell phone number. It’s your dad’s. Will Parker Building Inspections. ‘The guy you can trust,’ and his smiling photo is a match. I ran it through TinEye, a software that identifies any person who has any sort of an online footprint from a photo,” Kiley said, standing up again too. She’d used her fingers to make air quotes around the familiar slogan Marni had heard her dad recite since she was a child. When Kiley lit another cigarette, the burst of flame from the lighter made Marni jump. “You all right?”
“I wish I smoked,” Marni said, shaking her head no when Kiley offered her cigarette. “Actually, I wish I could just get out of here.”
“That’s what college is for,” Kiley said. “Are there actually people who like high school? Who like their parents?”
They both sunk into silence, and Marni heard voices coming from across the quad. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, only that it was a guy and a girl, probably a couple making out like she should be doing with John from Boston College. Instead, she’d be haunted forever by the image of her dad doing Kiley’s mom.
As they stood side by side, Blake, the big man on campus, hurried past them, his head down. He looked both angry and confused, his usual smile a grimace. Poor guy. That was an unusual feeling for the golden boy, Marni thought. To answer Kiley’s rhetorical question, Blake was that guy. The guy who liked high school and seemed close to his parents, at least they put on a good show whenever Marni had seen them all together at the football games. His mom with a big button on her sweater with Blake’s smiling face, and his dad in a football jersey with the same number as his son’s.
That was a much better show of familial closeness than her motley crew of a family had ever managed. With the Parkers it was always the three girls, and then her dad, out of frame, out of sight, out of sync. Late to everything, distracted, fluttering around like a bird caught inside an airport when he was at home, able to survive on crumbs but not fully living a real life.
“Blake’s one,” Kiley said, breaking their silence.
“Probably,” Marni said. “I can’t tell if he’s peaked, though. He may still have some glory days left in front of him.”
“Maybe,” Kiley said, but her tone sounded like she thought he’d peaked.
“What do we do?” Marni asked, hating that they were now on a team of sorts, with many lives in the balance. And since Kiley was the discoverer of the information, Marni believed she should decide the next step.
“I don’t know. We either blow up two marriages, or we don’t,” Kiley said and lit another cigarette. “I’m cold, though, and I should head out. Need a ride?”
“Nah, thanks, I actually have a car tonight,” Marni said. She wondered if John had packed up all of his brochures yet. She’d go look for him. Maybe it wasn’t too late for a quick backseat hookup. She needed something to take her mind off things.
CHAPTER FIVE
Halloween, Friday, October 31
SARAH
Sarah loved Halloween parties almost as much as decorating for Christmas, she thought, carefully placing her twelve-ounce cup of fresh green juice from Whole Foods on the picnic table.
She planned to drink it quickly, as always, so the parts couldn’t settle. She liked a uniform green in her juice. She took a minute to look around at the luscious green park, the perfectly landscaped and maintained green space for the children of their gated community. How would a person be able to live anywhere else after experiencing this? she wondered. Unfolding the bright orange tablecloth, she rolled it expertly down the table, affixing it at each end with a black thumbtack, and resumed drinking her juice before any settling had occurred. Sarah looked around at the other ten tables still awaiting a festive cloth and chugged her juice. She needed to get moving. There was a time when she would have had a swarm of volunteers here already, asking her what they could help with, praising her organization and decorating skills.
She had to admit holidays were a time when crafty moms like her could shine. Her daughter’s costumes had always won the neighborhood costume contests. They’d even gone as a family one year, the only year Jud had been in town for Halloween. She’d dressed Ashley, herself, and their dog as the three little pigs and Jud was the wolf. They were so adorable up on stage, squealing as Jud pretended to blow their houses down. Ashley carried a Styrofoam brick, Sarah carried straw, and the dog was a dog, so Sarah hadn’t made him try to carry anything.
She smiled as she tried to remind herself of the happy memories, now that her daughter was too old to dress up, too old to enjoy the community Halloween party, and much too old to stand on stage and win. But even if Ashley was missing, Sarah still enjoyed turning the central park of Diamond Bay into a Halloween extravaganza complete with haunted house (non-terrifying of course), graveyard, and tables bursting with Halloween treats and finger food for the little goblins.
In this quiet moment, nestled in the green-park perfection before anyone else on the volunteer committee had arrived, Sarah allowed herself, briefly, to wonder if all of these hours spent volunteering, the nonstop parties from Halloween through the holiday season, had kept her too busy to reflect on what was missing in her life. She traced her manicured finger along the orange tablecloth, smoothing out a bump, making the fit more perfect. Shaking her head, she pushed aside the sadness, the feeling in her heart that rose to the surface if she allowed it. The pit of despair had quieted a bit with help from her friend Laura.
She hadn’t told Jud that she’d begun seeing her professionally, and he had no idea she was a therapist, of course. He’d forbid it. But Laura was helping her see things more clearly. She knew she needed to define what she wanted in her relationship with her husband, and if he couldn’t provide it, she needed to leave. That was the cold, dark truth at the end of each session. But she couldn’t decide, couldn’t imagine breaking up everything she’d known. Nothing was really that wrong, was it? She had a good life, she just needed to keep moving, stay busy, and everything would be fine.
“Hey, Sarah,” Melanie said, giving her a squeeze around the shoulder. She hadn’t seen Melanie since she’d shared her secrets over sushi, but the other woman acted as if nothing was up. Maybe she was as embarrassed about getting drunk that night as Sarah had been about disclosing the herpes. Melanie was dressed as a witch, a costume she’d worn every year since she’d arrived from the Midwest. Sarah was wearing her usual tennis skirt, long-sleeved top, gallons of sunscreen, and sun-protective hat.
“Thanks for coming to help, even though you have big kids now, too,” Sarah said, wondering if she had kale in her teeth. She seemed to always have kale stuck in her teeth these days. She smiled, pointing to her mouth. “Anything green?”
“All good,” Melanie said, looking around. “Tables next?”
“Sure,” Sarah said and they went to work covering the rest of the picnic tables with bright orange fabric. “So many memories here. I can’t believe Dane and Ashley will be at college next year. It’ll be just me at home. So weird.”
“I may have Dane at home, we’ll see,” Melanie said. “Tombstones set up?”
“I haven’t unlocked the supply shed yet, but sure let’s do that next,” Sarah said, wondering why Dane would be at home, and at the same time, noticing tears running down Melanie’s face. “Oh, what’s wrong?”
“I keep doing this. Crying for no reason. I don’t know why. I’m so sorry,” Melanie said. Sarah handed her an orange cocktail napkin. “Thanks.”
“It’s tough, this senior year. It signifies so many things, so many changes in a family. You’ve been through this before, though, with your other son. This is my only child. I don’t want to think about it, so usually I just stay busy.”
Melanie smiled. “Seth’s room is like a shrine. I don’t let anyone go inside, let alone sleep in there. Dane tried to let a friend spend the night in there once instead of on the couch in his mus
ic room, and I almost bit his head off. He probably is right to think I’m crazy.”
Sarah pulled a cardboard tombstone out of the storage shed. She really didn’t like touching them and thought the whole cemetery idea was sort of creepy. She didn’t like the thought of death, or truthfully, of aging, but it was happening anyway. The next tombstone she pulled said, “You’ll join me here soon.” Sarah dropped the cardboard to the grass.
Maybe we could skip the cemetery this year, she thought. But it was the community tradition to have all the little kids parade through the Diamond Bay cemetery, so she’d just have to deal with it. She hadn’t been bothered before, but that was when she’d still been a young mom herself. Now she was, well, about to be a senior. A chill ran down her spine.
“You’re so lucky. I wanted a daughter. You guys are really close, right?” Melanie said, taking the next tombstone from Sarah’s hands and placing it on the grass.
“She is a blessing, as are your sons. We’ll get through this time, all of us,” Sarah said, and she tried to believe it. “What’s your plan for after he leaves? Mine was always to travel with Jud.”
The statement hung in the air as Sarah wondered whether Melanie would say anything about her Internet discoveries. She had promised not to say anything to anybody. Sarah hoped she realized that meant even to her, especially to her.
Melanie dropped her eyes, looking at the cemetery they were creating. “I don’t have a plan. I think that may be my problem.”
“Well that needs to change,” Sarah said with a big smile. She had her plan set for years. Stay home, be the rock for the family, and once Ashley was raised, she’d join Jud on all the fabulous trips. Paris, here I come, she thought. She’d been there only once, when they’d first married, and she couldn’t wait to return. It had been worth it, though, the sacrifices. Ashley was happy and thriving. Sure, it had meant that Sarah was lonely sometimes, feeling much more like a single mom than she’d ever allow anyone to know. But that was how their family had worked. At least, that’s what she’d told herself to believe. Until recently. She hadn’t revised her plans because she hadn’t gotten any new answers from Jud. In fact, it was as if their dinner at Sylvia’s never happened. Except for the fact she did have herpes. And that he owned a house in Palm Springs, most likely. That was all she knew for a fact.
“I’ve made a list of the top ten places he’s been without me. I’ll be ready to start ticking those off. I can wait until then,” Sarah said, pulling the last of the graveyard from the storage locker, including four skulls and a dozen skeleton hands and arms. Her stomach clenched. She doubted she’d see any of them with Jud.
They worked together to arrange the cemetery in rows, sprinkling skulls and limbs around, as Sarah pushed the reality that something was horribly wrong with her marriage down deep inside so she could make it through yet another event of this last year with her daughter, last year as a hands-on mother.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” Melanie said, holding a skeleton hand, using its finger to point to Sarah. “Does it hurt? Having all that surgery? I went to see a plastic surgeon yesterday—not Jud, that would be weird. The guy said I should start with a forehead lift, then a lower face-lift to yank up my chin. He wanted to inject my lips and put pads in my cheeks. Then he wanted to suck fat out of my chin.” Melanie’s eyes were huge, and she touched the skeleton hand to her chin. “He said we’d tackle my body phase two.”
Nobody had ever asked Sarah if it hurt. Nobody had ever directly acknowledged that she’d had plastic surgery at all. She dropped the skull to the ground and said, “Yes, it all hurts. And I don’t know if it’s worth it. I mean, we all end up like that,” she said, pointing to the bones covering the vibrant grass.
“But people think you’re young and vibrant. People think I’m old and fat,” Melanie said. “Even if it’s all a façade, it works. Our society values youth and perky breasts.”
“True,” Sarah said, looking down at her breasts, as high and full as a twentysomething’s. “But it hurts. It all hurts. A lot.”
Melanie tilted her head, and looked like she wanted to ask more questions. Sarah wasn’t sure she had any more answers. “Thanks for telling me. Oh, and you know, I’ve kept your secret,” Melanie said.
“Yes, I, well, I can’t believe I told you. But thank you, it’s good to know I can trust you,” Sarah said, and then turned to lock the storage shed. She hoped that would end this particular line of conversation because really, as Jud had promised, since the first outbreak cleared, she’d felt fine. All was well again. Not really, well, sort of.
“Hey y’all,” Beatrice called out from beside the stage, her red hair in braids, shining in the sun, part of her Raggedy Ann costume, an annual get up much like Melanie’s witch and Sarah’s nothing. Sarah smiled when she saw Beatrice’s ubiquitous pearls glistening around her neck. Melanie and Sarah glanced at each other and both waved back.
“That one is going to be a wreck,” Melanie said.
“Worse than me?” Sarah asked.
“For sure. And worse than me if Dane gets accepted to a college, or worse than me if Dane lives at home and goes to community college. I’m not sure which would push me over the edge faster,” Melanie said.
“Oh come on, it will all work out,” Sarah said. Despite the fact that Melanie was a transplant from the farmlands, Sarah was discovering that she and Melanie had more in common than she’d thought. Sure, they could never go to the high-end society functions together, and she didn’t play tennis—clearly—but she was so honest, so real. Sarah had never felt that grounded, that comfortable.
She had been trying. Earlier back at home she’d sat to meditate along with Oprah and Deepak. Today the mantra was: My desires make me feel alive. Sarah had tried to meditate; she sat on the floor of their great room, staring at the beautiful blue ocean, trying to bring forth a desire to make her feel alive, but nothing had come up. She found it unsettling that she desired nothing. Sarah touched the small gold heart at her chest, a relic from her childhood she’d recently begun to wear again.
“If Beatrice tells me Reed got into an Ivy League school, I’m going to stab her with my broomstick,” Melanie said just before Beatrice reached them. “I just can’t take any more gloating.”
“I hope you don’t think I—” Sarah said.
“I wish you’d gloat, Sarah.”
“Hi, just here to help. Put me to work,” Beatrice said.
“Do kids nowadays think you are Wendy, from the hamburger chain?” Melanie asked, smiling a wicked witch smile.
“No, they do not. They all know better, Diamond Bay kids read literature; they don’t consume fast food like you do in Ohio,” Beatrice said, as Sarah started to laugh at Melanie’s joke. Beatrice turned to Sarah. “So, put me to work.”
“There are burgers being served over there later,” Melanie said, pointing with her broomstick toward the grills being set up by the caterer.
Sarah said. “Could you drape the stage, Beatrice? There is orange and black bunting over there.”
“Sure. And Sarah, congratulations on Harvard. You must be thrilled,” Beatrice said, smiling at both women. “Reed just got a commitment letter to Brown. We’re over the moon. And Dane, where does he hope to go?”
Sarah saw Melanie sway and grabbed her arm. “He can go wherever he’d like,” Sarah answered. “With his musical gifts, the sky is the limit.”
“Oh, sure,” Beatrice said and headed to the stage.
“Are you all right?” Sarah asked. She was worried about Melanie. She didn’t look good. All of the color had drained from her face leaving her frosted pink-lipsticked mouth looking especially garish.
“I keep wanting to fall over. Well, not wanting to, just feeling as if I’m about to. That I just can’t keep it up anymore, this moving forward. This, this competition, this life.”
Sarah watched as Melanie slumped to the vibrant green grass, a pool of black witch cloak surrounding her. Sarah hurried to her side, kneelin
g on the grass next to her.
“My kid can’t take it. I can’t take it. That’s why I thought plastic surgery would fix it, but I don’t think it can. I am out of my league. We all are. It’s ruining us,” Melanie said, fresh tears popping into her eyes. “I’ve reached my sipping point, I mean tipping point. Ha. That’s funny. I need a drink. What am I once the kids are both gone?”
“Melanie, it’s going to be fine. You’ll be fine. You have your friends,” Sarah said, looking around at the otherwise empty park. Fortunately, Beatrice still was busy decorating the stage.
“No. I’m nothing. All I’ve been is a mom and now I’m pushing, pushing to have him leave. And leave angry. Keith and Dane both think I’m crazy. Maybe I am,” Melanie said, tears rolling down her face.
Sarah looked to her right, through the cemetery, and saw golf carts beginning to arrive for the party. Young mothers with brightly dressed toddlers, ready for a party that wasn’t close to set up. All they’d see was a cemetery, a very sad witch, somebody who was dressed as a suburban housewife tennis player, and a hamburger lady hanging bunting.
A young woman, impossibly thin and impeccably dressed, walked toward them. She was holding hands with her daughter, a two-year-old dressed as a strawberry princess with a red full skirt, red sweater rimmed with green leaf felt, and a red hat with green leaves. Her husband, preppy and full of his own potential, hurried to join them, taking the strawberry’s other hand. They were perfect and happy. They made Sarah want to cry, too.
But she couldn’t. She was in charge. She quickly grabbed Melanie’s shoulders, shaking her softly. “Listen, you can’t cry, there are too many little strawberries and blueberries and other adorable little kids in costumes. They want to see a happy witch. Nod if you can do that,” Sarah said. Melanie nodded, but she didn’t look convincing.
