by Beck, Jamie
Perhaps I should stop Mimi.
I turned back, but she was gone.
A sign, perhaps?
She’d be at work for hours, so I had time to consider my options. First I had to tackle my to-do list for Kim’s party.
CHAPTER FOUR
GRACE
Saturday morning, January 9
The Phillips home
Carter stared at me from the kitchen entry while I finalized my last-minute party details checklist. I gave him a double take. “What?”
He glanced to Sam—who was still enjoying his second cup of coffee and the New York Times crossword puzzle—then back to me again. “Can I go to Rowan’s party tonight?”
I set down my pen. “What party?”
Mimi hadn’t mentioned anything yesterday over coffee. Then again, Mimi didn’t make a habit of telling me about Rowan’s parties, probably because she knew without asking that I wasn’t a fan of adults hosting underage drinking parties.
“When I was helping Rowan with history at school yesterday, his friends came over and mentioned it, so he invited me.” Carter shoved his hands into his sweatpants’ pockets. “Can I go?”
I said, “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” at the exact time Sam said, “Sure.”
My head swiveled toward my husband, while Carter’s gaze darted back and forth between us, then stuck pleadingly on Sam. This fall, when he’d suggested loosening some of our rules in order to help Carter socialize, I’d never imagined he’d also planned on breaking our pact about making those decisions together. Perhaps he’d forgotten about Mimi’s stance on teen drinking.
“You know Mimi allows kids to drink beer.” I stared at him in a way that should’ve signaled for him to play dumb and rescind his approval.
But he nodded with a shrug and winked at our son. “I trust Carter to go and not drink.”
My lips parted. Carter was a great kid, but not immune to peer pressure. I’d been honest with my kids about my father and sister, but the more their peers normalized drinking and smoking, the less they’d fear the legacy of addiction.
“That doesn’t mean there won’t be trouble. What if the police come, or the party gets out of hand?” I asked.
“Nothing bad has ever happened at his parties.” Carter kicked his toe against the floor. “You know it’s been a crappy week. You should let me go to make up for that board meeting.”
I folded my arms across my chest to defend against the guilt trip. Although unfair, my first thought was that it seemed strange that he got invited now—after getting picked on all week—when he’d never been included before. But then I remembered Mimi’s promise to talk to Rowan, so maybe the invitation was a peace offering. “It must’ve felt great to be included, honey. And it sounds like things will get easier at school now, too. But will you really feel comfortable with all those boys at a party where you’ll be the only sober one?”
“Rowan’s never a jerk to me, and it’s his house,” Carter suggested, so willing to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. “I could’ve lied to you and gone, but I’m being honest. Doesn’t that count for anything?”
I said nothing, still in disbelief that Sam had picked this issue to throw our rules out the window instead of asking Carter to give us five minutes to discuss this in private. This must be how Mimi felt making most every decision without Dirk.
“Babe, I think we should let him go. We’ve got Kim’s birthday sleepover tonight, so it’ll be chaotic here. He’ll have no privacy with screeching girls everywhere. Plus, this is a chance for him to socialize and make new friends. Carter knows our stance on alcohol, but it’s a fact of high school life. Let’s give him some freedom and trust him not to overstep.” Sam looked at Carter for confirmation, as if my fears would be assuaged by the two of them acknowledging their existence. “Now, don’t make a fool of me, buddy. We don’t get to decide which laws to break, so no drinking. If you need to take a sip or two of beer to give an appearance of fitting in, I’m okay with that.”
“Sam!” My spine lengthened into a stiff rod. “Carter, I’ll treat you and your friends to dinner and a movie. Or whatever. Surely you can find better things to do than sit around pretending to drink beer with boys who’ve been making you miserable all week.”
Honestly, saying it aloud only made his request and Sam’s consent sound more insane.
“No one has plans. Besides, all the pretty girls hang out with Rowan’s group. Come on, I swear I won’t do anything stupid. If I don’t go, they’ll think I don’t like them or think I’m a wuss.” He leaned against the refrigerator, tugging on his hoodie’s strings. “What’s the big deal? Most kids party every weekend.”
I buried my face in my hands, my mind blank. It was hard enough to be on opposite sides of the budget issue with my best friend, but now her permissiveness pitted me against her as well. I’d seen teen drinking spin out of control with my sister. I didn’t want to live afraid for my kids all the time, like I’d been afraid for Margot.
“Grace, he needs to learn how to handle himself. Better he tests some of those limits while he’s still under our roof than having him go wild while away at college.” Sam stared at me as if this were a conversation we’d already had instead of him sandbagging me.
“Why do people assume that every kid will go crazy in college if their parents set reasonable restrictions in high school, such as obeying the law and treating their bodies and brains with respect?” I swung my gaze to my son. “Honey, alcoholism runs in our family. I really want both you and Kim to stay away from it until your brains are more fully developed.”
“I promise I won’t drink. I’ll carry one around and pretend to be buzzed.” He blinked his round, sincere eyes. He might be six feet tall, but to me he’d always be my little boy. No matter how much he believed what he was saying, I’d seen my sister swing from one extreme to the other.
“What if they haze you or make you play beer pong or whatever boys do at these parties? Will you be comfortable saying no?” I shot a hard stare at Sam because he’d clearly not thought this through.
“He’s not a baby, Grace. He’ll never become a man if we keep coddling him.” Sam leaned forward, challenging me.
If that was how Sam felt, he should’ve spoken with me about this sooner—and in private.
“Please, Mom,” Carter begged.
Kim raced into the kitchen—hair in pigtails, decked out in the Abercrombie sweat gear my mom had sent her—before coming to a dead stop, wearing a scowl. “Where’s my cake and balloons?”
“I’m on my way out to grab them now and could use some help, so go get your coat on and come with me.” I shooed her to the mudroom so the rest of us could finish our discussion.
Honestly, I wished for more time to consider this, but there were many things to do for Kim’s party, and without Sam on my side, I was adrift. Carter probably wouldn’t drink, and I did feel guilty that the budget protest had made his life miserable. Maybe I was overthinking things. I didn’t want a rift between us and Carter, or between Sam and me, and Carter wanted to make new friends. And even though I didn’t agree with Mimi taking the law into her own hands, she’d had supervised parties before without incident. “Carter, promise me you’ll use good sense and you won’t drink.”
He grinned—the first smile I’d seen in a week. “I swear. I’ll just pretend.”
“Looks like I’ve been outvoted.” When Kim came back into the kitchen, I tore my list from the pad, shooting both my boys a hard look. “Don’t make me regret this.”
“I won’t,” Carter said.
“Regret what?” Kim asked.
“Nothing that concerns you. Now, let’s go.” I kissed her head. “We’ve got party decorations to get.”
Kim clapped. “Yay!”
“See you later,” I muttered to Sam, whose expression proved he knew we’d continue this conversation in private when I returned.
I barely paid attention to my daughter’s yammering while driving across town to T
ake the Cake, which was located across the street from the longest pier in town. In July, it would be packed with fishermen and kids peering over in search of dolphins, while daredevils on Jet Skis tore through the water. Now, one lone jogger was making her way back to shore.
Kim followed me inside the bakery. While waiting in line, I reconsidered the idea that Mimi might’ve texted Rowan yesterday morning, which might’ve prompted his unusual invitation. If so, how could I be upset? Scratch that. I knew how. Because permissive parents’ casual disregard for the law put out a signal that caused other kids to challenge law-abiding, safety-conscious parents like me. The result? I was forced to debate underage drinking parties with my teenager.
“Am I getting an iPhone for my birthday?” Kim asked.
“A, I’m not telling you what we bought you. B, you’re too young for an iPhone.”
She threw her head back and stomped a foot. “I’m not too young. All my friends have them. I can’t snapchat without one, Mom. Please. Pleeease!”
The older woman in front of us glanced back at us with a raised brow before turning forward again.
“Kim, stop it.” I set my hand on her shoulder. “I mean it.”
“You have too many rules. Why can’t you be like other moms?” she whined, deaf to my request.
Why indeed? Everything I did, from my flexible job to volunteer work to birthday parties—even the budget issue—I did for my children. So why did it feel like I couldn’t win? No matter how many times I shared the chaos of my childhood, my kids couldn’t understand because they hadn’t experienced it firsthand. They didn’t get that my rules helped prevent the kinds of tragedies I’d suffered before they were born. “Parenting would be so much easier if I didn’t love you to death. Rules are there to teach you and your brother important things.”
“What things? That you don’t want us to have friends?” She crossed her arms with a scowl.
“If I’m not mistaken, you have a bunch of friends coming over tonight, so don’t start. It’s okay to learn to wait for things, to understand age appropriateness, and to keep your brain from becoming addicted to screen stimulation. When you’re older, you’ll get why Dad and I set limits.”
My mother had been a much better grandparent than mother, so I never criticized her in front of my kids, nor had I openly blamed her failures for what had happened to my sister. But I would not make my mother’s mistakes and leave my kids vulnerable. When they had families of their own, they’d see that everything I did, every rule I made, was in their best interest. I was neither mean nor a fool. I merely learned from others’ mistakes.
Kim bobbled her head while making a raspberry sound with no regard for where we were, exactly like my dad and Margot. My tolerance for insolence had reached its limit, so I bent to her level. “If you keep acting this way, maybe I won’t feel like throwing you a party tonight.”
Kim tucked her chin as she glared at me from beneath her lashes. But she didn’t say another word, so I stood upright and stepped to the counter when our number was called. Not even noon and already both my kids had made me feel like an out-of-touch failure.
I handed Sam another stretch of FrogTape, with which he fastened the last of the streamers to the ceiling before climbing down from the step stool. Spirals of metallic gold and pink decorations hung all around us, as if My Little Pony had thrown up all over the family room.
“You might’ve gone overboard.” He chuckled, collapsing the stool. “But Kim will love it.”
“Will she?” I tucked the tape roll under my armpit and held out my hand for the step stool, recalling her bratty behavior at the bakery.
Sam didn’t hand it over, though. He leaned it against the wall. “You’ve been in a mood since you returned. Did something else happen, or is this still about Carter?”
“Both.” I huffed. “Kim is getting mouthier, and I’m still miffed that we didn’t talk things over privately and present a united front to Carter.”
“I’ve apologized, Grace. But I’ve been telling you we need to rethink things. Our pact made sense when the kids were small and we were setting basic expectations. Now that they’re getting older, we have to be more fluid—more flexible. Judge things on a case-by-case basis, and include them in the conversation—make them think through the pros and cons and feel like they have some say.”
“I disagree. The stakes are higher now, so it’s even more important to have clearly defined expectations. You know kids, Sam. Once they know they can divide us, we’re sunk.”
“Babe, if we’re too rigid, they’ll rebel. We have to tailor things to suit the occasion.” He massaged my shoulder.
“Something this big could’ve at least used a five-minute huddle. You blindsided me.”
“I didn’t mean to, but I honestly think we did the right thing. He’s fifteen going on sixteen. In two years he’ll be making these decisions without us. He’s a good kid. He listens to reason, and now he feels like he has some autonomy. That builds his trust in us. And we’ve got no reason not to trust his judgment.”
He wasn’t wrong about Carter, an eminently trustworthy kid.
“It’s a slippery slope, though. First it’s going to the party, and then sipping a beer. What’s next? Breaking curfew? Coming home drunk? Trying weed?” That’d been Margot’s path, beginning the summer between tenth and eleventh grade—right about where Carter was developmentally. And Margot had hated our dad’s drinking as much as I did, so I’d been shocked by her choices. Shocked and angered, which was why I didn’t intervene early on—a guilt I live with to this day.
Sam wound his arms around my waist. “Come on, babe. One step at a time, okay? Let’s not rob him of a chance to be mature. He’s not your dad or Margot. I know you worry about history repeating itself, but isn’t it finally time to leave the past behind?”
It didn’t surprise me that he knew my thoughts. He took these things seriously, so I didn’t mean to be dismissive of his opinions. But an entire childhood destroyed by the horrors of drinking wouldn’t permit me his confidence.
“What if this request becomes a habit? I don’t want the norm to become Saturday-night drinking parties. And what about Kim? She doesn’t share Carter’s restraint, but now we’ve set a precedent that will be difficult to undo.” God, I shuddered projecting the many ways she would test us in the future.
Sam dropped his arms and rubbed his chin. “I hadn’t thought about that. I’ll tell Carter not to mention this to Kim, and to let him know this is a onetime thing because of the rough week at school.”
He meant well, but honestly, that wasn’t how kids worked. I could already hear the “But you let me before, so what’s the difference” arguments headed our way. “Let’s finish blowing up all the balloons. The girls arrive at six.”
Sam enveloped me in another hug. “I’m sorry, babe. I should’ve asked for a minute to talk privately before we worked it out with Carter, but I do think he’s old enough to have mature conversations in the future. You’re intent on not being absent like your mom, but remember my parents never set limits, and I turned out fine. Our home environment is nothing like yours was, so our kids aren’t as much at risk. We got this, okay?”
I laid my cheek on his shoulder and soaked up the warmth of his body. It was true: together we’d created a respectful environment with solid values, much like the home Sam had grown up in. He had turned out better than fine, but my kids had my genes, too. “I hate that alcohol and drugs are such a big part of teen culture.”
“Me too. Listen, I promise it’ll be okay.” He eased me away to give me a kiss. “Now, let’s save our strength for tonight. Eight girls—it’s a lot.”
I chuckled. “Our girl is a lot all on her own.”
Sam’s eyes twinkled. “God love her.”
As if on cue, Kim wandered into the family room. “Mom, what’s Breaking Bad?”
“An old television show. Why?” I frowned.
“Jessica says she wants to watch it instead of Mulan tonight.
”
I shook my head. “No, honey. It’s a grown-up show.”
Kim scowled. “But Jessica says she’s watched it with her brother, and now she’s telling everyone about it, so everyone wants to see it.”
“I’m sorry about that, but it isn’t age appropriate, and it’s not our place to make that decision for all the other parents, either.”
Kim rolled her eyes. “They can watch it on Netflix anyway, so what’s the difference?”
I shot Sam an “and so it begins” glance before answering her. “The difference is that we don’t want you watching that show until you are older, and this is exactly why you don’t have the Netflix password.”
“But—” Kim started.
“Kim, stop it.” Sam lifted the step stool and headed toward the kitchen. “No more arguing every time you don’t get your way. Spoiled behavior isn’t a good look. How about thanking us for the party?”
Whether or not he truly agreed with me, I appreciated the backup.
Kim seemed to be debating her next move, but she usually gave in to Sam much more quickly than she did with me. “Fine. But you’re not going to take away our snacks too early, are you?”
“Not on a special occasion. You can eat until you make yourself barf,” he promised.
Oddly, that wrought a smile before she skipped away.
I sank onto a chair, already anticipating the protests that would ensue when I collected the phones from—and otherwise monitored—the ten-year-olds tonight. Who would imagine that a sleepover party could create as much stress as a drinking party?
CHAPTER FIVE
MIMI
Saturday, January 9, 7:30 p.m.
The Gillette home, Potomac Point
The doorbell rang for the fourth time in ten minutes as Rowan’s friends collected downstairs.
