“Where are your parents?” she asked. Please don’t let there be parents downstairs, she thought. There was no way she wanted to do a walk of shame, shameless though it may be, past anybody’s parents.
“They’re not home. They went to the lake.”
New England was lousy with lakes, but the way Cam said it, so casually, as if there were only one, spoke to Alexa of legitimate money. She raised an eyebrow and said, like she didn’t really care, “Where?” Even though she was pretty sure she knew the answer.
“Winnipesaukee.” She waited. “Wolfeboro,” he admitted. Bingo! Home of Mitt Romney and the Marriotts.
“I see,” she said. She lifted the mug of tea to her lips. It was lightly sweetened, with just a hint of milk. Alexa was not a tea drinker. Her caffeine of choice was a cortado, especially the ones they served downtown at the Coffee Factory, or a double espresso from Starbucks with a small dollop of milk, no sugar. But, in the interest of being polite to this young man who had not taken advantage of her, she took a cautionary sip. It tasted like liquid gold, at once cleansing and nourishing. The warmth traveled down her body, all the way to her toes, then back up again, to her head. She had to stop herself from gulping the rest of it. “Thanks again,” she said. “For the tea—for everything. You really saved me from getting in a lot of trouble.”
“I am your knight in purple armor,” he said, grinning. His grin was—well, infectious was too strong a word, wasn’t it? Or was it? She found herself grinning back. Pull it together, Alexa, she told herself sternly. You have a boyfriend.
“You seem like you have a lot of school spirit,” she said. It wasn’t a compliment, not necessarily, but he took it as one.
“Thanks,” he said. “I play golf.”
“Golf? College golf?”
He nodded and smiled some more, seeming not at all embarrassed.
She rose from the bed, wondering if he was watching her, not that she cared, but of course he was watching her.
“Bathroom’s that way,” he said, “in case you don’t remember.” (She didn’t.)
She looked out the window. She could see a pristine pool bordered by iron lawn chairs with bright orange cushions and contrasting turquoise pillows—a color combination of which she approved. She could see a badminton net set up with a crisp yellow border around it, and the requisite corn hole game, painted with the Red Sox logo.
“Be right back,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound coquettish. The bathroom was en suite. There were two sinks, side by side, the kind where the sinks look like bowls or vessels dug up from a Greek archeological site and refurbished to perfection. She looked in the mirror above one of the sinks. Her hair was a disaster, and her mascara was smeared. She would never, ever let Tyler see her like this, nor would Tyler want to. She washed her face, then opened the cabinet under one of the sinks to see if she could find some passable moisturizer. There was a brand-new tub of Kiehl’s ultra facial cream, which would do just fine. She slathered it on, and returned to the bedroom.
Cam was still grinning. He had made the bed and returned the throw pillows to where they must have been before she crashed the night before.
“Breakfast?” he said. “I make a good omelet.”
Of course he did. She was really hungry. She acquiesced to the omelet, which, it turned out, was one of the best she had ever tasted; it was positively dripping with cheddar cheese, and also included a costarring role of a gorgeous tomato.
While they ate they played a couple of rounds of the name game. They knew a few people in common; they were only two years apart in school. They went to different preschools, Alexa to Knoll-Edge and Cam to Mrs. Murray’s, so their paths had diverged from the beginning. She told him about Colby with a straight face and he said, “I have a buddy there. I’ll tell him to look out for you. He’ll be a junior, same as me. We went to the Prep together. Ethan Whittaker.”
“Great,” she said. “Ethan Whittaker. I’ll keep my eye out for him.”
When she finished her omelet she loaded her plate in the dishwasher and offered to load his as well, not because she considered that woman’s work but because he had done the cooking so it seemed only fair. The omelet pan was already clean, set upside down to dry.
“I have to work at nine,” said Cam. “We’d better get going. I’ll drop you off at home on my way, okay?”
She nodded. “Where do you work?” She figured he’d say something like training guide dogs to help blind war veterans or running summer camps for youth services.
“Market Basket,” he said. “Mostly on checkout. And I’m training to be an assistant manager.” This revelation didn’t add a milligram to the scale on which Alexa had been weighing Cam’s cachet, but he looked so proud that she squeezed out this: “My mom loves Market Basket. She almost never goes to Shaw’s.” And even though she would like nothing more than to repair to the guest room and sink once again into those glorious sheets, under that cloud of a comforter, she said, “I don’t want to make you late.” She pointed at her St. Michael’s spirit wear and said, “Um, I can change back into my dress now and give you this . . .”
“Don’t worry about it,” Cam said. “I have plenty. You can get it to me another time. I grabbed your dress for you.” He handed her a CVS bag with her dress folded neatly inside. Her flip-flops she found in the massive mudroom. Cam swung open the door from the mudroom to the outside. There was a minivan in the driveway. “Your chariot, my lady,” he said, bowing and making a sweeping gesture with his hand that should have been completely awkward but was somehow sort of charming.
She could probably have him if she wanted him, this egg-savvy, golfing, guestroom-offering Catholic boy with the nice brown eyes and the promising biceps. She could take him from Shelby McIntyre in a millisecond, in a heartbeat. It wouldn’t require more than a toss of her hair, a few strategic texts and one sunset beach picnic. But, there were other considerations. There was Tyler. There were her two jobs. There was the fact that Alexa had attracted the interest of many, many different kinds of boys since the year she turned fourteen but had never dated a golfer.
The air was wet and pulpy with humidity. In the yard across the street a kid of six or so was kicking around a soccer ball, and another kid was zipping down the street on a scooter. It was summer, obviously. But in a funny way it felt like it was Christmas morning and Cameron Hartwell was a present Alexa hadn’t yet unwrapped.
Before she got into the minivan she marched up to Cam, placed a hand on each of his cheeks, and kissed him.
10.
Sherri
It cost nine dollars in quarters to wash a comforter at the Port City Laundromat in the Market Basket plaza. Who had nine dollars in quarters? Not Sherri. What she had was a twenty and three sad one-dollar bills. The change machine rejected each of the dollar bills in turn: one, presumably, for being too wrinkled, one for being torn nearly in half, and one for no discernible reason other than change machine prejudice. Finally she surrendered the twenty, trying not to think about the fact that she’d been saving it to take Katie to breakfast at Mad Martha’s on Plum Island, which she’d heard was a local treasure. She watched, half-fascinated, as the quarters poured into the metal cup. It made her think of a trip to Vegas she and Bobby had taken back in the day. They’d stayed at the Venetian and while Bobby hit the craps table, Sherri had played the slots for days. She’d done very well. Not that she’d needed the money, not back then.
How far the mighty have fallen, she thought. She scooped the quarters into her pockets and counted out thirty-six, laying them carefully on top of the washing machine in nine piles of four. When she knocked against one pile with the outer edge of her hand, one quarter rolled off and under the machine. Sherri crouched down and tried to retrieve it, but it had traveled too far under for her to get to it from her crouching position. She’d have to go lower on the floor, Flat-Stanley style. She was not above doing that.
Now the mighty have fallen even farther. That’s what she was thinking when s
he heard the tinkle of the bells, and a semi-familiar voice say, “Sherri? What are you doing?”
Sherri righted herself, then stood. One of the women from the birthday dinner the night before was facing her. Dawn, Sherri thought her name was, but she wasn’t certain enough to say it.
“Nothing,” she said, trying to maintain the smallest shred of dignity. “I lost a quarter under the machine.”
“Ohmygod, do you need a quarter?” Dawn opened her handbag and peered inside. “I was just coming from getting my nails done and I thought I saw someone familiar. I almost never have coins on me but let me see.” Dawn was wearing gold platform flip-flops with little jewels on the straps, and her toes were painted a spirited pink. It had been so long since Sherri had had her nails done that it almost hurt to look at Dawn’s toes. What Sherri wouldn’t give to soak her feet in a warm tub and have somebody rub them with a pumice stone.
“It’s fine,” said Sherri, smiling through gritted teeth. “I got it.”
“You sure?” Dawn crept closer to Sherri and whispered, “Do you not have a washing machine in your place?”
“I have a washing machine,” said Sherri untruthfully. “I just need to wash something big, that’s all.” She smiled a hard, bright smile and turned back to the machine. This was not, she told herself, going to be the quarter that broke the camel’s back.
“Hey, you should come to barre class tomorrow,” said Dawn. “Nine fifteen. A bunch of us go.” She looked again at the washing machine. “Give me your number and I’ll text you the details. If you’re new to town, I’m pretty sure the first class is free!”
11.
The Squad
“She was crawling around on the floor,” Dawn told us later. She said she felt sorry for Sherri Griffin! Scrambling on her hands and knees in the Laundromat for a quarter. Who knew the state of that floor?
(We certainly don’t—we don’t go to the Laundromat.)
“You felt sorry for her, but not sorry enough to walk by and pretend you hadn’t seen,” said Tammy. The conversation stopped for a moment. But that was Tammy for you, you couldn’t always be sure when she was joking and when she was serious.
Dawn and Tammy have never gotten along perfectly; it went back to a beef that Dawn’s daughter Avery and Tammy’s daughter Izzy had back in second grade, smoothed over but never really forgotten. Dawn gave Tammy a look and said she would have been happy to give Sherri Griffin a quarter but she simply didn’t carry cash anymore. And certainly not coins. Everything is credit cards or Venmo these days.
“I told her she should try barre class tomorrow,” said Dawn. “Why not, right?” We used to go to a different barre class, but we’d recently switched. And ever since we’d switched, Rebecca had stopped going. We didn’t know why.
Tammy said, “Okaaaaay,” but didn’t look too happy about it.
12.
Sherri
All through the barre class, Sherri chewed the inside of her cheek to keep herself from screaming. It. Was. So. Hard. And it was the strangest kind of hard. Sometimes you scarcely moved at all, you did strange swingy things with your hips, you picked up teeny tiny weights. But by the time they’d done their damage, you felt like you were holding two four-ton concrete pilings in each hand.
In the first section (“arms”), she thought she was going to throw up. In the second (“quads”), pass out. By the time they got through glutes and abs to the stretching, at the end, she didn’t even have the energy to lie down flat on the mat, the way all the other women were doing. “Savasana,” apparently. She just slunk out the door and made her way on quivering muscles to her car.
It was difficult to explain the sensation that had come over Sherri during the barre class—it was a feeling of helplessness, of haplessness, such as she hadn’t experienced in a very long time, not since she’d been forced to play volleyball in high school gym class. (“Look where you want the ball to go, Sherri!” the gym teacher had cried again and again. “Not where you’re afraid it’s going!”) Sherri had never, ever gotten the hang of volleyball. Nor badminton. Really, anything with a net. And now, apparently, anything with a barre as well. In her old life, of course, she’d been curvier. And if she got too curvy, there was good old-fashioned dieting. A home gym, although Bobby used that more than Sherri.
It was some time later that she fully felt the sting of her failure and her exclusion. She had stopped in to pick up Katie’s summer reading book at the lovely little bookstore on State Street. She peeked in the window of the coffee shop next door and saw the whole group, bent over their lattes and cappuccinos, talking earnestly. Her cheeks burned, and she ducked her head, turning away from the window.
She thought she’d navigated the most difficult experiences of her life already, before she and Katie had arrived here. Now, with her legs about to give out on her, looking at these women whose daughters controlled the incoming sixth grade, she wondered if her biggest challenges might still be coming.
There had been talk of a lunch table. Katie had to get a seat at that lunch table.
She turned around and almost ran into another woman, the woman who had been kind to her at the restaurant. She combed her mind for the name.
“Rebecca,” said the woman. “Morgan’s mom? We met briefly at the beach, and then at dinner.” Rebecca’s eyes flicked toward the coffee shop and back to Sherri. Instantly Sherri understood. Either by her own choice or the choice of others, she hadn’t been included either.
“Hey, Morgan and I are planning on going to the beach today. Are you free? You and your daughter should come.”
Rebecca offered to pick up Sherri and Katie, explaining that she already had a parking pass to get onto the reservation and it would be silly for Sherri to pay the parking fee. Sherri didn’t know what “the reservation” was until they arrived; apparently it was a state-owned beach with a campground and miles of parking for which you could use the special pass. Nothing to do with Indians, as Sherri had initially thought. Oh, she had so much to learn.
Sherri found out a few things about Rebecca right off the bat, after they settled themselves into their beach chairs (Rebecca had brought one for Sherri) and watched the girls run off with boogie boards. Rebecca worked in a nearby town as a second-grade teacher. Her older daughter, Alexa, was almost eighteen, headed to Colby in the fall.
In Sherri’s old life her best friends had been the wives of the guys Bobby worked with; they’d been tossed together by circumstance more than temperament or choice. Jennifer with the stables. Lauren with the acrylic nails. Amber with the indoor swimming pool. She’d sometimes wondered what it would have been like to choose her own friends, women she’d met at work (difficult, since Sherri didn’t have a job) or in a book club (impossible; Sherri had never been in a book club). She hadn’t made a friend from scratch in a very long time—since high school, really, and she’d lost touch with most of those friends when she’d started up with Bobby. None of her friends had liked Bobby.
Rebecca reached into her cooler (it had the word yeti printed across the center, just like all of those coolers lined up at the surf-camp beach) and pulled out two cans of something. “Black cherry or ruby grapefruit?” she asked. Seltzer! Just the thing on a hot day. Sherri had brought only water to drink.
“Either,” said Sherri. “Thank you. Unless you’re saving one for Morgan.”
Rebecca let out a friendly sounding snort and handed Rebecca a can. “Uh, I don’t think so,” she said. “Morgan’s not exactly drinking age.”
Sherri took a closer look at the can. White Claw Hard Seltzer. Five percent alcohol. One hundred calories. Sherri thought of Brooke and her rosé by the pool. Did these women drink all day, every day? Well, all right. Sherri could hold her own. She opened her can and took a long sip of the seltzer. She didn’t taste rum, or tequila. Maybe it was vodka? She took another sip, then another. The sun was so lovely. She could almost feel the vitamin D seeping into her bones. She was filled with a sensation of peace and tranquility such as she
hadn’t felt since . . . well, in a very long time.
And then her eyes flew open. From out of nowhere she had that panicky feeling again. Where were the girls? Oh, there they were, not on their boogie boards anymore. They were playing around with their phones, taking beach selfies. No self-consciousness about bathing suits when you were eleven years old, all knees and elbows and vertebrae. Not like now, when there were so many different body parts to worry about, things hanging and wobbling. Maybe Sherri should have gotten the breast implants when Bobby offered all those years ago. Lots of the women did. (Implants, and then some. New lips. Bigger eyes. Bigger cheekbones.) But Sherri had always liked her breasts. They were big enough to be serviceable, even attention-seeking, without getting in the way. Now she kept them covered, like she kept so much else covered.
A klatch of teenage girls caught her eye. They were lying on their stomachs in a semicircle, laughing at something on a phone one of them was holding. The seltzer must have gone to her head, because all of the girls looked like Madison Miller, even though Madison Miller had ginger hair and none of these girls did. But they were about Madison Miller’s age, fifteen, sixteen, with bodies that were sleek and brown and hair that sat in tight buns on the tops of their heads. Be careful! Sherri wanted to call to them. Be careful, because you never, ever know.
“Are you okay?” Rebecca had pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head and was peering at Sherri. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”
I did, thought Sherri. There’s a ghost over here, and a ghost over there. This beach is full of ghosts. What she said was, “I think the seltzer might have gone to my head, that’s all.”
Two Truths and a Lie Page 4
