The Things We Wish Were True

by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen

  The little boy was not placated by this explanation. “But I want to swim,” he whined, his voice teetering on a tantrum. Zell recognized the warning sound.

  “Well, right now we’re going to have a juice box and some strawberries. And by the time we’re done eating, it’ll be time to go back in the water.” The girl’s voice was singsongy, as if she was attempting to sound kind, but bordering on losing it. Zell recognized that as well. Parenting might’ve changed since she’d done it, but some things were still the same.

  “Excuse me,” a voice interrupted her eavesdropping, and she looked up to find a nicely manicured hand hovering in the air between them. Reflexively, she reached up to take it.

  “Yes?” she asked as her hand was pumped up and down a few times. There was something familiar in the face that belonged to the hand, but she couldn’t place it.

  “My girls are Pilar and Zara?” She pointed at the two little girls Lilah had run off with. The three of them were wrapped in towels in a circle, eating red, white, and blue Bomb Pops. “Are you Lilah’s . . .” She let her voice trail off, uncertain just who Zell was to Lilah.

  “Neighbor. I’m her next-door neighbor. Her dad was busy today, so I said I’d take the kids off his hands.”

  “Oh, well, that’s . . . nice.” She glanced over at the girls and back at Zell. “I think that Lilah had invited the girls over to play, and I had said yes, but then I thought I better find out whether you would approve, but now I see that . . . that’s probably not possible.”

  “Yes, I doubt Lance—that’s her dad—would want extra kids over. He’s working from home these days, and well, it’s a bit of a difficult situation.”

  The woman gave a cynical laugh. “Oh, I understand that,” she said, then more to herself, added, “All too well.” The little boy a few chairs away delivered a belly laugh as if on cue.

  “What did you say your name was?”

  “Oh, sorry, where are my manners? Jencey Wells.”

  Zell squinted at her, trying to make sense of the different last name and the grown-up face. She had known a Jencey once, a girl the same age as her son Ty. That girl had been the little queen bee of the neighborhood, calling all the shots and determined to take the world by storm. All the boys had crushes on her, including her own son, though he would never admit it. Then all that unpleasantness had occurred, and she’d been spirited away in the night by her parents, hidden away in some college up north. Zell heard she’d turned into a Yankee, married some man up there with tons of money, and hardly came home to visit. Folks said her mother, Zell’s old friend Lois Cabot, barely knew her own grandchildren. Jencey Cabot was a cautionary tale passed around among the grandmother set.

  “You’re not . . .” Zell started to ask.

  Jencey gave her a wide, false grin and said, a little too loudly, “Yep, it’s me! Jencey Cabot.”

  “Well, Jencey, how nice. You here visiting?” she asked. “I’m sure your mama is just tickled!”

  “Yes,” Jencey said. “We, um, came to visit.”

  “I’m Zell Boyette. You knew my sons, John Junior and Ty?” She almost said, “I think Ty had a crush on you,” but held her tongue. No one cared about that now.

  “Oh sure, Mrs. Boyette, how are they?”

  “They’re fine, doing fine. JJ’s married to a lovely girl. They’re both building their careers and absolutely refusing to have any grandchildren for me.” She didn’t mention Ty, and thankfully, Jencey didn’t ask after him. Ty wasn’t as . . . upwardly mobile as his brother.

  “Well, please tell them I said hi,” Jencey said. She glanced over toward the bathrooms with a grimace and took a step in that direction. Her girls were coming out, laughing and jostling each other. One of them turned on the outside shower and stuck her head under it, being silly.

  “Jencey?” Zell heard the young woman with the little boy say, stopping Jencey before she could make her exit. The girl was up off her chair and over to where Jencey and Zell were in no time. She wrapped her arms around the startled Jencey, then stepped back to give her a good look. “I can’t believe it’s you! You’re here! You’re back!” she marveled.

  “Bryte?” Jencey asked, looking as stunned as her friend. Zell was witnessing a reunion. “Bryte Bennett? I can’t believe it!” Jencey reached out and gave her friend another hug then pulled back to give her a good look. “You’re all grown up.”

  The other young woman, another child whose mother had once been one of the women Zell whiled away her summer days with, laughed and said, “So are you!” Zell couldn’t believe she hadn’t recognized her, either. But now that she heard the name, she thought, Of course.

  “You look just great!” Jencey said to Bryte. “I mean, really beautiful.” There was a note of incredulity in her voice, overshadowing the compliment, if you asked Zell. But both young women had all but forgotten she was there.

  Bryte colored. “Um, thanks.” She looked down at the little boy hovering at her knee, taking the chance to veer the conversation away from the uncomfortable fact of her beauty. Zell remembered this girl as being sort of plain as a child. She’d certainly grown into the name; light emanated from her now.

  “This is my son, Christopher,” Bryte said. “He’s almost three. And you? I heard you have kids?”

  Zell started to speak, to point out something that would loop her back into the conversation, to make her presence in their midst necessary. But she thought better of it. She listened to the two younger women talk, feeling superfluous not unlike the discarded towels, the crumpled juice boxes, the wet footprints that appeared on the concrete, then just as quickly faded away.

  JENCEY

  The girls were coming out of that dirty bathroom sans flip-flops, and she’d been about to go warn them (again) about the dangers of foot fungi when someone called out to her. She turned to take in this person who knew her name, her brain taking a few seconds to register just who she was seeing. She hadn’t expected to run into Bryte here, though now she realized it had always been a likely encounter. Bryte had never intended to go far.

  Deep down she’d known that this moment—or one close to it—would come. She couldn’t wind up back in her childhood neighborhood and not run headlong into the people from that childhood. In hindsight, taking the girls up to the pool might not have been the smartest move. But she’d been desperate to take their minds off things. When they were playing in the pool and making new friends, they weren’t asking her what would happen next. And at the pool she wasn’t under her mother’s watchful, concerned eye.

  Bryte had married Everett. Of course she’d known that. Her parents had gone to the wedding, urged her to come, too. “Bring Arch,” they’d said, as if Arch’s presence would alleviate the awkwardness. But she’d been nursing Zara and begged off, saying it was just too hard to travel with a nursing baby. It had been a lie that no one could argue with. She’d sent the happy couple an expensive silver tray.

  She examined the little boy holding on to Bryte’s hand—Bryte and Everett’s child, how strange it all was—and looked for a trace of Everett. The hair and eye colors were the same. But mostly he just looked like Bryte. This heartened her some, gave her the courage to keep standing there making small talk with the girl she had once both loved and betrayed, and who had ultimately betrayed her right back. But could it really be called betrayal? Now that they were older, she wasn’t as certain that’s what it had been.

  She knew what real betrayal was now. An image entered her mind: Arch behind the glass in prison.

  The lifeguard blew the whistle, and she watched as the girls and their new friend dove back into the pool. Bryte urged her to come with her into the pool to appease the little boy and continue their conversation. They gave the older woman they were awkwardly standing near a wave as they followed the little boy—she’d already forgotten his name, or maybe she’d blocked it out on purpose—over to the shallow area. She’d been thinking of getting in anyway; it was so hot, and it was only June. She’d forgotten
the heat and humidity of a southern summer. But she’d also forgotten her mother’s tomato sandwiches (white bread, peeled and sliced tomatoes, Duke’s mayonnaise, liberal salt and pepper), the way peaches fresh off the tree tasted, and chasing lightning bugs at dusk, the air at night as warm as midday in Connecticut. The home of her childhood could still offer the comforts of that childhood, comforts she welcomed.

  “This is so great!” Bryte said. She looked at the boy. “Christopher.” Her voice dripped with the kind of gentleness only a first-time mother can muster. “This is one of Mommy’s oldest friends. We grew up together.” She looked over at Jencey, seeking validation that her claim was true.

  Jencey nodded and looked away, pretending to look for her girls even though she knew precisely where they were: on the little diving board. At their club back home, they had a high dive, a curving slide, a snack bar with waiters to deliver drinks to your chaise. She and her friends practically just held out their hands and the drinks appeared like magic. She wondered if Bryte knew the truth about why she was back. She had yet to hear that unmistakable note of pity she’d heard in the voices of her former friends in Connecticut the unfortunate times she’d run into any of them before she’d left.

  She hadn’t wanted to tell anyone what had happened to Arch, including her parents. But when it became apparent that she might end up needing her folks’ help, she’d filled them in on all the gory details. Her father, good man that he was, had asked if he should come up there and kick Arch’s ass. She’d laughed in spite of herself and assured him that, no, his ass-kicking services would not be needed. The federal government was doing a fine and dandy job of that, thank you very much.

  “Just know we’re here if you need us,” he’d said. The kindness in his voice had brought tears to her eyes. It had made her remember the support he’d offered before, back when the hearts had started showing up everywhere and she’d had no choice but to go somewhere that her “admirer” couldn’t find her anymore. It was her father who’d driven her up north, to a college they’d told no one about, since no one could figure out who’d been stalking her. They couldn’t afford for the wrong person to know, the wrong person to find her. That had been a long, quiet ride, the radio on low, the mood in the car pensive, not unlike her ride back all these years later.

  “I can’t believe my mom didn’t tell me you were here!” Bryte said, her focus intent on Christopher instead of Jencey, which was a good thing.

  “She probably didn’t know,” Jencey said.

  “Didn’t know?” Bryte repeated as a question. She looked up at a plane making its way across the wide blue sky and nodded an answer to Christopher’s (incessant) questions.

  “I sort of asked them to keep it quiet. That I was here.”

  “Oh no, did something happen?” Bryte’s face registered legitimate concern, but in spite of that, Jencey couldn’t tell her. She could tell Bryte was trying to be her friend, but things weren’t the same between them for a lot of reasons.

  She waved her arm in the air and forced a smile. “Just didn’t want a big to-do. You know, after all this time.”

  “It has been a long time, Jencey.” Bryte’s voice got quieter. “I never thought you’d stay gone so long.”

  Though she tried to hide it, Jencey picked up on the hurt in Bryte’s voice and attempted to lighten the mood with a joke.

  “Well, you know, I met this man, and I got pregnant—oops!” Jencey grinned, expecting Bryte to laugh, but Bryte didn’t even smile over her standard joke, which usually got a better response. She continued talking, her words tumbling over themselves. “So we got married and had the kids, and things were crazy. We made a few quick trips back, but we never stayed very long. It was easier to have my parents come to us.” She took a breath. “So what about you guys? How’d you end up back here?”

  Bryte watched as Christopher barely put his face into the water, then she applauded as if he’d just swum the length of the pool. “We bought a house here when I got pregnant with Christopher. Wanted him to have the same kind of childhood we both did. You know . . .” Bryte’s words died on her tongue as she realized what she was saying. This wasn’t a place full of happy memories for Jencey. For her, this was a place to run from, not to.

  Bryte recovered quickly, her voice confident. “I mean, we love it here.”

  “Of course,” Jencey found herself saying. “It’s nice.” She looked around at the handsome lifeguard on the stand in his Risky Business sunglasses, the rippling water, the assortment of children playing together, and the older woman who’d been so nice—JJ’s mom. If she tried to recall some happy memories of this place, she might come upon them. She might see things differently.

  “Look, Mom!” she heard Zara call, and turned to see her youngest, most cautious child standing on the diving board. Back home Zara never went near the high dive or the slide, hanging out in the splash pool for babies instead and insisting that was all she wanted. Maybe this short diving board was more her speed. “Watch this!”

  “I’m watching!” she called back brightly.

  Zara sprang into the air and gathered her feet to her, forming herself into a compact little ball just before coming down with a loud splash into the water. All the other kids clapped as Zara popped back up to the surface, blinking to clear her vision so that she could make sure Jencey was still watching.

  BRYTE

  On the way back to her chair, Bryte stepped on a discarded juice box, and the remaining contents squirted her foot. She grimaced and sat down to wipe it off with her towel. Her friend Karen had arrived with her daughter, Sarah, while she was catching up with Jencey. Karen sprayed the child with SPF 100, coating the air more than the kid. Bryte waved the mist away and handed a cup of water to Christopher, who was already whining that he wanted to go back in the water.

  “We need to say hi to our friends,” she coaxed. She looked at Karen and sighed with exhaustion. “Hi,” she said.

  Karen laughed and pointed over at Jencey. “Who was that?”

  Bryte smirked at her. How to explain who Jencey was? She didn’t have the energy to go into it now, so she gave as brief an explanation as possible. “That was someone I grew up with. She’s in town with her girls for a visit.” She made her voice sound light and carefree as she said it.

  Karen checked Jencey out surreptitiously from behind her dark glasses. “She’s pretty,” she said. “Really pretty.”

  Bryte flopped back on the chaise. “She always was,” she said. “And besides, her kids are older. She has more time to spend on herself.”

  Karen pointed at herself. “Don’t I know it—this bathing suit?” She gestured to the plain black tankini she wore. “When I put this on today, it was the first time I’d been out of sweats in two days! When Kevin wants to have sex, I’m like, ‘Dude? Have you looked at me? Have you smelled me?’”

  Bryte laughed. “Preach, sister,” she said.

  Karen began the arduous process of pulling the floaties onto her daughter’s arm as Sarah twisted and whined. “You can’t go in unless you have these on,” she said. “You know the rules.” She gave up when the floaties were just above the elbows instead of at the biceps where they belonged. She waved Sarah toward the pool. “Let’s go,” she said.

  She motioned for Bryte to get up, and Bryte moaned good-naturedly. “I will pay you one hundred dollars to take both kids in the pool for one hour.”

  Karen shook her head vigorously. “If I go, you go. It’s the motherhood code. And besides, I’m the one who’s pregnant. I should be the one who gets to lounge.” Bryte didn’t need reminding of her friend’s current state. It was Karen and Kevin’s announcement that had started Everett on his quest to add to their family. Ironically or not, Karen and Kevin’s last name was Jones. And Everett was committed to keeping up with them.

  They passed the time in the water, talking about the latest neighborhood happenings, revisiting the same subjects they always covered. Should they resume bunco game nights in the fall
? Who was bringing what to the Fourth of July potluck? Would the women of the neighborhood respond to the idea of doing a painting class in the clubhouse once a month? And what books should they select for this year’s book club when it started again in September? Karen was the Energizer Bunny of the WOSG (Women of Sycamore Glen).

  “You think your friend over there would want to come to book club?” Karen gestured at Jencey, who was, in fact, reading a book.

  “Oh, she’s just visiting.”

  “Got it,” Karen said, but she gave Bryte a look that told her she’d responded just a little too passionately. Karen could smell a good story from fifty paces, and if Bryte wasn’t careful, she’d sniff this one out, too. Bryte didn’t need to share their complicated relationship with anyone.

  Bryte glanced at the clock on the clubhouse wall. “Ugh. I gotta go.”

  “But I just got here!” Karen said. “You can’t leave me!” She made a dramatic, desperate face and playfully tugged on her arm.

  “I’d stay—believe me—but I promised Myrtle Honeycutt I’d walk Rigby.”

  “It’s too hot to walk that dog!” Karen argued, looking legitimately horrified.

  “We’ll drink lots of water, and we won’t go far, Mom.” Bryte smirked at her. “Besides, if I don’t take him, she will try to.” She shrugged. “It’s become part of our routine.”

  Karen poked her in the shoulder. “You, my dear, are too nice.”

  Bryte waved goodbye and pulled Christopher from the pool. As she collected her things, she glanced at Jencey one more time, catching her eye and waving goodbye, wishing she could ask her so many questions, wishing the years hadn’t turned them into strangers.

  CAILEY

  We had a summer routine, Cutter and me. We got up, and I made Cutter some breakfast. Usually it was just cereal, because Mom didn’t like me using the stove when she was at work. But sometimes I made him toast because I was allowed to use the toaster. When Mom got paid, she bought us Pop-Tarts, even though they are very bad for you and you should not eat them. It was only once a month, so she said it was OK.