Tomorrow There Will Be Sun

by Dana Reinhardt

  Malcolm looks at Ivan. “Play to twenty-one?”

  “Yes,” Ivan says. “But I only want to play if I get to win.”

  * * *

  • • •

  DINNER IS SPARSELY ATTENDED. It’s just Solly, Peter, Malcolm and me.

  We’d agreed that dinnertime was the one nonoptional activity, but this was back when all we knew of this villa was the website, and all we knew of Puerto Vallarta was in the guidebook. When our dream vacation was still a dream vacation.

  Clem never did get dressed. Mommy, bring me a grilled cheese, she pleaded and took it to the room with the VCR and set herself up with Charlotte’s Web, the old cartoon version, not the live-action remake. She closed the door, retreating further, crawling deeper into the recesses of her own childhood.

  Peter thinks she’s hiding out from him, and he’s had it with her preciousness, so he was less than thrilled that I indulged her, following up that grilled cheese, which was really a grilled torta prepared by Luisa, with a pineapple smoothie, also prepared by Luisa.

  Ingrid is supposedly looking after Ivan, who is supposedly not feeling well, but I know that neither of these things is true because of Ivan’s Ping-Pong table confessional. I still don’t know why Ingrid is mad at Solly but of course I can’t help but wonder if Ingrid has discovered the truth about Gavriella.

  Imagine being trapped in a house with your cheating husband and your best friends, who have all conspired to keep the same secret. How humiliating. What is Ingrid supposed to do? Put on a sundress and come to dinner? Sit down and unfold her napkin and praise the food? The flower arrangement? The view?

  As promised, dinner is chicken. It doesn’t reach the level of Luisa’s earlier efforts. The margaritas, however, are stronger and I wonder if Roberto made them this way intentionally.

  Solly doesn’t let on about any marital unrest. He’s upbeat and boisterous as usual, regaling Malcolm with a story about the time he was in Paris after his senior year of high school and found himself, unintentionally of course, in a brothel, and before he knew it he was hundreds of dollars into champagne he hadn’t ordered, and when his credit card was declined and the three-hundred-pound bouncer blocked his exit he had to call his father in New York. Though his hands were shaking as he dialed the number, his father met the news with unbridled glee. He gave Solly an alternate credit card number to use. He said it would make quite a story, and why else do you travel the world but to collect stories?

  “Sometimes, my boy,” Solly finishes with a hand on Malcolm’s shoulder, “it’s okay if your stories are better in the retelling than they are in the moment you live them.”

  It is impossible for me to believe that Malcolm doesn’t know about the brothel in Paris. I could have told him this story myself, with the very same dramatic pauses, the same Don Corleone voice Solly employs for his father, the same delivery of the life lesson at the end.

  But Malcolm laughed in all the right places, as did Peter, who has heard this story more times than probably anybody else. They look at me. How can I sit here not reacting when Solly just played the consummate raconteur? Am I immune to his charm? Entirely without humor? Am I carved out of ice?

  I should try to show kindness. Patience. I should use this chance to abdicate the throne of queen of unsubtlety. With all the allegiances fraying, why not shore up mine?

  “What a story,” I say.

  * * *

  • • •

  THE SIRENS WAKE ME.

  I bolt upright, heart racing. “Peter!”

  “What?” He’s groggy, not at all alarmed.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?” He doesn’t lift his head from his pillow.

  But now I don’t hear anything. Only a rustling of the palm trees in the night wind. Did I dream the sirens the way I used to dream Clementine’s cries? I’d rush to her crib, ready to soothe her, only to find her sleeping, unperturbed. I’d stand still, watching the rise and fall of her tiny chest, waiting to see if she’d cry out again, questioning my postpartum sanity.

  “Nothing,” I say. “Sorry.”

  He doesn’t hear me. He’s snoring. He won’t remember this tomorrow. I look at the clock.

  Tomorrow is only two minutes away.

  FRIDAY

  There are voices down the hall.

  I get out of bed. I grab the robe I failed to return to Clem and throw it on over my pajamas. I creak our door open slowly, not wanting to wake Peter again.

  I tiptoe past Clem’s bedroom down our wing to the front entryway, where I find an unlikely duo huddled together.

  Roberto and Ingrid.

  “What’s going on?” I whisper.

  “I heard a siren.” Ingrid says.

  “I heard it, too!” They look confused as to why I’d deliver this news with such enthusiasm. I lower my voice. “It sounded like it was close.”

  “Yes,” Roberto says. “It is close. The police, they drive our road.” He wears light blue cotton pajama pants and a white ribbed tank top, but he might as well be standing in a pair of briefs, it’s equally jarring seeing him this way.

  “We’re on a dead end,” I’m still whispering. “Why would they drive down our street?”

  “I do not know,” Roberto says. “But I go outside and I see nothing. They are gone now. It is okay.”

  It’s then that I notice the nightstick in his hand. He sees me looking at it.

  “It is for protection,” he says. “Just for to be safe.”

  I don’t remember reading about this on the villa’s website. For your safety our house manager carries a nightstick.

  “I tell Mrs. Solly it is okay. Police are getting control. The cartel, they agree to release the men they kidnap. This I hear on the radio. Can go back to sleep now. Tomorrow will be better. It is Good Friday.”

  Ingrid does not look mollified. In fact, she looks like a wreck. Gone is her effortless magazine-worthy beauty. All those months spent detoxing her system, undone by a single day of stressors.

  “Listen to him,” I tell Ingrid. “We’re fine. We’re safe.”

  Just then Luisa enters. Either she’s thought better of coming upstairs in her pajamas or she sleeps in her clothes.

  Come back to bed, Roberto, she says. Put away that ridiculous nightstick. What are you going to do with it anyway? What are you, some kind of tough guy? Come on. Leave these crazy women with their paranoia about lead in our pottery and all their other nonsense and come back to bed.

  This is what I imagine she is saying to him in her rapid-fire Spanish.

  “Sí, querida,” he replies. She takes him by the hand and leads him back to the secret bedroom.

  Over his shoulder he calls, “Good night. Have good sleep. No more worry.”

  When they’re out of sight, Ingrid collapses into my arms and lets loose a sob. I rub her back like I’m soothing a child, if I had a child who would let me hold her like this.

  “I’m sorry,” she cries. “I’m just . . . a bit of a mess.”

  I lead her over to the sofa and sit her down. She takes her oversize Boychick Bagels T-shirt and dabs at her eyes with it. I switch into my default mode for uncomfortable situations: I offer to be useful.

  “Let me go get you some water.”

  Down in the kitchen I fill a large glass from the filter and then grab a half-empty bottle of tequila from the counter. I hold up both when I return.

  “A little something for each of us.”

  She points to the bottle. “Actually . . . I think I’ll take some of that.”

  I grin. “Hold on. I’ll get you a glass.”

  “Don’t bother.” She grabs the tequila from me and takes a modest swig. She does the all-over body shake of an inexperienced drinker.

  I sit down next to her. I slide the water glass closer.

  “Thank you. I know
I’m like a broken record, but you’re a great friend.”

  “Well,” I say. “It’s unsettling to be woken by sirens.”

  “I wasn’t sleeping.”

  “No?”

  “Solly and I had a fight.”

  I try for a look of surprise. “You did?”

  She holds the tequila bottle in her lap. I’m waiting for her to take another sip so that I can follow that up with a healthy slug, but she just spins it slowly around in her hands. Her eyes refill with tears.

  “Oh, Ingrid. I’m so sorry.”

  Ingrid sniffles. “We don’t really fight. I know that sounds weird, but it’s true. I’m conflict averse and he’s a people pleaser. And we’re lucky enough not to have a third rail.”

  An affair, I imagine, would count as a pretty significant third rail. So clearly she hasn’t found out about Solly’s affair with Gavriella or else she wouldn’t be describing him right now as a people pleaser.

  “Surely you can still find things to fight over,” I say.

  “Do you know the top three reasons couples fight?”

  “I’m not sure I do.”

  Ingrid takes a long pause. She picks at the label on the bottle of tequila, then holds up three fingers. “Sex. Money. Kids. We don’t fight about sex—let’s just say we have compatible drives and appetites. Money is something we have plenty of and I never cared much about anyway. And as for kids, Ivan is a joy and a pleasure, and by virtue of Solly’s age and the fact that he’s already raised one child, he’s happy to take a backseat and let me be Ivan’s primary parent. I know some women scoff at me, they think I’m failing to live up to the feminist ideals of my generation by taking on more than fifty percent of the child-rearing burden, but to me it’s far from a burden, it’s a privilege, and I enjoy being in control of that privilege. I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

  She moves the tequila to her lips and then pauses.

  For the love of God, I think. Please take a sip and pass it on.

  She lowers the bottle back into her lap, untouched. “And then . . . there’s Malcolm.”

  “So you do have a third rail,” I say.

  “No.” She shakes her head. “I love Malcolm. He’s Ivan’s brother. He’s Solly’s son. I care deeply for him. He’s never been a source of contention. I’ve always wanted to see more of him, to have him with us for more than what is set out in the custody agreement. I never thought Solly should have let Maureen take him to New York; I always believed she did it out of spite.”

  Ingrid removes her hands from the bottle and grips her bare knees. I seize this opportunity to snatch the bottle from her lap. Since I don’t know when I’ll get it back again, I take two long pulls, one after the other, before I pass it back.

  “I don’t live with guilt like Solly, so I can see clearly when it comes to Malcolm.” She sinks a little deeper into the couch. “And what Malcolm did . . . well . . . it was just . . . unconscionable.”

  “He sold drugs?”

  She looks at me, surprised. “You know?”

  “Only that he sold pills to some kids at school.”

  “Did you know that one of the girls died of an overdose?”

  I shake my head. I wonder if Peter knows and somehow managed to leave out this detail, but then I think that no matter how much snooping, prodding and interrogating I do, I’ll never know what secrets Peter and Solly keep for each other.

  “Solly and Maureen, they think Malcolm is a victim because he was kicked out of school. Malcolm is lucky! The only reason he didn’t face criminal charges was because it couldn’t be proven that she died from the drugs he sold her rather than drugs she bought elsewhere. But still, they say: ‘Malcolm was targeted.’ ‘Malcolm was just doing what other kids do.’ ‘Malcolm was treated unfairly because he’s biracial.’ They never, in my opinion, held him accountable for his actions. I know I’m younger. I’m newer to being a parent. But Jesus. What kind of message are they sending him?”

  “I think sometimes it’s hard to know who’s really to blame for the terrible things that happen. Can’t he bear some responsibility and also be a victim?”

  “I don’t know. Can he?”

  “He’s still a good kid,” I say.

  At long last, Ingrid takes another swig from the bottle. The shock is milder; she only wiggles a little in her seat.

  She shrugs and then turns to face me, a sad smile on her flushed face. “It’s so easy to forget here. The sun shines, most of the time. The water is warm. The house is spectacular. All our needs are met! And yet, right outside . . . right down the street . . . it’s ground zero for the terrible chain of supply and demand that led to the death of that poor girl at Malcolm’s school. And whether Solly and Maureen want to admit it or not, Malcolm, this boy of unfathomable privilege, this good kid, was a crucial link in that chain. This is what I’m struggling with. This is why Solly and I had a fight. He doesn’t want to think about it. Doesn’t want to talk about it.”

  “Who can blame him?”

  “I can,” she says. “After what happened last night, after the kidnapping, after all the sirens . . . I can’t stop thinking about the connection between what’s happening here and what happened at Malcolm’s school and what’s happening everywhere. Refusing to think or talk about these problems or to acknowledge our role in them is irresponsible. Did you know there are more deaths from opioid use in the United States than there are from car accidents?”

  “I didn’t.” What I do know with a piercing clarity is that I’m an idiot for worrying about my daughter spending too much time staring at her phone or having sex with her boyfriend or puking on a friend’s Turkish kilim from drinking too many wine coolers. I’m an idiot for worrying about half of what I worry about.

  “Look,” Ingrid says. “I know I’m violating the basic number one rule of vacation: Leave the tough stuff at home. Sit in the sun and forget.” She lets loose a quick and not entirely genuine laugh. “Sit in the sun and forget. That’s my mantra for tomorrow.”

  She takes another, longer, sip from the bottle and holds perfectly still as it goes down.

  “Maybe you should take it easy,” I say. “Last time I checked, tequila was not a complex carbohydrate.”

  She laughs, a real laugh, and puts a hand on my leg. We are compatriots, she is saying. Sisters-in-arms.

  There are so many ways I misunderstood Ingrid. I saw her as self-involved in that way young attractive moms are, where they think all they do is give, give, give, and in fact all they really do is think about themselves as objects of desire and affection. I underestimated her as a friend, as a writer, as a woman of substance.

  “I haven’t forgotten your kindness, Jenna. I’m still feasting on every word you shared about my manuscript.”

  “Well, I meant what I said. And when we get back home, with your permission, I’d like to send it to my agent.”

  The tequila has made my face, my insides, warm. I am el cabron suertudo. I am a lucky bastard. I have a husband who loves me. I have a child who is not in terrible trouble. I have a book under contract that I will finish eventually. Why not help out a friend who is about to face tough times?

  I feel expansive. I have power. I hold keys.

  Ingrid slides even closer to me on the couch. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  The last lines of Ingrid’s email that she sent with her manuscript come back to me: Please, be brutally honest. No good will come from trying to protect my feelings.

  No good will come from lying. From keeping what I know to myself.

  “You’re an excellent writer,” I say to Ingrid. “I mean it. And I think you have a big career ahead of you.”

  “Jenna—”

  “Wait. There’s something more. Something else I need to tell you.”

  “Okay.” She smiles. Her hands clench the bottle in her lap. She is an eager
listener. A rapt audience.

  “It’s about Solly.”

  “Solly? What about Solly?”

  “I . . . I . . . think Solly may be having an affair with Peter’s assistant.”

  Ingrid lifts the bottle from her lap and puts it down on the coffee table. She stands up slowly. She walks to the far side of the room; I think she’s leaving, heading toward the master to rouse Solly from sleep, to drag his not insubstantial mass from the king-size bed and let him have it. But instead she walks the perimeter of the living room, past the balcony with its view of the moon over the Bay of Banderas, around the back of the couch, until she’s come full circle. She sits down in the chair facing me.

  “Jenna,” she says, her voice calm. “Solly isn’t having an affair.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” I say. “But as your friend, as a wife, I felt like I had to tell you. That you had the right to know. I’m sorry.”

  “Jenna,” she says again. She is still calm, but more emphatic. “Solly isn’t having an affair.”

  I reach for the bottle between us. I unscrew the cap. When did she put the cap back on the bottle? I take a long drink.

  “I know it’s hard to process. It’s a big bomb I’m dropping in your lap, in your life. I hate to do it, but I also hate to sit by and watch you get hurt. I don’t want him to do to you what he did to Maureen.”

  “Jenna.”

  “What?”

  “Solly isn’t having an affair.”

  And just like that the years between us open up again, a wide, yawning canyon. We are no longer compatriots. Sisters-in-arms. She is too young. Too naïve. Too nice to see the hard truth about the man she loves. The man everyone loves.

  “Ingrid, I’m sorry.” Like Roberto, I keep apologizing for something entirely out of my control.

  “Jenna,” she says. “Solly isn’t having an affair with Gavriella.” She reaches across the table for my hand. “Peter is. It’s Peter.”

  * * *