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Katherine looks away without replying, making me wilt inside, although I try not to show it. It feels like it’s always been this way between us, from the time she was a baby, first refusing to nurse no matter how much I tried to bring her to my breast, and then later maintaining stony silences even as a hurt toddler, with a scraped knee and tears drying on her cheeks.
Sometimes I almost prefer Ben’s manic boy energy compared to Katherine’s wary stillness; now, as ever, I don’t know how to handle it. It frustrates and saddens me at turns, and the worst part is, I think she knows, no matter how hard I try to hide it.
In any case, Ben breaks the moment by splashing me, dousing me in water which, no matter what I just said, really is cold.
“Ben!” My voice rings out, half-laughing, half-scolding. He grins and splashes me again. Katherine, still on the shore, sits down on the damp sand and clutches her knees to her chest.
While Ben splashes around I float on my back and stare up at the azure sky, the world around me fading to nothing but this sunlit moment. I’m not going to worry about my children, or how we’ll occupy the next three months, or the fact that I ought to call Kyle, even though I’m dreading one of our tense conversations. I’m simply going to let my mind empty out as I revel in the perfect peace of this moment, the sense of possibility that still remains, shimmering and endless.
I’m aware of something changing more from a strange, prickling feeling than anything else; I don’t think I’ve heard a sound or a voice. But for some reason I stand up, my feet touching the bottom of the lake, which out here, up to my shoulders, doesn’t feel as nice. My toe brushes something slimy and I jerk my foot away from it.
I blink water out of my eyes to take in the sight of a little girl standing by the shore, hands planted on her hips. She looks to be about eight or nine, with glossy blonde hair in an expensive-looking pageboy cut and impossibly bright blue eyes. She wears a tiny string bikini that looks incongruous on her sturdy little child’s body.
“This is our beach,” she announces. Ben and Katherine simply stare. I start wading back toward the shore.
“Sorry?” I say, adopting that slightly jolly mother’s tone that is meant to convey both friendliness and authority. The little girl doesn’t even blink.
“This is our beach.” She takes one hand off her hip and waves it toward the hulking lake house of blue shingle in the distance. Of course she comes from there. “We have five hundred feet of lake frontage, and I’ve been measuring it.” She points to Pine Cottage’s pitiful twenty-five feet of said frontage. “This is ours.”
“Oh, really?” I smile with a certain kind of adult condescension. Her determined gaze doesn’t waver. “Well, actually, this is our cottage, and the lake directly in front of it is ours too, at least for the summer. Anyway,” I add, afraid my voice may have been a bit too hard, “I’m sure you have enough for yourselves. The lake’s big enough for both of us, don’t you think?” I give the girl what I hope is a friendly smile.
“That doesn’t matter. My mother said we had five hundred feet, and the brochure said it too, and so that’s ours.” She blinks, her gaze fastened on me. “You shouldn’t be here.”
Ben and Katherine are still silent, watching this exchange with a kind of morbid fascination. I grit my teeth, holding on to my mom-friendliness with effort. Whoisthis kid?
“Well, this is our cottage and our beach,” I say, trying to keep it light and friendly, “so maybeyoushouldn’t be here.” I temper my words with a smile. “Unless you’d like to swim with us?”
“Swimwith you?” The girl looks practically revolted.
“Then maybe you should go? Find your parents, maybe?” Too late I realize how unfriendly I sound, butgood grief. I guess we won’t be hanging out with our neighbors, not that I ever imagined such a thing.
“Zoe!”
I look up to see a woman coming down a worn dirt path snaking between the drooping pines; it leads to the big lake house, although why there should be such a path between these two impossibly different residences I have no idea.
“Zoe, you gave me such a scare. What are you doing over here?” The woman glances at Pine Cottage, her nose wrinkling, her guileless gaze taking it in and undoubtedly assessing it as a dump in less than three seconds before she turns to me with a wide, sunny smile. “Hello, I’m Rebecca Finlay. We’re renting over there.” She gestures toward the grandiose lake house.
I manage a smile, although everything about this situation is making me tense. Rebecca Finlay is exactly the kind of woman I dislike, and yes, I know that makes me sound judgmental, but I’m basing it on unfortunate experiences of women just like her back home who blanked me, and worse, did the same to my children, at school or the park. Who meet each other’s gazes over the top of my head, eyes rolling just a little. Who give tinkling laughs as they look away dismissively.
She’s also everything I’ve never felt myself—confident, self-assured, elegant, at ease. She is tall and willowy, her impossibly blonde hair cut in an expensive-looking bob like her daughter’s, and now caught back with a pale blue cloth-covered headband. Her hair is gleaming and perfect, expertly highlighted in a pale rainbow of golds and silvers, just as everything else about her is perfect—her nearly wrinkle-free skin, her manicured nails, her thin-as-a-stick figure. She wears a crisp, white sleeveless blouse with a pair of pale blue capris—they match the headband—with knife-edge pleats.
In this moment I am horribly conscious of my nubby bathing suit, faded and stretched out from years of reluctant use. “Hi,” I manage as I wade out of the water. “I’m Tessa McIntyre. We’re renting here.”
CHAPTER TWO
REBECCA
Of course, I go upstairs for three seconds and Zoe disappears. I can’t have a moment to myself here. I should have hired a nanny for the summer, but Josh said the kids were too old for one and anyway, that wasn’t the point. What the point is, I have no idea. To be tidied away? To not embarrass him any more than I already have? I don’t know which is worse—having Josh disapproving of me, or having him worried about me. The children suspect something is wrong, I know. Charlotte has given me looks.
Zoe, of course, is angry; she misses her gang of summer friends from the Hamptons, and of course she blames me for taking her away from them. Charlotte seems indifferent about whether we’re in the Hamptons or Hicksville Finger Lakes, and there is no denying that Max is relieved. Yet whatever my children feel, whatever I feel, the fact remains we’re in exile, even if it was somewhat chosen.
I glance now at Zoe and then at my neighbor, this Tessa, with her two awkward-looking children behind her. No one says anything, but I feel the tension in the air, which is practically crackling. Zoe glares at Tessa while her two children stand by the water’s edge, completely mute and still. I know how to handle this, of course; I’m an expert at handling these tedious situations, making socially awkward people feel comfortable and liked. Whether it’s a school fair or cocktail party, I’m your woman. At least I was. I’m sure some people would disagree now, and I know Josh would. I’ve definitely let it all slip in the last few months, but it doesn’t matter anyway, because I don’t even feel like making the effort right now.
We arrived here a week ago and it’s already felt endless, even though I’m relieved not to face a summer of judgment and whispers in the Hamptons. Josh’s words keep replaying in my mind:Maybe it’s better for you to be away from it all. Give you time to think. How about Wisconsin?
Three months with my parents. Absolutely not. And the last thing I want is time to think. Just thinking about thinking sends memories flitting like shadows through my mind, along with the treacherous doubt. I feel like my mind has splintered into spinning fragments and there’s no way I can put them together again. It’s a miracle that I’ve managed, for the most part, to seem as if I have. I’ve fooled Josh far more than he realizes. That much I know, at least. Sometimes I think I’ve managed to fool myself.If I act like I’m okay, I will be.The biggest lie but I’m buying into it for now because I don’t know what else to do.
I don’t want to think about all that now, though, and so I focus on Tessa and her children.
