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“You’re renting too? Oh, how wonderful!” My voice is bright and carrying, full of enthusiasm. “How long are you here for?”
“The whole summer.” Tessa has come out of the water and stands on the beach, round-shouldered and shivering. “What about you?”
“The same.”
“Oh. Wow. Great.” Tessa’s words fall like stones into the stillness, and I know she is thinking the same thing as I am. Nearly three months of being neighbors. We could politely avoid one another, but it will be awkward, a summer of apologetic smiles and stilted chitchat as we clamber into our cars. We’re clearly very different people.
“So where are you from?” I ask in the same friendly voice. “Very far away?”
“New York City,” Tessa says, and I give a semi-squeal.
“Oh wow, us too! Which part?”
“Park Slope.”
“Oh, I love Brooklyn.” I haven’t actually been there, except to drive through. “It’s so hip and trendy, isn’t it? Everyone’s moving there.” One of the moms at Stirling Prep, the children’s private school, moved to Brooklyn and honestly, it was as if she’d died. We went out for drinks the night before her move, and it felt like a wake.
“Yes, well, the rental prices certainly reflect that.” Tessa lets out a little laugh and I nod, as if I know anything about rental prices in Brooklyn. We’ve owned our own apartment, a four-bedroom on Fifth Avenue, for ten years.
“Mommy, this is our beach.” I glance down at Zoe, taking in the familiar gleam of obstinate mischief in her bright blue eyes. Maniacal child. Exhausting, maniacal child whom I can’t help but adore, simply for being so stubborn. Charlotte and Max are both ridiculously easy compared to her, and yet if I had to have a favorite, which of course I don’t, it just might be Zoe.
“Zoe, what on earth are you talking about?” I let out a laugh and share a glance with Tessa, who looks heartened by this seeming complicity between us.Kids these days.
“We have five hundred feet of beachfront,” Zoe says, her tone determined now. “It said so in the brochure. I’ve been counting it out, and so this part has to be ours, because we only have four hundred and fifty.”
I glance back down at my daughter, too exasperated to be embarrassed by her ridiculous assertion. She’s just trying to cause trouble, although why she’d pick on our hapless neighbors I have no idea. Easy targets, I suppose. “Oh, Zoe, honestly. You are too much. We have plenty of beach, we don’t need to go grabbing other people’s.”
I glance back at Tessa, shaking my head, inviting her to share the joke even though I know Zoe will be furious later. Zoe is so often furious.
Tessa manages a smile. “Maybe it goes five hundred feet the other way,” she suggests to Zoe, who glares at her.
“That’s in the woods,” my daughter says scornfully. “It’s not really beach so it doesn’t count.”
“Yes, but it’s still lakefront.” I can’t believe I’m bothering to debate this ridiculous point. “That’s what they’re counting, not whether it’s beach or not. The sand is all driven in, dumped by a truck. There’s no natural beach. Anyway…” I give Tessa a farewell kind of smile. “It’s beensonice to meet you.”
“You, too.” She glances back at her children, who have been shuffling by the shore. “Sorry, I should have introduced my kids. This is Ben and—and Katherine.” For some reason she sounds almost uncertain as she says her daughter’s name.
“Sonice to meet you.” I give them a wide smile as I glance at them appraisingly. Katherine has hit that gawky stage of girlhood, her breasts two noticeable bumps under her bathing suit, and Ben’s shaggy hair hides his eyes. Neither of them speaks.
A shiver of apprehension runs through me as it hits me all over again—nearly three months in this place. Good grief, what are we going todo? We went to the tennis and pool club for the last few days, for the children’s lessons, and we have sailing twice a week, but rubbing elbows with the provincial version of the Upper East Side at the club was even more exhausting than I expected. But what’s the alternative? Becoming best friends with Tessa McIntyre?
“Ben, Katherine…” Tessa sounds both annoyed and embarrassed, and trying not to be either. “Say hello, guys. Introduce yourselves.”
They both mumble something unintelligible, and I give yet another wide, sunny smile; my cheeks are starting to hurt. “So how old are you, Katherine?”
“Eleven.”
“The same age as Charlotte!” I clap my hands as if in delight, the sound startling both children so they jerk a little. “And what about you, Ben?”
“Nine.” He glances up at me from underneath his shaggy hair, clearly bored by grownup conversation.
“The same age as Zoe here!” Zoe stares at them both, unimpressed. “And Max is eight.”
“You have three children?” Tessa says, dutifully doing the arithmetic, and I nod.
“Yes. Three.” Conversation is clearly going to be hard work, but at least it keeps my mind engaged. “I know,” I say, as if I’ve just had a sudden and fantastic idea, “why don’t you all come over for dinner tomorrow night?” They all stare at me blankly. “It will be so much fun.”
“Yes…” Tessa says, sounding uncertain. You’d think she’d be grateful for such an invitation.
