All the Summer Girls Page 6

  The ocean had glowed silver in the moonlight. The Big Dipper (which Dani, poetically, if inaccurately, called the Three Sisters until Kate corrected her) looked so, well, big that Vanessa envisioned its handle as a stray thread she could reach out and pull, unraveling the entire canopy of stars above as easily as a loosely knit cap. Dani, who had the implausible talent of becoming more bright-eyed and charismatic with every drink, immediately launched into an exaggerated reenactment of Kate attempting to fold herself into the clothes dryer when the police had arrived at the party. (Kate—perhaps the most drunk that Vanessa had ever seen her—had become afraid that if she were issued a citation she would have to include it on her law school applications that fall. She was still traumatized by the night, five summers earlier, when the police had pulled up to a party on Fortieth Street and loaded each and every person in the house, including Kate, Dani, and Vanessa, onto what had by then become known among the island’s many underage partygoers as the “Magic Bus”—a converted school bus that the summer-hire cops used to transport herds of high schoolers from parties to the police station. Kate had been furious that the police entered a private home and arrested her despite the fact that she wasn’t drinking—even at sixteen she had a strong sense of right and wrong. It turned out she wasn’t the only one who saw the injustice in these methods; later, the girls became part of a class action lawsuit that awarded them each five hundred dollars and set Kate off and running on her career path.)

  With the group’s attention on Dani’s antics, Jeremy gestured for Vanessa to follow him over the low fence that separated the beach from the dunes. At the time, she didn’t think anyone noticed when they slipped away. Within moments, she was leaning back in a cool valley of sand between two clumps of beach grass, and Jeremy was stretched beside her, kissing her, his hand cradling her hip, pulling her closer into his warmth, the voices of their friends subsumed by the tide.

  The sound of heels on pavement pulls Vanessa to turn and watch as a woman with a swingy red miniskirt and a wristful of gold bangles hurries by the playground, talking excitedly into her cell phone. Nocelli, the gallery where Vanessa used to work, is displaying installations by Dara Freeman now, and while a part of Vanessa is sitting on the park bench in linen pants and a ponytail, another part of her is clicking through the gallery in peep-toe heels and a teal silk shirtdress. She misses the gallery, the buzzy feel of being part of a scene, part of the world that exists outside of motherhood.

  Over the holidays, she’d decided she was ready to go back to work. She was going to call Teri—her old boss at Nocelli who had left to start her own gallery—and her other art world contacts and put out feelers for a new position. Lucy was nearing two and entering a more independent phase of life and in the weeks since New Year’s Day Vanessa had felt herself blinking, sharpening, as the world outside of their Mommy-and-Me microcosm began shifting back into focus. Her hourglass figure was a softer, fuller version now, but her body, long done with breastfeeding, felt almost like her own again. She could not sleep as deeply as she used to, but she was at least getting seven-hour stretches of rest each night. And Lucy lit up when she saw other children; she’d probably thrive in a small preschool. Excited to tell Drew about the decision she’d finally reached, Vanessa had slathered Grey Poupon on salmon—she prides herself on not being much of a cook—and made a spinach salad. No carbs for her, she was going back to work!

  When Drew came home that evening, he beat her to the Big News punch. He’d kissed Lenora Haysbach. It had happened weeks earlier, he told her, at the show’s holiday party that Vanessa had missed because their babysitter had canceled on them at the last minute. Lenora was—is—a publicist for the show; they still work together; her office is right down the hall from Drew’s. They’d kissed while they lingered by the coat-check cubby at the end of a long hall at the end of a long night.

  He waited so long to tell her because he didn’t want to ruin Christmas. This part infuriates Vanessa nearly as much as the kiss itself. This, and the fact that when she stupidly asked Drew for a play-by-play of exactly what had happened (she’d needed to know what he meant by “kiss,” and it quickly became clear that he had not meant “peck” but something far more involved, something that, had they been in high school, they would have described as “making out”), he’d told her that when he finally pulled away, he had apologized to Lenora, saying something absurdly clichéd like, “I’m sorry. I can’t do this.” He had apologized to her! And the fact that he remembered that little tidbit told Vanessa that the kiss had not occurred because he’d had too much to drink.

  She feels silly that she is so devastated by the fact that her husband kissed another woman. But she can’t help it—she is furious. She doesn’t know how she is supposed to move forward and put his betrayal behind her. It had not taken long for Vanessa to start thinking about her ex-boyfriend. Drew’s kiss with Lenora consumed her days, and she found that if every time she thought of their kiss, she immediately turned her thoughts to the kisses she’d once shared with Jeremy Caldwell, she felt a little better. Her thoughts about returning to work tangled; she never mentioned her decision. She’d thought she was feeling like herself again, but she was wrong.

  At night, once Lucy is in bed, Vanessa and Drew sit on the couch. Drew sends work e-mails from his laptop; his father’s evening news program plays on the television in the background. Vanessa still finds it hard to believe Thomas Warren is her father-in-law, her daughter’s grandfather. The sight of him on the television screen each night always makes her feel hopeful. She lifts her laptop from the coffee table and checks the calendars of her favorite galleries and museums.

  “MoMA’s self-portraits exhibit starts in a few weeks,” she says. “Maybe we could get a sitter and go one Saturday.” This is more than she has offered in months; Jeremy’s e-mail is weighing on her conscience, as much as she wishes it wouldn’t.

  Drew doesn’t catch on fast enough; his eyes remain on his computer screen. “Maybe,” he says.

  Vanessa stiffens. She has begun to wonder if Drew’s professed interest in art all those years ago was simply a ploy to get her into bed. The idea that he might have been lying rattles her. Then again, she rarely watches Estelle, the show he produces, the success of which has bought this West Village condo that she loves so much, with its dark wood floors and sleek decor and the balcony that she is sure it is only a matter of time before she locks herself out on.

  She checks Facebook. “Teri had her baby,” she announces to the room.

  Not long after Vanessa left her job, her boss, Teri, a quick-talking wisp of a woman with a cap of black hair and clever eyes, had also left Nocelli to start her own gallery. This news had sent a cold shiver of envy through Vanessa even then, when she was as certain as she would ever be that she could not be happy unless she spent her days with her newborn daughter. And then last year, at forty-one, Teri fell in love, married, and became pregnant in quick succession. Vanessa is eager to see how Teri handles these life changes. Though she’s never much liked the idea of having a role model (What is the point of following in someone else’s footsteps?), she supposes she should just allow that Teri holds this position for her.

  She tilts the computer screen toward Drew. “A boy,” she says. “Luke.” It’s the usual shot: red-faced, sleeping newborn, swaddled and topped with a hospital-issue striped cap. They have a nearly identical one of Lucy framed in their bedroom.

  “Luke,” Drew repeats, still not looking up. “Bible or Star Wars?”

  “Star Wars,” Vanessa says, thinking of Teri’s engineer husband.

  “I see.”

  Vanessa sighs. “I see” is what Drew says when he isn’t really listening.

  Drew seems to realize his mistake then and turns his head to face her computer screen, his eyes remaining on his own laptop until the last possible moment. He squints at her screen. “The world,” he says, the corners of his lips hinting at a smile before he even gets the sentence out, “welcomes another angry r
aisin.”

  Drew has a great, infectious laugh. It’s boyish and free with a little snickery glint of wickedness that presses right into her, rendering her powerless. Despite how distant she felt only a moment earlier, she can’t help it: she’s laughing with him now. She hopes he doesn’t know that his laughter is her kryptonite. He might, though, because all of a sudden he’s scooting closer on the couch.

  “I’m kidding!” he says. “You know I love babies.”

  Vanessa does know this. She also knows the exact direction his thoughts are heading. She’d heard that pregnant women often dream of their babies, but when she was pregnant with Lucy, she had been tormented by dream after dream of Colin—the dull cast to his blue eyes when he lay in a hospital bed after wrecking his father’s car; the dazed grin he released after scoring a game-winning goal, as though stunned by his own ability; his hands curled into rigid fists as a fire lapped at the night sky behind him—and would wake up frantic and nauseated, pinned by guilt. It wasn’t the first time that thoughts of Colin kept her up at night, but those dreams were particularly relentless. She’d spent her entire pregnancy with ashen circles under her eyes.

  “I’m thinking of getting a drink with an ex-boyfriend,” she says. It’s effective. Drew shifts back and lifts an eyebrow.

  “Oh, yeah? Who?”

  “Jeremy Caldwell. I dated him for a summer during college. You’ve never met him. I haven’t seen him in eight years.”

  Drew runs a hand through his brown curls and smiles. It’s no surprise that his dark eyes have come alive. From the very beginning, the passion in their relationship has been fueled in part by their flirtations with others. Vanessa used to experience a shiver of excitement when she felt Drew watching her talk to other men at parties; she felt a sharper thrill—but a thrill nonetheless—watching him do the same with other women. There was a silent connection between them—an understanding, she’d thought, that they would toe the line but not cross it, and their marriage, not to mention their sex life, was more electric for it. She’d really and truly thought they were on the same page. All that time, she’d happily been playing with fire.

  “Are you asking my permission?”

  “I don’t think I need it.”

  “No,” Drew says. “You don’t.” He looks at her, and it feels like the first time they’ve made real eye contact in days. For a moment, Vanessa thinks he is going to ask her not to see Jeremy. But he can’t ask this. Drew has apologized many times; he is sorry he acted on his attraction to another woman. He thinks he ended things before they went too far, but Vanessa is not sure she agrees. The kiss has cooled something in her heart. She does not know how to trust him; she does not know how she will ever feel secure in her marriage again. She cannot forgive him.

  The fact of this incident remains so large and tangible that Lenora herself might as well be sitting between them on the couch, the slender fingers of one of her hands resting on Drew’s forearm and the other on Vanessa’s so they form a human chain. Drew’s smile hardens, and he turns back to his computer screen.

  “Just don’t run away with him,” he says without looking over. He laughs, but it’s not his real laugh; it’s not the laugh that lassoes her heart.

  Late that night, she slips out of bed, walks down the hall, and curling up in a corner of the living room couch, calls her first, and perhaps last, true friend.

  “Hey, V,” Kate answers. “What are you doing up so late? Everything okay?”

  “I can’t sleep. Did I wake you?”

  “I’m at the office, working on a brief. But I’m glad you called. I could use a break.”

  “Tell me about it,” Vanessa says. “It’s been a long day.” She knows she should not feel defensive about leaving her career, but sometimes when she talks to Kate, she cannot help but feel there is a hint of judgment there, a subtle establishment of a hierarchy of busyness.

  “Every day is a long day,” Kate says. “But what else am I going to do? Working keeps my mind off my crappy personal life.”

  They fall silent after this. Vanessa still can’t believe Peter broke up with Kate. He always struck Vanessa as overly analytical and a bit dull, but who thinks any man is worthy of her best friend? She had at least been sure he would not hurt Kate who, despite wearing her emotions on her sleeve, is the smartest person Vanessa knows, full of endearing, self-deprecating humor, and more loyal than anyone—certainly not Vanessa and now as it turns out, not Peter either—deserves.

  “Sorry,” Kate says. “Too honest?”

  “A smidge,” Vanessa says, laughing. “Could you sugarcoat your loneliness a little, please? It’s depressing.”

  Kate laughs. “I’ll work on it.”

  Vanessa lies back and tucks a throw pillow under her head. She looks at the white ceiling, the recessed lights that allow noise to seep down from the floor above, and thinks of her husband and daughter asleep elsewhere in the apartment. There is something clandestine about this phone call, about being awake when her family is asleep, and she thinks of all the nights in high school when she would sneak downstairs, press the kitchen phone to her ear, and whisper to boyfriends.

  “Do you ever think about Quakerism?” she asks.

  “What?” Kate laughs. Vanessa hears papers being shuffled in the background. “I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

  “We went to a Quaker school. It isn’t the craziest question.”

  “Um, yeah, Vanessa, it kind of is. That’s what you think about when you think about high school? Quakerism? I feel like the whole Quaker thing was kind of an afterthought at PFS. All I really remember is being bored to tears during Friends Meeting. Who thought it was a good idea to force a bunch of kids to be silent for an hour?”

  “George Fox.”

  “Who?”

  Of course Quakerism isn’t what Kate remembers about school. She’d been like a horse in blinders; a glimpse of anything other than textbooks and her field hockey stick would have thrown her off course. Anyway, the Harringtons were Catholic and had probably subtly trained Kate to ignore the religious aspects of PFS. After Drew told her what happened with Lenora, Vanessa had spent a few Sunday mornings at the Fifteenth Street Meeting House in the East Village. It was the first time she’d been to Meeting since she left Philadelphia for college. Sitting on those different but familiar meetinghouse benches, alone in the crowd, had steadied her, but the experience had released old, hard memories too.

  “Catholics go to confession, right?” she asks.

  “In theory,” Kate says. “I’m lapsed. Like, really lapsed. Seriously, how much wine have you had?”

  “I’m just thinking out loud. Catholics talk to a priest because they need a conduit to God, right? But Quakers believe that God is inside each of us. So does that mean it’s enough to just think about the things you’ve done, and feel bad about them, but not actually tell anyone? If you’re thinking about them, isn’t that like telling God?”

  “I don’t know.” Kate’s voice sounds distant, and Vanessa wonders if she is really listening or if she is working. “Vanessa, I—” she begins, but Vanessa interrupts her.

  “Jeremy Caldwell e-mailed me.”

  It takes Kate a beat to respond. “Jeremy Caldwell? Whoa. Whatever happened to him?”

  “I don’t really know. We just connected on Facebook. He wants to meet for a drink on Friday, but I don’t think I should.”

  “He knows you’re married, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes.” At least, she assumes he does. Her relationship status is on her Facebook page.

  “So what’s the big deal?”

  Vanessa sighs. “I guess there isn’t one.”

  “Just as long as you don’t start doing that thing you always used to do.”

  Vanessa knows what Kate is going to say. She clenches her jaw.

  “The grass is not always greener,” Kate says. “Don’t start pining for something that isn’t nearly as great as what you already have.”

  Vanessa wonders now if the
thin tone of Kate’s voice isn’t distraction or distance, but sadness. “I won’t,” she says. It was wrong, selfish even, to have called Kate. She thinks of her friend sitting in an empty office building in the middle of the night, putting off the moment when she has to go home to an empty apartment that still, undoubtedly, shows signs of a relationship that was supposed to last forever. She knows that Kate has struggled with loneliness since Colin’s death, and now another man she loves has left her without warning.

  “How are you, really, Kate?”

  “I’m pretty awful.” The words rush out of Kate like breath she’d been holding. “You think you know someone and then it turns out they haven’t been honest with you. The person you’re supposed to be closest to in the world.”

  Vanessa’s heart begins to thwap around her chest like a wet towel in a dryer. She thinks of the last time she saw Colin alive. His eyes had appeared murky—part reflection of the bay, part hopelessness, and part, as it turned out, drugs.

  “Have you told Dani what happened with Peter?” she asks, trying to steer her thoughts away from Colin.

  “Not yet. You know Dani—she never picks up her phone.”

  Vanessa feels a wave of anger, surprising in its size, swell within her. “She should call you back. You’re a better friend to her than she is to you.”

  “It’s okay,” Kate says, but her voice sounds strained. “We’ll always be as close as we’ve always been—it really doesn’t matter whether or not we talk.”