I met Solly before I met Peter, and Solly’s never let either of us forget it. He mentioned it in his toast at our wedding, and he’ll gleefully take whatever opportunity presents itself to interject the phrase ‘as someone who has known Jenna longer’ into any conversation. I met Solly only a few minutes before I met Peter, but still, to Solly, those minutes are pure gold.
We were in a bar. Despite my appreciation for margaritas and alcoholic drinks in general, I was never someone who spent much time in bars, and certainly never someone who went to bars looking to meet men. It’s a cliché, I know, and maybe even a little sexist, but I think women who go to bars to meet men are desperate, and men who go to bars to meet women are gross.
What makes our origin story more interesting than the same old story of two people meeting in a bar, what lends it a wee bit of charm, is the fact that the bar in which we met happens to be the oldest bar in New Orleans. There we were, two Southern Californians, drinking Sazeracs, in town for Jazz Fest, both dragged along by friends who cared much more about jazz than we did, which is to say they cared and we did not at all.
I was twenty-seven years old. I’d just broken up with a boyfriend after two years together. Some friends from college had organized a meetup. I hadn’t planned on joining, but the boyfriend had just moved out because he’d fallen in love with a coworker, who was actually his supervisor, and he’d decided to hell with the workplace restrictions and to hell with me. So yes, I was able to sublimate my feelings about jazz and spend money I didn’t have to join my friends so that I wouldn’t have to sit at home alone with the kitten he’d given me as a birthday gift not six weeks before dropping the bomb about the woman from work. (That kitten is now the ancient cat with bladder control troubles I’m paying a neighbor’s kid five bucks a day to feed while we’re on vacation.)
Anyway, Solly and I were standing next to each other waiting to get the bartender’s attention. He turned to me and said, “I understand why he’s ignoring me, but you? That makes no sense at all.”
I looked good that night and I knew it with the sort of certainty only available to younger women. I’d shed a few pounds in the breakup. I’d gotten impulse bangs that gave me an air of sophistication. I smiled at him while also sending the clearest message I could that I was not interested in getting chatted up, not interested in men period, given that they’re all pigs who jump into bed with their supervisors.
Solly didn’t get my message; he continued to talk to me. But he wasn’t chatting me up. Well, he was chatting me up, but only in the way he chats up everyone. I got my first inkling of this when the bartender finally turned to Solly and Solly spoke to him in the same intimate and conspiratorial tone he’d been using with me.
Solly ordered three Sazeracs and the bartender charged him for only two. He handed one to me.
I took it and I took a longer look at Solly and wondered if maybe I was wrong: about men, about talking to men, about meeting men in bars. He winked at me, an unforgivable sin I quickly absolved him of because he smelled good and he dressed well, not like all the other twentysomethings with their ripped T-shirts and backward baseball caps.
I nodded toward his second Sazerac. “You’re not messing around.”
“Oh, but I am,” he said. “That is why I’m here: to mess around. This drink, however, is for my best friend.”
I remember thinking: What adult still uses the term best friend? And I also remember thinking: He may not be my type, but I could totally go to bed with this guy.
“We’re turning thirty,” he continued. “And we’re celebrating by drinking Sazeracs and listening to great music. You?”
I lifted my cocktail. “I’m celebrating the breakup of a relationship.” I knew this was flirty. To announce that you are unattached within minutes of meeting a man sends a very strong signal. Like a neon sign around your neck: OPEN FOR BUSINESS.
He looked me up and down. “He broke up with you.”
My cheeks burned red. “No. That’s not true.”
He shrugged. I could tell he didn’t believe me. “Either way, it’s the best thing that could have happened. You made him feel small, inferior, not because of anything you did, but because he was small and inferior. You need to find someone worthy of your strength, and he needs to find someone he can dominate. Someone with whom he can be the boss.”
“Actually”—I took a long sip of my Sazerac—“he was fucking his supervisor at work.”
Solly threw his head back and laughed. And then I laughed, too. We both laughed and laughed and leaned into each other like two people who’ve been sharing laughs for years.
“What’s so funny?”
I turned to look at the person who was interrupting one of the first moments of genuine fun I’d had since getting dumped. He was good-looking, better-looking than the man I was laughing alongside, but even with his white hair he looked to me like the other boys in the bar.
Solly handed him a Sazerac and nodded in my direction. “She’s what’s so funny.”
“And you are . . . ?”
I stuck out my hand. “I’m Jenna.”
He took it. “Peter.”
Peter uses this fact, that he introduced himself first, that Solly hadn’t even bothered to learn my name, as an argument that actually, he met me before Solly did.
Right then Solly spied a woman across the room—long blond hair, bright red lipstick, probably not old enough to be in a bar—and excused himself.
Peter gestured to Solly’s empty seat. “May I?”
IT’S RAINING.
The storm, the tormenta, which took a turn away from us, turned back again because tormentas will do what tormentas will do without taking into consideration the wishes of any particular vacationer. It looks as though it will stay offshore, churning up the seas, wreaking havoc on the lives of those colorful fish who today probably wish they lived in the aquarium at my childhood dentist’s office rather than in the Bay of Banderas.
I get up and close the wooden shutters to stop the water from getting in and then I climb right back into bed again. I open up my laptop and I read Ingrid’s book until I finish it. By the end, I’m tearing through it—it’s suspenseful and exciting. It’s sad and also hopeful. I mostly forget that I’m reading something written by Ingrid Solomon because it’s so improbable that Ingrid Solomon, former jewelry designer and second wife to Solly, could have written this book. I’m not saying it isn’t derivative, because of course it is—what book isn’t? But it’s good. It’s really good. And I can’t even criticize the ending for being too tidy. Yes, the boy and his group of friends rescue his father, take down the evil corporation and save the day, but the boy has to grapple with the truth that his parents’ marriage is over, that the cracks were there already—how else to explain the mother’s willingness to so quickly and completely accept that her husband ran off with another woman?
When I’m done, I stare at the last page for a very long time.
“Is that Ingrid’s book?”
I hadn’t noticed Peter had woken up. I snap my laptop shut like he’s caught me watching porn.
“Yep.”
“How is it?”
“I haven’t really read it, I was only skimming it. Just getting a sense of what she’s been up to.”
“And?”
I put the laptop on the side table and get out of bed. “I don’t know yet.”
Peter looks at the closed shutters. “Is it raining?”
“Yes.”
“Cozy.”
“Cozy? This is a beach vacation. We don’t want rain on a beach vacation.”
“I love rain.”
“I know you love rain, Peter. But can you really say you love rain now? Here? Today?”
“I love rain any day,” he says and he pats the empty spot next to him in the bed.
I climb back in and lie down and he spoons me, resting his soft bearded cheek on top of mine. I play with the string of his Pedro bracelet.
“I’m really sorry about yesterday,” he says. “I talked to her. I told her she can’t call me again. I don’t think she will. Things are complicated at work. And they are complicated with Gavriella. I know you’d be happy if I’d just get rid of her, but I can’t. Not without creating a serious crisis.”
I don’t say anything. He breathes into my ear.
“I need you to trust me,” he continues. He pulls me tighter against him. “Trust that I’m trying my best. To handle a situation that is exceedingly thorny.”
I pull away and roll over onto my back. I stare at the ceiling fan as it slowly moves the chilly air around the room. The rain is falling harder now and I can hear the palm trees blowing in the wind.
“Are you sleeping with her?”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No, it isn’t. You aren’t leaving me much of a choice but to ask you flat out. You’re hinting at something without saying it. So—are you?”
“No. I am not sleeping with her.”
I turn to look at him. We stare at each other silently for several rotations of the ceiling fan. I can tell he’s telling the truth.
“So what’s going on?”
“Jen. I just told you. I can’t really talk about it. It wouldn’t be appropriate. Or fair to the people involved.”
“Wait . . . is this about Solly?” The words come out before I’ve thought it through. It’s as if I put the puzzle together before looking at the picture on the box. But as soon as I say it, I know I’m right. This is about Solly. This is about Peter cleaning up Solly’s mess. This is about Solly abusing his friendship with Peter.
“Jenna.”
“Is Solly sleeping with her?”
There is a long beat of silence. Peter doesn’t nod. He doesn’t even meet my gaze. He stares up at the ceiling fan.
“Fucking Solly,” I hiss.
“I really, really don’t want to talk about this. I’ve told you. I’m trying to handle things and I don’t think she will call again while we’re on vacation. There are legitimate problems happening at work but I’ve told her to take them to Kim. Kim can handle everything while we’re away. Please. Can’t we just parking lot this?”
“I can’t believe you just said that.”
“Said what?”
“I can’t believe you just used parking lot as a verb.”
He laughs a little. “You never told me it’s on your list.”
“You should know it’s on my list. It’s the new version of let’s put a pin in it. Just another one of those idiotic things they say at Clem’s school.”
“Well, they say it at start-ups, too. I’m sorry. But you owe me one. You described the way Roberto set the table as festive.” He grabs me again and pulls me back into spooning position. He buries his face in my hair. He kisses my neck and my shoulder. He lifts up my T-shirt and he kisses the small of my back. He flips me around and then he kisses my stomach. He removes my shirt and then his own. He slips off my pajama bottoms and my underwear. He wriggles out of his boxers. He climbs on top of me and pulls the covers up to our chins.
There’s a clap of thunder.
“God, I love the rain,” he whispers.
ROBERTO AND ENRIQUE have lined the edges of the open living spaces with towels to soak up the water. I guess this is what they meant when they said the house was built for comfort as well as luxury. We may not have doors or walls to protect you from the elements, but we will have our staff line the floors with threadbare towels so you don’t slip and break your necks.
Everyone else is already at breakfast. Clem has wrapped herself in the blanket from her bed.
“I am sorry,” Roberto tells me as he hands me my coffee. “I know you worry about weather. I know you do not like the rain. But it will not last longer than one day. That is what it says in the newspaper. Tomorrow there will be sun.”
“It’s okay,” I say.
As Roberto retreats to the kitchen Solly leans in close. “I can’t believe he let it rain on our vacation. It’s so hard to find good help these days.”
“Shut up, Solly.” I’m not in the mood for Solly’s humor. I don’t even want to look at him right now.
“You shouldn’t say shut up.” Ivan is sitting at the table building something with his LEGOs.
“I was joking,” I say to Ivan. He doesn’t bother to look at me. “But you’re right. Saying shut up is not okay.”
I wait for one of his parents to step in and explain that after twenty years of friendship, and when you are an adult, you can tell each other to shut up and nobody takes offense.
“You two slept in,” Ingrid says. “That must have been nice. This one”—she pats Ivan on the head—“up since six a.m.”
“I want to go snorkeling,” Ivan says.
“Ivan, you hated snorkeling,” I tell him.
“I did not!”
I know better than to get into an argument with a five-year-old. I know that facts and evidence don’t matter. I know that he probably doesn’t even remember his epic freak-out in the water yesterday. And besides, the way he carries on refusing to look up from his LEGO set makes for excellent psychological warfare.
“Well, sweetie,” Ingrid says to him. “It’s raining today and—”
“Ding dong.”
“And we need to find things to do indoors.”
“But I want to snorkel,” he whines.
“Look—” Ingrid points out to the bay, but he still won’t take his eyes off his LEGOs.
It is gray and choppy and white-capped. “You don’t want to go out in that.”
“So, Peter,” Solly says. “On your last day in your forties, the last day of your first half century of life, rather than bathe you in sunbeams, God has decided to piss rain upon you. What did you do to get on his bad side?”
“I don’t know,” Peter says with a huge smile. “But isn’t it perfect?”
“Pish.” Solly waves him off. “While you and your bride slept the morning away, the rest of us debated what we should do. We have two votes for a movie marathon scrapped together from Villa Azul Paraiso’s random collection of VHS tapes.” Clem and Malcolm raise their hands. “One vote for a LEGO build-off.” Ingrid takes Ivan’s arm and raises it for him. He quickly yanks it away. “And the final two votes go for long, uninterrupted nap time.” Solly and Ingrid high-five each other.
I know everyone is looking to me. I am the default planner. The one who books vacations eight months in advance. The one who recognizes that the minutes are high value and cannot be wasted sitting inside complaining about the weather. Surely I have some idea of what we should do?
I take a final bite of my breakfast and bring my coffee cup into the kitchen.
Luisa is cleaning the stove. Roberto stands up from the table. He refills my cup and shows me the paper. Up in the corner is a little graphic. There is a sun and then a cloud with rain and then another sun.
“See? Yesterday there is sun. Today there is rain. Tomorrow there is sun.”
I nod. “Okay.”
“I am sorry.”
“Please don’t apologize about the weather.”
“Yes,” he says. “I will not.”
“I’m wondering if you have any ideas of what we should do today. What do people do in Puerto Vallarta on rainy days?”
He and Luisa exchange a few words in Spanish. She doesn’t appear to be particularly sympathetic to my situation.
“The guests here, they like to enjoy the house. Stay inside. Read books. Be together. We have games. Some miss pieces, but some have them all. Or, you go to town. We give you umbrellas. You visit the church or the galleries. There is a movie theater. It is near to where Mr. Solly makes the reservation for your dinner. They sometimes show movies in English.”
“A reservation for dinner?”
“Yes. He says that tomorrow it is the birthday for your husband. He wants to do something special. We tell him about the restaurant in town that is the best. He asks us to make a reservation. It is confirmed. So we do not cook the dinner for you tomorrow.”
“Okay.” I suppose this is something I should have thought of: a night out. It’s the right way to celebrate, even if we’ve paid for all of our meals already. I feel foolish. For not having thought of making a plan for my own husband’s birthday, and for standing in the kitchen asking the staff for advice about how to enjoy a rainy day in a luxury villa.
I pick up Roberto’s paper and look at the little icons again.
I flip the paper over. There is the face of the man I saw yesterday. The governor. This time he is sitting in a red velvet chair next to another man, with flags in the background. They both wear blue ties.
“What’s happening here?”
Roberto takes the paper. Luisa comes and looks over his shoulder. They discuss the article. Luisa jabs at the paper with her finger a few times.
“The governor. He meets with the interior minister for Mexico. They speak more about the drug cartels and the violence.”
I take a closer look. The interior minister looks Asian.
“He is Mexican. He is Miguel Chong. His mother is from Chinese descent, but he is from Hidalgo state.” Roberto says.
I don’t bother trying to defend myself or deny that this is exactly what I was wondering. Roberto knows I expect all Mexicans to look the same, as if mine were the only multicultural country. And here I’ve been scolding Clem about her insular worldview.
“What are they saying about the drug cartels?”
“They speak of increasing police presence in Jalisco state. Because of violence between gangs. They do not like the recent activities of these two cartels. They do not want Puerto Vallarta to become like Acapulco. But here it is still safe. Mr. Chong, he wants to control production of flowers from where they make the heroin. The poppies? So if the government controls the flowers, and makes drugs for medicines, it stops trafficking and weakens the gangs. But it is still far away and maybe happens never. For now, they bring in more police to stop the drug trade.”
“Do you worry about all this?” I ask him. If I opened my local paper every day to this sort of local news I might never leave the house.
“Like I say, it is safe here. And the violence, it is between gang members only. So no. I do not worry. And you do not worry.”
“So you feel like it’s a safe place to live? With a family?”
Luisa says something to Roberto. He replies with a long string of words—I can’t even tell when one sentence ends and another begins. As I have many times in my life, I feel embarrassed for having elected to take French instead of Spanish in high school—an indefensible choice for a Southern Californian.
“Yes. We live here always. Our son, he is now in Mexico City. He is student there.”
“Your son?”
“Yes.”
“You mean, you have a son . . . with Luisa?”
They share another quick exchange and a laugh.
“Yes. She is my wife.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“And Enrique,” he says. “He is my brother.”
I didn’t know that either. I’m not sure why this surprises me. It’s not like I spend my time in the kitchen asking them about their lives, I’m far too concerned with where to go shopping and what to do when it rains. I haven’t spent a single minute imagining who they are outside of this house. I caught a glimpse last night when they passed through the dining room in jeans and sweatshirts, but I didn’t let my imagination follow them beyond the large wooden front doors.
“Is Enrique married, too?”
“Yes, but his wife takes his children to the United States. He does not see them, but he will soon we hope. Enrique helps to take care of our parents here.”
I wonder if Enrique’s absence from the kitchen means that right now he’s off making all our beds, putting fresh flowers on our tables; if maybe I was wrong about the woman’s touch.
I feel like I should say something more, but I’m not sure what, so I take my empty coffee cup to the sink and I wash it and place it on the counter.
“Gracias para los breakfast, Luisa,” I say.
She smiles at me. “De nada.”
I FIND INGRID ALONE, reading in the main floor living room. She’s on to another children’s book. Another Newbery runner-up. Another book I haven’t read.
I ask her about it.
“I love it,” she says. “I’m not sure what the committee was thinking this year. All of the silver medals are far better than the book they actually gave the award to.”
“I guess consensus is difficult. Maybe it was a compromise?”
She shrugs, pulls the throw blanket up to her chest and puts the book down on the table. She’s settling in for a nice long chat. I hesitate to sit down with her. I’m still rattled by what Peter told me about Solly and Gavriella. The weight of that knowledge is a boulder in my stomach.
When Solly started his affair with Ingrid, Peter didn’t tell me. He kept Solly’s secret. He didn’t want to put me in an awkward position with Maureen, who, unlike Ingrid, was a true, close friend. Peter told me later that he pushed Solly to come clean, that it would have gone on much longer had he not spent many nights over many drinks with Solly playing out the different scenarios and convincing him he needed to make a choice. I always wondered if Peter tried talking Solly into choosing Maureen, into staying married to his wife, to the woman he once loved so fiercely that he sobbed through his own wedding vows.
It didn’t matter that I didn’t know about the affair; on some level I know Maureen still holds it against me. Our four lives were interwoven in such a way that our relationship couldn’t avoid some collateral damage from such an ugly implosion. And by virtue of the fact that I am married to Peter, I am forever a part of the universe of Solly from which she needed escape. But once she resettled in New York and things starting turning out as well as they did for her—new job, new friends, new gorgeous apartment, new string of boyfriends ending in one serious, unreasonably handsome one—we started to rebuild what we’d lost, text by text, email by email, and brief visit by brief visit. But of course, things were never quite the same between us.
I sit down in the chair across from Ingrid and I push what I know out of my head. What do I know anyway? Peter didn’t really tell me anything. I chose to take Peter’s silence in response to my question about Solly as a yes, because in all our years together we’ve developed a shorthand. But I don’t know for certain, do I? And if I don’t know something for certain, how can I tell her about what I don’t know?
“The Printz winner, though,” Ingrid says. “Now, that’s a book that deserved the gold.”
I haven’t read this either so I just nod in agreement. There’s really no excuse for a writer of YA fiction not reading the book that’s been crowned best book of the year written for young adults. Before I wrote my first book, I’d never even heard of the Printz Award. It’s better that way. Who needs to know about the awards you’ll never get? But clearly, Ingrid is doing her homework. She’s devouring the prizewinners. And who knows? Her book could very well wind up with a sticker on it one day, too.
I look at Ingrid stretched out on the sofa. She’s just a bit too long for it so she bends her knees and props her feet up on the armrest. She’s wearing gray sweatpants and a blue long-sleeved T-shirt, not a hint of makeup. Her hair is wild. With all those proteins and the limited complex carbohydrates, with the absence of all that sugar and alcohol, her skin glows even more than usual. She’s written a book I stayed up late reading and woke up early to finish. And yet, when I look at her, what I feel is pity. She’s thrown her lot in with a man who will never give her the whole of his attention and affection, a man whose appetite is too large, a man for whom there is never quite enough of anything.
“I started your book last night,” I say.
She sits up quickly and the throw blanket falls to the floor.
“Oh. Wow. I’m . . . nervous.”
“Don’t be. It’s really good so far. I really enjoyed what I’ve read.”
“For real?”
“Yes, for real.”
“Because, like I said in my email, I don’t want you to protect my feelings.”
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’ll be honest.”
“Brutally honest.”
“I’m against brutality.”
She laughs. “Solly is the only one who’s read it and he says he loves it, but you know Solly. He’s such a softy. He loves everything I do.”
Oh, Ingrid. Poor Ingrid. Beautiful, naïve, talented Ingrid. I decide to dole out a little bit more.
“Well, from what I’ve read so far, I think you may be onto something pretty special.”
She brings her hands up to her face to cover her huge smile, like Clementine and her friends used to do in middle school, like smiling is shameful, something to hide.
I debate saying more. Admitting I’ve finished it. Admitting I admire and envy her talent. Admitting I haven’t stopped thinking about her book except for when I’ve been thinking about the fact that her husband may be cheating on her. But I don’t. For whatever reason, I’m not ready yet. I need to look at it again. Make sure I’m not so disenchanted with my own unfinished book that any completed manuscript shines like a polished diamond.
“Jenna, I don’t even know what to say. This means . . . everything.”
“Of course,” I say, and I wonder if maybe Solly sobbed through his wedding vows because promising fidelity to one person for the rest of his life was too unbearably sad.
I FIGURE THIS HOUSE has to have a Scrabble set somewhere so I go down to search the TV room and find Malcolm looking through a shelf of old tapes.
“I’m trying to curate the perfect double feature,” he says. He holds A Nightmare on Elm Street in one hand and Meet Me in St. Louis in the other. “What do you think?”
“I think that never, in the history of humankind, has there been a viewing of those two movies back-to-back.”
“They also have a copy of Grease, but it’s in Spanish and it’s called, no joke: Vaselina.”
“Now, that I would like to watch.”
“Wanna join? Clem is on her way.”
I think for a second about taking him up on his offer, but this was their plan for the rainy day, not mine. I don’t want to intrude. I shouldn’t intrude. “No, thanks. I have a date to kick my husband’s ass in Scrabble.”
He sits down on the arm of the sofa. “Well, I wouldn’t want to get in the way of a good ass kicking.” His smile is wide. The kid drew a full house: he’s got his father’s magnetism and his mother’s looks.
“You know, Malcolm, it’s really nice to spend some time with you. I’m sorry I don’t get to New York to see your mom as often as I’d like.”
“Well, it’s not as if she comes out to L.A. to see you, so you probably shouldn’t beat yourself up.”
This is true. As far as I know, Maureen hasn’t returned to Los Angeles since she filled a New York–bound extralong moving truck with half of their marital property.
“So how do you get on with Bruno?”
Malcolm shrugs. “He’s chill. And his place is sick. Or I guess it’s our place now. It’s, like, a block from the High Line. So that’s cool.”
“Sounds like you got pretty lucky with the stepparents.”
“Bruno isn’t my stepdad. He’s just my mom’s boyfriend. But, yeah. I guess so.”
Is that hesitation I hear in his voice? And is that hesitation I hear about Bruno or is it about Ingrid?
“It can’t be easy for you,” I say. “Living so far away from your father. And your little brother. I’m sorry you’ve had to go through that.” I’m drawing on my days working with foster kids. All those hours spent in temporary living rooms practicing the listening and reflection skills I learned in the mandatory two-day training I attended before getting handed a full social worker’s caseload. I hear how this is hard for you. I hear that you are unhappy. I hear that you wish your life was different.
“You don’t need to feel sorry for me, Jenna.”
“That’s not—”
“I mean . . . I consider myself to be pretty lucky.”
“I was just saying that I hear you. I hear that it hasn’t been easy.”
“You heard that? Because I don’t think I said that.”
Clearly, I’m out of listening and reflecting shape, my training in dire need of a booster class.
I wander over to the shelf of tapes. I notice that they’ve gone full hog on their collection of Nixon films: All the President’s Men, Oliver Stone’s Nixon, Frost/Nixon, The Assassination of Richard Nixon and even a movie called, simply, Dick. Underneath the tapes is a cabinet with board games. Scrabble is at the top of the pile. I stick it under my arm and start to move toward the door, but then I turn back around and sit on the side of the sofa opposite the one he’s perched on. “So you’re good? Life is good?”
He shrugs. “Sure.”
“And your mom? I haven’t talked to her in a while.”
“She’s great.” There’s that smile again. “And you?” He pauses. “I mean . . . are you feeling better? I heard about your diagnosis. My mom said it was the kind of cancer that, like, isn’t all that serious.”
“Yes, I’m feeling fine.” I don’t tell him that it felt serious to me and that I don’t understand everyone’s impulse to diminish my experience. But I get it. Cancer is scary, and we want to protect our children from scary things, so I can see why she’d present it this way to her son.
Maureen called me every week for the first two months to check on me. And she sent a beautiful basket of treats from Zabar’s. We still have a loaf of uneaten rye in the freezer. I told Peter we should save it to eat with the lox we’ll get sent when my cancer comes back. He told me he didn’t think that was funny.
“Which movie are you going to start with?” I ask.
“I’m not sure. I’ll have to consult Clem.”
“Maybe I’ll stay and watch with you for a bit.”
“Seriously?” Clem has appeared in the doorway. “I thought you were going to, like, play games or whatever with Dad. You don’t want to watch stupid movies with us, Mother. Trust me.”
“You’re right.” She is right. I know an exit line when I hear one. “I’d better go see what your father is up to.”
THE RAIN LETS UP in the late afternoon. It’s still cloudy with only a smattering of blue. The bay continues to churn up the dregs of its bottom, but the chill is gone and the air is thick and muggy. I’ve spent the day eating too many tortilla chips and finally diving back into my unfinished manuscript, rereading the pages I have, each sentence a reminder of the sharpness of Ingrid’s book.
Everybody stuck to his or her original plan. Malcolm and Clem settled into their movie marathon. Ingrid and Solly disappeared for a long nap, leaving Ivan to build his LEGOs on the floor of the living room. He let me work on a fortress with him, undoing my contributions only a few times, and nodding his approval of a few others. I think plying him with chips all day has thawed the ice between us.
At one point I went downstairs to see if Malcolm and Clem wanted me to bring them something to eat and found them sharing the same blanket and corner of the long sofa. They didn’t jump away from each other when I entered, so I don’t think anything untoward was going on, but I did stare at Clem a beat too long while Judy Garland was crooning “The Boy Next Door.” Clem returned my stare with a what’s your problem look.
“We do not need a snack, Mother,” she informed me. “Because we are not five years old.”
Back upstairs as Peter was annihilating me in a game of Scrabble, Ingrid appeared in tiny spandex shorts and a cropped tank top.
“Solly is still napping. I’m going to go do some yoga,” she said. “Wanna join me?”
“I hate yoga,” Ivan said without looking up from his LEGOs.
“I was asking Jenna, sweetie.”
“Jenna is a pro,” Peter said. “Good luck keeping up with her.”
Peter bought me a twelve-session package of yoga classes at a fancy studio in Santa Monica shortly after my diagnosis. It was something the doctor had mentioned might help with stress and anxiety. With Clem’s guidance he’d even picked out some yoga clothing along with a mat and bag. I was really touched by the gesture and I knew he wanted me to love it, but I didn’t. I haven’t had the heart to tell him I still have nine classes left.
“Thanks,” I said, “but I think I’ll try and do a little more work.”
“Are you sure?”
I looked at Ingrid in her getup. I imagined how I would look next to her in downward facing dog.
“Yes, I’m sure.”
After finishing the bloodbath of a Scrabble game with Peter I went back to my book, not adding anything new, just scrolling through what I already had, second-guessing every choice I’d made and beating myself up for each clumsy turn of phrase. I tried convincing myself the path out of this thicket existed somewhere, somehow; I just had to find it. I closed the manuscript. This is my vacation. I shouldn’t have to worry about the thicket on vacation.
Finally, even though I had no reasonable excuse to do so, I logged on to check Clem’s texts. She sent a message to Sean around noon telling him that we were going on a family outing and that she wouldn’t be able to text again until dinnertime. He responded with a crying face and a heart with an arrow through it.
I know that kids throw around the word love (or luv) willy-nilly. Clem and her girlfriends are always saying they love/luv each other. Clem and her eighth grade boyfriend Brett told each other they loved/luved each other about twenty times a day. But I believe that Clem does genuinely love/luv Sean and that he genuinely loves/luvs her. Their relationship, what I’ve seen of it, is real. It is true. And I adore Sean, not only because he hasn’t pressured my daughter into having sex but also because he is attentive and sweet and he treats her with respect. Her feelings for him should be stronger than the pull of an older, handsome boy who was once like a brother and is now a stranger. Clem isn’t thinking. She’s developing some kind of Stockholm syndrome born from captivity in this luxury vacation rental where everyday rules don’t apply and time collapses.
I try talking to Peter about what I saw when we take margaritas to the hot tub on the roof. We’ve sent Ivan back to his parents. Solly is finally up from his nap and Ingrid is slick with yoga sweat and they’re prepping a bath for mother and son in the volcanic tub.
“This is what I’m talking about,” Peter says. “This right here.” He holds up his margarita. He raises his voice to be heard over the sound of the hot tub jets. “This is vacation.”
“Clem and Malcolm were sharing a blanket,” I say. “And they were snuggled up together on the couch.”
“What? They were snuggling? Get my shotgun!”
“Peter, come on. Be serious.”
“About what?”
“Clem has a boyfriend. She has Sean. Sweet Sean. And she’s been lying to him.”
“Lying to him? How?”
“Well, for starters, she tells him she’s unavailable to talk when she is available. She tells him that she’s spending time with us when she’s really with Malcolm.”
Peter puts his head under water, remerges and shakes it out. “Do I want to know how it is that you know this?”
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is why. Why is she doing that?”
“Seriously, Jen. You need to mind your own business.”
“She is my business.”
“Well, she’s also sixteen. And you can’t control her whims. Following your whims is the very best part of being sixteen, maybe the only decent part. So leave it alone.”
I take a sip of my margarita. I lean back against the side of the hot tub and look up at the patchy sky. The bubbles are too loud. I reach over to the dial and switch it to OFF.
Peter pouts.
“Sorry,” I say. “Did you want them on?”
“It’s okay.”
We sit in silence for a few minutes.
“Do you really not know about Malcolm?” I ask him.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean about what kind of trouble he’s in. I know you’ve told me you don’t, but I can’t help wondering if this is one of those times where Solly confides in you and you don’t confide in me.”
“Jenna.”
“What? I know he’s your friend and I know you keep his secrets. That’s fine, generally. But now our daughter is involved. And I want to know what’s going on.”
“How is our daughter involved?”
“Because, Peter. She’s snuggling up to Malcolm on the couch.”
“Again with the dreaded snuggling.”
“You aren’t answering my question.” I fix him with a look. “Do you know or not? And please. Don’t lie to me.”
He takes in a big breath and blows it out into the water, creating bubbles of his own.
“Yes,” he says. “I know.”
“So? Tell me.”
“I don’t want you to freak out.”
“Peter. If you don’t want me to freak out, don’t tell me not to freak out.”
“He got busted for drugs.”
I’d already run through a few scenarios in my head. This was one of them. I figured it must have something to do with drugs or alcohol or cheating at school or maybe getting a girl pregnant. On the scale of bad to horrible, this falls someplace in the middle.
“For . . . dealing drugs,” Peter says.
Okay, so maybe this moves the needle in the direction of horrible.
“Was it weed?” I know from Peter that Solly used to be the weed guy in college. He didn’t sell it, because he didn’t need the money, but he always had tons of it and he was the go-to if you wanted to get high. Maybe Malcolm is just following in his father’s footsteps.
“No. Not weed. He was selling pills. Opioids.”
And a brick drops on the scale.
“Jesus.”
“He never took the drugs. He’s an athlete. He’s super serious about his martial arts. But somehow he got his hands on some pills and he saw an opportunity with all his rich classmates and he took it. Solly says half the kids in his prep school take drugs and Malcolm is far from the only one who was selling, but he’s the only one who got caught and expelled and Solly thinks it might have something to do with the way Malcolm looks. He wanted to sue, but Maureen talked him out of it. And now he’s in that alternative school and everything is fine.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Solly didn’t want anyone to know.”
I wouldn’t want anyone to know either.
“Malcolm is a good kid. Please resist the urge to judge,” Peter says. “And most important, don’t say a word. To anyone. Not Solly. Not Clem. Promise?”
“Promise,” I say.
“More margarita?” Roberto has appeared on the roof with a pitcher in his hand, just as my glass goes empty.
I’M DRUNK AT DINNER. A lunch of tortilla chips followed by several margaritas consumed in a one-hundred-degree hot tub will do that to you. The food looks delicious but I can’t taste it. My face is warm and flushed. I wonder if anyone notices. What I need is water. I reach for the glass and take big gulps and it runs down my chin as I drink. I wipe the water away. I wonder if anyone notices. Solly is holding court. He’s saying something about a playlist. A death playlist. He’s talking about what songs he wants to listen to on his deathbed. I think that this day can’t come soon enough. I love Solly. I hate Solly. I think I’m glaring at him. I wonder if anyone notices. Enrique is standing next to me. He is offering me more food. He is offering to take my plate away. I do not know what he is offering. I do not know what to say to him so I say thank you. Thank you, Enrique. Muchas gracias. Enrique is Roberto’s brother. He is younger I think. At least he looks younger. But that could be because he is rounder and rounder people don’t show their age the way that thinner people do because rounder faces don’t show wrinkles. I want to touch Enrique’s face but I know I shouldn’t. Ingrid isn’t round and she doesn’t have wrinkles. That is because Ingrid is young. Ingrid is beautiful. Ingrid is talented. Poor Ingrid. I am staring at her now. Solly is still talking. I could suggest some songs for his playlist. There are lots of great songs about people who cheat but I can’t think of any. The only song that comes to mind is Stevie Wonder’s “Part Time Lover” and that’s a terrible song. I love Stevie Wonder. Why did he write such terrible songs? “I Just Called to Say I Love You” is another terrible song. Solly said something to make Malcolm laugh. Malcolm loves his father. You can tell by the way he is looking at him as he laughs. He loves his father even though his father sees him only twice a year. Would Clem love me if I saw her only twice a year? Why do I have to work so hard for her love when Solly does jackshit for Malcolm and gets his love anyway? Why do you do jackshit for your son, Solly? I don’t ask this out loud. If I did, everyone would be looking at me and they aren’t. Nobody notices. I know why Clem wants to be near Malcolm. She probably senses that he’s a little dangerous. Danger is sexy. I should stop staring at Malcolm. I turn and look at Peter. My husband. He isn’t dangerous. He is reliable. He is dependable. He has white hair but he looks younger than fifty. I look older than Peter even though he is three years older than me. Peter is looking at Solly. He is looking at Solly the way Malcolm is looking at Solly. He loves Solly. Everyone loves Solly. Why does everyone love Solly? I hear a sound. It is a screechy unpleasant sound. Now everyone is looking at me. Everyone notices. The sound is my chair on the hard marble floor. I am pushing it back and I am standing up and I am saying something out loud.
“I’m going to go lie down.” This is what I say. “I’m not feeling well at all.”
I WAKE UP AT 10:34. At first I think it’s morning, but then I see that it’s dark out. My mouth is dry and tacky and I go into the bathroom and put my head in the sink and take a long greedy drink right from the faucet. I straighten up and look at myself in the mirror and remember that I am in Mexico and that I shouldn’t drink from the faucet and I try to spit out the water, but it’s too late.
I’ve probably made myself sick, I think. And then I think: If I get sick from the water I could blame that sickness for my strange behavior at the dinner table.
Peter hasn’t come to bed yet. Why should he? It’s only 10:34. He’s on vacation. These are the last few hours of the first fifty years of his life.
I turn the faucet back on and take handfuls of cold water and splash it on my face, careful not to get any of it into my mouth. I look at myself in the mirror again. There are dark purple semicircles under my eyes, but that’s nothing new. I check my roots and think I should use that brown touch-up I brought but I can’t be bothered with that right now. I’m presentable enough, I decide, to venture out and see what everyone else is up to.
Ingrid and Ivan have gone to bed, of course. Solly and Peter sit in the living room, close but not snuggling. Steely Dan is on the playlist, which probably means Solly wants something from Peter, or maybe he’s just indulging Peter on the eve of his birthday, because I happen to know that though Peter is a huge fan, Solly hates Steely Dan. They stop talking when I enter the room.
“Hey, party girl,” Solly says. “Up from your power nap?”
I stretch. “Yeah, I was feeling . . .”
“I believe the word you’re searching for is wasted.”
I debate arguing this point, defending myself, but there’s really no use.
Peter pats the spot on the couch next to him. “Come sit.”
I do. He puts an arm around me. It’s a little awkward, the three of us sitting so close.
Solly holds out his glass of tequila. “Little hair of the dog?”
I shake my head. “Where are the kids?”
“Ivan is sleeping with his mother,” Solly says. “Sadly, he gets to do much more of that these days than I.”
“I meant Clem and Malcolm.”
“Night swim,” Peter says.
We sit through half a song without saying anything. They obviously don’t want to go back to their prior conversation. I get up from the couch.
“Heading back to bed?” Peter asks.
“No, I think I’ll go down to the beach. Check on the kids.”
Peter fixes me with a look I ignore by avoiding eye contact.
“I’m sure they’re fine,” Solly says. “They don’t need to be checked on.”
“I can check on my kid if I want to check on my kid,” I say and I think, Maybe if you did more checking on your kid he wouldn’t be a drug dealer who has to finish up his senior year in an alternative school.
He puts his hands up. “Well, then by all means, check away.”
I walk downstairs, through the darkened dining room and past the darkened kitchen where Roberto and his family have left everything neat and tidy and ready for tomorrow, and down one more flight to the ground level. The pool lights are on and the kidney glows a not particularly inviting blue-green.
I unlatch the gate to the beach and step into the sand wet from a day of rain. It is completely silent. The bay has returned to stillness. The sky displays a blanket of stars the likes of which you’d never see even on the clearest, quietest night in Los Angeles.
I walk into the water until it reaches my ankles and I scan the flat, dark horizon for Clem and Malcolm. All I see is the reflection of the moon. I turn back and look at the villa. It appears even taller, wider, grander, at night. The lights shine from the main floor living room where Solly and Peter will have returned to their conversation, speaking freely now that I am gone.
Where are Clem and Malcolm?
I walk down to the end of the beach where the starfish live in the rocks. I am trying to do several things at once. I am searching for my daughter. I am fighting off panic that I don’t see my daughter anywhere. I am trying to appreciate the exquisite beauty of this beach at night. I am battling nausea from the earlier margarita fest.
When I reach the rocks I turn around and head north toward the other end of the beach, where if I continued through the dark I’d pass Villa Perfect, the home of my new friend Maria Josephina, and eventually reach the town and the hotel beaches, which are probably full of revelers, even this late at night. The water slips up under the soles of my feet, erasing any trace of my footprints.
I see no sign of my daughter. The most likely explanation for this, I decide, is that Solly and Peter were so deep into their conversation and that bottle of tequila that they didn’t notice the kids return from the beach. Their swim would have been brief. As Peter has pointed out, Clem is a wimp about the cold.
As I turn to head back to the villa I see two figures coming up the beach toward me from the direction of the starfish rocks. In the dark they do not look like Clem and Malcolm. The height is right, but the figures are both too thick, too broad. They don’t look lithe and graceful like our daughter and Solly’s son.
I’m frightened, but this lasts only a second, because as they draw closer I can see that in fact they are our kids, and that they don’t look like themselves in the dark because they’re each wrapped in a large blanket.
“Hey, Mom,” Clem says. “What are you doing out here?”
“I was just getting some fresh air.”
“Really? There’s lots of fresh air in the house because, like, there aren’t any walls.”
“Well, I wanted to be outside and then when I came out here and I didn’t see you I got a little worried.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s late at night.”
“It’s not that late, Mother.”
“Why are you carrying blankets?”
“Because,” Clem says, “last time we swam at night I was really cold when we got out of the water.”
“Did you go swimming?”
Clem and Malcolm exchange a look. I can’t tell what kind of look because it’s too dark out to read faces.
“No,” Malcolm says. “Clem thought the water wasn’t warm enough so we went for a walk instead.”
“With blankets?”
“Yes. We had them with us, so.”
“So . . . what? Finish your sentence.”
“So we brought them along. Jeez,” Clem says. “Are you still drunk?”
“I wasn’t drunk.”
She scoffs. “Whatever.”
We stand there, the three of us, while I decide what to say next. Whether to continue with my interrogation. I want to know where they walked to—I went to that end of the beach and I didn’t see them. Did they scramble to the other side of the rocks? What’s on the other side of the rocks? Did they turn inland? Make their way through the jungle patch? Don’t they know that it’s dangerous to be out at night? What’s with the blankets?
Am I still drunk?
“I think I’ll head inside,” Malcolm says.
“See you in there,” Clem tells him.
He turns and heads up to the house. Clem and I stand silently, facing each other. I want to wrap myself inside the blanket with her, to feel that sort of closeness, but she wants the opposite of that.
“What’s your problem?” she asks. “Why are you out here?”
“What’s going on with you and Malcolm?”
“What? Why are you asking me that? God, Mom. You are so annoying.”
“Clem,” I say. “What about Sean? He’s a nice boy. You have such a nice relationship with him.”
“You know what your problem is, Mother?”
I shouldn’t let her talk to me like that. I should scold her. Take away her phone. Do something. Instead I just say, “No. What’s my problem?”
“You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. You think you know everything. You think you have it all figured out. But you’re wrong.” She turns her back on me and starts up toward the villa. Over her shoulder she calls, “The problem with you, Mother, is that you don’t know anything about anything.”