I’m. So. Old.
It was the first thought that went through Elise’s head when she saw the tall, bronzed, wrinkle-free woman—no, girl—beside her brother. Not that this Natasha person wasn’t age-appropriate for Freddy. Not that she looked like someone who could be a companion for Rachel on the trip. No. The first thing to run through Elise’s mind was a high-speed movie of everything about her that was deteriorating with age: her skin, her body, her sex drive, her patience. What a soul-crushing thing it was to stand next to a sexy young thing with genetic blessings to spare.
Elise hadn’t been feeling particularly bad about herself when she woke up that morning and stared at her reflection in the medicine cabinet. Instead of slogging through her face care routine half-asleep, she had rubbed the cream into her temples for an extra beat and bothered to slick on primer before her foundation. When she headed to the kitchen for coffee, she noticed a spring in her gait that she hadn’t felt in ages, like the tile floor was a rubber gymnastics mat. She was a step closer to solving her major financial crisis, which, if she was successful, would be like barreling over a pommel horse. Not far behind that victory would be Darius returning to shore with a fully written essay and a complete list of colleges where he would apply.
After draining her caffeine without rinsing the mug (might as well practice the feeling of being waited on in anticipation of the boat), Elise even returned to her makeup vanity to add mascara and eyebrow pencil, noticing that taking the time to brush on powder and roll out the liner really did make a difference, not that she’d ever admit it to her mother. But then she came face-to-face with Natasha (more like face-to-shoulder, actually) and felt immediately like a fossil, a relic from the species Elderatius motherenza. This was a classic Feldman failing: They were all guilty of constantly measuring themselves against other people, too often each other. All the Feldmans lived in a comparative world. Even her father, with his numerous awards and accolades from the hospital—his shelves had sterling silver stethoscopes and wooden plaques to spare—wouldn’t consider his year a success if he didn’t deliver more babies than his partner, even if just by one. So no matter how content Elise was feeling earlier that day as she pulled together the last-minute contents of her beach bag (a new one because her old one really was on its last leg), learning that she’d have to keep company with a woman at least two decades her junior, essentially a fetus in jean shorts, was quite the pin in her balloon. A little warning from Annette would have been nice.
Worse, though, was the audacity of this barely legal, nubile girl to pluck the sweatshirt Mitch handed to Freddy right out of his hands and throw it on over her shrunken tank top. Elise had not worked so hard to create this personalized swag to celebrate her mother’s birthday to have it fall into the hands of a non-family-member she’d never met before. She’d spent hours trolling Etsy to find the right vendor who could airbrush Annette’s photo on the back and embroider everyone’s names on the front. Elise shivered thinking about how much it had cost. Seven sweatshirts, which once she added on the bells and whistles—the personalization, the fleece lining, the organic cotton—had come to over a thousand dollars. And then the vendor had sweet-talked her into matching tote bags. Over text, Elise had told DezinedwLuv about the upcoming cruise and was all too easily talked into adding convenient bags they could lug around the boat to hold their sunscreen, motion sickness tablets, and hand sanitizer. Elise consoled herself into thinking it would be her last hurrah, although those were fast becoming famous last words. At least this was a selfless act. Instead of ending Shopapalooza by running to Bloomingdale’s for cashmere sweaters, she’d decided to make her last spending binge about her mother. And not just Annette, but the entire family.
Now this complete stranger—the same one giving her son impure thoughts, no less—was wearing one of the sweatshirts she’d labored over. It had ruined everything. Elise would need to seek a different final shopping binge. She prayed the boat had some decent stores. It would be tragic if her last go-to-town splurge was on travel-size Advil packets and flip-flop magnets in the sundries shop.
As much as Elise wanted to be fuming at her brother for toting along an interloper, a part of her was grateful to have Natasha on board. In the presence of a stranger, the Feldmans would undoubtedly be better behaved. During her childhood, her parents had never fought when she had a friend over—a foreign body forced an automatic détente. Of course, it would have been preferable if said stranger in their midst now was a college friend of Rachel’s or, even better, a sycophantic boat staffer assigned to attend to the Feldmans from sunrise to sundown.
As a rule the Feldmans, even Freddy (anyone could see that the trendy man-bun and his platinum arm candy were an obvious bid for approval), cared what other people thought about them. They wouldn’t cause a scene on the boat. They wouldn’t “make waves.” Nautical puns were invading her brain and she wanted to repeat them to Mitch, who appreciated good wordplay in an adorably nerdy fashion. But this particular pun made her think of the store where she’d gotten a bunch of new bathing suits for the trip, a boutique called Wave Maker at their local mall, and she worried her face would betray guilt if she even said the words out loud.
“So, Natasha, how did you and my brother meet?” Elise asked, waiting for Mitch to finally make his way back over. She’d sent him to find out what time their luggage would get to their rooms and he’d gotten himself entangled in a conversation with a lively group of Japanese travelers measuring selfie sticks.
“It’s a great story,” she said, giggling as only a person under forty was wont to do. “We met on the massage table. I’m a masseuse at the St. Regis Hotel in Aspen.”
Freddy looked embarrassed. “Natasha has amazing hands,” he stammered.
Natasha lifted her hands and rotated her wrists as if to prove their worth. They were rather lovely, Elise had to admit. Like, nail polish advertisement nice.
“Thanks, babe,” she said, standing on tiptoe to kiss Freddy. Elise noticed she was wearing one of those iconic Cartier Love bracelets. They were a staple among the wealthier housewives in her community, usually received as a birthday present or for an anniversary. Obviously Natasha’s was a fake. So tacky. Still, Elise wondered where she got it. It was a rather good copy.
“Anyway, Freddy always used the same masseuse at the hotel. My coworker Alexis, who is really awesome at hot stone and Swedish. But Alexis went to Coachella—she’s so lucky—so I took over her clients and got Freddy. We got to talking after the massage was over. His scapula was really tight, so I gave him some pointers. Over the next few months, Freddy must have gotten like a million massages before he finally asked me out. Now here we are, one year later,” she said, reaching her arm around Freddy’s waist.
So many questions pulsed through Elise’s mind. One year with this girl?! What was her brother doing getting weekly massages at an expensive hotel? What did Natasha see in Freddy? Was Elise supposed to know what Coachella was? And, seriously, where did her brother’s girlfriend get that Cartier knockoff? It was nearly perfect!
“That’s so nice,” Rachel said, smiling genuinely. Elise didn’t even realize she had been listening. Her children were permanently glued to their smartphones and Elise had long since given up competing with the tweets, posts, and texts. Just her luck that while Rachel and Darius tuned out everything she had said for the past five years, they perked up to listen to Natasha.
“I really want to go to Coachella,” Darius chimed in. Now Elise was flabbergasted. Darius was actually making conversation with an adult (assuming Natasha could be considered one). She couldn’t remember the last time he’d mustered anything more than a grunt or a “Fine, Mom.” She supposed that was what having double D breasts and being utterly beautiful could do: get the attention of a lazy, distracted seventeen-year-old boy who otherwise preferred to play Fortnite.
Finally Mitch appeared.
“Freddy, good to see you!” he exclaimed, slapping Freddy on the back good-naturedly. What was up with Mitch? First, he was over the moon to go on this cruise and second, he hadn’t mentioned work since they left home, when he typically called his desk editors every twenty minutes. Now he was acting far too simpatico with Freddy—like her brother was an old college mate and not the source of her parents’ angina. Something was afoot with her husband, of that Elise was certain. The kids were leaving the nest, and he didn’t seem remotely concerned about all the extra square footage in their house and the cavernous spaces in which they would feel their emptiness. On the career front, even though there was credible chatter that the Bee was going to be purchased by a media conglomerate from Chicago, Mitch was nonplussed about the changes that might portend. And, from what she could see now, he wasn’t even fazed by the perky, sky-high tits that were protruding into his personal space, shooting off Natasha’s body like twin rockets. If Elise wasn’t harboring such a big secret, she might have probed her husband to get to the root of his overwhelming complacency. But she didn’t dare. It was hardly the time to open up a chorus of “Anything you want to tell me?”
Freddy returned the back slap with vigor. She wasn’t surprised that her brother liked Mitch. Everybody did. Even her tough-to-please parents could only complain about his religion, which they acknowledged was an accident of birth, and the fact that he didn’t take home a Silicon Valley salary.
“So great to see you, buddy,” Freddy said to Mitch. “You’re looking good! I’d like to introduce you to my girlfriend, Natasha.”
Mitch extended his hand but didn’t give her more than a one-second glance. Elise smiled to herself with satisfaction. If Freddy was hoping to show off Natasha to Mitch, well—Mitch wasn’t taking the bait. She wished her son would take a page from his father, but it was too much to expect a dopey teenager to realize that breasts eventually sag and looks fade and if you can’t make decent conversation with your partner, marriage will feel like the seventh circle of hell. Was it wrong to assume Natasha didn’t have much to say for herself? Probably, but Elise was lacking the patience not to judge a book by its cover at the moment. They would be trapped on a boat together for the better part of a week and they’d learn soon enough what Natasha was all about.
Speaking of boarding, where in the world were her parents? Her mother and father were typically prompt and yet they hadn’t made their way over to the predetermined meeting point. She’d expected her mother to have arrived at least an hour before the rest of them in order to scope out the best of everything—the shortest lines, the best table in the dining room, the priority seating for the shows—dragging her father along as though he cared just as much as she did about outdoing everyone else on the boat. Both her parents were spineless when it came to handling the other. Maybe it was generational. She and Mitch helped form each other, two potters constantly switching wheels, while her parents left each other alone to pursue their idiosyncrasies unfettered.
Elise wanted to spot her mother coming so she could pop out her lipstick for a fresh coat. The color in her bag was a matte pink called Fabulous Fuchsia—Annette had pressed three tubes into her hand the last time they were together, claiming she got them as free samples. Elise was resolved to start this trip off right, to give her mother the fewest possible reasons to criticize. After all, she was planning to ask for a fifty-thousand-dollar loan. A simple gracious overture toward her mother, like paying extra attention to her appearance, was hardly a sacrifice. It was like when Darius would approach her about staying out past curfew or for extra spending money and Elise would wonder why he hadn’t at least pulled up his pants first. Rachel was clever enough to present the best side of herself before making any requests. She’d say something like, “Yum, I love when you make lasagna, Mom!” before broaching the idea of going to Cabo with her friends for senior week. And even though Elise saw through it every time, it still worked. Darius perhaps had a higher IQ than Rachel, but her emotional intelligence smoked him every time.
“Take those off,” rang a shrill voice through the general pandemonium.
Elise spun around and came face-to-face with her mother, who, if she had smoke coming out of her mouth, couldn’t have looked more like a dragon.
“Mom, I didn’t see you coming,” Elise said, flushing. So much for her cosmetic touch-up.
“That’s because you’re in the wrong place. You told me to meet at the welcome center and this is the photo booth. Your father and I spent the last twenty minutes looking for you. We are exhausted and have been dragging around our luggage. Finally, I spotted Darius and we pushed our way over here. What are these awful sweatshirts you are all wearing? I will not have my age on display. Rachel—did you make these?”
Rachel looked up from her phone. “Me? No way. I hate them.”
“Good. You?” Annette addressed Darius, who offered a resounding head shake.
“You did this?” she asked, turning back to Elise. “Why in the world would you think I would be happy having everyone on this ship know that I’m”—she dropped her voice in the way that people spoke about cancer—“seventy?”
“This entire boat is full of people your age celebrating milestone birthdays. You’re much younger than that person over there.” Elise pointed out a man confined to a wheelchair who had two giant number balloons attached to his armrest. “He’s eighty-five.”
“Well, at least when the wind blows he looks fifty-eight,” Annette cleverly retorted.
“You should be proud of your age, Mom. Plus I thought you’d like having a memento from the trip. Look around at all the matching shirts. It’s a thing.” She pointed toward a group of young Indian women wearing tank tops that said Raja’s Mates of Honor and then to a multigenerational group of black men with hats that said The Baker Buoys.
“We aren’t those kinds of people,” Annette hissed.
“Grandma!” Rachel said, snapping to attention.
“I didn’t mean that. I mean we Feldmans aren’t the kind of people who wear ridiculous matching clothing. With my picture, no less!”
Elise realized how badly she’d miscalculated. She’d never get that money back. It wasn’t like all the other stuff she bought that she told herself she could, at least theoretically, return. There was no resale market for Annette sweatshirts. Her mother actually looked scary in the picture—the image Elise emailed to the vendor had to be stretched to fill out the backs and so all of Annette’s most striking features were magnified: the tented eyebrows, the streaks of rouge, the witchy, closemouthed smile. Not even the hipsters who dumpster-dived at Andy’s Cheapies would be comfortable wearing it ironically.
“David—can you believe this?” Annette asked, looking at her husband. He shrugged.
“Take ’em off, kids,” Elise said.
“Thank God,” Darius said, slipping out of his and crumpling it into a ball.
“And by the way, Mom, you went to the wrong place. If you look back at your text messages, you’ll see this is exactly where I said to meet.”
“Don’t text me, Elise. I can barely see the screen. You know about my floaters.”
“That’s ridiculous. You text me,” Elise argued. “Besides, we’d already agreed on this spot when we spoke on the phone.”
“Mom,” Freddy cut in, and Elise suddenly realized he and Annette had yet to greet each other. “Happy birthday.”
Annette took a noticeable step back to appraise him. An uncomfortable amount of silence passed before she spoke. Elise found she was holding her breath.
“Thank you,” she said, and Elise heard the stiffness in her mother’s voice as if it were a freshly starched shirt. “This must be Nina?”
“It’s Natasha,” Freddy’s girlfriend purred sweetly. If she was put out about the name mix-up, it didn’t show. “It’s an honor to meet you, Mrs. Feldman.”
“An honor?” David chimed in, cocking his head quizzically.
Elise shuddered. Why would her father need to ridicule Natasha and Annette in one breath, all before he’d even greeted his own grandchildren?
“It’s just a real pleasure,” Natasha rephrased, straightening her back to its full dancer-like potential. Good girl, thought Elise, sensing suddenly that Natasha was shifting from foil to friend. They could gossip about celebrities poolside, develop inside jokes over martinis, and—Elise chided herself at the thought even as she felt herself getting giddy—shop together. At least she could watch Natasha shop. It would be like viewing performance art, seeing someone with a perfectly proportioned body try on clothes, fastening buttons over sculpted abs and revealing the absolute lack of need for a bra. Maybe, just maybe, someone would confuse them for sisters over the course of the week.
“Shouldn’t we head for the gangway?” Elise said to her mother, unable to watch this introduction unfold for another minute.
Annette looked at her watch and cast a look of panic.
“Oh, yes, we’d better. Since you told your father and me to meet in the wrong place, we are way behind schedule. We can forget priority seats for tonight’s cabaret.”
“Try to ignore it, babe,” Mitch whispered, squeezing Elise’s elbow gently. “It’s almost happy hour.” Connellys coped with each other by knocking back Jameson shots. The Feldmans, it seemed, were still looking for their salvo.