“Thank you,” Sherri said.
“Summer Water,” Brooke said. “It’s my favorite.” She pointed toward the sweating bottle, which she had placed on one of the side tables. There was a side table next to each chair, along with a pool towel rolled up the way they did them in resorts. Brooke tipped her wine toward Sherri’s and they clinked glasses.
Sherri took a sip. “Delicious,” she said. The wine was dry and light and Sherri thought she tasted grapefruit or maybe lemon. In her old life she had gone for the hard stuff, and plenty of it. A glass of rosé felt tantamount to drinking a Capri Sun.
“Sit down,” said Brooke, gesturing toward one of the lounge chairs. It was more command than offer. Sherri sat, then leaned back awkwardly into the cushion. She wasn’t wearing sunbathing clothes; she was wearing an unfashionable set of khaki capris and a plain white T-shirt. She’d left her old wardrobe behind. She and Katie both had. It was better that way, easier. In fact, it was imperative.
She took in the yard. It looked like it had come straight out of a magazine, all of it, even the two girls in the pool, because they were young, suntanned, and happy. “Is Taylor your only child?” she asked.
“Oh gosh no,” said Brooke. Her expression said, What a question! Who would have only one child? Her voice said, “She’s my baby.”
“I see,” said Sherri, waiting.
“Alton is going to be a sophomore, and Ceci is going into eighth grade. Ceci went to Salisbury Beach with a friend, and Alton, well, who knows. Once they go into high school, you never see them again.” She waved her hand in the air like a magician, whisking her eldest child away.
High school was only three years away for Katie. The thought of never seeing Katie again in a mere three years filled Sherri with a brutal sort of rage and terror. She was not going to let that happen, she had only Katie left in the world. She looked at the pool. There was a diving board and a winding slide. Lined up on the side like soldiers awaiting orders were a series of brightly colored pool floats, not the cheap kind you have to blow up. These were made of thick, expensive foam. They looked like they were floating even when they were on the ground. The pool house had an indoor/outdoor bar with six stools, and Sherri could see an outdoor shower attached to one side of it. This outdoor shower was nicer than the indoor shower in hers and Katie’s current accommodations.
What she couldn’t see were the heads of two girls. The panic came over her in a flash and she jumped up from the chair and ran to the edge of the pool. The tile was dark gray, so you couldn’t make out what was under the surface.
“We’re having a contest,” said Taylor calmly, and Sherri saw that she had failed to notice Taylor sitting on the edge of the deep end of the pool, holding a phone. “To see who can stay under the longest. I’m timing her. I already lost.”
Now Sherri felt foolish. Obviously the girls were okay. And yet. Shouldn’t Katie have surfaced by now? Instead of abating, the terrible panic picked up strength and force. “Katie!” Sherri cried. A distant part of her noted the way her voice went up at the end in a kind of ridiculous shriek. Katie’s head broke the surface and she gasped for air. “Katie, I’m here!” said Sherri.
Katie was laughing. She was laughing, and Sherri thought she was dead. Sherri had been about to jump in the water after her.
“Two fifty-one,” said Taylor admiringly. “That’s the pool record.”
“Yessss,” said Katie, treading water with one hand, fist pumping with the other. “What was the old record?”
“Two twenty-nine,” said Taylor.
Sherri put her hand over her heart and wondered if it would ever slow down to its normal rhythm. She turned back to Brooke. Brooke was watching Sherri closely. She looked partly bemused, and partly nakedly curious. She had finished her wine and was pouring herself a second glass. “More?” she asked Sherri.
“No thank you. I’d—we’d better get going.” Sherri called to Katie to gather her things and say good-bye and thank you. She was suddenly in a hurry to get out of there. She turned back to Brooke and said, “I’m sorry! My manners. Thank you so much. What a fun afternoon for the girls. What a beautiful home you have.” Not that she’d seen the home. She’d have to be more normal next time, see if she could wrangle an invitation inside.
“Thank you!” said Brooke, in a modest/not-modest way.
Sherri fumbled in her bag for her keys, and that’s when it happened.
“Hey,” said Brooke. She hesitated for a second, and then seemed to give herself permission. “We’re all going out to Plum Island Grille tonight. It’s Esther’s birthday.” Sherri waited. And then came those five words. “You should come with us.”
“If I went out to dinner tonight,” Sherri ventured in the car on the way home, “would you be okay, Katie-kins? There’s Miss Josephine, if you need her.” Their neighbor in the half-house, an elderly widow with a Papillon, had grumpily offered to look in on Katie if Sherri ever wanted her to.
“I won’t need her,” said Katie. “You should go, Mom. You never go out anymore.”
Sherri felt a childish excitement, the excitement of being included. You should come with us. Funny how five words could change her mood in a flash.
Don’t be silly, she told herself. It’s just one invitation, probably because she felt bad for you, or because she was tipsy. That’s all. You shouldn’t even go.
But she should. She would!
When Sherri was getting ready for dinner, Katie slipped into her room and watched her brushing her hair in the mirror over the dresser. The mirror was here when they got here, as was the dresser—the whole place was fully furnished. At the time Sherri had been grateful not to have to buy furniture, but now she felt there was something sad about living with other people’s castoffs.
“Can you dress up tonight, Mom? The way you used to?”
Sherri kept brushing and said, “I don’t have any of those clothes anymore.” Then, softly, an addition: “You know that.”
Katie nodded and sat on the bed, tucking her bare legs under her, accepting.
“I was pretty then, I know,” said Sherri. She pulled her hair back in a ponytail, then fastened it with an elastic. She looked in the mirror, considering. She turned toward Katie, who was looking at her severely.
“You’re still pretty,” Katie said. “You’re just much less fancy.”
“You’re not fancy,” said Sherri, smiling now, indicating Katie’s grubby shorts.
“I know,” said Katie. “But I was never fancy.”
Reasonable enough. Maybe Sherri could try a little harder. Lipstick, at least. She left the bedroom and padded into their shared bathroom, where she dug around in a drawer to see what she could find. Katie followed her and watched her the whole time: sternly, unnervingly, lovingly.
5.
Alexa
It was your typical summer high school party, except that it was out on the farthest reaches of Plum Island, which was a pain to get to. There was a fire pit on the back deck. Some kids had wandered off to the dunes to make out. Zoe Butler-Gray, valedictorian and resident of the house, was in the kitchen holding forth on Trump’s immigration policy, and nobody seemed to be listening. Zoe didn’t appear to care. She was headed for Dartmouth; she knew her real audience was waiting for her there.