Can't Look Away(14)
“Sabrina!”
Molly recognizes the voice. It’s Meredith Duffy, who has stood fifteen feet from Molly and Hunter all morning, but avoided eye contact until now. Her stomach flips. She hadn’t realized Sabrina knew Meredith. She isn’t sure why this makes her feel so insecure.
Meredith approaches them, hooked arm in arm with Edie Kirkpatrick—a gesture that reminds Molly of high school, the way she and her best friend, Rachel, used to link elbows on their way to class.
“And, Molly, hello.” Meredith’s and Edie’s smiles are matching, saccharine sweet. Their foreheads are shiny and lineless, and they each hold giant iced teas from Gwen’s. If they’re judging the length of Sabrina’s short shorts, it isn’t obvious.
“Don’t the kids’ bikes look sensational?” Meredith glances in the direction of her daughter, Emma, who’s in Stella’s class at Flynn Cove Elementary. Emma’s bike is more bedecked than Stella’s, an enormous cluster of red, white, and blue balloons fastened to the seat, swaying majestically in the breeze.
Edie’s son Walker is a year older, but many of the kindergarten and first-grade mothers seem to flock together. Molly met them this way, through their children, when she and Hunter moved to Flynn Cove in time for Stella to start preschool. That was almost three years ago now, but Molly is still cognizant of her role as a somewhat outsider. It isn’t just that they don’t belong to the country club, though she’s sure that’s a piece of it. Molly was only twenty-six when she had Stella—it happened before she and Hunter were ready, honestly—and her younger age is something she feels in the presence of women like Meredith and Edie and Betsy, who are all pushing forty and well onto their second and third children. They’ve never seemed to get Molly, who arrived in Flynn Cove at age twenty-nine, wearing worn Converse and mala beads, her hair untamed, a three-year-old on her hip. As the years passed and Molly never conformed to their bright, preppy clothing and enthusiasm for things like the garden club, their confusion seemed to morph into a kind of mild distaste, even resentment.
“And how do you all know each other?” Meredith glances between Molly and Sabrina, her curiosity clearly piqued.
“Molly and I met when I took her amazing yoga class earlier this month,” Sabrina gushes.
“Ah! How lovely. I’ve simply got to get to your class one of these days, Molly.” Meredith gives a forced grin, and Molly has to stop herself from rolling her eyes. Meredith says the same thing nearly every time they see each other, and Molly knows the words are empty. She’ll never actually show up at class.
“I love your shoes, Sabrina.” Edie gestures toward Sabrina’s sandals, which are a toffee color, with thin leather straps wrapping up the length of her ankles.
“Me, too.” Meredith nods emphatically in agreement.
“Thanks.” Sabrina smiles casually, flips her hair. “Confession? I totally copied Molly. She was wearing a similar pair the other day. I’m obsessed with her style.”
Meredith and Edie purse their lips, looking as perplexed as Molly feels. Molly does own similar gladiator sandals. Was she wearing them the other day when she ran into Sabrina at Dr. Ricci’s? She must’ve been.
Molly gives Sabrina a grateful smile. “Thanks. That’s sweet of you to say.”
Edie swallows a sip of iced tea, checking her phone. “All right, Mer, it’s almost ten. We should make sure the kids are ready to go.”
“Have a good one, ladies,” Meredith calls with a wave. “See you at the club, Sabrina. Molly, you know, if you’d like Colin and me to sponsor you for next year, all you have to do is say the word. Happy to get you in the door!”
Molly says nothing, smiling stiffly as Meredith and Edie disappear into the crowd of patriotic colors. If she were braver, bolder, she’d say the words gathering in her mind: No, Meredith, Hunter and I are not considering joining the Flynn Cove Country Club. We have a mortgage and tens of thousands of dollars of outstanding IVF bills and aren’t in a position to drop a hundred grand on the FCCC’s initiation fee. And neither of us even like golf.
Her insides twist into a hard knot at the new knowledge that Sabrina and her husband belong to the club. They’ve barely been in Flynn Cove five minutes, and already they’ve joined? Molly doesn’t want to feel disappointed, but she can’t help it.
At eleven on the dot, the parade begins. There’s the high school marching band followed by police officers and veterans in uniform waving, floats from local businesses like Gwen’s Café and Waterside Car Wash that toss out handfuls of candy, then the shiny red fire trucks, their sirens blaring. The bicycles are last, more than a hundred children pedaling through the streets, balloons and streamers fluttering in their wake.
Emma Duffy’s bike wins second prize. Stella doesn’t win a prize at all, but her face is steady as results are announced through the megaphone. Molly is proud of her daughter, who isn’t always so even-keeled in the face of disappointment, and grateful that they seem to have evaded a meltdown.
Hunter offers to take Stella home. “If you two wanted to grab an iced tea or something?” he adds, glancing from Molly to Sabrina.
Molly sees the effort in his face. He’s relieved his wife has a new friend, and he desperately wants them to hit it off.
“Or a drink?” One half of Sabrina’s pink mouth slides into a grin. “There’s a bottle of Whispering Angel in my car.”