Never Have I Ever(72)
“Sure. Because karma,” I said, my voice loaded with irony. It was so easy for me to dismiss her story, see her as the villain. Would it be this easy for Char to dismiss mine? But I couldn’t think of that. I had to win, so Char would never have to face that choice. “Not because I had more money than the Baton Rouge guy.”
My words landed, but not hard. She laughed and stood down, giving me an acknowledging bow.
“Well. A girl’s gotta eat,” she said, so glib I knew that her human moment was over. “Go about your business. I’ll be here.”
And so she was. She stayed all day, watching me like I was television. Must-see TV, even, trailing me from room to room as I put Oliver down, then cleaned up the kitchen. It set me on edge, especially since I felt something disdainful in her steady gaze.
Halfway through loading the dishes, I went and got Hearts in Atlantis off my shelf and thrust it at her.
“Stop watching me,” I said. “Just sit over there and read this.”
To my surprise, she did as she was told, heading to the keeping-room sofa. Even so, the book seemed like a prop. I could feel her gaze following me over the top of its open pages.
“What?” I said at last.
“Nothing. Just . . . this is really what you do? Dishes?”
I fixed her with a baleful eye. “Everyone does dishes, Roux. Even the queen of England has at some point in her life rinsed out a teacup.”
“I know. It’s just . . .” She shook her head and then waved her own words away, looking down at the book. She didn’t say anything more. Not then.
By eleven, Luca arrived, ready to take another quiz, excited about pool dives. Roux made us wait for Maddy, though.
“You don’t want to leave your little friend out, eh?” she said, as if Maddy’s pleasure were her great concern. Maddy did want to be there for Luca’s dives, but I’d told her it might not be possible. Now Roux was taking her side, for no reason I could see. She had yet to get Maddy’s name right.
Roux stuck all day, even escorting me to Lisa Fenton’s house to drop off Oliver before the dives. She only tapped out when the kids and I loaded the car with equipment and headed down to Tate Bonasco’s house.
Tate was blackly disappointed to hear that Roux had gone off to the gym. She was dressed to the nines, her house sparkling clean, wanting to show off for a woman who hadn’t bothered to come.
“Is she coming tomorrow?” Tate asked, plaintive.
“Dunno,” I said, and herded my excited teenage ducklings to the backyard.
There was a moment, that first moment when Luca swapped his snorkel for his regulator and let himself sink, that not even my current circumstance could ruin. We went down in tandem, face-to-face. Maddy was already under, revolving around us in slow circles like a happy moon. He held his breath for the first three seconds, a reflex, and then he remembered that that was the first rule, to never hold his breath.
He inhaled, and I watched his eyes go wide behind the mask, shining with the magic of it. It was so counterintuitive, to be under, to breathe in. I knew he was hooked. I loved this part of my job, but even as I took him through the skill sets, I could feel time leaking away. He showed me he could clear his mask and recover his regulator, and then I had him give Maddy the signal for “out of air.” A secondary air source was standard for safe diving, and Maddy’s was built into her BCD. She handed Luca her own regulator and put the alternate in her mouth. Linked by her equipment, they swam the length of the pool together, side by side, sharing air. Halfway to the end, Luca tucked Maddy’s arm through his. It was necessity, not romance. The short hose linking them was pulling at his mouth. Even so, when we came up, Maddy’s eyes were shining.
Meanwhile Roux was off doing sun salutations, her house empty, her secrets unguarded, and I was held hostage by her own son’s safety. She’d bet, quite rightly, that I wouldn’t leave a novice teenage diver on his own. Not even in the contained water of the pool, not even with Maddy there.
By the time we finished up, Davis was home. It was a strange night. I felt divorced from myself, almost outside my body, watching Amy Whey make us all spaghetti and meatballs and caprese salad. I was so committed to the role I even ate the food.
I made Amy-style jokes, asked Amy-style questions, and Davis and Maddy both saw Amy. It almost hurt my feelings. Inside I was a wasteland, and they couldn’t see. At bedtime Davis read, and I sat right by him, staring at a book I wasn’t reading. It was all I could do to turn the pages at reasonable intervals and manually remove the tension from my body. It was like bailing out a sinking boat. I’d find my leg muscles contracting, and I would make them release, concentrating, only to find that same stiffness churning my abdomen or clenching my hands. By the time Oliver began fussing for his nighttime nursing session, I was as physically exhausted as if I’d spent the last three hours at the gym with Roux.
Oliver nursed himself to sleep, and Davis, none the wiser, took him to his crib. He got into bed again and kissed me as if I were the same old Amy I had been for almost seven years now. I kissed him back, just like her, and he clicked his lamp off and rolled away. He was asleep in bare minutes, wholly at peace. It left me feeling so damn lonely.
I lay awake staring up at the dark ceiling, wanting to talk to him. I wanted to talk to anyone, really, but the only one who understood what was happening in my life was Roux, and she was doing it to me.