The High Season(10)
That’s when Meret said to me, Let’s do it. Let’s lose our mayflowers this summer for sure. And I laughed, and she said, But of course everybody knows you’re, like, frigid or something. The way Saffy and Kate laughed, I knew this was some kind of fun rumor. Who started it? One guess.
Now the second thing. Friday at school I stayed late for French Club and walked out past the outdoor courts, and there was Josh Frye, doing layups. I said hi, and he said hi, and that would have been that, but he tossed me the ball.
Does this ever happen to you, where you feel something in your hand, like a Polly Pocket or something, and then you’re a kid again? Like Holden Caulfield with the skate key. (Yes, we had to ask our parents what a skate key was, and you hated that book, but you will come around.) I hadn’t played basketball in years. Not since I was on the team in sixth grade, remember? Josh and I played one serious game of HORSE. I really, really wanted to win, and I could tell he was pissed that it was so close. We were both on H O R S forever.
Skip to the interesting part you are saying.
So then I won, and I yelled “HORSE!” just as Meret was walking out the door all hair-flippy.
The look on her face.
Josh broke up with her last Christmas!
And we were just playing stupid HORSE!
She walked by, her face all screwed up into this tiny ragey fist, and didn’t say hello or anything.
I’ve got a bad feeling in my stomach and two weeks of school left. I’ve texted Meret four times, all I get is crickets. I can feel it, I can feel being on the outside somehow.
This is the longest email in the world. Are you still awake.
Fellow Porcupine Slayer, I know I stopped answering your texts. Basically, I suck. But can you either send me a plane ticket to Indiana (ok, Iowa) or give me Survivel Guide tips?
Btw I’m not sending this
xojem
From: Saffy Rubner
To: Jemma Dutton
Meret said you called her a whore yesterday while you were with Josh From: Jemma Dutton
To: Saffy Rubner
Wtf?
From: Saffy
To: Jem
U yelled out WHORE right at her From: Jem
To: Saffy
We were playing HORSE. I yelled HORSE.
…
I had a freaking BBALL in my hands!
From: Saffy
To: Jem
She says it’s so obv cause u r frigid and jealous of her and Josh From: Jem
To: Saffy
Wtf I don’t like Josh
From: Saffy
To: Jem
Right that’s why you called her a whore From: Jem
To: Saffy
Joke? Because this is just stupid From: Meret Bell
To: Jemma Dutton
so now I’m stupid, bitch?
6
TO GET TO Carole’s you turned down a hidden gravel drive shaded by an allée of maples until you burst out into air and light and an expanse of bay. Ruthie couldn’t see another house, just blue sea and the ferry lumbering its way to Connecticut. She pulled up close to the Berlinger house and shut off the car. She checked her phone. She hadn’t heard from Mike all afternoon.
They’d always been best friends. I married my best friend, they’d say, trading fond glances. Three years ago when he first confessed his misery, his need to move out, what else could she do but hold his hand and keep a painful smile on her face, as if it were jerked upward with pliers and fastened to her face with safety pins?
For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer—everybody knew that drill. But what about bearable and unbearable? You notice that’s not in the vows. Bearable is almost worse, somehow, than unbearable, when it comes to marriage. Unbearable makes choices easy. Bearable erodes.
Things happened and broke you, and you spent a lot of time putting yourself back together, and then it turned out you were the same old person, with sadness stitched in the seams. So for Ruthie, when Mike said things like We should move away or We’re family, she remembered to remember that this was the way he’d always been, saying the thing but only meaning it for the moment. Mike had always been generous with his enthusiasms, and once, one of them had been her. Then slowly there had been this draining of life and loving, and their discourse consisted of reminders and confirmations like any married couple, except without the kissing.
It was surprising how long that could go on. You noticed it, maybe even thought about how to fix it, but days rushed on. You still bought the toothbrushes and he still took out the garbage. And your child grows older and suddenly she’s not there between you, she’s in her room or out with her friends. That’s when you notice the silence and the space.
Late one night as he’s sleeping you find yourself reaching out to grab the hem of his T-shirt and rub it between your fingers, just to have contact again. That’s as close as you can get to your lover. Fabric.
* * *
—
CAROLE OPENED THE back door and waved. Behind her, the enormous shingled house loomed and rambled. One wing made a sharp turn, as if making a break for Canada. A rectangle of pool was crowned by a low, long pool house. Down a brick walkway lined with boxwood sat the converted barn that they’d be renting. Beyond it was a deer-fenced vegetable garden, nasturtiums waving a bright hello. Ruthie felt a sudden lift of her spirits. Maybe the incredible luck of having all this light and luxury would shift something, begin something, be the summer that summers always promised to be.