The Lifeguards(3)

Although I told everyone I was a food writer, I had myriad side hustles to keep us afloat. I was careful, lest any Barton Hills neighbors see me working a menial job. I walked dogs in Round Rock and took on “Tasks” for TaskRabbit. A folder on my desk labeled “Recipe Ideas” was actually a checklist of odd jobs to follow up on each day. Every minute Charlie wasn’t home, I was trying to make some money.

It was possible people thought I had “family money” keeping us afloat.

It was possible I allowed—even encouraged—people to make this assumption.

I did not have “family money.”

I didn’t even have a family.

(Except Charlie. My shining, wonderful Charlie.)

In the end, I’d decided to write the monthly check to Whitney and stop thinking about the whole situation. I wanted to believe Whitney had my best interests at heart. So I made myself believe it.

I adored every inch of our bungalow, even the wall-to-wall shag and vintage appliances. Sometimes, I woke in the middle of the night worrying about Whitney selling and evicting us. But she’d never do that, I told myself, and I usually fell back asleep. At her birthday party the month before, Whitney had drunk a lot of champagne and cornered me by her peonies. “How would you feel,” she asked me, slurring a bit, “about a five—or ten—year lease on Oak Glen? How about rent-to-own?” I had shrieked and hugged her, telling her it was my absolute dream come true.

It was my absolute dream come true.

But she hadn’t mentioned it since.

Our neighborhood, which had been middle-class when I’d moved here, was no longer a place a food writer (or an artist of any kind) could possibly afford. It was built on the edge of the Barton Creek Greenbelt, an eight-mile swath of almost eight hundred acres. From various streets and the land behind the Episcopal church we went to on holidays (joining Whitney and her family—I wanted Charlie to have some organized religion and I had none of my own), we could access the trails of sheer limestone cliff walls, dense lush vegetation, and popular swimming holes. You never knew who you’d find on the greenbelt—we’d coined the acronym “WDA” to mean “Weird Dude Alert,” so when we were hiking or swimming, we could let the kids know to steer clear without offending anyone. There were so many weird dudes, from stoner University of Texas students, to men walking pit bulls on chains and carrying boom boxes, to homeless campers. There were secret waterfalls and rumored caves. It was a wonderland.

By the time Charlie was born, I had become the sort of mother I’d fervently wished for. (A 180-degree opposite of my actual mom, an aging Cape Cod party girl.) I loved being Liza Bailey, a writer with a bold bob haircut, my bangs cut straight across. I wore Revlon All Night Fuchsia lipstick from the South Lamar Walgreens.

Whitney was generous, hilarious, rich but not spoiled. She’d been a ballet dancer until a hip injury forced her into retirement; her posture was a marvel. She told me where to shop, where to get my hair cut; she introduced me to a chef who needed help writing his first cookbook. As Whitney’s star rose, so did mine.

I’d thought I would need a rich husband to pave my path, but a rich best friend was even better.

I wondered sometimes why Whitney had chosen me. I wanted to believe it was because I was authentic, an honest person and a real friend. Sometimes, I feared it was because I was malleable, more loyal than someone who didn’t need her so desperately. But Whitney, too, was vulnerable. Like me, she’d had a sad childhood, and was trying in real time to figure out how happiness was supposed to look.

It was easier to figure out the details of adulthood: where to own a house, what to wear. How joy should feel was a complete mystery to me. All I ever felt, to be honest, was scared.

By the time Charlie was old enough to ask, I told him his father had died of a heart attack while skiing, a complete fabrication. I even saw the event in my imagination: Patrick, in Vuarnet sunglasses and some fancy ski outfit, falling into fresh snow at a luxury Colorado resort.

I’d never been skiing.

Whitney had kept my secrets.



* * *



—

“YOU’RE FINE, LIZEY,” REPEATED Whitney. She tended to repeat herself when she was tipsy.

“I know,” I said. Whitney leaned over to hug me, and it felt so wonderful, I almost cried. I had stopped dating years ago. It was too confusing, a distraction. There might be time for my heart later, when Charlie was in college. A deep part of me hoped so.

Annette, oblivious, refilled her glass. She didn’t know the real story of Charlie’s father, because by the time I met her in prenatal yoga, I’d stopped telling it. She knew me as a quirky single mom, a stylish artist in cat-eye glasses: Whitney had gifted me the expensive frames on my thirty-first birthday and got me a new pair every year from Optique.



* * *



—

I CHECKED MY WATCH again—11:05. I stood, and went out front to have a Marlboro Light. (My smoking was another secret I kept from my son—I’d been addicted since childhood. I placed the blame squarely on my mom, a pack-a-day smoker herself, who taught me how to buy her cigarettes from the Falmouth gas mart when I was a kid, gave me a cig in payment starting when I was twelve.)

As I pushed open the screen door, the heat hit me like a hair dryer aimed at my face. It had been over 90 degrees for a week, and even at night, the temperatures hovered in the eighties. I had just lit my forbidden cigarette when the boys showed up, wheeling into Whitney’s driveway and throwing their bikes to the ground. “Mom,” said Charlie. He dropped an armful of his protective gear as he moved toward me.