A Nantucket Wedding(52)

The other wives and significant others and female employees all wore bathing suits, mostly bikinis that showed off their already tanned bodies. When did they have time to tan? Felicity wore a bathing suit, too, and it was also a bikini, but she was self-conscious about the weight she carried on her hips and her sagging-from-nursing breasts. The worst thing was that there were no other children at the party. No other mothers. Not even one. Felicity knew she was not the oldest person there, but she wasn’t young and carefree and cool and hip, or whatever they called themselves these days. She didn’t even know what they called themselves, which made her feel at least another decade older. But when Alice took Luke’s hand and tenderly helped him down the steps into the water, Felicity forgot about everything and sat smiling, lost in the beauty of her children.

    A woman swept up. “Hello again! Remember me? I’m Cynthia Levine, we met at the Christmas party. I’ll sit here, okay? We’ll be the old married section.”

Felicity smiled as Cynthia, bravely displaying dimpled thighs and a bulging belly in her black one piece, joined her.

“Your children are darling. I hope this little guy is as cute as yours.” Cynthia settled herself on a lounger, setting a beach bag spilling over with towels, crackers, water, sunblock, and a chiffon cover-up next to her.

“You’re pregnant! Congratulations!” Felicity’s pleasure was real. At last, another mother on the Green Food wives’ team.

“Yes, and I love it. I never have to hold my stomach in. And the Horny Bachelors have stopped flirting with me. They avoid me like the plague.”

“The Horny Bachelors?”

“Don’t tell me they haven’t hit on you. They’re young and obsessed with work and awkward in social situations and desperate to get laid without consequences. They especially like married women. See the guy with the man bun? And the guy with the tattoo? And the guy in the Hawaiian shirt?”

“Those guys have hit on you? Why don’t they hit on the women on the staff?”

“Okay, well, first, there aren’t enough women to go around, and second, the women want a relationship, the scariest word in the Green Food guy world.”

    “Well, I’m insulted,” Felicity joked. “No guy’s even talked to me and I’m married.”

“You have children, another scary thing. Plus, you’re married to the Big Guy and no one wants to get on his bad side.”

“I wish someone would hit on her,” Felicity whispered, nodding her head toward Ingrid, who was deep in conversation with Noah. “Actually, I wish someone would just hit her.” Immediately, she said, “Oh, I don’t mean that. I’m just jealous of the time she gets to spend with Noah. And how close they are because of work.”

Cynthia gave Felicity a long look. “So you don’t know?”

A frozen shiver of fear slid through Felicity’s heart. “Know what?”

“Well, honey…I think your husband and Ingrid are close outside work. Okay, maybe not technically outside the building, but—”

Felicity clasped Cynthia’s arm. “Cynthia. What are you saying?”

Cynthia patted Felicity’s hand gently. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you like this, here at a party, but we never see each other any other time so—”

“Is Noah sleeping with Ingrid?”

“I wouldn’t say sleeping, exactly.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, I’m going to explode if you don’t just say it!”

“Well, you have to understand, I wasn’t there, Terry, my husband, told me, and he got it secondhand. Topaz, the redheaded girl over there? She went to the supply closet for some more toner, and it was locked, but she wriggled the handle and the door opened and Ingrid and Noah were in there all over each other. Kissing. And Noah had pulled Ingrid’s skirt up and had his hands on her bum. So that’s not actually having sex and it’s certainly not sleeping—I’ve never understood why we use that term, sleeping, it’s not exactly descriptive of what is actually happening.”

Felicity couldn’t breathe. Sounds around her dimmed, and her sight went wonky. She pressed her hands against her stomach and bent forward.

    “Felicity? Are you okay? Oh, damn, I’m sorry I told you.”

“I’m okay. Just shocked. Give me a minute.” Felicity breathed through her nose. She stared at her feet for a few long moments. Sitting erect again, she asked, “Is Topaz a reliable source?” Immediately she burst out laughing, rather hysterically. “Listen to me, I sound like a journalist.”

“Felicity, I’m so sorry. And they were only making out. And yes, Topaz is a truthful person. She’s nice. She’s kind of odd, all about computer stuff, but she wouldn’t make this up. And my husband, well, he’s a straight arrow, drives me crazy sometimes, and he didn’t snicker about what Topaz said. In fact, he was, well, uncomfortable about it. He wondered how this would affect the company.”

“The company,” Felicity snorted. “I’m beginning to hate the company.”

“Mommy! Look!” Alice was waving to her from the pool. She was walking backward in the shallow end, towing Luke with her hands.

“Oh, good girl, Alice!” Felicity called. “Lukey, are you learning to swim?”