Courting Mrs. McCarthy (3 page)

Chapter 4

Nathan awoke to an unpleasant sound.

“Now it’s my turn. Wake up, asshole,” Griffin yelled. There had been no alarm set, a byproduct of marijuana and self-pity.

“You better not still be stoned,” his friend added. It had been almost four hours since their last toke.

“I’m no lightweight, man,” Nathan replied. He felt groggy and annoyed that his slumber had been disturbed. This was a half-truth. Nathan had not been much of a pot smoker while he was dating Sarah out of fear of her father. The amount of time away from weed had affected his tolerance. Whether or not he had in fact become a lightweight was difficult to quantify.

“Good. Brush your hair and let’s go or else we won’t get a good seat,” Griffin said.

Nathan’s hair was a tangled mess since he had fallen asleep with it wet. This generally wasn’t an issue, since it made his pillow smell good, but time was now of the essence. “All right, be done in a minute,” he replied, and got out of bed. Griffin did not look terribly impatient.

Both of Griffin’s mothers were waiting in their convertible as the two friends made their way outside. Victoria’s car was a yellow Camaro, which complimented her golden blonde hair. The car had been a gift from Megan after Victoria received her big promotion. The Rousseaus liked to buy American, especially after a family viewing of the Clint Eastwood film, Gran Torino. Her company also gave Victoria a mini-van, but that was seldom used and simply gathered dust in their garage.

Nathan’s worries that he had made the Rousseau family wait were alleviated as he got to the car. Both women had big smiles on their faces. The air was particularly fresh for Memorial Day weekend and neither one of them had anything else to do. Griffin was their only child. The artificial insemination process had not been pleasant and neither one wished to go through it again.

“Sorry I’m late, Mrs. and Mrs. Rousseau,” Nathan said, as he and Griffin advanced toward the car. This greeting was not universally standard for lesbian couples, but Nathan had used it ever since their first play date in kindergarten. The world had not been as receptive to same sex couples with children back then, and the Rousseaus found the formality charming.

“Hi, Nathan. Will the rest of your clan be there?” Megan asked, who relished the role of shotgun passenger so she could make conversation with everyone else in the car. Victoria had received several speeding tickets, and did not make for the best driving companion. The radio had at least been turned off. The Rousseau family was quite fond of a station that played classic eighties alternative.

“I hope not, but I think so. They’re at the girls’ softball game,” Nathan replied. He felt comfortable sharing this information with them, the closest family he currently had in the states while his father was gallivanting abroad. The Thompsons had only moved to the suburbs of New York City five years before in order to raise the twins in a more pleasant environment. Nathan had not socialized with them all that much until he moved in to their home.

“What’s the matter? You don’t want more casseroles to celebrate the start of summer?” Victoria joked. Nathan always thought Griffin got his sense of humor from Victoria.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Nathan said. “Is the sympathy I’ve received due to my father’s abandonment of me, which has left me an emotional orphan, somehow funny to you?”

There was a solemn silence in the car for about five seconds, which felt like an eternity.

“Now, that was funny,” Nathan added, with a large smirk on his face.

“You’re an asshole,” Victoria replied, echoing her son. She floored the pedal which sent both Griffin and Nathan flying back so their heads slammed against the back of the car. Thank God for seatbelts.

The club was crowded as one would expect on opening day. Some people were very dressed up, but Nathan and the Rousseau family wore casual attire.

Seers Point Yacht Club was a bit of a paradox in the world of private clubs. The club had a fancy restaurant, which remained open all year, but the pool’s vibes were colloquial. This latter point prevented the place from becoming a breeding ground for the pretentious, though that was usually not the case in the winter. The club was despised by Nathan’s late mother Hilary, which was likely the reason Nathan’s father retained his membership though he rarely stepped inside its exclusive borders. The club had served as a convenient barrier between Jerome and Nathan long before the Atlantic Ocean took over. Nathan used it more in a week than Jerome did in five years.

Though he wasn’t too fond of Seers Point, Jerome had used his influence as a businessman to sponsor both the Thompsons and the Rousseaus to the club. The nomination of the Rousseau family had been met with fierce opposition from then club president Raphael Lellenberg, but Jerome had paid him a visit to suggest that discrimination against such a prominent couple in the New York area was unwise regardless of their sexual orientation. The Thompsons followed with far less of a struggle.

The parents and the teenagers separated so they could mingle with friends and acquaintances. Griffin had been yelled at by his mothers for overusing the phrase, “let’s do lunch” to people who engaged him in conversation. “Let’s do lunch” was not so much of an invitation to share a meal as it was a common way to end a conversation or stop-and-chat that one did not wish to have had in the first place. While the phrase was acceptable and perfectly normal for adults to use, Griffin appeared sad to hear that people had less than enthusiastic reactions to his use of the phrase.

Nathan saw his relatives in the distance and ushered Griffin toward the docks, where his aunt was less likely to ask questions about the previous night. Had he not endured a break-up, he would not have cared about talking to her. She was fine with Nathan going out, but she had been a major opponent of marijuana use ever since college. While in college, Cassidy Thompson ate a few too many pot brownies and had a panic attack inside a movie theatre during a showing of
The Thing
. Pot from then on was the devil, and though Nathan had come down, he still wished to avoid her if it was at all possible.

Griffin was not amused, for he seemed to be looking forward to the beginning of the social season at Seers Point. This was the first of many special days where people, particularly woman, took extra care in their appearances. A gesture not lost on young Griffin.

“This is not cool, dude,” he said as they approached the empty docks. “I wanted to see the MILFs,” he said, referring to the attractive female parents who frequented the club. Griffin could use the word freely around Nathan, but he couldn’t let his mothers overhear it, or even the people he would say, “Let’s do lunch” to. The people he said, “Let’s do lunch” to, were often the MILFs themselves.

“That’s weird, coming from a guy with two hot moms,” Nathan commented. “How would you like it if Chris Towers said that about your mommies?”

Griffin scowled. Chris Towers was a degenerate from their grade who was also on the swim team and a member of Seers Point.

“I would punch him because there’s plenty of MILF stuff on the Internet about my mother already. Unless he came up with something particularly creative,” Griffin said. Pictures of Megan Rousseau from her modeling days were popular for people to look at while at work, where filters would catch photographs described as pornography. Griffin knew about this all too well.

Seeking to change the subject, Griffin said, “I’m surprised you weren’t forced to bail on this to see Sarah off at the airport. Did she ask you to go?”

Nathan was not very surprised by this question, but he was not in the mood to come clean about the break-up and instead looked for a way to switch the subject as quickly as possible. He did not wish to lie to his best friend, but he didn’t want to answer the question truthfully either. Griffin would likely press the issue if given the opportunity.

“No,” Nathan said. “I think she was tired after last night. We said out goodbyes then. Thank God, I did not want a long drawn out goodbye.”

“I see,” Griffin replied, who was more indifferent to the answer than Nathan had expected.

Just then, a bell began to ring. This was used to summon the members of the Seers Point Yacht Club to their seats. Nathan hadn’t liked this bell from the time he was little because the ceremony was long and usually boring. But at this point in time, it was a very welcome sound to hear.

Chapter 5

Nathan took a seat with the Rousseau family. Even though he had initiated contact with the Thompsons, he did not take that as a cue to move over to where they were seated. People might think of this as weird, but it did not bother him in the slightest. Nathan was used to people thinking he was odd.

As he sat down, his gaze was drawn to a woman and to the look on her face and the energy he felt radiating toward his general vicinity. The fact that her curly brown hair was waving in the wind so that it covered a bit of her flawless face made her all the more curious to him. It might have helped create her unexplainable allure.

A few months prior, Nathan was reading a tabloid magazine at the library when Mrs. Buchanan, his eighty-two year old friend who he spent time with at the library, came up to him to teach him one of her life lessons. While Nathan was embarrassed that another person had caught him reading something generally reserved only for women, Mrs. Buchanan paid no attention to that or other social taboos. Instead, she tried to teach him the art of reading people based on their expressions. Nathan didn’t fully understand her logic, but Mrs. Buchanan had lived for many years and had a lot of wisdom. He also understood that this wasn’t a trick one learned in one day from a single tabloid.

Mrs. Buchanan was originally from Scotland, but she had lived in America for over fifty years, having moved along with her husband, Mr. Buchanan, when he took a teaching job at New York University. Mr. Buchanan had died in the 1980s, but Mrs. Buchanan stayed in the suburbs of New York City. The Buchanans never had any children for reasons they never tried to find out. According to Mrs. Buchanan, “The cards were not in our deck for that one.”

Nathan came to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Buchanan in the local library. While he went there to get of his relatives’ house, Mrs. Buchanan went there out of habit. Mr. Buchanan had always said that a library was supposed to serve as the center of a community so she went there almost every day.

What started off as friendly chitchat between two people who frequented the same establishment had blossomed into a budding and important friendship. Nathan and Mrs. Buchanan watched films together in the library’s viewing room and he often told her about his adventures as a high school student. She was fascinated by the difference that a few decades and a large ocean had made in the education process. Nathan thought of Mrs. Buchanan as a friend just as he felt about all his friends who were his age.

Mrs. Buchanan’s advice about reading people, in this case women, resonated with him far more than anything Griffin had told him. He watched as a woman took a seat along with her three children. Nathan couldn’t put names to their faces just as he couldn’t put words into the feelings for the vibes she was radiating. He felt this just by a chance glance that she had unintentionally thrown in his general direction.

***

Like the names of Jacqueline McCarthy’s children, Nathan did not know that much about her. He would learn her life’s story later, but for the purposes of this story it makes sense to some of them now for context. It is important to understand the background of this forty-two year old woman.

Mrs. Jacqueline McCarthy was born Ms. Jacqueline Hamilton in Colonial Beach, Virginia. Colonial Beach was a small town with a large population of retirees. A desire to live amongst the busier members of society would later draw Jacqueline to New York City. A desire to achieve something in between first brought her to Roxburgh just a few years before this point in the story.

Jacqueline was married to Steven McCarthy, a former Major League Baseball player. Steven had been a successful outfielder in the 1990s, but few would acknowledge this success nowadays. After eight years in the majors, Steven began using steroids, as many other players did those days. The steroids did wonders for his statistics, particularly his power numbers, and he used this newfound surge to make more money.

He was however, caught for his use of steroids and was forced to stop by his team’s doctors. Not long after he ceased use of these performance-enhancing drugs, Steven tore his anterior cruciate ligament, or his ACL. Without his magic potions, Steven was forced to retire to a few endorsement deals and a career in sports broadcasting.

His broadcasting jobs began to wash up after it become public knowledge that Steven’s name was among a long list of cheaters in the game. Many of his fellow cheaters survived the scandal, but his volatile behavior and poor people skills worked against him. Fortunately by then, Steven had acquired enough money to live by means other than his reputation.

He invested his money in several enterprises such as restaurants, sports equipment shops, and insurance, all in the Seattle area. Steven’s diversified portfolio made his money relatively safe and gave him a new way spend his time. Steven did not come with the rest of the McCarthy’s to spend the summers on the East Coast.

Jacqueline had often been distraught with her husband during his baseball days because she suspected that Steven had been having affairs with many women across the United States and the city of Toronto in Canada. He had purchased a house in Roxburgh so she would not be bored during the long and grueling baseball season, but Jacqueline took this as an apology gift for sexual misconduct. Jacqueline often opted to forget this information, but she didn’t miss the time away from her husband either.

The truth was, Steven had not actually had any affairs during his playing days, though not for lack of effort. He had attempted to, he was hampered by a common side effect of his steroids. He found himself plagued with erectile dysfunction. This had caused him great embarrassment one night when he tried to take a pretty woman back to his hotel room, only to find that he would be hitting no home runs that night.

Steven tried to fix his self-imposed handicap by another performance enhancing drug Viagra, but he discontinued this soon after receiving a prescription. One day after Steven had indulged in morning sex with a woman, who was not his wife, Steven was unable to make his erection go away. This lead to an unfortunate nickname by his teammates when he showed up to batting practice with a healthy boner. Steven was often referred to from that day forward as “Woody.”

Jacqueline was not aware that Steven frequently neglected his duties to casually wander around his restaurant to make small talk with patrons and to have coitus in his office with the waitresses. Steven enjoyed that these women respected him as the powerful businessman and athlete that he still found himself to be. Jacqueline did not care much that her husband had been a former baseball player aside from the fact that it paid the bills and allowed her to live a fairly extravagant lifestyle.

Jacqueline enjoyed the time away from her husband. Their three kids, Tiffany aged 10, April aged 8, and Randall aged 5, originally had come to like Seers Point because they thought they could see the Statue of Liberty. The object they were looking at was in fact the Empire State Building, but no one had told them otherwise and none of them had the vision to tell otherwise or the sense to check.

The look Jacqueline had made which attracted the attention of Nathan was not one used in hopes of attracting a mate to use to get back at her husband. She had often thought about having an affair to get back at her husband, but had never acted on it. The smile was relief to be rid of him for the next three months.

***

Nathan himself had made a face that had attracted attention. “I know that look,” Griffin said slyly. “Which MILF are you looking at?”

Griffin had ruined Nathan’s train of thought. The timing was a little unnatural given that he’d been single for less than twenty-four hours. Nathan didn’t feel bad about this since it seemed a bit early to have feelings of attraction toward another woman anyway. It did not seem likely there would ever be a good time to move on with a married woman.

“Gross. I’m daydreaming, Griffin. Your parents are right next to you,” Nathan said harshly. The outburst had attracted Megan’s attention, who ushered for them to be quiet. A few of the older members were giving them dirty looks. Nathan listened.

The ceremony was the same as it was every year. The President, who was fortunately no longer Mr. Lellenberg, told those members who chose to attend that it would be the best summer yet. The evidence he used to support this was a summary of the events of the summer, which were no different from any other year. Nathan could’ve gave the speech himself and wondered why this was a necessary event. His mind wandered as found an answer that he didn’t even realize. All he could think about was Jacqueline McCarthy.

There were light refreshments served once the ceremony was over. Nathan dragged Griffin to get a glass of iced tea so that he could have company when his aunt came over to say hello. She wouldn’t ask any questions about Sarah or the party with Griffin present. Even Cassidy could be perceived as embarrassing.

When she approached, she said, “Hi, boys, did you have a good time last night?”

“Oh, just wonderful, Aunt Cassidy,” Nathan said. “Truth be told, I am a little tired.”

“Yeah, we probably didn’t get enough sleep,” Griffin added, grinning. Victoria had warned him against this sort of behavior when he went around telling adults, “Let’s do lunch,” but Griffin continued the facade.

“Any big plans for tonight?” Aunt Cassidy asked. Despite her tendency to worry too much about Nathan, she was fairly laid back when it came to social habits. It kept him happy, and her daughters were a bit young to be affected by it anyway.

“I don’t think so, probably just a movie,” Nathan replied.

“He’s coming over for dinner,” Griffin chimed in, which was something Nathan wasn’t aware of.

“How nice,” Aunt Cassidy commented. “Your family is so good to Nathan. I’ll be sure to thank them. Have fun,” she added, as she departed.

“Is our night agreed upon, then?” Nathan said.

“It doesn’t have to be. Do you suddenly have pressing matters to attend to now that your girlfriend has left the country?”

Nathan paused as his mind wandered to his ex-girlfriend in what might have been a time of grievance just a few hours ago. He wasn’t sure if he felt guilty or pleased about his brief infatuation with Jacqueline McCarthy. He suggested heading to the pool as a way of getting away from her and his lustful feelings.