Sorority Sisters (28 page)

Diane

–
Summer 1988
–

“Is
it my imagination, or do we always move on the hottest day of the year?” Karen says.

“It's not your imagination,” I say. “God. Please tell me you have a pool.”

“I have a pool,” Laurie says. “Hey. I have a pool!”

“Yeah, heard you the first time,” Ellen says.

“Is it anywhere near where I'm going to dump this box of pots and pans?” I say. “Because that would be
muy necesito
.”

“Way to break out the Spanish lingo,” Ellen says, carrying in a huge bag of new bedding. “Which bedroom do you want this in?”

“I've numbered the doors,” Laurie says.

“Of course you have,” Ellen says on a sigh.

“That's . . . door number two.”

“It's so gorgeous, Laurie,” Karen says. “It's like something out of a fairy tale. Hey! Did you guys ever see
The Enchanted Cottage
? It's with Robert Young and Dorothy McGuire and it's about—”

“You mean Dr. Welby and the mom from
Swiss Family Robinson
?” Ellen says as she walks down the hall. “What the hell, Mitchell, those two don't go together.”

“Will you shut up and let me tell you this story? It's so romantic, about how he's disfigured in the war and she's really ugly—”

“Oh, my
God
!” I say. “What is wrong with you? That's what you call romantic?”

“Well, they do fall in love,” Karen says, “and this house reminds me of that. It's dreamy, like that.”

“I just want to know if Laurie's the disfigured one or the ugly one,” I say. “That's all I really want to know. Maybe we should vote on it.”

“Like Rush,” Ellen says, coming back into the foyer.

“Oh, shut up. That is not at all what I meant,” Karen says, laughing. “Laurie, I love your house.”

I drop the box of kitchen stuff on the kitchen counter. The kitchen looks like it came straight from 1962 without stopping for gas, but it does have a great view of the front yard, which is crowded with old sycamore trees giving abundant shade, and the lot is gigantic. In Los Angeles, it really doesn't get much better than that. And La Cañada is only a short ride from downtown LA, and it really doesn't get any better than that.

“Laurie, the movers are right behind me. Where do you want all the rest of your stuff?” I say.

Laurie takes over directing the movers; Karen takes over unpacking and putting things away. Ellen and I look at each other, exhaustion seeping from our pores.

“Where's Megan?” I ask.

“Jim's got the kids.”

“All of them?” I say, my eyes bulging. Megan and Ben are barely five, and David's a toddler, Charlie a baby. “Where did she find Jim? And can he be cloned?”

“Karen's parents are with them, too, but they're slowing down,” Ellen says. “The way I look at it, it's like Jim is watching out for six people, not four.”

“What about your parents? Do they watch Megan much?”

“Not much. I don't want Megan around Ed too much. Too much danger of contamination.”

Ellen and I move through the house, trying to stay out of the way of the movers, and the captain and XO of the venture: Laurie and Karen. We bypass the kitchen, just off the foyer at the front of the house, and move through the family room at the back, but that's a busy room, Karen directing the placement of the lawyer's bookcase against a wall. We finally find our way out the sliding glass doors to the backyard. There are pine trees and orange trees scattered on the lawn, all circling a rectangular pool holding center stage. Along the back wall of the property is a row of red hibiscus bushes. It's like a tiny Eden.

We look around at the yard, at the birds singing in the pine trees, at the cool blue appeal of the pool, at the long, low profile of the house, at the shake roof, at all the bustle seen through every window.

“We'd better find a better place to hide. They'll find us if they look,” Ellen says.

“I'm too tired to move. If they come and get me, it's going to be a fight to the death. I'll hold this ground till my blood runs red, or out, or something equally gruesome,” I say.

We sit on the edge of the pool, resting our feet on the steps in the shallow end.

“It's a nice house—gorgeous, in fact,” I say. “Now all she needs to do is learn how to pick men.”

“Look who's talking.”

We both snort. It's true. I can't pick 'em. I don't even try anymore.

“Aren't there plenty of guys in the navy?” Ellen says.

“You know how that went. I don't want to dance that dance again. Plus, I outrank most of the single ones. The pool's closed, if you know what I mean.”

“
I feel no love for you
was an aberration, like the plague,” Ellen says. “You can't give up just because he got to you first.”

“Sure I can,” I say. “You want to know a secret? I've never been all that great with guys. Oh, I can flirt with them, but I can't get much beyond that. I'd like to think it was because I was a late bloomer, got such a late start at it, but I don't think that excuse works anymore.”

“You give a good imitation of a girl who's good at it.”

“Thank you. I think.”

We sit in silence. I can hear the girls talking; Karen laughs at something. Then I see her looking at us through the sliding door, doing the military move of pointing two fingers at her eyes, then at us. I elbow Ellen, she looks, and then we both cover our faces with our hands,
you can't see me
kid style.

“What's the real reason?” Ellen says.

I cast a glance at her, sitting so prettily on the edge of the pool, her legs tanned and toned, her hair still beautifully and almost naturally blond. Ellen's looks have become more chiseled with age; she has a sharper, cleaner edge, though the skin on her neck is looser than it was at twenty-five.

“I'm not pretty anymore,” I say. “Like it's a news flash.”

Ellen snorts and bursts out laughing. “You're so full of shit.”

“Like a sack of shit is so pretty.”

Ellen turns to look at me, her eyes wide. “You're serious? You don't know you're gorgeous? When did that happen?”

“When I lost my looks.”

“God, you are so stupid. I had no idea. Is our country even safe?”

“Shut up.”

“Come on, seriously—you can't be serious.” I just stare at the pool. I've lost it. It comes, it goes, and mine went. It was fun while it lasted. “Diane, you are a goddess of beauty,” Ellen says.

“Will you knock it off? You're not helping.”

“Diane, really, don't you know you're still a pretty girl?”

“Not like I used to be,” I say. Yes, it sounds vain and petty when I say it out loud. It just figures that Ellen would be the one to make me say it out loud.

“Nothing's like it used to be. Thank God,” she says on a belt of laughter, throwing her arm over my shoulder. “You don't need a Halloween mask, Ryan. You need a good prescription from a slightly shady doctor.”

“I just live in fear of being that ugly kid again,” I say. “I thought I was past it. I thought that I was all ‘live in the moment' and ‘take whatever comes,' wring the juice out of it, keep moving. But I liked being pretty. I really, really liked it.”

“Who wouldn't?”

“It seems shallow, though, doesn't it?”

“As long as you're as deep as the rest of the world,” Ellen says with a shrug, “who's going to notice?”

“Oh, that was deep,” I say, feeling a knot unloosen in my chest.

“Was that supposed to be a pun?”

“I can't remember what a pun is, so you figure it out.”

We stare into the pool, at the distortion of our feet on the step; we both have painted toenails. Ellen's are blush white and mine are cardinal red.

“Do you get pedicures?” she asks.

“No, I figure I can bend over and paint my own toenails. I'm in the military, you know.”

“Hoo-ah,” she says, grinning.

“Do you ever think about Mike?” I ask.

“Only when I realize how happy I am that he's gone,” Ellen says.

“What was wrong with that guy?”

“You know how everyone thinks Peter Pan is so damn cute? Well, I don't. I never did. Here's this eternal kid who gets in trouble all the time, who is always running away from good things to chase bad things, who bullies everyone around him to do the same, but boy howdy, does he like Wendy taking care of him and sewing on his damn buttons and making sure he's got something to eat. He even treats Tinker Bell like shit. The only thing I ever liked about that movie was Tiger Lily. I don't know how I ended up married to a guy like that.”

“Peter Pans are good at convincing people that naughty is cute,” I say. “And Mike had a very sexy edge. That's hard to resist at twenty.”

“If he'd only said, ‘I feel no love for you,' it would have been the perfect ending.”

“You jerk,” I say. “You can't make that a good story for me.”

“I can keep trying, though,” Ellen says. “Am I getting a tan line?” She lifts the sleeve of her shirt and peers at her skin. “Shit. I am. Let's go in and convince Laurie to give a party, a housewarming party.”

“When?”

“Well, now,” Ellen says, grinning. “I mean, we're here and you're flying out tomorrow night. No time like the present, right? We'll just call everyone, get pizza and submarine sandwiches, lots of Coke; then we'll all put her stuff away and she'll have no idea where her towels are tomorrow.”

“You are the goddess of evil plans.”

“Thank you. I like you, too.”

“I want to watch you convince her of this,” I say, getting out of the pool.

“Oh, I'm not going to bother convincing her. I'm just going to do it. You watch; she'll thank me later.”

“She might, but only because she's so damned polite,” I say.

K
aren

–
Summer 1992
–

“Hurry up. I want to get there before the beach traffic,” I say.

“Then we should have left in January,” Ellen says, hauling out a bulging lime green beach bag with a dark blue
Little Mermaid
beach towel poking out of the top. “Megan! Will you get the cooler?”

“We have a cooler,” Charlie says.

“Everybody gets a cooler,” I say.

“We're not sharing?” David says.

“We're sharing. We're just starting with a lot of coolers and a lot of food, and we'll see how we end up,” I say.

“I'm hungry,” Ben says.

“We'll eat when we get to the beach,” Ellen says, loading her beach bag into the back of my minivan. “Who's got to go? Go now!”

“I don't have to go,” Charlie says.

“Go anyway,” I say.

“I'll go in with them,” Laurie says. “Come on, boys. Let's go.”

“I don't have to go either,” Ben says.

“Go anyway,” I say.

“Heck, you keep talking about it and I'll have to go. And I just went,” Megan says.

“Let's all go,” I say, unbuckling my seat belt and following the parade into Ellen's house in Encino.

“It shouldn't be this much trouble to go to the bathroom,” Ellen says. “I can almost remember when I did it without any thought or any plan at all. I was so innocent then.”

“Weren't we all?” I say, herding the kids from behind toward the bathroom.

“I'll use the one in my room!” Megan shouts, running down the hallway.

“Me, too!” Ben yells, charging after her.

“We just lost fifteen minutes,” Ellen says.

“Since we didn't start for the beach in January, it may not make a difference,” Laurie says.

“I remember when driving to Malibu from the Valley was a simple little thirty-minute drive through a canyon. Now it's
Road Warrior
,” Ellen says.

“Hey, so, do you love your new couch as much as I told you you would?” I ask. Ellen's house is a sprawling ranch with a front rose garden tumbling through a wooden fence. It has the kind of charm that houses don't seem to have anymore, a sort of quiet homeyness and informal elegance. It's a beauty, even if the kitchen and the baths needed remodeling when she bought it. The house has good bones. Everything else is just cosmetic.

“Yes, Mom. Thank you so much for making me spend my money on furniture,” Ellen says to me over her shoulder. “Flush!” she says to David. David, age almost-seven, flushes and pulls his bathing suit up, catching his wing wang in the process until it slips inside. David starts to run out of the bathroom until Laurie says, “Hands!” David sighs and washes his hands. Charlie, age just-turned-five, pushes his bathing suit down, aims, and then looks over at David at the sink. “Eyes front!” I say. Charlie and his wing wang are aimed in the proper direction again. David runs out of the bathroom, hands dripping, and I hear a bathroom door slam down the hall.

“Hands!” Laurie calls out.

“Did it!” Megan yells as she runs past me.

“Close the door!” I yell to Ben.

The sound of the toilet flushing, and then Ben yells, “I did!” which I know is a lie since I heard the toilet flush.

“Isn't this fun?” Ellen says. “Don't you just love going to the beach?”

“I do,” Laurie says. “It's the most relaxing way to spend a Saturday.”

“So I figure we need to leave Paradise Cove by three so we can get to Diane's dad's house by four or so,” I say. “Jim said that he'll be there by four for sure and get the grill going. Pi, Holly, and Bill are going to get there by five at the latest; then at seven we'll call Diane and yell obscenities at her—”

“What's
abscenties
?” David asks, pulling at his swimsuit. I kneel down and pull it up evenly, giving him a kiss on the forehead.

“It's what you say to friends who are in the navy,” I say.

“That'll come back to haunt you,” Ellen says.

“Then after we talk to Diane and clean up—” I pause to yell, “Charlie, let's go! Ben? Megan? Come on! Get in the car! After we clean up,” I say, holding Charlie by the hand and pushing David in front of me, “you guys will be on your own. Girls' night, just you three. How I'll envy you in my house of men.”

“You want to borrow a toothbrush?” Ellen says. “I've got a couch you can sleep on.”

“As if I'd contribute to ruining that gorgeous couch,” I say. “So, Ellen's with me and the boys. Laurie and Megan in Laurie's car.”

“Why isn't Mom riding with us?” Megan says, staring at me.

Megan, nine years old, has the blond hair of her mother and the pale blue eyes of her father; that's all she has of her father. It was a nice contribution and clearly all he was capable of.

“I'm going to make sure that Karen knows how to get there, and you're going to make sure Laurie knows how to get there,” Ellen says. “Okay?”

“Don't they know how to get there? They've been to Paradise Cove before,” Megan says.

“Yeah, but it's better safe than sorry,” Ellen says. “I'll see you there, kid. You can trust her, Laurie. Megan could lead you there blindfolded.”

“I'm counting on it,” Laurie says, climbing behind the wheel of her Mercedes. Megan gets in with a wave to us and fastens her seat belt. “Let's lead, shall we? You can guide us all.”

“Okay,” Megan says, waving to us out of her open window.

“You're a nice mom—you know that?” I say to Ellen as we back up out of her driveway.

“Don't let word get around. It will destroy my street cred,” she says.

“What's
street cred
?” Charlie asks.

“Something that navy people want and can't get,” Ellen says.

“Please, let me be there when those words come back to haunt you,” I say, laughing.

 * * *

I
forgot the cooler,” Megan says.

“That's okay,” Ellen says. “We'll hit Gammi's house if we find ourselves close to starvation or anything.”

“Let's get the blanket spread out, and the towels!” I say as the boys run for the water. They make a U-turn, throw their towels on the sand in huge clumps of twisted terry cloth, and run off again. “Well. That was helpful.”

“The little darlings,” Laurie says with a smile.

We're about fifteen feet from the foam, a disorganized pile of towels, a blanket that's already half-covered in sand, a lone cooler and three beach bags, one lime green, one dove gray and white stripes, and one hot pink with orange trim. Mine is the pink-and-orange one. I figure that if the boys wander while hunting sand crabs, I want them to be able to find their way back to my spot on the beach quickly. It's kind of insulting how much I must look like all the other moms wearing one-piece bathing suits and huge black sunglasses.

Megan is knee deep in the water already, Ben diving under the waves five feet in front of her. Charlie and David are watching some older kids play Frisbee at the water's edge. I watch it all, keeping them in sight while I swish out the blanket, fold the towels, and set them in a pile neatly on top of it. I flip open my towel with military precision and sit on it, my beach bag next to me, the cooler on the other side.

“Ready for liftoff?” Ellen says, looking at me.

“Let's not forget who forgot her cooler,” I say. “You're going to want to be nice to me.”

“There must be other options. Oh! I know! I'm going bodysurfing,” Ellen says. “I'll be with Megan and Ben.”

“Roger,” I say. “Liftoff.”

Ellen chuckles as she runs between our two nine-year-olds and dives into the waves. Ben whoops and follows her, Megan dips her head under the next wave, and they all swim out to the breaker line together.

“How was the drive?” I ask Laurie.

Laurie is wearing a navy blue one-piece with a crisscross back. She's also wearing a big straw hat and huge tortoiseshell sunglasses. She looks like an ad for a weekend at the Riviera. I'm wearing sturdy black sunglasses and a turquoise blue racer-back one-piece. I don't know what I look like, but whatever it is, it's more utilitarian than glamorous.

“Fine,” she says. “She's a great girl, isn't she?”

“Adorable,” I say. “A chip off the old block, don't you think?”

“You mean, like Ellen.”

“Yeah, not like Mike. I don't see Mike in her. Do you?”

“Only the eyes,” she says. “Or maybe sometimes in the look she can give you, kind of a daring,
are you looking at me?
kind of look.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Ellen's look is more
who are you looking at?
Subtle, but definitely a difference,” I say.

We stare at the water, watching Ellen bodysurf with the two older ones, watching the two younger boys build a sand castle with two plastic buckets.

“They could use a shovel,” Laurie says.

“They lost it the last time we went to the beach. No more shovels until next summer.”

“Is that a parenting thing?” she asks, gazing over at me.

I sit up and cross my legs. “Yes, I guess it is.” Then I laugh. “I make up the rules as I go, figuring that my love will be enough to make up for all my mistakes along the way.”

Laurie keeps her eyes on the ocean, her expression hidden by glasses, hair, and hat, and by Laurie's natural composure. I turn my face out to sea and watch Ellen coaching the kids on when to catch the wave, when to start swimming toward shore, timing it so that the wave will lift them up and propel them forward. They listen to her, heads glistening, mouths open, eyes wide as they tread water next to each other. I watch them, leaning back on my elbows, letting the sun bake into me, easing me to the marrow.

“Then what about my parents?” Laurie says.

“What about them?”

“Did my parents not love me? Is that really it? I guess that must be it, after all. Three years of therapy, what a waste of time.”

I swallow hard. I'm so glib, so easy with advice and comforting words. What an idiot.

“I think they did love you, Laurie. I just think that,” I say, trying to find the exact right words, “maybe they didn't love you the way they should have, the way you needed. I think that's always the risk. That you do your best, you love the best you can, but it's just not right somehow. Sometimes.”

“Then love isn't enough.”

“When it's the best you can give anyone, and it's all you can give, then it should be enough. It has to be enough, doesn't it?”

“What are you guys talking about?” Ellen says, dropping down to her knees on the blanket, getting sand all over it.

“Love,” I say. “And whether it's enough. Or when it's not enough. Or something.”

“Are we talking about
I feel no love for you
, because if we are, I have some rare words on that topic,” Ellen says, toweling off her face and then dropping to the middle of the blanket between us.

“I've heard all your words on that topic. They're not that rare,” Laurie says.

“We're talking about her parents,” I say.

“Mom! Look at my bridge!” Charlie shouts to me, waving his little sandy hands.

“It's amazing!” I shout.

“No! Come see!” he says.

“I'll be there in a few minutes. I promise,” I say. I don't want to leave Ellen and Laurie. I scan the water; Megan and Ben are still bodysurfing, their lean, tanned bodies glistening. “Why don't you build a turret to go with the bridge,” I say to Charlie. He turns his sandy body back to his brother and they start digging deep for wet sand.

“So, what's the deal about your parents?” Ellen says. “Mitchell, hand me a Coke.”

I reach into the cooler and fish out a Diet Coke, getting one for each of us. We pop the tops, the fizz sounding cool and refreshing. We're Pavlov's dogs around Diet Coke.

“You know what the deal is,” Laurie says.

“Then why are we talking about it?” Ellen asks, looking over at me.

“Well, we're kind of talking about being parents,” I say. “About—”

“Love is all you need,” Laurie inserts.

“God, not the Beatles. You know how I hate the Beatles,” Ellen says. “And what a crock. Love, yeah, it's important. It's essential, but it's not all you need. You need to be tough. You told me that yourself, Karen. Remember?”

“Yeah,” I say, taking a swallow of Coke, willing the conversation to stay on track.

“I'll tell you something I learned from being a parent,” Ellen says. We're all looking out to sea, at the kids and the sun and the moving sparkles on the water, at the crash of the waves and the foam and the endless movement and thunderous sound of it all. “Love is the gas that powers everything, every middle-of-the-night fever and every annoying parent/teacher meeting, but toughness is the vehicle.”

“A car metaphor?” I say.

“Shut up, Mitchell. I'm trying to be profound,” Ellen says. “Your parents . . . I don't know what the hell their deal is. I don't know if they're missing the gas or the car, but they're dead by the side of the road. Do I think they love you? Yeah. Sure. They love you. Let's go with that. But do they have the vehicle? Maybe a moped. With kids, you need to be a tank. You have to be tough. You have to grit it out. You have to be strong enough to do whatever needs to be done while they're weak. And, news flash, you're the toughest girl I know, McCormick. Why do you think I picked you for Megan? Besides your awe-inspiring bank account, which I assume will go to my kid someday.” Ellen chuckles and nudges Laurie with her elbow. “And I know you know I'm not kidding about that.”

Laurie is shaking her head, her mouth pulled down in a frown.

“What?” Ellen says.

“Come on,” Laurie says. “I'm not tough.”