“He skipped lunch,” Clara lied.
“I did no such thing,” he said. “Don’t start spreading rumours. I’ve never skipped a meal in my life.”
“But there’s plenty left,” said Clara. “And I’m hungry. You probably are too.”
Adam said, “We stopped for a sandwich.” Jess punched him in the arm. “What?” he said to her. “I’m just explaining to Clara that she doesn’t have to go out of her way.”
“We already did,” said Clara. The spread was all over the table. “But it’s casual,” she said, brightening her tone. “Buffet style, help yourself.”
Adam reached for some bread. “I think I will.”
Clara showed Jess to the bedroom so she could stow their bags. The little room was crowded with both a double bed and bunkbeds. Then they went back to the kitchen to unpack the cooler. It was full of craft beer, fancy cheese, fresh dates, and organic strawberries—all things that Clara usually passed over in the grocery store because they were too expensive.
Jess didn’t seem to have a problem with the more economical selection that Clara had laid out, however, and she and Adam both ate ravenously even after the sandwiches. Since she’d started breastfeeding, Jess said, she could eat forever.
“I’m not going to lie, it feels good to finally be here,” she told Clara and Nick, helping herself to more steak. The food was cold, but nobody seemed to mind. “To get away, I mean. I really wasn’t sure if we could pull it off.”
“But you did,” said Clara. “I told you.” She didn’t understand why parents were always so resigned to everything being awful.
Jess said, “You don’t understand. It literally felt impossible. That night before your wedding, I wasn’t even that far away, and I got back to feed Bella before sunrise. And since then, a few times we’ve left her to go to the pub around the corner, just to prove we could, but we were so focussed on getting through it, getting back to her again, that we really missed the point of going out without her.”
“Like you’re doing right now,” pointed out Adam. “Stop talking about the baby.”
But then they were quiet, which was awkward, although wasn’tthisreally the point, to figure out how to fill in those gaps in their friendship after all these years? To start speaking in the present tense? It was hard, but relationships were work—Clara knew this. A person had to be deliberate. You couldn’t only float.
Unless youcouldfloat, literally, and now she was, down in the lake, and in the sky above there should have been stars, but it was cloudy. Perhaps that storm was really coming, the air was so hot that the cool water was sweet relief. Clara floated on her back staring way up into nothing. Not even a single twinkle to suggest possible benevolence in the infinite universe, but there was comfort in that too—no distractions, just Clara and Jess in that great black night, plus the other two. They’d once been a pair, but now it had turned exponential.
Clara was naked. She loved the cut of the cold water against her skin, the complete giving over to the elements, to become a part of them. Besides, darkness was its own kind of clothing—but not enough for Jess, who’d demurred at the idea of a skinny dip, though Clara imagined this was more due to Adam’s discomfort than her own, because Jess never used to be a prude. Meanwhile, Nick, his white butt illuminated by the glow of patio lanterns on the deck, had bounded into the water, blazing a trail with his splash.
Floating on her back now, her breasts and belly above the water, finally almost cool now in the humid air, Clara watched Jess and Adam tiptoe in, tentatively. Jess was wearing an inconspicuous navy one-piece. She’d confessed to Clara she was uncomfortable in her postpartum body, herstomach gone slack and breasts that were alternately swollen then saggy. Jess had pumped after dinner, choosing to do it in the bedroom rather than in the open—not because of body shame, she explained, but because being hooked up to the machine made her feel like a cow. Clara had come in to hang out with Jess, and she sat on the floor watching her nipples being elongated and yanked. She found the whoosh of the breast pump almost soothing.
“It’s just not very elegant,” Jess said, after she’d asked Clara to look away—if she was feeling self-conscious, the milk wouldn’t come. All this work was only for milk she’d end up pouring down the drain because she’d been drinking. Her freezer was already so stockpiled with extra milk that there was no room for anything else. She’d gone overboard. “I always do,” she said to Clara. “But if I don’t pump tonight, they’ll hurt in the morning.”
Clara tried to restrain her fascination and not stare at Jess in her bathing suit, trying to analyze her silhouette, which was truthfully not so different than it had been before. Skinny girls were always more neurotic about these things. She’d looked away from Jess’s nipples in the pump when instructed, even though she could have spent hours watching this miracle of the body and its workings. She could have asked Jess a million questions, but she didn’t, partly because she had a feeling that some of these mysteries weren’t easy to articulate, partly because she didn’t like her positioning, sitting here at Jess’s feet. Clara ached for a baby of her own.
“Hurry up,” she called to Jess and Adam, who were still taking their time getting into the water. “Once you’re in, it’s lovely.”
“Easier said than done,” said Adam. “It’s freezing.” He was also skinny, too skinny, Clara observed now, even though themuscles in his arms added a little bit of bulk. He worked out every day, Jess had told her. This hadn’t been a big deal until Bella was born and he insisted on keeping up the habit, and now it grated on her nerves, she said, the hours he devoted to exercising. It made Jess’s day alone with the baby even longer.
Adam finally dove in, and Jess disappeared under the water a moment later. They both emerged seconds later squealing and laughing.
“I told you,” called Clara. “It’s perfect,” and she lay back again and looked up at the empty sky, her ears submerged so that she was surprised when Nick grabbed her and pulled her up into a fierce hug from behind. He reached around and tweaked her nipple, but she brushed his hand away from her breasts.
“Thisisnice,” Jess was saying, swimming circles around Adam.
“Didn’t I tell you?” said Clara. “Didn’t I?”
Jess conceded. “You did.”
—
Clara had envisioned staying up late and talking over wine, wrapped in towels, their laughing faces lit by firelight, although she’d nixed that idea because of the fire ban. But then Jess had gone and nixed everything. She and Adam were tired after the drive, exhausted in general, and eager to enjoy an early night with no interruptions.
And so Clara and Nick were in bed earlier than planned. Nick, inspired by their late-night swim, saw this as an opportunity to make love, but Clara was preoccupied. They had only been here alone, so it didn’t matter that the cabin walls were plywood-thin and didn’t quite reach the ceiling. But now she was hearing all the sounds—the buzz of cicadas outside—and listening for others: bedsprings and whispers,any indication that Jess and Adam hadn’t gone directly to sleep. She could feel Nick behind her, hard, ready, and his touch had been leading her body where he wanted it to go, even if her mind was taken up with other things. Eventually her mind was won over, and the idea of other people nearby wasn’t completely a deterrent.
Maybe it would be good for the others to be reminded, she considered, giving in to the pleasure of Nick’s fingers at work between her legs and uttering a soft moan. Other people’s sounds were so mysterious, she’d always thought, and she had ample experience of these during the time she spent in the field. Every rustle or sigh could mean innumerable things, but for the sake of propriety she said to her husband, “Shhhh.” Maybe they’d make their baby tonight.
—
