“No!” said Sherri. “Not at all. I’m happy to lend an ear. Two ears!”
“Thank you,” said Rebecca. “It’s good to acknowledge some of this stuff out loud.”
One of the skinny Frisbee boys missed a catch and the Frisbee sailed perilously close to Sherri, effectively ending the serious part of the conversation.
“Is there any chance Alexa babysits?” Sherri asked, after tossing the Frisbee back toward the boy.
“Are you looking for a sitter for Katie?” asked Rebecca. (Could an eleven-year-old not stay alone? Eleven-year-olds were permitted to take the babysitting class at the Y and babysit forotherpeople’s children!)
“I know. She’s too old to need one,” said Sherri. “But it’s a new town... and our house is old, and sort of creaky, I can see where she gets nervous. It’s all new to us, not having my husband around.” She cleared her throat. “My ex, I mean. It might not hurt to have a name ready as I start looking for a job.”
“Well, let’s see. Alexa works at the ice cream place out on Plum Island. The Cottage? She has a boyfriend. She’s pretty busy. But if she’s not free or interested, she might know somebody who is. I’ll send her number to you. Don’t tell her I sent you, though. Just tell her it was someone from the Mom Squad. It’ll go over better that way.”
“Mom Squad,” repeated Sherri, as though she were testing out a foreign language. “Mom Squad. That sounds really nice and protective, like a group of superheroes.”
Rebecca snorted. “Sort of,” she said. She thought again of Gina and the sleeping bag. “But not really. Anyway. Sorry I talked somuch about myself! I don’t know what got into me. I do that sometimes, you know, since Peter died. I used to talk to him, and now I burden other people. I probably drove him crazy when he was alive, with all of my talking, and he was too polite to say anything. I feel bad about it now.” Poor Peter, listening to her for hours on end, pretending to be interested. “Is there anything more depressing than an oversharing widow?”
“I can think of a few things,” said Sherri grimly, which gave Rebecca pause. Such a funny phrase, giving pause. What did pause look like, anyway, and how did one receive it once it was handed over?
“What about you?” Rebecca asked. “Was your divorce one of those friendly ones, or an awful one where you only speak to each other when you absolutely have to discuss custody? Are you looking for someone new, or content on your own for a while?”
When Sherri next spoke there was a new edge to her voice. “No, my divorce was not the friendly type of divorce. And I’m not looking for anyone new. There’s no custody to discuss.” She smiled, but there was something hard in the smile that hadn’t been there before. “It’s just Katie and me, against the world.”
14.
The Squad
Sherri didn’t join us for coffee after barre class. She didn’t even know enough to wipe down her mat and hang it over the barre for the next person! She was out of there so quickly that it was the instructor who wound up her stretching rope, who placed her hand weights in the appropriate bins.
Obviously Sherri had never been to a barre class in her life. Maybe barre hasn’t made it out to Ohio yet? We don’t know. Oh, her form in the plank section! Not that we could really see, concentrating as we were on our own planks—it was a particularly difficult series, with one of the most challenging instructors—but as we were turning from front plank to side plank some of us did see Sherri topple. Though we all pretended not to. We tried to remember when we too were new to barre, many moons ago, and if the side plank was difficult for us then. But we couldn’t recall. Some of us have naturally strong obliques, and of course that makes side plank easier.
Dawn told Sherri about the barre class and she said, sure, she’d give it a try. The first class is free. Did we mention Sherri ordered the surf and turf at Plum Island Grille? So maybe money wasn’t an issue for her. Then again, the Laundromat. So maybe it was.
Come to think of it, we said later, Rebecca hadn’t been at the barre class, nor at coffee after. It had been Gina who switched usfrom the class we used to take, the 8:15, to this one, the 9:15. The switch was due to a change in the schedule of our favorite instructor. Gina, when pressed, told us she hadspecificallymentioned the new class to Rebeccain person.We didn’t know why she hadn’t come—with her teaching schedule summer is the only time she can go to the 8:15orthe 9:15. It was yet another example of Rebecca pulling away from us.
And she couldn’t hide what she did later that day anyway, because Morgan posted on her Instagram story a video of Katie doing handstands on the beach. When the camera swerved we could see Rebecca. Next to her in a matching chair, the new woman. Sherri. Later, a TikTok appeared. And there we were at Jenness, like a bunch of idiots. We planned it after barre class, at the coffee shop. Some of the kids wanted to bring surfboards, and it’s much harder to surf at Salisbury. But we would have been happy to bag the boards! Would it have killed Rebecca to let the rest of us know where she was going that day? The Mom Squad group chat isright therefor anybody to add to at any time. It’s not that hard.
But nobody told us about the trip to Salisbury. I think that’s the important thing you have to remember here. Nobody. Told. Us.
Some of us didn’t believe it—the new girl? And Morgan? The new mom? And Rebecca? What did they all have to talk about with each other? How did they even know each other well enough to form this little alliance? Those who hadn’t seen the video tried to find the proof the following day. But you don’t have to be eleven to know that an Instagram story vanishes exactly twenty-four hours after it’s been posted. Poof: just like that, it was gone. Like it had never happened.
Also. We don’t even know how it got out, the thing about Morgan and the sleeping bag. Gina took it away as soon as she noticed. She had that bag washed and dried before Rebecca picked up Morgan. She never told anyone. Why would she?
Except Tammy, but that was in private. And then Brooke, after Tammy accidentally mentioned it to her, and then one of the girls found out. But we jumped all over Tammy and Brooke and Gina for that. Morgan had lost her dad! Could we please give her a break?
After that things were never quite the same between Rebecca and Gina. There was a certain level of mistrust. Which was too bad: they used to be close.
Looking back at the end of the summer, when everything was over, it was possible to point to that Instagram story from Salisbury Beach and say that that was when the tide started to turn. If you will please excuse our pun.
15.
Rebecca
Rebecca found Alexa in the kitchen, where she was buttering a piece of toast. Bernice was lying directly in front of the sink, as was her wont, so each time Alexa needed to use the sink she had to stand a Bernice-width away and stretch over her. Bernice was a Bernese mountain dog. Peter had named her—he’d been delighted with the play on words.
“Can you follow me to the service station on Bridge Road?” Rebecca asked.
The buttering grew more vigorous and Alexa said, “Now?” Bernice shifted her big fluffy body in the wrong direction, closer to the center of the kitchen.
