I would not miss the kids at the country club, who didn’t speak to me or know my name even. Top of the list, Olivia. She’d tossed me a look one time when I was coming off the court from working with Jonathan. “No offense,” she said, “but I thought I should tell you. Hereat the club, we don’t wear blue jean shorts. You might want to pick up a few skirts at the Pro Shop.”
But I’d miss walking in the door of the club, pouring myself a glass of ice water—some days they put lemon slices in it, some days watermelon, some days strawberries. I’d miss the soft striped towels with the LCCC insignia on the front, and the hot tub, where I’d sit if nobody else was in it. Hitting against the backboard, nights, with the lights shining down on me, staying as long as it took to get to my five hundred shots in a row. Not even minding if I failed to hit one and had to start over.
The Emersons’ kids were spoiled, of course—and in Jilly’s case, bossy. I would not miss the interminable tea parties with Jilly and her American Girls, or Hayward’s creepy way of looking at me across the dinner table. Still, I’d miss playing board games with them. Popcorn and movies, s’mores over the fire.
I’d miss swimming, and going out on the Chris-Craft, and folding laundry even.
I’d miss my little bedroom under the eaves, starry nights under the patchwork quilt embroidered with flowers from every New England state (New Hampshire, purple lilac; Maine, wild lupine), looking up at my skylight window, listening to the lake water washing up against the shore, hearing the loons call out to each other.
What I’d miss most about that room was the quiet I found there. Just twice I’d heard the sounds of lovemaking—Forrest and Regina—in the room below, but not one time, all summer, had I heard the sound of people yelling at each other the way I did every day back in New Jersey. A different kind of trouble hung over Wonderland, of course. The silent kind. But up in that little room, I’d known peace and quiet. For the first time ever, maybe.
Then there was tennis. My lessons with Jonathan had become the highlight of my days, the way my breakfasts with Forrest used to be, at the start of the summer. Now what I loved best was the court, thebackboard, even picking up balls with the ball hopper at the end of my lessons.
And for all the drama swirling around them now, I’d miss Forrest and Regina. Both of them, oddly enough, though the one I would miss most painfully would be Forrest. As confused as I had come to feel about him, and as disappointed by what felt like his abandonment of me—as angry as I felt toward him for choosing a pinhead like Brenda over a girl to whom he meant the world—I couldn’t help loving him. I missed that time, not so far back, when I still believed that there was one truly good man in the world, and that was Forrest Emerson. And that he loved me.
63
Disappearances
By this point I’d been functioning as Regina’s personal detective for weeks, and I wanted to be done with the job. I’d given her the information she’d asked for. Still, she couldn’t leave it alone. She kept wanting more evidence. She was like a person with poison ivy who couldn’t keep herself from scratching at a bloody sore. Making it worse.
She had gone off the deep end now.
Forrest had made a trip to Bangor that day to purchase supplies for the big party, with the plan of stopping off at his friend Evan’s on the way home for poker night. Regina had made the surprising decision to give Jilly her bath—a ritual she’d participated in so seldom that she seemed not to get it that a silk blouse wasn’t the best attire to wear for that particular task. I figured this had to be part of her campaign to reinvent herself as a good mother.
It wasn’t working all that well. When I stepped into the bathroom with the fresh towels, Jilly was sitting nearly buried in the bubbles that had formed after Regina poured an entire bottle of bubble bath in the tub. She eyed her mother with a wary expression. She had brought one of her American Girls, Samantha, to join her in the tub.
“Maybe Samantha would do better staying dry,” I suggested. “It might ruin her hair if you get her wet.” Regina made no comment. Jilly plunged the doll underwater, then looked up at me with a smile.
When they got to shampoo time, it was up to Jilly to explain to Regina what to do next. She pointed to the bottle of Johnson’s baby shampoo on the edge of the tub. “You put some in your hand and rub it over my head to make the suds,” Jilly said.
She handed her mother the cup to rinse out the suds, then closed her eyes. When I did this, nights when Forrest wasn’t around, I’d learned how to keep the soapy water from getting in Jilly’s eyes. I’d hand her a washcloth and cup my hand around the place where the water ran down. Watching Regina pouring water on Jilly’s head—a great deal of it, no washcloth or protective hand—I guessed she probably hadn’t washed her daughter’s hair much before this, possibly ever.
Crying now from shampoo in her eyes, Jilly stepped out of the tub. This would have been the moment for the person giving Jilly her bath to wrap her tightly in one of the extremely fluffy, hotel-quality towels that filled the Emersons’ linen closet, dab her face, and put their arms around her.
Regina sat on the edge of the toilet taking it in as if this were a play and she the lone member of the audience. Jilly stood naked and shivering, and wailing, waiting for her mother to do something. I reached for her myself.
When it was time for bedtime reading, Jilly said she wanted me, not her mother, to read that night’s chapter. After I’d got her tucked in, I came downstairs. Regina had the television set on—rare for her—and her cup of tea.
“My daughter doesn’t like me,” she said. “I doubt my son does either.” She took another sip of her tea. “I can’t say I blame them.
“If I disappeared tomorrow, I doubt if they’d notice.”
You might have thought this thought would depress her, but after she said the words, she laughed.
64
Harvest Moon
Typically by this hour, Regina would have taken her Valium, along with whichever other medications filled the pillbox that sat on her bedside table. Often this meant she fell asleep on the couch, but with her customary regimen of pills seemingly abandoned, that night Regina seemed surprisingly alert.
She consulted the typewritten list she’d made up for the day, noting that Forrest had neglected one of the duties she’d spelled out for him.Vanilla frozen yogurt.As always, she’d specified the brand.
“It’s not like my husband to forget something like that,” she said. “He’s definitely distracted. I guess we both know why.”
“He’s planning the big party, that’s all,” I told her.
“Ah, yes,” she said. “The party. I wonder if he invited his girlfriend.”
