Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. My heart stops beating.
“They want to meet us at Higgins Hollow. They’re saying eleven. They’ll bring sandwiches.”
Thank you, God.
“I have a horrible feeling I made a plan with Gina last night before I passed out,” Peter says.
“Do we really want to spend hours on the beach? I’d rather lie in the hammock in a heap.”
“I don’t want to be rude. Gina can get a bit chippy.”
“She won’t care. We’re all nursing hangovers.” But I sound disingenuous even to myself.
Peter drains his coffee. “It has forever amazed me. Jonas is a brilliant painter. Successful. Looks like a bloody screen idol. He could have married Sophia-fucking-Loren. I think he hooked up with Gina just to irritate his mother.”
“Well, that was a worthy cause, anyway,” my mother says.
Peter laughs. He loves it when my mother is bitchy.
“The two of you,” I say. “Enough.”
“So, chickadees? You up for the beach?” Peter says.
“When’s low tide?” Maddy asks.
Peter turns the local paper over and runs his finger down the tide chart. “1:23.”
“Can we bring the boogie boards?” Finn asks.
“May we,” my mother corrects him.
“I’m not coming,” Jack says. “I’m meeting Sam at the Racing Club.”
“How are you planning to get there?” I ask.
“I’ll take your car.”
“Not happening. You’ll have to take your bike.”
“Are you kidding me? It’s, like, fifteen miles.”
“Last time you drove my car you forgot to fill it and I almost ran out of gas. I limped to the Texaco station.”
“We already made the plan. He’ll be waiting.”
“Text him. Tell him the plan’s changed.”
“Mom.”
“End of subject.” My cell phone buzzes again. This time I get there first. “Yes to beach?” Jonas is asking. I can feel him there at the other end holding his phone, touching me through it, feel his fingers typing, each word a hidden message to me. “I need to text Jonas back, Pete. What time should I say?”
“Tell them eleven thirty.”
Jack walks into the living room and picks my purse up from the table. I watch as he digs around, pulls out my car keys.
“What exactly are you doing?” I ask.
“I’ll bring it back with a full tank. I promise.”
“Give me those,” I hold out my hand for the keys. “Either you come to the beach with us or you bike to the Racing Club. Basta.”
“Why are you doing this? You are literally going out of your way to make problems for me.” Jack throws my car keys on the floor and slams out the porch door. “How can you stand being married to such a bitch,” he shouts over his shoulder as he storms off to his cabin.
“You make a great point,” Peter calls back, laughing.
“Are you kidding me, Pete?”
“Relax. He’s a teenager. He’s supposed to be rude to his mother. It’s all part of the separation process.”
My entire being bristles. There is nothing that makes me more tense than being told to relax. “Rude? He called me a bitch. And your laughing only encourages him.”
“So, this is my fault?” Peter raises an eyebrow.
“Of course not,” I say, exasperated. “But he takes his cues from you.”
Peter stands up. “I’m going into town to get cigarettes.”
“We’re in the middle of a conversation.”
“Is there anything else we need?” His voice is cold as stones.
“For fuck’s sake, Pete.”
Maddy and Finn have gone completely still, like small animals at a watering hole watching as a Komodo dragon slithers toward a water buffalo. It is unusual for them to see their father angry. Peter rarely loses his cool. He much prefers to laugh things off. But he is looking at me now narrow-eyed, as if he can feel the molecules around me vibrating at a different wavelength—as if he has caught me in the act, but doesn’t know the act of what.
“Can you pick up some half-and-half?” Mum calls from the kitchen, where she’s pretending to reheat coffee, listening in. I can hear her voice inside my head saying, Think Botticelli. The sane part of me knows she’s right: I need to back down. I fucked my oldest friend in the bushes last night. All Peter did was laugh when our teenage son disrespected me, which is a daily occurrence. But it’s the tone of warning in Peter’s voice that makes me rise to the bait.