We are amazed at our daughter’s beauty. It came out of nowhere. We are a normal-looking couple—he is prematurely balding, a bit pudgy with ruddy cheeks; I’ve got frizzy brown hair and a gap between my front teeth; we’re the kind of couple that you might stand behind in an airport line and pay no attention to. Until you saw our fourteen-year-old daughter off to the side—Belinda’s a magnificent creature with luminescent skin, flowing auburn hair, wide green eyes (no one in either of our families has green eyes), delicate features that look like they’ve been carved by the finest artisan. I do not exaggerate; this is not normal maternal infatuation; I see it wherever our doyen goes—is that girl famous? A model? She looks familiar, like an archetypal princess from a fairy tale.
We have another child, a boy, Gregory, who looks like he belongs to us. In his cargo shorts, his plump pink legs are slightly bowed and even though he’s only just turned eleven, his hair is already a little greasy; there’s an uneven smattering of freckles on his nose and he wears braces because he’s got the same gap-tooth smile as me. If our daughter weren’t in the family photos, we’d look like any average American family on a summer vacation, or sharing turkey at Thanksgiving, or going bowling.
Of course, we love the children equally. Differently, to be sure, but equally. The problem is that Gregory knows his older sister is a knock-out; how could he not? And she knows it as well; again, how could she not? And for the last few weeks, I’m afraid I’ve become worried that Belinda is turning into one of those girls. The mean ones. Now this is not based on anything she’s said or done around me, but rather based on her friend group. They are all ridiculously pretty. This summer they are toned in their bikinis with sun-tossed hair and wide smiles.
We’ve joined the local beach club because my husband, the defense lawyer, wants a place where he can casually entertain clients. What I’ve noticed is that my daughter and her girlfriends are always spreading out their beach towels under the lifeguard tower. As far as I can tell, there are three different lifeguards who rotate shifts from one day to the next—one has a curly mop of hair, another is clean-cut, and the third has a beard. Yes, I keep a close watch, although I’m rather uncertain what exactly I’m watching for. I see the girls flirt, but nothing seems to go beyond that; they are a pretty girl group encircling the life guard-of-the-day.
Gregory, for his part, is into Boogie boarding and wants me to come down to the shore at regular intervals to cheer when he rides a wave all the way in. He’ll rise up from the foam and froth, triumphant, hair plastered to either side of his face. Meanwhile, my husband will lunch with a client, plot out whatever it is he needs for their day in court.
What do I do at the Cape Cod beach club besides snoop on my daughter and cheer on my chubby son? I play mahjong with Renaud, a stylist, and two other club ladies—one of whom has sprung for a beach-side cabana. With the cabana, there comes a waiter who brings us chilled Shiraz and with whom Renaud ostentatiously flirts. I’m not very good at mahjong, but neither are the others so we spend most of the time gossiping, although gossip is maybe the wrong word since real issues get discussed. Is it okay Joannie gave her hubby a backhand slap? What about Shelly’s daughter failing French class? Should Renaud shave his head and finally give in to his receding hairline? I want to know if I dare ask my boss at the arts and crafts store if I can take Fridays off. All of this is fine and good, except I can’t seem to ever broach what’s really bothering me: Is my daughter turning into a mean girl? Could I raise one? I have no proof that Belinda and her girlfriends are mean, but they remind me of the popular girls back when I was in ninth grade. Belinda and her best friend, Emily, are prematurely sexy, prone to giggling and whispering, to rolling their eyes, to elbowing each other for reasons I can’t fathom.
It’s my private theory that Belinda’s beauty is due to the fact she was conceived during a two-week trip my husband and I took to the gorgeous Balearic Islands off the coast of Spain. Before this trip, we’d been going through a dry sexual phase, but the scrubbed blue skies, the warm clear sea, the squid fried to perfection, the starched linens of our hotel bed, all unleashed our bodies and we made frantic, determined love nearly every night. It was springtime and everywhere we looked there was new life—blooming bougainvillea, fresh little leaves on the trees, baby goats in the stonewalled fields, flower boxes in the whitewashed window bays. I filled up two large sketchbooks and felt closer to my conservative husband than I’d had in years. After lunch and a siesta, we’d go down to the hotel’s cove. He’d dive into the water in his trunks, while I’d embarrass him by stripping out of my clothes like the native Spaniards and striding into the water, nude. I can remember watching the water sluice off my husband’s tanned shoulders and feeling a desire for him that I’d not felt in ages. Does it not make sense, then, that a child conceived in such alluring circumstances might be blessed with the finest DNA pairings possible? All right, it’s a silly thought, but how else to explain beautiful Belinda?
In a way, I wish she wasn’t quite so lovely because then she might not be part of her particular friend group; what I hold onto is that she’s getting pretty good grades and so far, her teachers have no complaints. And when I was her age, didn’t I have plenty of insider jokes with my best girlfriend? Some days she’s downright rude to my husband and I, snorting derisively when I ask her to take out the trash, rolling her eyes when my hubby tells one of his dad jokes, and basically ignoring her brother. I tell myself this is all normal adolescent behavior, due to the hormonal changes she’s going through. Another part wants to snoop on her at school this fall, see how she behaves around the other kids in ninth grade. I want to know if her girlfriend gaggle lets the shy outcast kids sit at their cafeteria table. I doubt it.
Now I know this may sound off, but I’ve got a plan to test her: This weekend I’ve invited my sister and her daughter Ann over for barbecue. We haven’t had a get-together for ages so it will be wonderful to reconnect, but I’ve got an ulterior motive—I want to see how Belinda acts around her older cousin, who is the kind of girl mean girls might tease, at least she struck me that way when we got together last Christmas. What I’m hoping is that Belinda will be a good hostess, act politely around her gawky cousin. I’m letting my daughter invite her best friend, Emily, to join us all for dinner tonight because I want to see them in action together. Is this terrible? Well, it’s too late to switch plans and I really do want to see how all transpires. My one rule, no phone use while food is on the table.
And so, I want to get the food out as fast as possible; I make a salad and set it on the backyard picnic table with its blue paper tablecloth. “No phones from now until after dessert,” I tell Belinda and Gregory who both sigh dramatically.
“What if Emily needs to call me?” Belinda wants to know.
“You’ll see her in what, twenty minutes? I think you can survive for that long.” Belinda opens up her laptop and starts tapping away, probably emailing Emily to let her know her mother’s a pain in the butt.
I go into the kitchen to quickly marinate some chicken for the barbecue. I squeeze lemon juice over the raw meat, add some olive oil, fresh basil, and salt and pepper. My husband comes into the kitchen, goes to the cupboard to take out one of our tumblers, pours himself a scotch, adds a couple of ice cubes. He is a rich lawyer, right down to what he drinks. Often, I think we are yin and yang, like James Carville and Mary Matalin committed to not talking politics. “Can I make you a drink?” he asks me.
“How about a splash of wine with a lot of seltzer?” I use a fork to punch holes in the tin foil packet I’ve made for the roasting potatoes. He hands me a goblet with what looks like more than a splash in it. I know he thinks my sister is a bore with her constant home renovation projects.
“I’ll take a Coke,” Belinda calls from the dining room.
“Why don’t you come in and get it yourself,” I shout back to her.
“I’ll take a Coke, too,” Gregory says coming into the kitchen.
“Two Cokes coming up,” my husband pops open a couple of chilled cans. He hands one to Gregory, carries the other out to Belinda. I don’t like him spoiling her.
The doorbell rings and a moment later I hear Belinda exclaim to her best friend, “Oh my God, I thought you’d never get here.” And then, “Dad, Emily wants a Coke, too.”
“For heaven’s sake, you girls have legs. Come in here and get it,” I call to them.
Emily and Belinda are in almost identical outfits—high-waisted jean shorts with button-down shirts tied above their bare, tanned midriffs.
“And a Coke for you,” my husband says and hands a can to Emily who could easily pass for sixteen or seventeen with her sunglasses propped up on her head, her red nail polish.
“Thanks, Mr. C,” she says and if I’m not mistaken, my husband gives her a wink before heading out the backdoor to light the grill.
The doorbell rings again so it must be my sister and Ann. “Belinda will you get the door?” I ask and carry the chicken and potatoes out to the grill. My husband sips his scotch while scraping the gas grill’s rack.
“Did you just wink at Emily?” I ask him. “I swear you winked at her.”
“What on earth are you talking about.”
“I don’t know, I just think that maybe you did.”
“What’s got into you?” He looks genuinely perplexed.
I realize it’s not him that irritates me, but rather the girls’ matching sexy outfits. At their age, I had pimples and was about ten pounds too heavy. Fortunately, I was good at basketball—could toss the ball very hard, dribble like a demon downcourt, and so the mean girls left me alone. When I bought Belinda her button-down shirt, I had not imagined she’d use the tails to tie it around her slim waist. I feel old and dumpy and out of sorts. Renaud would know what to say to cheer me up: “What you need, girl, is a good trim and a coloring,” he’d insist. The thought of his strong hands massaging my scalp is indeed appealing, although I resist getting a dye job—it feels too self-indulgent and vain for someone who wears Birkenstocks nearly every day.
The doorbell rings again and I go inside. Belinda and Emily are hunched over the laptop, smiling at something. “You were supposed to get the door,” I scold and go to greet our guests. I see that my niece is wearing jean shorts and a shirt that shows off her plump midriff—this is apparently the fashion for all kids. She’s taller than the last time I saw her, still knock-kneed. I instantly regret putting this plan into motion.
“It’s great to see you both!” I exclaim, hoping to sound sincere. My sister hugs me, and Ann extends her hand for a shake. After my husband gets them drinks, he leads the way out to the back deck. Ann yanks at her shorts that look too tight around her upper thighs before she sits down on one of the outdoor couches. I poke my head back inside and call, “Emily, Belinda, time to shut off the computer and join our guests.”
Belinda comes on the deck and looks uncertain where to sit. Next to her cousin? On the other outdoor couch next to me? I don’t see my daughter looking hesitant very often and Emily hovers at her side waiting while Belinda makes up her mind to sit on the couch next to me. The girlfriends cram together, legs touching. There’s an awkward silence and I realize I’m the one who needs to break the ice. “So how do you like your summer job, Ann?” I ask, even though I know from my sister that she loves working at Baskin Robbins.
“It’s good.”
“She’s getting tendonitis in her wrist from all that scooping. Some nights the line is around the block.”
“It’s all right,” Ann makes a circular motion with her hand.
“Belinda’s working at the snack stand down by the beach,” I say. “Right sweetheart?”
“Mm-hmm.”
I can tell I’m not going to get any conversational help from her.
“I better check the chicken,” my husband says, but instead of going to the grill, he goes back into the house. He comes out with a refilled glass of scotch, a lit cigar in his mouth. Sometimes I feel like we have nothing in common except the kids. It’s me, the artist; him, the three-piece suit. But opposites, they say, attract.
“How’s all with you?” I direct my attention to my sister.
“Well, my contractor is three weeks behind schedule and over budget, but why should that surprise anyone,” she says and I’m grateful for a lifeline. We talk about the kitchen remodel while the girls sip their Cokes, clearly bored. Emily scratches Belinda’s back and my daughter squirms happily.
“If you want, you three girls can go upstairs and play a video game until it’s time for dinner,” I say.
“Oh, I’m okay,” Ann says as Emily and Belinda jump up, head back inside. My sister says the contractor thinks she should add a bigger window over the sink. Ann takes out her phone, starts scrolling, while whistling softly. There’s a honk from our driveway which means Gregory’s getting dropped off after soccer practice.
“Give me a sec,” I tell my sister. “I need to make sure Gregory cleans up before dinner.”
He’s taking off his cleats when I come in the entry hall, looks sweaty and happy. “Get yourself scrubbed up. Your aunt and cousin are here.”
“Dinner’s ready!” my husband calls from the grill, sooner than I expected. I climb the stairs to get the girls, rap my knuckles and push open Belinda’s door. I find her and Emily in a passionate kiss on the bed, tanned legs entwined. I yank the door closed. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! I stare at the door, which remains closed. I creep down the hallway to the stairs, take them two at a time. Out of all the things—
I stop in the living room. There are footsteps on the stairs, but it’s Gregory, his shirt water-splattered and his cheeks flushed red. “Go help your father,” I tell him and then follow him numbly to the kitchen. Out of all the things—
My husband is at the counter slicing open the tin foil pouch of roasting potatoes, and Gregory has the wine and Selzer bottles to refill our glasses.
“Do the girls know we’re all set?” my husband asks me. “Dinner’s ready, Belinda!” he shouts.
I push open the backdoor, go out onto the porch. Earlier, I’d set the outdoor table with the idea the three girls could cram together and share one side of the table, with Gregory and my sister on the other side. How had I not picked up on any clues before this?
“So, he took two full weeks to just do the cabinets,” my sister says to me as I motion for her and Ann to take a seat at the table. Belinda and Emily come outside—neither one makes eye contact, but quietly sit down next to Ann. I have a thousand questions. What about all that lifeguard flirting? I feel thrown back on my heels.
“Honey, can you get the Dijon?” my husband asks.
I glance over at Belinda who quietly slices into her chicken thigh. She could get any boy in her class to date her. I get up to fetch the Dijon. In the kitchen, the sunlight spreads over the wallpaper that I picked out—apples amongst boughs weighted down with white blossoms. I painted the chairs and table pale green to match and there’s a lovely ceramic milk pitcher filled with day lilies that I cut earlier in the day. All of this was back when I thought my daughter might possibly be a mean girl. I take a few deep breaths. I am not a homophobe. Certainly not. But this is Belinda; beautiful and, dare I think it, sexy Belinda. I’m quite certain the lifeguards, older than her and Emily, are intrigued by them.
“Mom?”
I whirl around, see Belinda in the doorway. “I think I’m bisexual, just so you know,” Belinda says quietly as if she’s practiced this line and turns, goes out the back door.
I push my frizzy hair away from my face, take the Grey Poupon from the cupboard. Belinda’s bisexual. The fact that she’s sexual at all is more than I can suddenly seem to bear. But of course, she’s sexual; she’s at that age; wears the button-down shirt tied up about her midriff. I just thought that we’d be grounding her for sneaking around with lifeguards and not with Emily.
I carry the Dijon out to the back deck. Emily is spearing a chicken thigh from the platter. Because of the tablecloth, I can’t tell whether or not her leg touches Belinda’s. My husband is nodding gamely at my sister’s story about the contractor. Ann is studying her phone, something I wouldn’t allow my daughter to do at the table. What I wouldn’t allow suddenly seems archaic. How long have Emily and Belinda been . . . together? How am I supposed to be a hostess right now when my daughter’s in love with another girl?
“For heaven’s sake, honey, pass the mustard,” my husband says who likes to put Dijon on his roasted potatoes, on his chicken, on basically everything.
After we’ve cleared the table, Belinda asks Ann if she wants to go to the den and watch The U.S. Open; it’s the women’s quarter-finals. “Sure, I guess,” Ann says and the three girls troupe off down the hallway. If Belinda was a mean girl, she wouldn’t have invited her cousin to do this. I’m aware that for the last few weeks, I’ve been completely wrong about my daughter.
After the guests have left and we’ve cleaned up, my husband and I go into our bedroom. Now is obviously the time to tell him. He sits at the end of the bed to take off his shoes. For some reason, I can’t find the right words. Belinda told me today she’s bisexual. Her and Emily. A passionate kiss. I don’t know how he’ll react. He’s voted Republican ever since he was eighteen, until he couldn’t stomach pulling the lever for Trump and so wrote in Ronald Regan. He thinks Renaud is a foolish, annoying spectacle of a man. When the Supreme Court decided in favor of gay marriage, he felt they’d done the right thing, legally. So, he should be okay with our daughter, right? Right? Except he recently had a transgendered client who used “they” pronouns, which he found clunky and irritating. “I can’t stand making ‘they’ singular. Good God, I have to say to the jury things like, ‘They is not responsible for this $250,000 portion of the debt.’ It sounds like I’m not a native speaker and makes the grammar part of my brain freeze up.” I watch him put on his pale blue pajamas. I go into the bathroom to brush my teeth.
Earlier tonight, after my sister and niece drove away, Belinda walked Emily outside to wait for Emily’s mom to pick her up. Had they kissed while sitting on our front stoop? A part of me had wanted to peek out the curtain, to spy on them, but I’d held myself in check. Felt a little queasy. Not, I told myself because they were two girls, but because I’d feel the same way if Belinda was out there with one of the lifeguards. This feeling I have is about the kiss, I tell myself, about this big leap forward into the unknown. My husband turns back the sheet and yawns. I change into my nightgown, go into the bedroom and turn off the light.
“That was a nice dinner,” he says.
“You barbecued the chicken perfectly.”
“Good night, hon,” he gives my cheek a dry kiss. I say nothing.
My husband and I first met back when he was in law school and I was an undergrad art history major working at the campus law library. I was stationed at the reference desk, filling in for the usual librarian who was out sick, when he came up to me, asked if we had “indices from the latest state-wide election.” I had no idea what indices from an election might mean and if we would have them. Usually, I just stacked books. “Can you narrow that down a bit for me? I suppose we can scroll through notes from the state government meetings and see what we get,” I said. “But what kind of indices are you looking for?”
“That must be some sort of phrase they use,” he said, impatient. “I need the indices, specifically from that election.”
“I honestly don’t know what to look up.”
His whole haughty demeanor changed, his shoulders slumped forward like his satchel suddenly weighed too much. “I don’t know the fuck either. My professor just went on and on about indices today and how we need to compare this index to that index around a case involving the latest state election. I spaced out completely and now I’m screwed.”
“If the regular librarian was here,” I said, “I’m sure she’d figure it out. Can you just tell your professor you’re stuck dealing with me?”
He smiled then. His mussed auburn hair seemed confused about whether it wanted to be wavy or curly. His glasses had smudges on them, but there was something lively about his dark eyes, like shadows on a tree trunk. “I don’t think that’ll get me far.” He pointed to the paint-splattered pants I’d worn straight from the studio. “You an artist?”
“I try.”
“Like I’m trying to become a lawyer. I couldn’t sleep last night, bad dreams about forgetting to go to class and then having to take a final exam. I dreamt that and then was in a daze all this morning in class so now it’s like I’m living out my stupid dream. Why do they schedule eight o’clock classes anyhow?”
“Fortunately, that’s when I’ve got studio hours, which is the best part of my day.”
“What do you paint?”
“I do mostly plein air.”
“You paint the plain air?”
“No, landscapes. I work mostly outside, but do some follow-up work in the campus studio.”
“I was hoping you weren’t going to say you paint blocks of color. I don’t get Mondrian.”
I nodded, but mentally rolled my eyes.
“If you were going to paint the plain air, what would it look like?”
I pondered this. Finally came up with, “I think I’d paint a geyser with the hot air undulating above it.” I could see the painting, the vibrant color pattern; not a half-bad idea, I thought.
“I saw some geysers in Yellowstone last summer. Old Faithful blows exactly twenty times a day. Apparently, some num-nuts throw cans and other trash into her waters just hoping to see the crap blow upwards. You been to Yellowstone?”
“I’ve never been outside of Massachusetts.”
“Oh, you’ve got to go one day. As a painter, you’d lose your mind.” He surprised me with his enthusiasm. “The mountains, the sky, all of it is . . . well, majestic. I can’t think of another word.” He looked a little embarrassed, but then rested his elbows on the reference desk and said, “You know, it’s clear I’m going to just have to ask the TA for guidance about the damn indices, so I could really use a drink. Would you like to join me whenever you’re done here?”
“Are you paying?” I had no extra money.
“If you want me to.”
“Only because I’m broke. I get off my shift at five.”
The bar closest to campus was full of students. He ordered two Coronas with lime. I was not a fan of the skunky-tasting beer but there was something about the overheated room, the dim light filtering through the doorway, that made me feel a bit unsteady, like my practical self was shunted aside and I could just relax with the cool damp bottle in my hand.
“I don’t like my professor,” he admitted, “which is unusual for me. I tend to get along with all of them, but now I feel like I’m in the weeds.”
As was my habit at the time, I suddenly envisioned him, naked, thigh-high in amber-colored weeds. Everything to me came back to painting.
“All I really want to do is pass the fucking bar and get into a practice so all of this,” he waved his beer around, “is nothing. It’s the dash in a sentence, an annoying chunk of time that I’ve got to muddle through before my life really begins.”
This made sense to me. I felt the same way, that I just needed to get my degree and then I could embark on my artistic career. But, as my parents warned me, I needed the degree so I could get a librarian job, probably at a high school, support myself, not rely solely on art.
“You know what, I’ll go out there and defend anyone, I don’t care how foul,” he said. “That’s what you get in America, a good defense even if you don’t deserve it.” There was a blaze in his eyes, a determination. “You want another?”
I’d not realized I’d finished my Corona. “If you’re still buying?”
When he came back, he told me that he wanted to one day run for office. As a republican. He said it softly, like it was a dirty word, which maybe it should’ve been to me, but I actively didn’t pay attention to politics back then. He registered my indifference, asked if he could see some of my paintings. “My parents,” he said, “are collectors. Mostly still-lifes and seascapes.”
“That’s what I paint,” I told him, “plein air.”
I took him to the campus art studio, showed him my work. He gazed with an uncluttered focus, as someone with no background in art history or art theory. But then it gradually seemed he had no response whatsoever while he walked around the studio, whistling softly, tunelessly, until he said, “It’s as if I’ve seen these Boston harbor scenes a thousand times before, but not like this exactly. You make the ordinary seem fresh and new. Do you think I’ll get bored defending the same type of clients over and over?”
“I can’t imagine they’ll be the same over and over.”
“That’s what I worry about, though. The boredom. The tedium. The indices.”
“That’s why I like a library. No boredom.”
“That’s why I like artists,” he said and touched my hand.
“You really think my paintings are fresh and new?”
“Like cherry blossoms in the spring.” He looked like he knew what he said was sappy, but I liked the sappiness. I liked the way his hair couldn’t figure out how to grow. I liked that his parents collected art.
Today is a beach day, which means we all eat a quick breakfast, then climb in the car. Belinda will work the morning shift at the snack stand and then get to hang out with her friends, with Emily, at the base of the lifeguard tower. Gregory will ride his Boogie board. I will have my mahjong; my husband will have the whole day off to smoke a cigar and watch his son catch waves. I glance at Belinda in the back seat. She’s bent over her phone. Surely, she must wonder if I’ve talked with her father, which I have not. I woke with a mind full of questions: Who made the first move? Has she known she’s bisexual for a long time? How far has it progressed? What private things do they like about each other?
While I no longer worry that Belinda’s a mean girl, I think some of her friends might very well be, and how will they react if they know the truth about her and Emily? I imagine myself running out to the lifeguard station and threatening, “Don’t you dare hurt my daughter!”
And what, if anything, does Emily’s family know? They’re Catholic—Belinda went to Emily’s first communion where all the little girls wore white frilly dresses, symbolic brides for Jesus. (I’m a contented agnostic, while my husband insists that we go to the Presbyterian church for Easter and Christmas.) I really must, at some point today, broach the subject to him. It makes my stomach clench.
The valet takes the car and we enter the beach club’s main entrance, go to the front desk to get our blue and white striped towels. The walls are painted white, the floor tiled so it’s nice and cool. Sometimes I marvel at the life I lead and wonder what my college-aged broke self would think. I’m pretty sure she’d say, You get to paint any and every day you want. What do you have to complain about?
“Let’s go, let’s go!” Gregory grabs his father’s hand to lead him out onto the beach.
This leaves me and Belinda alone for a moment. “I love you,” I tell her. She wears the snack stand’s uniform t-shirt, a pair of very short board shorts, flip-flops.
“Okay,” she says and turns, heads off to go to work. I watch her disappear out the beach doors, long auburn ponytail hanging down the center of her back.
The cabana is the fifth one to the right, its blue canvas door pulled open and secured by big wooden buttons. I’m early, the first one here, but the waiter must’ve already popped in because there’s a vase of fresh white alstroemeria on the wicker table. My friend, Joanie, who rents the cabana, owns one of the art galleries in town, and her husband’s a state judge so they can afford this luxury. The person I want to see flounces into the cabana.
“Honey!” Renaud crows. As usual, he wears a sarong with no shirt so everyone can see his nipple rings.
“Come here, I need to talk,” I say and grab his arm, lead him out onto the boardwalk. I pull him along with me. “I need your advice.”
“Of course. For heaven’s sake about what? Do tell.”
I feel the words forming in my mind: Belinda’s bisexual. If I say it aloud, it’s going to make it all real and there’s a part of me that’s already doubting everything that happened last night. I’d had two wine spritzers; I’d opened Belinda’s door for only a second . . . except I know it’s true. My daughter came up to me in the kitchen and said the words herself.
“Honey, what’s going on?” Renaud looks concerned, or as concerned as Renaud can get.
I can’t tell Renaud before I tell my own husband. “I could really use a dye job,” I finally say. “I want to get rid of the gray once and for all.”
“Finally!”
We go back to the cabana. Joanie has arrived with her emotional support poodle and the waiter is uncorking a bottle of chilled Shiraz. Hanging over the bar is my newest seascape. Joanie represents me at her art gallery in town and likes to hang my most current work here for a few weeks, so she can “get to know it,” which makes me one very lucky artist. My work is favored by tourists who want to take home a memory from their time on the Cape. Joanie calls me her “steady seller,” although I don’t sell more than three or four canvases a year. Fortunately, our family doesn’t need to rely on me for income. What do you have to complain about? my broke college-aged self wants to know.
When Shelley arrives, we turn out the mahjong tiles and begin to play. “So, what’s new, girls?” Shelley asks.
My daughter’s in a lesbian relationship, I think, but don’t say a word. I will talk to my husband when we get home from the beach.
It’s almost five when we walk in the front door. After my husband takes a shower and comes out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist, I think it’s the perfect moment to broach the subject; he looks pink and vulnerable. But maybe this should be Belinda’s and my secret? I realize I need to know what my daughter thinks before I say anything.
After I shower, I go to her room, knock on the door, wait for her to say, “Come in.”
I push open the door. She’s sprawled on her bed with her headphones on, still in her bikini. She takes off the headphones and I suggest we go for a quick walk, just the two of us.
“No thanks.”
“But we should probably talk, honey.”
“I’ve got nothing to say.”
I am confronted with the reality that I can’t force this, but I need to know. “Do you want me to tell Dad? Or do you want to tell him? I’m not sure how he’ll react exactly, but he loves you so much.”
“I know.” She crosses one leg over the other, studies her toes with their dark green iridescent nail polish.
“So shall one of us tell him?”
She shakes her head.
“Okay, honey, we’ll leave it at that for now. But I’m here if, when, you want to talk, and I love you.” What else is there for me to do or say? I leave her room, shut the door. From downstairs, Brahms plays on the stereo, which means my husband will be lying on the couch with his eyes closed, a glass of scotch resting on his belly. I feel the weight of the secret deep in my chest. I want to think that he’ll simply say what I said to Belinda, I love you. But doubt lingers—he’s far more concerned than me with outward appearances, with how others see us as a family. I know he’s incredibly proud of Belinda’s beauty, that he watches her with a bit of awe as if it’s impossible she can be our child. When he was in high school, he had a cowlick and glasses; his girlfriend played the clarinet and had a deep love affair with her cat; they were celibate. Surely, he recognizes that his own daughter is part of the in-clique at school, and what a remarkable fact this is.
It takes us a few days to realize that his things are systematically going missing. First, he can’t find his favorite amethyst cufflinks, but they could’ve fallen behind the dresser. Then it’s his car keys, which he’s sure he put down in the usual place on the sideboard by the front door, but which he finally finds in the pocket of the blue blazer he wore earlier that day. Then he’s quite certain he’s missing a few twenty-dollar bills from the wad of twenties he keeps hidden in his sock drawer. “It’s like there’s a poltergeist messing with me,” he mutters when he realizes he has no new razor blades, even though he was certain he had just bought a pack a week ago.
Right after the razor blades, Belinda asks her father if Emily can sleep over and he says, “Sure thing.”
I text Belinda that morning, “We need to talk. We’re going to Starbucks, you and me. Get ready, we’re leaving in ten minutes.”
“I don’t want Starbucks,” Belinda texts back. “I already had a coffee at breakfast.”
“I don’t care. We’re going. I’ll meet you downstairs in five.”
I am nervous when I climb in the BMW in the garage. I wait for Belinda to come through the door. I want someone to tell me how to navigate this situation, for Siri to give me a solid set of directions. I back into the driveway, put the car in park. It’s a luxurious light gray vehicle with a powerful motor, far fancier than I would ever need, or actually even want, since it always looks completely out of place when I drive it to work at the arts and crafts store. But my husband can afford it and wants me to have one of the safest cars on the market. Belinda comes out, dressed in a summer dress with matching pink flip-flops. She climbs in, smells like coconut oil. Her arms cross over her chest.
I decide not to say anything until we get to Starbucks; I want to concentrate on my driving while feeling in such a ruffled state. I park and we go silently inside. “What do you want?” I ask her.
“Nothing. I told you already.”
“Alright, well, find a table and I’ll be there in a second.” I go up to the counter and order a grande latte with skim milk. I, too, have had coffee, but want to be able to have something in my hands. While the barista makes my drink, I take some deep breaths. I imagine Siri’s voice saying, “manage this correctly.” But what is the correct way? The barista has a rainbow flag pin, pink hair. I think that if Belinda looked like her, I’d not be nearly as surprised.
I take my drink and go over to a table Belinda’s picked in a quiet corner. I sit down, take off the cup’s lid and sip the froth. “So, I think you know that Emily can’t spend the night,” I say.
“Dad said she could.”
“We both know she can’t.”
Emily doesn’t look at me, twists her tennis bracelet.
“I’d put my foot down the same way if you had a boyfriend. You surely must get that.”
She doesn’t say anything. I rotate the cup. “So do your friends know?”
“Some of them.”
“And everyone’s okay?”
“Why wouldn’t they be?”
I try to wrap my brain around the idea that the in-girl clique is okay with this. Times have certainly changed. “I’m relieved to hear it. I don’t want anyone to hurt you, you know.”
“Like Dad?”
I suck in a deep breath. “If you had a boyfriend, one of the lifeguards, he’d be super protective, you know how he is. And while we’re talking about him, have you been taking his things?”
Belinda doesn’t answer. She twists, twists, twists her tennis bracelet.
“Why?” I ask.
She shrugs.
“Do you want him to notice you?” I venture. “To see you?”
She shrugs.
“He loves you to the ends of the earth.”
“But you don’t think he’ll be cool.”
“I’m not sure one way or the other, honestly. But yes, he might not.” Should I trust that his love for his daughter will trump everything else? Am I being unfair to him?
“So, what do I say about Emily sleeping over?” Belinda wants to know.
“Maybe just say she’s got a cold.”
“So, now you want me to lie to him.”
I rub the space between my eyebrows. “No, don’t do that. I’ll talk to him when we get home.” I want to wrap my arms around my beautiful girl, to shield her from the very real possibility of his disapproval, but it’s been a couple of years since Belinda’s tolerated any physical contact in public.
We walk out to the sleek BMW with its stellar safety record. The sun is fierce, bleeding behind the cloud cover, turning the sky a bright, flat white. For a few more minutes it’s just the two of us, holding our secret tenderly between us. We pass the town golf course and I slow down, wanting this drive to take as long as possible.
Laurie Lindop holds an MFA in Writing and Literature from Bennington College. She’s the author of nine non-fiction books published by Lerner and Simon and Schuster. Her O. Henry Award-nominated short fiction has been published by Redbook Magazine, Tupelo Quarterly, Talking River Review, Chiron Review, and elsewhere.
Punt Volat 