Social Lives (7 page)

Eva was looking back and forth between the Barlows.

Rosalyn gave her a wry smile. Her friend had been at the table for less than a minute, and already the mood was lighter. This was, as Rosalyn had come to think of it, the Eva Factor. No one was better at pointing out the elephants and chasing them from a room.

“What? It's a suit!” Barlow, who was sitting between Sara and Jacks, looked himself up and down, then studied Mrs. Livingston longer than he would have had he not been drunk.

“I see you fucked up the clothes, too,” he said, turning to face her, his breath heavy with the smell of alcohol.

Sara smiled nervously. What could she say to
that
? Having worn what
should
have been a perfectly acceptable ensemble at a school benefit, she had overlooked the line on the invitation that read
ATTIRE: BACK TO SUMMER
. Now she was completely out of place in a gray skirt and long-sleeved black top.

“What will they do to us?” was her response, and it drew a chuckle from Barlow.

Then, in a very serious voice, he told her, “After they serve us the finest of meals, we'll be hauled outside to be drawn and quartered. Everyone will watch, of course, so they have one last go at making fun of us.”

Sara didn't hesitate. She'd grown up on witty sarcasm. “I see. Well, in that case, it was nice meeting you.”

Ernest Barlow smiled, and Nick gave her a wink. Even surrounded by a billionaire, his influential wife, and the renowned Eva Ridley, Sara was managing to be herself. And the relief swept through the young woman like an enormous sigh.

Eva took a long sip of her white wine. “Sara's from New York, Barlow. They wear black all year long. What's your excuse? And don't even try to garner sympathy with some preposterous story about teenagers and hallways and—”

“Eva!” Jacks was trying not to laugh, and that was the problem. Laughter seemed entirely inappropriate, and yet somehow Eva had managed to bring it to the table.

Eva shrugged. “It's not like someone's
died
.”

Nick and Sara were the only ones who were completely confused. “Did I miss something here?” Nick threw the question into the air between them, and the others seemed to be staring at it as they waited for someone to answer.

“Time for the men to smoke a cigar.” David Halstead came to the rescue, and his wife sent him a warm, almost nostalgic smile. David had always been the designated mediator, providing outs like the one he'd just given the Barlows.

“We haven't even eaten yet.” Eva gave the obligatory female objection, though it was less than halfhearted.

“Yes! Cigars!” Ernest Barlow was already up from his seat. “Madam—please excuse me,” he said, now standing over Sara and propping himself up with the back of her chair.

“Of course,” she answered. Though Ernest Barlow was drunk and inappropriate, Sara was already sure she liked the man in spite of it. Maybe even because of it.

“We won't be long.” Nick circled around and gave his wife a peck on the cheek. Marcus Ridley did the same. Then they were gone.

“Ahhh,” Eva purred, leaning back in her chair. “Finally.”

Rosalyn Barlow spoke, her face taking on an entirely different tone. “Yes, indeed.
Finally.
”

Taken by surprise, Sara glanced inconspicuously at the three women. With the men gone and the other partygoers busy with their drinking and eating and chatting, it was as though a partition had been instantly erected around their table. It was as though they could now, and only now, be themselves. Or perhaps be their
other
selves, the selves they could be only with each other. And the fact that Sara could see this, that she could feel it within herself as well, was unsettling. It felt like the schoolyard in eighth grade again—boys throwing balls, girls gossiping by the swings—only without the anticipation of what it would be like when the two gender factions began to intermingle. They'd been through all that, and now that they had followed that tumultuous path to its inevitable conclusion of marriage, they were simply relieved to be alone by the swings.

“So,” Eva said after a long moment, “a blow job.”

Sara froze, drink in hand, eyes wide.

Jacks leaned into her slightly. “Rosalyn's daughter. School hallway.”

Sara looked at Rosalyn, then back to Jacks.

“Don't worry. Everyone knows about it,” Rosalyn said, draining her wineglass.

Eva nodded. “That's why she's wearing beige.” She said the word as though it were the Antichrist.
Beige
, of all blessed things.

Rosalyn tried, but having had it thrown out there now in spite of her efforts to avoid it, in spite of the beige, she was overwhelmed. She felt the laughter in her gut, the kind of laughter that emanates from sorrow and the wisdom that can put sorrow in its place. It was the laughter that has to come before the sorrow takes over everything. She felt the air rush in, and then the wine, which had just passed her lips.

“Oh, shit!” Jacks said, handing Rosalyn a napkin.

The dignified woman was choking gracefully and somehow laughing without a sound, without even a smile, as she grabbed the napkin and covered her face.

Eva held a hand to her own mouth, and Jacks just smiled and shook her head.

“Is she all right?” Sara asked. What was visible of Rosalyn Barlow's face was now red, and she didn't seem to be breathing.

“She's fine.” Eva and Jacks looked at each other, then to Sara. Then they started to laugh out loud. Jacks felt the tears roll down her cheek, felt the mascara running through the small crow's-feet that had taken shape at the corners of her eyes. She hadn't laughed in weeks, hadn't even come close. It was almost desperate, this need to laugh, and to let the tears fall.

Sara smiled by reflex, though she felt almost invisible, erased by the bond of a long friendship that was exposed in everything that was now being left unsaid between the three women. There was nothing funny about what had happened between Caitlin Barlow and that boy. It was, they all knew, the beginning of a ride that no one could predict, that none of them could help her navigate. And though they would talk solely of the social consequences Caitlin Barlow's
incident
had provoked, through the laughter, they now let out their fears for their daughters, and the pain from their own memories, some of which they had never shared with another soul. It was within these
memories, from the most blissful to the most blistering, that a silent understanding flowed among them—simply because they were women, and because they had seen the pieces of life that only women experience.

Rosalyn let the picture of Caitlin in that hallway, the one that had been constructed from her imagination, flash before her eyes. When she caught her breath, she pulled the napkin from her face, then gently dabbed her lips. She shook her head briskly, regaining her composure, and looked nonchalantly around the room. The change she managed to quickly facilitate within her own being was impressive.

“Damn you, Eva Ridley,” she said, the hint of sarcasm barely discernible.

Eva took a deep breath and looked across the table. She smiled warmly, seriously this time. “It'll be all right.”

“I know it will.” Rosalyn nodded.

“So—now that we've had our little
moment
,” Eva said, back to her playful demeanor, “why don't we stop being so rude and ask Sara about herself?”

“Yes,” Jacks agreed. “Tell us how you met Nick?” Knowing the answer was beside the point.

“Oh.” Sara was taken aback at the sudden acknowledgment of her presence and was now blushing. “We met at a bar. Typical New York story,” she answered dismissively. From everything she had learned in her few hours at the Surf's Up party, and from being seated at this particular table, she had no intention of revealing anything more. No one needed to know how quickly after that night she and Nick were married—or why, for that matter.

“And you were a reporter?” Rosalyn chimed in.

“There wasn't time,” she began to explain. “I was just finishing at Columbia when we got married. Then there was the apartment to set up. I don't know, actually, what happened to that year before Annie was born. Nick was so busy at work. . . .”

The women looked at each other, smiling slightly. Had they not all been there? Done that? Once the honeymoon was over, the roles were already waiting for them. It was as if the universe stepped in and carved them into stone while they were away making love on beaches and dining on French cuisine.

“Well,” Rosalyn said, getting up from her chair. “Screw the men. Let's eat.” She was hungry. Laughing was more work for her than a Pilates class.
Besides, in spite of this little tidbit of pleasure she had shared with her friends, she was ready to get this thing over with.

Lifting their invisible partition, the women took a moment to gather themselves. Smiling, chatting, sucking in their guts, and making nice, they stood among the others in the buffet line. And Sara stood with them, mistakenly thinking she had begun to figure them out, and hoping she had not given too much of herself away.

 

 

 

 

 

C
AITLIN
B
ARLOW WAS THIRTEEN
when she first kissed a boy, and as was true of most first kisses, the memory still lingered at the core of her body. Billy Pike, fellow eighth-grader. Behind his pool house. It was early spring, and he'd invited some friends over. Thinking back on it now, it might as well have been a lifetime ago. So much had changed, and in so little time.

They'd been a small group of friends, social outcasts who stuck together by default because no one else would have them. Watching the others make their plans, seeing them out in town and wanting with every fiber to be with them instead of with the ones by her side. Every day at school, banding together out of necessity, swallowing the explicit rejection from the likes of Amanda Jamison, and the implicit rejection from one another.

Still, they had been as content a group of misfits as was possible—Cait, Billy, and the three others—flying under the radar at school, making their own fun on the weekends, watching movies, sneaking beer. And when she pretended there were no Amandas, no perfect others doing something better, something bigger, their mundane amusements were actually satisfying. When the kiss came, finally, after months of flirting and talk within their circle about the attraction everyone could sense, this almost seemed possible, this feat of closing Amanda Jamison from her thoughts.

They'd gone to look for beer in the pool house fridge, but before they could get there, Billy had pulled her to the back. He'd given no explanation, and she hadn't needed one. They had both known from the outset that this would be the moment. He'd steadied her face with his hands, as though he might somehow miss her lips. They had closed their eyes, shutting out their surroundings, traveling instead to that magical place where fantasy becomes reality, even for a split second. Of course, reality is never quite as good. His breath smelled of chips, his tongue lay inside her mouth like a giant anchovy, and his shaking body wasn't exactly the manly figure she had so needed to hold her, to keep her from falling further and further from any vision of life that was worth the effort. But it was tender and warm, and Cait had felt a different kind of pleasure than she had expected. It was, at its core, genuine and sweet.

They kissed many times after that first time, stolen moments in private corners of the large estates that were their playground. Billy's performance improved, the shaking disappeared, and they fell into the comfortable rhythm of a first relationship. His family's property abutted hers on one side, and it was there that they would meet, sometimes in the middle of the night, to talk and roll around in the cool grass, kissing and holding each other, wondering where it would lead and how soon. They talked about their families, the teachers they hated at the Academy, and the stories they heard about their peers. It was as close to peaceful as Cait had ever felt, which was, she imagined, the reason she'd had to kill it.

Everything had a place and time, and it was here and now, in the ninth grade, that her life was finally turning around. She'd been accepted, and no one in her right mind would turn down that invitation. That it came at Billy's expense was the price she'd been willing to pay, even though it haunted her, the guilt, at moments like this one, when they were sitting in the same room eating lunch two tables apart. She did her best to avoid catching his wounded gaze, and she could feel today the scornful eyes of her former friends upon her. Everyone knew about the hallway, the incident with Kyle Conrad. She could hardly think the words without wanting to crawl under the table, but yes, the
blow job
. What must he be thinking? For six months, all they did was kiss and wonder, kiss and fantasize. Every time he'd reached his hand under her shirt, she had pulled away. How desperate he now seemed, looking back. Lying on top of her, his hard dick pressing into her leg, and that puppy dog
look in his eye like she was the love of his life and wouldn't she please give him just a little more? It was all so after-school special.