“Limited exposure. That was the key with Scarlet. That and never bringing your business under her roof.”
Melissa began to say something and stopped.
“Why would my almost drowning make Tom want a kid?” said Libby. “You would think it would do the opposite.”
“Do you remember it?” asked Melissa.
“What?” Libby held a hand up to shade her eyes and turned toward Melissa. “Well, yeah. I just froze up, couldn’t swim, and then my dad pulled me out.”
Only ten years old, she had thought her father was kidding when he told her to get used to the cold, early-June water by wading in a tide pool. Like a baby. So she ran fast and hard, jumping from the edge of the whale-shaped rock that stuck way out into the cove. Libby had seen the water closing over her head, the floor of the cove so much deeper than she had realized. The water so cold she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move her arms; she could only watch, looking up past seaweed and rocks, all browns and yellows and black greens, up to the surface—white, broken, and choppy. She saw the whale rock high and gray, she saw her father, in an arc, dive off of it. She felt the pull of the water against her as he swum her to shore, and the rough pile of the towel against her cold, blotched skin.
“Your father?”
“Yup, dove right in and saved me. Quite an exciting day.” It had been humiliating. Clearly, she couldn’t jump in like the big kids did, from rocks and floats and ferry landings. Frail and pathetic, she needed her father’s warnings and savings. Maybe the universe had punished her for her pride, for her rebellion. This taught her she was better in boats than in the water, on top rather than in; skimming the surface, not plumbing its depths. She would leave all the jumping and diving to Gwen.
“Tom remembers it a little differently,” Melissa said. “You should ask him about it.”
“Tom, always the revisionist. He probably thinks I hate the water now.”
“I’d think it would put you off swimming.”
“Nothing could put me off swimming, just jumping in.”
“Tom and I went skinny dipping here once. It was disgustingly hot one August, and you all were at some fair. We went right off the float in the middle of the day.”
Libby sat up and looked incredulous. “Really? Tom? In the middle of the day?”
“He used to be different,” said Melissa.
“God, I think of him as always being the same.”
Libby stretched and picked up her book. Melissa looked down at the water, toward her husband still sitting in the Whaler.
That night was a bit chilly. They had their cocktails and hors d’oeuvres in the rug room. Tom and Danny were arguing in the kitchen over steak temperatures while Gwen and Melissa stared at the sunset through the arched window. Libby was laying a fire.
“Please,” said Gwen to Melissa, “it would be so beautiful. Your curves against the arcs of the bed in the nursery. We’ll take the sheets off. That ticking. Those old mattresses, the sagging, the buttons, the stains contrasting with your pale skin. It would be so French, in a sort of dusty garret style.”
“Why not?” Melissa shrugged her shoulders up to her ears, and they stayed there for a minute.
“Oh, oh, great,” said Gwen, obviously surprised Melissa didn’t need more convincing.
“Have you ever posed for her, Bibs?”
Libby stood up from the hearth, the fire already catching. She dusted her hands on her pants.
“My entire adolescence. Her senior thesis was basically child porn.” Libby had wandered from room to room in their creepy basement in Cambridge wearing nothing but a wreath of Christmas lights. Gwen had to order her to stop laughing so she could get the shot.
“You were seventeen; I wasn’t exactly corrupting you.”
“Have you ever posed for someone before?” said Libby. Maybe Melissa had been one of those honor students who put themselves through school by modeling for the life drawing classes. What secret lives did Melissa live before Tom?
Tom walked into the room with a drink in his hand and slumped down in the leather chair.
“Tom, guess what?” said Gwen.
Libby saw Melissa look at Gwen and slightly shake her head.
“How’s dinner coming?” said Libby quickly.
“I don’t care if we have freaking fish sticks for dinner. I’m done.”
From the kitchen they heard Danny call, “It’s cool, I’ve got this. Where’s the fire extinguisher? Or a bucket of sand?”
FOURTEEN
GWEN
July 8
The nursery faced northeast, which meant to catch the light they needed to work in the morning. Early. So at seven they barged in and shuffled Danny off to Gwen’s bed. His sleeping bag around him like a pelt, he looked like a cave man just ousted from his cave.
“The muse strikes,” she explained. “No way around it.”
“You’re a jerk,” he croaked. But he went, trailing his sleeping bag tail behind him. Gwen would’ve felt bad for him if she thought he’d stayed awake even five minutes after crawling into her bed.
After giving Melissa a few minutes, Gwen knocked on the nursery door and opened it a crack. “You decent, soon to be indecent?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” said Melissa. “Come on in.”
“Nice outfit,” said Gwen. Melissa wore a thin and faded hospital robe.
“From Brigham and Women’s, when Kerry was born. The swag was all so baby-centric, I had to take something for myself.”
Melissa sat on the edge of the cast-iron bed, its white paint peppering the floor around its legs. The sagging springs wheezed as Melissa crossed her legs. She leaned back on her hands while Gwen set up her materials: a small wooden easel; six tubes of watercolor of various sizes (three large: red, yellow, blue; three small: brown, black, white); and five brushes (one just a few bristles wide, something for fine detail; a fan; a large teardrop like the tip of a cat’s tail; a smaller version of the same thing; and one with flat, wide-angled bristles). Gwen chose brushes not based on their intended purpose but on how the shape struck her that day. She saw the shape of the tool itself, not just the quality of its mark, as part of the composition. She used a plastic white plate, often used for sandwiches and chips at lunch, and the empty egg tray from the fridge as her palettes. Gwen looked over her work area—the heavy-tooth paper taped to the easel, the large jar of water on the bureau, which was so clear and would soon be clouded and then black—then said, “Let’s get this show on the road.”
Melissa slipped her robe from her shoulders and laid it tidily over the footboard of the bed next to her. Then she sat back down on the bare mattress that they had stripped after kicking poor Danny out.
Melissa adjusted the ancient down pillows beneath her head and shoulders. “No, the other way,” Gwen directed, pointing one finger at her and another at the bed and then moving them over each other. Now, with her head toward the foot of the bed, she lay down, letting one foot dangle over the edge of the mattress.
“Perfect. You comfortable there?”
Melissa nodded.