The Drowning Girls. Paula DeBoard Treick

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      But I’d spotted the occasional heads of joggers and walkers bobbing past, the quick, colorful blurs of polo shirts and checkered pants. There was no way to gauge how close this laugh had been, whether someone was standing twenty feet away or all the way at the clubhouse. “I’m going inside,” I said, swimming for the steps.

      “Oh, come on.” Phil laughed. “Really?”

      But the moment was broken, the fantasy evaporating fast. The Liz who could float naked and free beneath the stars was gone, a once-in-a-lifetime flash of a comet, an anomaly. My clothes were scattered on the deck and inside the house, but I could make a run for it, heading straight for the downstairs laundry room, where a load of towels was waiting in the dryer.

      “Liz.”

      I sloshed up the pool steps, not realizing until I hit the concrete that I wasn’t entirely sober. My feet were heavy, uncooperative. And then I heard the laugh again, echoing off the tile surround, bouncing off the stucco exterior of our house. I turned, half expecting to spot someone in our bushes. Instead, I caught a flash in the distance, out on the walking trail—the tiny, bright screen of a cell phone. I bent double, clutching at my breasts with one hand.

      In the water, Phil was laughing. “It was just someone walking by. Get back in here. Come on. I’ll plant a hedge out there. I’ll plant a goddamned forest, if that’s what you want.”

      But I was already moving toward my reflection in the sliding door—a pale, lumpy mass of flesh, hair dripping, mascara streaked across my face. I’d felt so weightless, sliding into the water. Now I saw the sag of my breasts, the width of my hips, the fourteen-year-old flap of skin hanging low on my belly.

      I was still the old Liz, after all.

      * * *

      Danielle was waiting for me at the BART station the following afternoon, considerably dirtier than when I’d dropped her off on Monday. Her feet were crammed into her old hiking books, laces flopping. She waved and ran around to the driver’s side to kiss me through the window.

      I pulled back, feigning disgust. “You smell like nature.”

      “I actually showered this year, not that it made much difference,” she said, tossing her backpack into the backseat. Her shoulders were sunburned, her cheeks dotted with new freckles. Red welts of mosquito bites pockmarked her legs.

      “So? Tell me everything.”

      We eased into traffic, and she did: the wasp nest in her cabin, the nature hikes, the bonfires, the visiting botanist from UC Davis. It was her last year as a camper; next summer, when she was fifteen, she could apply as a counselor.

      “The rest of the summer is going to suck in comparison,” she announced, digging into her pocket until she came up, triumphant, with a pack of trail mix. She split the plastic and a stray peanut went flying into the console.

      “You could always babysit, earn some spending money. I met a family with twins in The Palms—”

      “Are you kidding? It was a disaster that time I babysat for the Lees, and that was only one kid. Remember how I had to call you fifteen times?” She held up the remainder of the bag of trail mix, letting the last sunflower seeds and raisins trickle directly into her mouth.

      “Let’s not lead with that line on your résumé.”

      She laughed through her mouthful.

      “Phil and I went to that party last night, that wine-and-cheese thing—”

      “That’s right. Was it fun?”

      I hesitated. This morning, fighting a hangover headache, I’d dashed off a message to Allie, telling her about Janet, who could barely stretch her mouth into a smile and Deanna, with her too-large and too-perky breasts. I’d told her about the drama of Myriam’s remodeled closet, about Daisy Asbill’s reference to her nanny. But to Danielle I said only, “Sure. It was fun.”

      Keeping my tone casual, I told her about Sonia’s invitation, the pool party planned for seven tomorrow night.

      Danielle had been bending over, freeing her feet from her hiking shoes and a dirt-rimmed pair of socks, but when my words sank in, she looked up at me wild-eyed. “Tomorrow night? Are you kidding?”

      “I didn’t realize you have plans.”

      “I don’t have plans, per se,” she fumed. “I had plans to not be at a party with people I don’t know. I had plans to read a book or watch a movie. Those were my plans.”

      “So now you’ll be swimming and playing games and eating junk food and making new friends. I suppose there are worse things.”

      “Who are we talking about? Not that blonde girl.”

      “Kelsey,” I said. “You’ve met her?”

      “No, but I’ve seen her hanging around the clubhouse. Mom, she’s like...”

      “Like what?”

      But Danielle only glared out the window, arms folded across her chest. We’d exited 580, thick with traffic even on a Saturday, and were winding our way through twelve miles of twists and turns on the sole access road to The Palms. The road mimicked the switchbacks of the encroaching Diablo Range. In the distance, the mountains rose brown and bare, dotted with the occasional thirsty-looking clumps of cows beneath a thatch of trees. Up close the ranch land was so dry, its fissures were deep as fault lines.

      “Hey,” I said, giving Danielle a nudge with my elbow. “It would be good for you to know some people in the area. And she might be nice.”

      She grunted.

      “What?”

      “You said swimming. It’s a pool party, Mom. How am I supposed to wear my swimsuit in front of people I don’t even know?”

      “Didn’t you do that all week at camp?”

      “But those were just kids. These are...”

      “They’re kids, too,” I said, forcing a note of conviction into my voice. I knew what Danielle was thinking. Somehow, they weren’t just kids—they were miniature reflections of their parents, with designer clothes and disposable income. They’d inherited all the best that life could offer without the struggle, without even the stories that came with triumph and success.

      “What if they hate me?” Her voice was small. “What if they make fun of me?”

      I swallowed hard. It was one of those parent-fail moments, listening to my daughter rehash my own fears, the same lines from the mental argument I’d had on the Mesbahs’ front porch. That never stops, honey, I wanted to tell her. There will always be those people. The difference is that at some point—a point I hadn’t quite reached myself—their opinions stopped mattering.

      We were approaching the final bend on the access road, where the pavement suddenly smoothed out and the scrubby ranch land was replaced with towering, evenly spaced palm trees. Ahead of us the road forked before the wrought-iron ingress and egress gates, flanking the sign that announced our arrival: THE PALMS AT ALTAMONT RIDGE. It still struck me as pompous, СКАЧАТЬ