The Drowning Girls

“My oldest must be about the age of your daughter,” Carly continued. “Hannah. She’s fifteen.”

I smiled. “Danielle’s fourteen. Just starting high school. Where does Hannah go?”

Carly blinked. “Oh, no. She’s homeschooled. We won’t even dream of it anymore, with the state of public education—”

Myriam steered me away, her grip insistent. This was her task as a hostess, I realized, an obligation she was determined to fulfill so she could be done with me.

I recognized Trevor and Marja Browers as the couple who walked past my house each morning at sunrise, their two white heads bobbing in sync, their hands raised in benevolent hellos. I’d come to think of them as the grandparents of the community. Trevor was a laser specialist, officially retired from Lawrence-Livermore Labs, although he still consulted part-time. “He has top-level security clearance,” Myriam said. “And Marja, dear Marja...”

“It’s very secluded here, ja?” Marja asked, her Dutch accent strong. Her face was soft and friendly, accented with a slash of red lipstick.

I stopped myself, but only barely, from agreeing with a ja in return.

She smiled, revealing teeth that were charmingly crooked. “Sometimes too secluded, if you know what I mean?”

I did.

Oh, I did.

We were only a few feet away when Myriam whispered, “We call those socialist teeth,” with a wicked laugh at her own joke. I realized it was the same laugh she would utter when I left. We call those sales-rack shoes.

I decided right there that I hated her—that I hated all of them—as we worked our way through the room: the Roche-Edwardses, the Navarres, the Coffeys. They blended together, along with their details: the Mediterranean with the blue mosaic inlay, the husband in finance, the daughter who had been homecoming queen. I nodded along, my feet aching in my heels. Was it too early to leave, to grab Phil’s arm and make a run for it, claiming exhaustion or food poisoning or cramps? When I got home, I promised myself, I would toss these sandals into the depths of our walk-in closet, which was large enough to guarantee I wouldn’t have to see them again, ever. I would avoid all other parties, all fund-raisers and wine-and-cheese pairings. Where was the cheese, anyway? It was a horrible trick of advertising.

Victor passed, touching my shoulder. “Are you having a good time?”

In a mirror over the fireplace, I saw my own wine-stained smile reflected back at me.

Myriam pointed out Janet Neimeyer, who was anywhere between forty and sixty, her body toned and deeply tanned next to her white dress, skin stretched tight across her cheekbones. “She got the house in the divorce settlement,” Myriam said casually. “She likes her men, but if she settles down, she’ll have to kiss this place goodbye.”

“Oh,” I said, not sure how I was supposed to react. I looked mournfully at the half inch of wine in my glass, wondering where the rest had gone.

“And that’s Helen Zhang,” Myriam continued. I sorted through my mental file, remembering that Helen and her husband were both dermatologists, parents of twin boys. Helen had short, almost boyish hair that somehow framed her face perfectly.

“Oh, sure. I’ve seen her walking a dog around the neighborhood.”

“Yes,” Myriam said, her mouth tight. “Isn’t he the most darling thing?”

Too late, I remembered something else Phil had told me—that the Mesbahs had filed various complaints against the Zhangs, whose darling dog had a tendency to bark at inconvenient hours.

And then there was Daisy Asbill, former Google employee turned wife of a Google executive. She was young and slim-hipped in a gray silk dress. “Does your daughter babysit?” she asked me. “I’ve got twins, and sometimes it’s about impossible to find someone...”

I hedged, recalling that Danielle’s sole babysitting effort for a neighbor down the street in Livermore had been a semidisaster.

“Oh, I don’t mean all the time,” Daisy qualified, sensing my hesitation. “Only when the nanny has the day off.”

“Of course,” I said, savoring this one: only when the nanny has the day off. Allie would get a kick out of that.

Over and over I said It’s so nice to meet you and We’re loving it out here and took miniscule sips of cabernet, trying to make it last as long as possible. My mouth ached from incessant smiling. At one point, Helen asked if Myriam’s closet was finished, and half the crowd trooped down the hallway to see the improvements. I spotted Phil next to Rich Sievert, a fresh glass in his hand. He smiled at me, and I took a relieved step toward him.

“Oh, here they are,” Deanna called, stepping between us. At the front door, Victor was fussing over another couple, so tall and blond and perfectly paired, they might have been a set of Barbies.

“So sorry we’re late,” the woman said, giving cheek kisses as she moved through the entryway. Her hair was so blond it was almost colorless, her eyes a piercing blue. As she came closer, I realized that she was an older version of a girl I’d seen walking through the neighborhood, her head bent, thumbs tapping the screen of her cell phone. “Oh, hello.” She smiled at me. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Sonia Jorgensen.”

“Liz McGinnis,” I said, shifting my glass so we could shake hands. Sonia’s nails were pale silver, her skin buttery soft.

“Liz’s husband is the one with the yummy British accent,” Deanna put in, suddenly at my side.

“Australian,” I corrected.

“Don’t you just love British accents? It’s like those episodes of, what’s it called? On Netflix?” Deanna wrinkled her nose, thinking. “Oh! Downton Abbey!”

Sonia Jorgensen smiled at me, the sort of smile that made us coconspirators. Isn’t she ridiculous? She half turned toward me, her shoulders subtly angling Deanna out of the conversation. “We’re your neighbors right around the corner, I think. The two-story Grecian—”

“Oh, with the columns,” I said. When we’d first passed the house, Danielle had gaped. “Who lives there?” And I’d answered, “A dead president.”

“Yes! Tim—that’s my husband—said he wasn’t sure about them, but when I saw the designs, I just knew.”

“It’s a beautiful house.”

“Sonia’s a party planner,” Deanna said, edging back into the conversation. “She flies all over the world, just putting on parties. Can you imagine?”

“Corporate events, mostly,” Sonia explained. “I try to stay as far from weddings as possible.”

Deanna shook her head. “I’m so jealous it makes me sick. I try to get Rich to go somewhere, and he looks at me like I’ve got three heads.”

Sonia looked at her pointedly. “You just got back from Hawaii.”

“Right, but it was just Hawaii. We go there all the time,” Deanna pouted. Her effusiveness was both familiar and uncomfortable—a slightly more polished version of a high school student. “You’ve been to— Where did you just get back from?”

“Corpus Christi,” Sonia said. “Hardly exotic.”

“Still,” Deanna whined.

Sonia turned to me, her eyes crinkling in a smile. “Liz. Is that short for Elizabeth?”

There was something engaging about her, something that made me lower my guard, my mouth relaxing into its first genuine smile of the night. “No, just Liz. I always wanted to be an Elizabeth, though. I used to sign my name that way on my papers in elementary school.”

Sonia’s laugh showed teeth so straight and white, they might have belonged to a dental hygienist. “What did your parents think about that?”

“Oh, you know, typical kid stuff.” I took a careful sip of wine. Of course she didn’t know; it wasn’t the sort of situation a person could guess. My mom was fully blind by the time I was in elementary school, so she never saw my name on any work sheets or permission slips or report cards. And my dad wouldn’t have noticed—he was too busy seeing everything else. Elizabeth had been my own private rebellion.

“So, Liz, then. What do you do?”

I finished the last drop of wine in my glass. Funny—but after all the introductions tonight, Sonia was the first person to ask about me. “I’m a high school counselor,” I said. “Miles Landers High School, in Livermore.”

Sonia’s eyes widened, and I braced myself for the cocked head, the subtle up-and-down assessment. Was she calculating my salary, my overall net worth? Was she recalling the sudden appearance of my seven-year-old Camry in the neighborhood, remembering that most of our clothes had been packed in black plastic garbage bags, toted from my trunk to the house? But she surprised me by grabbing my arm. “Oh, my God. That’s wonderful.”

“Well...” Wonderful was overstating it a bit, although I did love my job. In seven years, I’d never had the same day twice. “This year will be interesting, because my daughter will be there, too. She’s going to be a freshman.”

“Oh, this is fantastic. You don’t understand... My daughter, Kelsey, is starting there in the fall. She’ll be a sophomore. She used to go to Ashbury Prep, but...well, that’s a story for another time. It turns out those other kids were such bad influences. But this is such a fantastic coincidence. It’ll be so nice for Kelsey to have some friendly faces at Miles Landers, not to mention another responsible adult in her life.”

Her touch was warm, as if we’d known each other for years. I recognized it as the mom connection, a bond that had always been elusive for me. I’d been a single mom for most of Danielle’s life, those early years spent shuttling between her day care and my internships, and later between the carpool lane at her elementary school and the counseling office. There had never been time to get to know the other moms, and I’d envied their chummy closeness at back-to-school nights and honor-roll assemblies.

“That will be nice,” I agreed, allowing myself to get sucked into the moment. Of course, there was no guarantee that our daughters would be friends. Danielle spent most of her days with her nose in a book. Kelsey, from what I’d observed, was years ahead of her socially. I remembered her walking past in her microshorts and tank tops, her bra straps winking like a dirty secret.

“So, would it be weird...” Sonia began. “I’m just thinking out loud here, and you can feel free to say no. But maybe we could plan some kind of get-together for them?”

I grinned. “Like...a playdate?”

Sonia laughed. “Well—I don’t know. Is that silly? It could just be a little thing. I’d be happy to host.”

Deanna returned, as if she’d been listening in from just over my shoulder. “What a great idea! We could invite all the teenagers at The Palms. Let’s see—there’s Mac, the Zhang boys, Hannah Bergland...”

Sonia’s gaze crossed mine, tolerant and amused. How did she do it? How did she keep her composure, keep herself from laughing or rolling her eyes? Pay attention, I ordered myself, as if I were watching for clues on how to be a woman, on what to wear, on when to speak.

“Are you sure Mac would be interested?” she asked.

Deanna rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. He just hangs around the house all day doing nothing, driving me insane.”

And then I made the connection between the driver of the massive yellow truck and the name I’d heard often enough at school over the past three years. Mac Sievert, the chronic underachiever; Mac Sievert, the big man on campus. “I just realized Mac goes to Miles Landers. He’s a senior?”

Deanna laughed, taking an exaggerated sip of her wine. “Oh, poor you. I was waiting for you to figure that out. Just remember, when he fails Econ, the phone call goes to his dad, not to me. One of the benefits of being the stepmother,” she added with a wink.

“Noted,” I said.

“This is a great idea,” Deanna gushed. “I’ll go tell Helen.”

We watched her walk away, heels clacking on the hardwood.

Sonia cleared her throat. “Well, I guess I’m hosting the neighborhood. What about Saturday night? Would that work with Danielle’s schedule?”

“She gets back from science camp tomorrow, so—I’m sure that’s fine.”

Sonia mock-swooned, latching onto my sleeve. I was sure this was the most my arm had been touched, ever, and I had a blind mother. “Science camp. I love it. Hang on to that phase while you can. Kelsey’s into boys and clothes and drama. Fifteen going on thirty.”

I smiled. Danielle hadn’t yet discovered those things, but I knew it was coming. At the beginning of her eighth grade year, I’d had to hide her favorite pair of camo pants, purchased from the army surplus store, when she insisted on wearing them three days in a row. But for her graduation last month, we’d spent hours combing the mall for a dress. I commented, “Sometimes I think Danielle is still fourteen going on twelve.”

Victor breezed past, swapping out my empty glass for a full one, and Sonia and I smiled at each other. Wordlessly, we touched our glasses together, and they produced an inharmonious clink.

There was a burst of chatter as Myriam and the rest of the women filed back into the room, having exhausted the virtues of the remodeled closet. Janet Neimeyer just couldn’t get over the lighting; Helen Zhang was noting the name of the contractor.

I felt a hand on my back, a warm hand, the thumb running over the ridge of my spine. I glanced over my shoulder and Phil gave me a happy, sloppy grin, his cheeks flushed.

* * *

Halfway home, I propped myself against Phil and wiggled out of my shoes, not able to tolerate them for another step. I tipped to one side, laughing, and he caught me. Were the neighbors watching from their windows, behind their custom drapes, the slats of their plantation blinds? Somehow it didn’t matter as much anymore.

“So we survived,” Phil said. “It wasn’t the horror show we imagined.”

“I suppose it could have been worse.”

He pulled me close and I leaned against him, warm and light-headed. His breath smelled like the wine Victor had foisted on us, refilling our glasses until I’d lost count.

Ahead of us, our house loomed, a towering behemoth. I’d begun to think of it as a chameleon—neutral beige in the morning, so dark just after sunset that it became almost invisible. Despite several attempts with the manual, neither of us had figured out the automated lighting system, so the front porch was rendered a dark alcove, hidden in the sloped overhang of the Tudor roofline. While Phil fumbled with the house key, I tugged his shirt from his waistband, pressing my hand against the flat of his back.

He threw open the door, grinning. “I like where this is going.”

“I’m a horrible drunk,” I confessed, backing into the house, dropping my sandals onto the tile entry. With one hand, I undid the buttons of my blouse.

“That’s what I love about you,” Phil said, letting the door click shut behind him. My blouse fell open and he whistled. “Anyway, define horrible.”

It was too hard to talk. My words felt slurred, my tongue thick. It was easier to kiss him, to show rather than tell.

We were good at this; I’d come to realize that we were maybe best at this. It had been there from the beginning—a playful physical attraction, the foresight that our bodies would be good together. We’d met at a Sharks game, neither of us particularly hockey fans, both of us accompanying friends with extra tickets. Phil, seated behind me, had spilled beer on my sweatshirt and spent the rest of the night apologizing over my shoulder, then flirting, charming me with that accent. I’d had a few beers, too, which was the only way I could explain the kiss I gave him in the parking lot after the game, one that was long and ripe and full of promise, as if I didn’t have a child at home, an early morning ahead of me. On the train back to Livermore, I’d laughed at myself, so stupid for thinking that a kiss with a stranger was anything more than a kiss with a stranger. And then twelve hours later, he’d walked into the counseling office at Miles Landers, a bouquet of daisies in one hand.

That was five years ago.

We pulled apart now, and I sloughed off my blouse, the fabric fluttering to the floor. Phil’s hands were on my bra, struggling with the back clasp, his breath hot in my ear. “Danielle should go away more often. One of those summer-long camps.”

“Mmm.”

“Or a study-abroad program. Foreign exchange, whatever you call it. An entire semester, maybe.”

“Early college,” I murmured. “Send her off at sixteen.”

He groaned, nudging me toward the stairs, our king-size bed beckoning. We’d had it for three weeks now, relegating our queen-size mattress to a spare bedroom, and it still felt spacious, as if we were splurging on an expensive hotel every night.

Maybe it was the wine; maybe it was the feeling that had been coming over me slowly since our move to The Palms, the realization that I didn’t have to be me anymore. I’d left the old Liz Haney behind—pregnant in college, dependent on financial aid and a half-dozen part-time jobs and Section 8 housing until I landed my counseling position, but still struggling with the rent when I met Phil. Now she was a ghost, wisp-thin and floating away, that old Liz. Because look at us. Here we were, hobnobbing with the rich and the very rich, and almost blending in.

“I have a better idea,” I told him.

“I’m all ears.”

“Follow me,” I said, and he did—past the living room stacked with boxes, the unfurnished dining room, the gleaming granite of the kitchen. I opened the sliding door off the den, and the Other Woman, the electronic narrator of our lives, warned, “Back door open.”

But once I was through the door, I hesitated. The backyard was almost too bright, with tasteful landscaping lights aimed at the potted topiaries, the dripping strands of crepe myrtle. Overhead, the moon was a crescent sliver, its gleam reflected on the surface of the pool, where an invisible hand pulled the water gradually toward the infinity edge. Beyond the pool, the yard sloped downward and beyond that was the flat, seamless green of the fairway.

I faced Phil and undid the button on my waistband slowly, watching him watch me. I hooked my thumbs in my underwear and let them shimmy down my thighs.

Phil was motionless in the doorway.

I must have been drunk; my body felt good in the moonlight, strong and sexy, like Eve in the Garden of Eden, before that pesky snake. “Aren’t you going to join me?”

Phil grinned. “I was just appreciating the view.” He worked his way out of his dress shoes and toed them off in separate directions. One sailed onto the grass, landing upside down with a soft thud.

I turned, breaking the surface of the water with one foot, then another. We had neighbors on either side, but these were one-acre lots, and they might have been miles away. Too secluded, Marja Browers had said. I took a few tentative strokes in the water and flipped onto my back, wetting my hair. Phil was undressing clumsily, struggling with his socks. My breasts rose above the ripples of the water, and I closed my eyes. Maybe this was what a house at The Palms could give you—a sense of owning something, of deserving the license that came with it.

When I looked up, Phil was standing at the edge of the pool, his clothes shed in untidy piles at his feet. From the water, he looked larger than life—on the scale of Michelangelo’s David, rather than a mere human. He lowered one foot in the water.

“No, wait a second,” I said. “It’s my turn to appreciate the view.”

He gave me a mock pose, muscles flexed. I laughed and kicked water in his direction.

“That’s it,” he said, splashing into the water. We reached for each other.

The neighbors, I thought.

And then: forget the neighbors.

Afterward, we let our bodies drift, float, slide next to and over each other, pulled by the current of gravity, the slow drift toward the infinity edge. It was an illusion, of course—but with my eyes closed, it felt as if I could float past the lawn, out to the golf course, where it was green and green and green forever.

Sometimes, dangling my feet over the edge of the pool, a book in one hand, I’d heard sounds from the golf course—the thwack that sent a ball soaring, the occasional raised voice. From the neighborhood, I’d heard cars starting, engines revving and disappearing; I’d caught snatches of conversation, carried on a breeze. But mostly, I’d grown used to the quiet of The Palms, beginning with the empty rooms in our house, so well carpeted and insulated that I could hear my own breath. This week, with Danielle gone and Phil moving into his office in the clubhouse, I’d found myself singing along with the radio, testing out my voice in the emptiness just to hear another sound.

Now the quiet was peaceful, calming, broken only by the occasional ripple in the water when our bodies broke the surface.

But then there was a clanging sound, the rattle of metal on metal, the sound I recognized as the latch and hook of our back gate.

I looked over at Phil, floating with his chest and shoulders above water, a blissed-out smile on his face. “Someone’s out there,” I hissed.

He shook his head. “Probably just sound carrying.”

But then I heard someone laughing.

Instinctively, I shrank into the water, my eyes scanning the dark pockets of the backyard. The euphoria was gone, the feeling of freedom and invincibility and entitlement. Or maybe I was just sobering, fast. Now I was a flabby, naked woman with a potential audience. “Phil—”

He worked his way toward the shallow end, his chest and shoulders bright in the moonlight. “Probably someone in their backyard.”

“What if there’s someone out on the golf course?”

“I don’t think anyone could see us, anyway.”

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.