I’m too old for contact sports,” Beth said, balancing on a raft across from Ethan, who whacked her in the shoulder with a noodle.
“Oh, come on, Mom,” Stephanie said from the chaise longue. “It’s fun. A good way to get out your aggression.”
“That’s what baking is for.”
But she was just playing the part of the curmudgeon. She was thrilled to see Stephanie spending time with her son. And she had heard Stephanie knocking on Lauren’s door first thing in the morning. Her instinct about this summer had been right. Things were getting better, at least where the girls were concerned. As for Howard? He was gone for the day, back in Philly working on sublease prospects. They’d barely spoken since the argument about moving. And now she was about to double-down on the house.
When Ethan climbed out of the pool for a snack, Beth swam to the shallow end and called for Stephanie to join her.
“I want to talk to you about something,” Beth said.
“Wait, Mom. I have to say something first. You were right. I need to spend some time by myself. Be alone for a while. Focus on what’s important.”
“Really? And what about Neil?”
“I’m over it. Not happening,” she said.
“Okay, well. I’m proud of you, sweetheart. And I want you to know you have my support. That actually brings me to what I wanted to talk to you about.” Beth hesitated, wondering if the suggestion would seem too pushy, controlling. “I’m not planning on leaving here at the end of the summer. And I would like you to stay too.”
“For how long? Ethan has to get back to school.”
“He can go to school here. They have a wonderful elementary school.”
“You want us to…live here?”
Beth nodded.
“What about Lauren?”
“Gran left the house to us as a family.”
Stephanie’s eyes filled with tears. “You mean it?”
“Is that a yes?”
Stephanie hugged her. Beth exhaled.
Lauren inched away from Matt under the sheet so he could slip from the bed to turn up the air conditioner. It was a window unit, and it wheezed loudly and seemed to rattle the entire room.
“How do you sleep with that thing?” She smiled, sitting up against the headboard, pulling the sheet high over her breasts and tucking it under her arms like a tube top.
“I usually don’t,” he said, sliding back onto the bed, next to her but over the sheet. He’d put his boxers back on. “So…that happened.”
She smiled. He kissed the top of her head. “You okay?” he asked, and she nodded.
She braced herself for the guilt; so far, it hadn’t come. Instead, she felt an odd relief, a sense that somehow a former version of herself had been restored. But since there had never been a sexual version of herself that didn’t involve Rory, it couldn’t be a return to anything. It was something new.
She reached for her top and shorts and put them on under the sheet.
“Don’t go,” Matt said.
“Just need the bathroom.”
She didn’t plan on staying, but still, it was nice to hear him ask her to. On the way to the bathroom, she passed his desk and the map of index cards taped above it. She told herself not to look, not to think about Rory and the film. She wanted Matt and Rory to be separate, not only in that moment, but forever in her mind. But one card caught her eye: Stephanie reveal.
She turned to Matt.
“What’s this mean?”
Matt jumped up, looking at the board as if wondering how it got there. Or maybe wondering how he had left it there.
“It’s nothing,” he said, moving next to her, taking a few sheets of printer paper, and tacking them over the index cards.
Was he serious? “You’re not letting me look at the storyboard?”
“Lauren, I don’t want to talk about the film right now. I don’t want to think about the film right now. I just want to be you and me—a man and a woman. I think we both deserve that for just an hour. I know you sure as hell do.”
He put his arms around her, and she forced herself to look into his green eyes, not at the words hanging on the wall. He kissed her.
“I’m going to make a run down to the kitchen for coffee. How do you take yours?”
“Um, milk and sugar.”
He hesitated.
“What is it?” she said.
“I’m hoping you’ll come see me in New York.”
She looked at him blankly, the words not quite registering. “You want me to…come to New York?”
“Well, yeah. Don’t look so surprised. Some people find it an interesting place to visit.”
She smiled. “So I’ve heard. But seriously. This is…I have to process this.”
He kissed her cheek. “Okay, process. I’ll be back with coffee.”
When he was gone, Lauren used the bathroom, then looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her cheeks were flushed; her face appeared different to her own eyes. For the first time in a very long while, she felt pretty.
She ran her hands under the water and stared at her wedding band. A sob rose in her chest, but she held it back. It’s okay, she told herself.
The ring should come off. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it.
In the bedroom, the maze of index cards called to her. Stephanie reveal.
What did it mean? Was Matt hiding something from her?
Lauren walked to the desk. She didn’t know exactly what she was looking for, but the flip book was still there—the place where he kept hard copies of his interviews. All the discs were in chronological order, and she quickly found the one labeled with Stephanie’s name and a date. But she’d seen it already. There was no “reveal,” nothing much of interest at all. She kept looking, not sure what she expected to find. And then she saw it: Stephanie #2.
Heart pounding, she slipped both files in her pocket. And she left.
Beth placed the hot-dog buns facedown on the grill for just a few seconds before dropping them onto the serving tray. Stephanie had set up her iPhone on a dock to play a monotonous female pop album—Lady Gaga or Katy Perry or some such. But it was the sound of happiness, because it had been the backdrop to telling Ethan the news that he would be living at the beach from now on, and his little face had lit up in a way that Beth would remember for the rest of her life. She only wished Howard had been there to see it. A shared smile between them over Ethan’s joy might have been a bridge back to each other.
“Aunt Lauren!”
Beth turned around. Ethan ran up to Lauren and jumped into her arms.
“Hey, kiddo. Easy there,” Lauren said.
“I thought you were working today,” Beth said.
“Yeah, long story.”
“Aunt Lauren, I’m going to live here! With you! Forever!” Ethan said.
Lauren eyed Beth. “Forever, huh? Well, I don’t know about that. We might have to ship you off to Hogwarts at some point.”
“Sit and have lunch with us,” Beth said.
“I can’t, Mom. I have stuff to do. I need to be alone.”
Okay.