Interstitial #7
this was the cost of her new life. The Sisterhood no longer thought they had anything in common with her.
Now Scarlett and Evangeline are working on a massive sandcastle, using the buckets that Natalie unearthed from the garage
storeroom. After she’d plucked them from an enormous pile of who knows what, she’d closed the door. Their father had given
them only one job, but it’s a doozy.
Caspian is walking around his sisters like a bull about to enter the ring, 100 percent unharnessed energy. It’s clear from
his expression that he wants to help but that he also wants to knock the whole thing down just to see what will happen. He
looks so much like his father, with his strong legs (who knew a toddler could have visible quad muscles?) and the shape of
his eyes—both Austin’s and Caspian’s are round as buttons and fringed with thick lashes. The male energy, always threatening
to erupt. Caspian and Austin look most like each other when neither gets their way, which happens often enough with Caspian
and really hardly ever with Austin.
Natalie observes as a little girl about Scarlett’s age approaches her daughters. Long-sleeved rash guard, hat, zinc on her
nose. When Natalie and her sisters were this age they ran around on this beach in almost nothing, which explains why Natalie
has three moles on her upper back that the dermatologist is “watching.” And who is she to judge? Her own kids are covered
up too.
The girl clearly wants to join in but isn’t sure how to approach, so instead she takes a swaybacked stance and watches from a careful distance, the knuckles of her right hand in her mouth.
Evangeline and Scarlett pass a look between them, seeming to come to an agreement, and then Evangeline wordlessly hands the girl the small yellow shovel and the second-best bucket.
Who says homeschooled kids have no social skills?
A woman who is probably the girl’s mom flops down next to Natalie, uninvited, and says, “My kid’s so shy. She always waits
to be included, you know?”
Natalie refrains from saying that this doesn’t seem to be a genetic trait, and instead she smiles and says, “I get it.”
“Ohmygod, Natalie, it’s me! Rebecca Martin! From the Beach Club!”
Natalie looks and the face resolves into someone recognizable from her youth. The Shipmans belonged to the Beach Club because
Theresa belonged, and Theresa belonged because her parents joined when they first built the house. The second a member turns
twenty-five—actually, the second before they turn twenty-five—they have the option to get an adult membership, as Natalie chose to do. If you turn that down, as Jordan
(“I’ll never use it”) and Mae (“Are you kidding? I can’t afford that!”) did, you can still visit the club with your family
members who belong, but your only option to become a true member in the future is to join the decades-long wait list.
The question of what she will do with her membership is one Natalie hasn’t been able to bring herself to ask yet.
Will she retain it, without a house to use it from?
Or will she let it go? The Shipman girls have the best memories of the Beach Club, with its swim team and white wooden lockers, its famous Third of July party, the comforting strictness of its rules.
You can’t set up for dinner before 5 p.m.!
No entering the upper deck if you’re under sixteen!
She does not, however, have fond memories of Rebecca. Rebecca was a boyfriend stealer and a snitch.
“Oh my god, Rebecca!” she says. “It’s so good to see you!”
“If she knocks over that sandcastle I’ll Venmo you fifty bucks. I’m kidding!” Natalie’s annoyance radar is going off in a
big way. (Obviously Natalie knew Rebecca was kidding.) She begins packing some of their things into her beach bag to indicate
that Rebecca shouldn’t make herself comfortable, and she’s about to give a five-minute warning to her kids, when Rebecca says,
“My friends and I all follow Hillside Maven. For, like, a lark, you know? We’re, like, this is so nineteen fifties but we
can’t get enough of it!”
Natalie freezes.
“Thanks for following,” she says carefully, even amiably. She’s not feeling amiable, but she really cannot afford to alienate
anyone else right now, even Rebecca Martin. She calls out the five-minute warning.
“The homeschooling stuff is really a hoot. I mean, just the fact that you have the time!”
A hoot? A hoot is not how Natalie would describe all the hours she puts into planning lessons for Scarlett and Evangeline.
They can both already read! She’ll have Evangeline at a sophomore-year French level by next year! It is the furthest thing
from a hoot: it’s honest work, and it’s sacrifice, and it’s for the good of her family.
(And her followers.)
(But mostly her family.)
“I’m glad you like the content,” she says, smiling with just her mouth.
Natalie calls a three-minute warning to the kids and begins to shake out the beach towels.
Rebecca has parked herself on the corner of Natalie’s beach blanket.
Natalie doesn’t want to shake the woman off like she’s a bunch of sand, but she’ll do it if she has to.
“I could never homeschool.”
“It’s not for everyone,” says Natalie pleasantly.
“It’s definitely not for me. I’m in finance; I’d never have the time. Plus, I don’t think I could do what teachers have been
trained to do. I like using my brain for my own work, you know? No offense.”
“None taken.” Natalie’s voice is tight.
“Your husband, though, in that article—”
“Zero-minute warning!” calls Natalie. She can’t lose her temper because even if this woman may not be a fan per se, she is
a follower. She’s waiting for Natalie to lose it so she can record it or tell someone or both. “Naptime for the little guy,”
she tells Rebecca.
Rebecca rises and wipes the sand off the backs of her legs, and Natalie reclaims her blanket.
“Thanks again for following,” Natalie says, as sweet as the cherry pie she’s finally perfected, right down to the braided
edges of the homemade crust. “It was so great to see you.” She’s known that some people love her and some people hate her—that’s the internet for you. She’s known her life
is full of contradictions—that’s womanhood for you. But until this week, it’s never felt so heavily weighted in the wrong
direction.
As she’s folding the blanket, she sees something change in Caspian, some alteration of his mood. It’s subtle, and almost atmospheric,
the way the air feels different the second before the first raindrop falls. But it’s enough. She says, “Caspian!” but it’s
too late. He’s got his shovel raised above the sandcastle, and, just as Rebecca grabs her little girl’s hand and whisks her
away, the shovel comes down and the sandcastle dissolves.
Scarlett stands still, utterly dumbfounded, but Evangeline raises her face to the sky and unleashes the most bloodcurdling scream; she’s protesting a grand injustice, maybe even screaming at God Himself.
The grievances of the very young! They are every bit as legitimate to their owners as the grievances of the very old, Natalie knows this.
But they are also sometimes very, very inconvenient.
Deep breath. In, out. Natalie snaps into action. She throws the rest of their things in the beach bag, scoops up Caspian (he
has the gall to be smiling handsomely), and ushers the screaming Evangeline and the shell-shocked Scarlett across the sand
and toward the house.
Away from the wet sandcastle sand, the dry sand is unforgivingly hot. Scarlett jumps from foot to foot, screeching at Natalie
as though she can change the temperature. She steers them up the steps to the patio (also hot) and around to the outdoor shower,
where she plops her bag on the bench and turns on the water. Too late she realizes she left the shovels and pails behind.
She’ll have to go back for them later.
“I’m sorry Caspian did that,” she says, watching Evangeline’s sobs subside. Evangeline wipes at her eyes, definitely rubbing
sand into them. “He’s little. He doesn’t know any better.”
“He does know any better!” says Scarlett. Natalie suspects that she’s right. “He needs to apologize.”
“Caspian, can you tell your sisters you’re sorry?” There are two schools of thought on the efficacy of forcing children to
apologize, and some days Natalie is not sure to which one she belongs. Whichever is easier, maybe, although she wouldn’t tell
anyone that. She is supposed to be someone with standards. She’s supposed to have a plan!
“Orry,” he says, grinning. She puts him down and he tries to escape the shower. She slides the lock, keeping them all safe
inside, and takes her forty thousandth deep breath of the day.
“Rinse the sand,” she commands the girls. “Caspian needs his nap.”
“Do we have to wash our hair?” the girls ask in unison.
Scarlett and Evangeline have copious amounts of hair.
It’s fairy-princess hair, thick and heavy, with natural curl at the end.
It’s gorgeous, but it requires such maintenance.
Natalie’s second-biggest fear about her children (the first being something actually bad happening to them) is that lice will invade Hillside Haven.
Natalie is so, so tired suddenly. She’s weak, she’s hungry, she’s thirsty. She’s the poster girl for depleted. She won’t make
it to naptime.
She sets her shoulders back. She must make it to naptime. She will make it to naptime. And beyond. And beyond!
“No hair,” she says. “Quick rinse, and we’ll move along.”
“I don’t want to take a shower,” says Scarlett.
“Well, you have to.”
Scarlett says, “But—” and Natalie feels herself start to lose it.
“Quick rinse!” she says, and then repeats, yelling now, “I said QUICK RINSE!”
“You’re yelling, Mommy,” says Evangeline.
“I’m not yelling!” cries Natalie. “I am trying. To do. Gentle. Parenting.”
Later that afternoon, Mae and Leo are in the sunroom, practicing Leo’s settling. This means that as long as he’s lying in