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The photo Jordan finds on Friday morning is in the top dresser drawer in her room, maybe put there in a hurry to clean up
for renters, maybe forgotten about altogether. It’s a shallow drawer, made for lingerie or socks, and Jordan hasn’t unpacked
anything into it. She recognizes the Beach Club immediately, the white railings between the deck and the rocks, then the sand
and ocean beyond, the place where the tide pools formed and the kids used to go crabbing, finding regular crabs, hermit crabs,
sometimes even an eel or two.
If she could pan out and show the rest of the scene, she knows she’d see the bright blue of the club pool, with the colored
flags around the perimeter. Three lifeguard chairs on three sides of the pool. She can almost taste the chlorinated water,
feel the sensation of it in her nostrils as she somersaulted. She can almost hear the laughter of the adults, which would
grow more raucous as long summer days turned to long summer evenings.
And here, leaning against the white railing, shielding her eyes from the sun, is her mother. Jordan slides the photo out of
the frame and turns it over. Before digital cameras—and later, of course, smartphones—pushed analog photography out of the
way, Theresa used to note on the back the month and year a photo was taken after she had them printed.
August 1995. Theresa must be pregnant with Mae, and perched next to her (dangerously, Jordan thinks, but apparently they all survived) on the railing is Natalie.
Just visible behind Natalie is a sign reading please stay off the railings.
Standing next to Natalie in a navy one-piece, a signature ruffle at the neckline, is Jordan herself. (She hated that ruffle.)
Pointy elbows, pointy chin, looking out at the water. Thinking about what? She wishes she knew.
On Friday they wake to rain. Lots and lots and lots of rain. Mae, sleeping in the Green Room, wakes thinking that Jordan is
there beside her. Jordan sleeps the way she lives (self-contained, efficient, productive), and while Mae also sleeps the way
she lives (chaotically, a little bit behind), when Jordan was in the bed with her she was so careful to move as little as
possible, and enjoy the feeling of the warm body beside her. She didn’t want to jeopardize losing her bedmate.
Now she sits up and peers into Leo’s crate. He’s slumbering on his back, with his ears splayed out and his front legs bent
at the knee, one floating in the air as if tied to a string hanging from the ceiling. Soon enough he senses that Mae is awake
and he flips over, immediately alert, looking at her with his beautiful eyes. His body language says, Do you need me for something? I’m here and I’m ready!
“Hey, buddy. Top of the morning to you.” A warm feeling spreads through Mae. Is she falling in love with Leo?
Ugh, but the rain. It’s really hammering the roof.
“There’s only one solution to this,” says Jordan in the kitchen, once Mae has taken each dog out in turn, when Natalie is
holding a wriggling Caspian and staring somberly out the window.
“Down!” shouts Caspian. She obliges. Natalie notes that Jordan looks unaccountably cheerful and has since dinnertime last night. That’s classic Jordan: to cheer up just when the rest of the world becomes despondent.
“What’s the solution?” Natalie asks warily.
“Breakfast!” cries Jordan. “Let’s take the kids to The Friendly Toast!” The Friendly Toast is the all-day brunch place in
Portsmouth where chicken waffles mingle with avocado toast and steak-and-cheese sandwiches and forms of eggs Benedict you
didn’t even know existed.
“That’s not a terrible idea,” Natalie acknowledges. “Except that everyone in the Seacoast area will have had the same one.”
“Then let’s go now. Maybe everyone else on the Seacoast is sleeping in. Scarlett, Evangeline, get dressed as fast as you can.
We’re going to breakfast paradise!”
“What does that mean?” inquires Scarlett.
“Trust me,” says Jordan, beaming. She’s so chipper! What, wonders Natalie, the heck is going on?
“What about Dad and Kara?”
“You snooze, you lose,” says Jordan, shrugging, and Natalie says, “Fair.”
A big party has just left, and they are seated with menus within ten minutes of arriving: this must be some sort of record.
“Should we get cocktails?” asks Jordan. The bar menu is killer: Mimosa Flights, spicy Bloody Marys, an espresso martini that
reads like a dream. It would be sort of a shame not to take advantage of it.
“Oh my god,” says Mae. “When did you become an alcoholic, Jordan?”
Jordan shrugs. Yes, she has been drinking more than usual this week. And she hasn’t seen a Pilates reformer for days. “It’s temporary,” she says. “We’re on vacation. Come on, Mae. Drink with me! What else is there to do on a rainy beach day?”
Mae thinks about it, then says piously, “I don’t think so. I can’t afford it.” She waits to see how this news will go down
now that she’s told her sisters her situation. Caspian drops a fork on the floor, and Evangeline retrieves it. Then, yes,
here it comes: Natalie and Jordan fall all over themselves saying they’ll pay for the whole breakfast, drinks included.
“Fine,” says Mae, as though she’s doing them both a favor. “I guess one Blood Orange Aperol Mimosa won’t kill me.” Natalie
declines because she’s driving; they had to come in her car because of the car seats.
It’s time to choose the food! Jordan, to balance out her alcohol intake, wants a garden omelet; Natalie, a breakfast burrito,
plus pancakes and scrambled eggs that she will split among her kids. When it’s Mae’s turn she chews her lip, furrows her brow,
and says, “What happened to the Guy Scramble? It’s not on the menu.” The server doesn’t know about the Guy Scramble, or what
happened to it. Mae settles on the Berries and Cream Waffle, which is topped with cheesecake buttercream and powdered sugar.
“Isn’t that a toddler meal?” asks Jordan.
Mae shrugs. “I’m reverting.”
Carefully, like the question is made of glass, Natalie says, “Have you thought any more about what you plan to do, Mae? Sunday
is two days away.”
Mae shakes her head so rapidly she does in fact look a little bit like a toddler, one who’s refusing naptime.
“We’d both be happy to have you come live with us.”
“But Leo,” says Mae.
“And Dad and Kara would have you too, you know that.”
“But Leo,” says Mae again. “Kara is allergic.”
Natalie and Jordan pass a sisterly look between them, and Jordan says, “We can table that for now.” But not for long, she thinks. For, like, hours, not days.
When the food comes Natalie busies herself cutting and divvying the kids’ food, moving cups of milk out of the way of errant
elbows, positioning Evangeline next to Caspian, where she can put single, innocuous bites of pancake onto his tray one at
a time. She puts Scarlett on the other side with a pile of napkins. For a few moments, the children are completely occupied,
making a game out of feeding Caspian. The world is at peace. Around them is the hustle and bustle of the restaurant, and outside
on Congress Street it’s raining sideways, which makes them feel even cozier, especially with the bright green of the walls
and the warmth of the hanging lights.
Jordan clears her throat and says, “Today is the deadline. This is the day I’m supposed to call the reporter.”
“Oh geez!” says Natalie. “Today. What are you going to do?”
Mae says, “What reporter?”
“Didn’t I tell you?” Jordan could have sworn she’d told Mae. Didn’t she tell her the day after she told Natalie? No, wait,
that was Simone.
“Nobody ever tells me anything,” says Mae.
Jordan, making sure the kids are occupied enough that they aren’t listening, fills Mae in on the situation—she’s getting good
at it, now that she’s told it twice; she knows when to deliver a dramatic flourish and when to keep her voice calm and steady.
For the grand finale, she tells them that Simone suggested she go out on her own, and that she thinks she might do it.
They both say different versions of “Jordan, yes!” and “You have to!” And “Do it! Definitely, definitely do it!” Caspian celebrates
the news by knocking over the rest of Scarlett’s milk, and they all spend a few minutes grabbing for napkins and sopping and
wiping.
When all is calm(ish) Jordan says, “Yeah? You really think so?”
“We know so,” say her sisters, again and again. “Definitely.”
On the way back to Rye, Mae looks over Scarlett’s head out the window at the driving rain and says, “Mom would have loved
a day like this.”
Jordan’s head whips around from the front seat and she says, “What? No, she wouldn’t have. She was such a sun worshipper. She hated the rain.”
“But she loved a summer storm.”
“Not at the beach, she didn’t,” insists Jordan. “At the beach, she wanted sun.”
“Natalie? I’m right, aren’t I?” It’s very important to Mae that Natalie agrees with her.
Natalie, taking care on Sagamore Road, where the car has to drive through deep puddles that splash up against the sides, feels
a rising panic. Whose memory is correct, Jordan’s or Mae’s? “I don’t know,” she says worriedly. It scares her that she can’t
remember. There are days when she can’t call up in her mind Theresa’s voice, or her laugh, or certain expressions she thought
would be with her forever.
They merge onto Ocean Boulevard south of Petey’s. “I’m worried we’re forgetting her,” says Mae. “Are we forgetting her?” Evangeline,
who, Mae is learning, is always listening, pats Mae’s hand. It’s such an adult gesture, so full of care and understanding, that Mae’s eyes mist.
“Of course not,” says Jordan, though she feels it too: the fear, she can almost hear it, like a faraway drumbeat. What if
they are? What if they do?
Mae thinks about how she and her sisters were each spokes on Theresa’s wheel, and how they might have had a different view
of her, a different connection point, at any given time, and that’s okay, right? That’s okay. It has to be okay.