19 Gin and Tonics
Gin and Tonics
Iinvited that nice woman who brought the kids home to stop by for drinks tomorrow with her husband,” Forrest told us. We were all out on the boat, taking in the sunset. Even Regina had come, which was unusual.
“You could have checked with me first,” she said.
He had his hands on the steering wheel of the Chris-Craft. But he took one off just long enough to pat her leg. “You’re right, darling,” he said. “Sometimes I’m an idiot. I just thought it would be fun to make new friends.”
No comment from Regina.
The Barnetts showed up a little after five o’clock the next afternoon. Forrest had the gin and tonics ready. G&T’s, he called them. Before that summer, the only alcoholic drink I knew was vodka. That and beer. Though in the weeks I’d spent at Wonderland, I’d learned about others.
Brenda Barnett had the kind of hair you might expect to see in a shampoo commercial.
The day I met her, I thought she was beautiful, though on closer examination, a lot of this had to do with makeup.
Her skin was unusually white, and she wore a great deal of foundation.
Regina’s skin was not so much white as pale, almost gray.
“Sunscreen is my religion,” Brenda told Regina, not that Regina had said anything about her complexion.
“Good for you,” Regina said. I knew how much she’d been dreading this event.
“I love your dress,” Brenda added. This was the moment I knew not to trust a word Brenda Barnett ever spoke from that day forward.
She couldn’t possibly have meant what she just said.
Regina’s dress was awful, not to mention unflattering—a sort of floaty tent dress you’d think a person would choose because they were fat, though in Regina’s case the opposite applied.
Maybe she hoped it would make her look less scrawny, but it didn’t.
This as opposed to Brenda’s dress, which wouldn’t have seemed all that distinctive on anybody else, but which allowed her to accentuate more of her breasts than most of the mothers I’d observed at the club did.
All of them, in fact. Then again, I’d been right about this part: Brenda wasn’t a mother.
The couples made their way into the living room, facing the French doors that opened onto the lake. The children were installed in the den, watching a video, as usual. I headed to the kitchen to retrieve the platter of cheese and crackers Prudence had prepared, while Forrest poured the drinks.
The four of them gathered on the patio. I floated between worlds: the den, where the children were glued to their video and calling for refills on the chips, and outside, taking in the late afternoon sun over the lake with the adults—Brenda looking ridiculous in a New Jersey Devils cap she’d borrowed from Forrest to protect her skin.
I could tell she thought she looked adorable in it.
Passing the tray of appetizers, I mostly just listened, my eyes returning to Forrest more than any of the others—his calf muscles, the hair on his chest just barely showing under his shirt, unbuttoned partway.
At one point Hayward passed by the French doors on his way to get another soda.
As he walked by me, he whispered, “Va-va-voom,” under his breath. I ignored him.
Brenda offered the opinion that the cheese—cheddar from the local market, nothing special—was amazing. “I try not to eat dairy,” she said. “But sometimes I can’t resist.”
“It doesn’t look like you’ve got a problem,” Forrest told her. Eyes on her cleavage.
An odd little smile flashed across Regina’s face. Not one to smile often, she did this now less with an expression of pleasure than with wry amusement. She looked like a person who’s been on this train before and knows where it’s heading.
Forrest’s eyes remained fixed on Brenda.
This was a different gaze from the one with which he looked at Regina as she instructed him on the correct method for barbecuing salmon or the one with which he looked at me when he asked me about school or friends or the music I listened to or my views on the existence of God.
The way he looked at Brenda was more like how a dog gets when you take a steak out of the refrigerator and set it next to the grill.
Kyle Barnett seemed oblivious. He was studying the Red Sox game through the window, soundless on the big-screen TV. But Regina hadn’t missed a thing.
“I hate to be rude, but I’m not feeling so well. I need to go lie down,” she said. “Don’t let me break up the party.” She rose slowly from her chair and headed toward the stairs.
The Red Sox must have scored a run just then. From where he sat, Kyle Barnett let out a celebratory yelp.
“I’ll help you clear away the dishes,” Brenda told Forrest. Under normal circumstances, with Prudence off, this would have been my job, but the two of them disappeared into the kitchen.
In the TV room, I heard the children arguing about who got to choose the next show. I figured I’d better check on them.
The voices of Forrest and Brenda were still coming from the kitchen. I couldn’t make out what Forrest was saying, but whatever it was, an annoying machine gun sound followed from Brenda. Her version of laughter.
Then silence, and all I heard was the sound of the ball game.
A few minutes later, the Barnetts were gathering their things—Brenda’s summer wrap, a bottle of whiskey Kyle had brought over and seemed to feel entitled to bring home with him.
(Even I understood this wasn’t how it worked at Lake Catherine.)
I went to the kitchen to finish loading the dishwasher.
I could make out Brenda’s voice as she stood in the doorway, gushing over something else.
(The doormat maybe. Or the light fixture?
The crackers?) “We have to do this again sometime,” she said.
“Tell Regina I hope she feels better soon.” Then they were gone.
There seemed to be nothing so unusual in any of it. Except for the look I’d seen on Forrest’s face. As little as I understood about life at that point, it struck me that Regina may have been well acquainted with that one.