Chapter Four
MILLY
The following week Milly arrived at The Island Club with Debbie and Jack in tow.
You just never knew how a seven- and four-year-old might behave, but Sylvia had insisted that Milly bring the kids and that the ladies would have lunch and afternoon drinks poolside while the children splashed in the water.
“Jack, Debbie,” Milly said, grabbing their hands as soon as they caught a glimpse of the turquoise pool ahead and tried to make a run for it.
“We are guests here, and this club belongs to Mommy’s new friend, Sylvia,” she said.
“Please be on your best behavior.” They lunged forward.
“Did you hear me?” she said, halting them again.
“Yes, Mommy,” Debbie said. “We’ll behave.”
“Keep an eye on your brother, and stay in the wading pool.” Milly looked to Jack as if expecting him to respond to her reasoning.
“Swimming pool,” he said, pointing. “I want to go to the swimming pool.”
“I know, darling, but just hold on a moment.” She opened her large straw bag and pulled out a swim buoy that she’d bought from a store in town.
Now that they lived near the beach and close to a swimming pool, she needed to travel with inflatable lifesaving devices.
“Let me just try to inflate this thing.” She ripped it out of the packaging, turned it around, looking for the air valve as quickly as she could, knowing that she had mere seconds before the children would run off again.
Jack was hopping back and forth from one foot to the other.
“Do you need to use the bathroom?” she asked.
“No! I want to go to the pool!”
Milly blew hard into the buoy several times and strapped the thing around Jack’s tummy. Standing up too fast, she felt dizzy and lightheaded.
“Mommy,” Jack said, pulling at the pocket of her capri pants.
“One second, sweetheart.” She placed her hand on the back of a chair to steady herself.
“Mommy,” Jack said, tugging at the fabric harder each time. “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!”
“What, Jack?” she snapped, bending down to his level.
“Mommy, I love you,” he said, wrapping his arms around her neck, then kissing her bare shoulder. Then he took Debbie’s hand and the two kids started off.
“Let’s go,” Debbie said as they ran full speed toward the pool.
Milly took a moment to compose herself, regretting her impatience just minutes into what she expected would be a long afternoon.
She adjusted the waistband of her capris, pulling it back to her natural waistline, and smoothed down the pocket that Jack had been tugging on.
Shoving the packaging of the swim buoy into the depths of her straw bag, she walked toward the group of women sitting at a long table in the shade near the pool.
She sighed with relief as she saw several other children playing in the shallow pool and a teenage lifeguard keeping watch over them.
Sylvia sat at the head of the table in a pastel-pink horizontal-striped dress. Everyone else seemed to be equally dressed up, and Milly instantly regretted her choice of cropped trousers and a sleeveless shirt that tied at the waist.
“Sorry, Sylvia,” she said in a low voice. “I thought it would be more casual since we were poolside, I didn’t realize…”
“Nonsense,” she said, “You are the picture of poolside elegance. Here, take a seat.” She pulled out the one next to her and began to introduce Milly to the women at the table—Betsy, Faye, Maureen, Joan, and Sadie.
“Milly here has just moved to Balboa from Los Angeles. She lives on Amethyst, and I’m trying to convince her to join the club,” Sylvia said.
“I don’t think it will take much convincing,” Milly said. “It’s beautiful here.”
“Your Lloyd would love it.”
He sure would, Milly thought. This was exactly the kind of wholesome family environment they so desperately needed.
“So,” Sylvia asked the ladies, “what’s everyone planning for Bal Week? It’s right around the corner.”
“We’re leaving town, going to stay at my in-laws for the week,” Maureen said. “I don’t mind it, but my husband can’t stand being here for all that craziness.”
“We’re renting out our two guest rooms to some girls from Manual Arts High School,” Betsy said. “We always get lovely girls from there.”
“How about you, Milly?” Sylvia asked. “Any plans?”
Milly laughed nervously. “I’m sorry I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh gosh, haven’t you seen the preparations already taking place?” Maureen asked. “How can you miss it? They remove the benches from the sidewalks to accommodate the crowds. It’s a madhouse.”
Milly felt embarrassed, as if she’d been so wrapped up in her own little world that she hadn’t noticed any of this going on around her.
“Bal Week,” Sylvia said. “Short for Balboa Week. Every year just before Easter, high school and college kids descend on the island and the peninsula for spring break. They rent out rooms, houses, guest cottages. They go to the Rendezvous Ballroom every night for live music and dancing, and they take over the beaches and the Fun Zone. The men, or rather the boys, cruise up and down the streets in their cars eyeing the girls in their swimsuits. It’s a little annoying for those of us who live here, but the amount of money it brings in to the area is immense.
It’s a shot in the arm for the local businesses, so we all try to help out, open up our homes, and suffer through it. ”
“Sounds fun … and hectic,” Milly said.
“You might want to let your husband know,” Sadie said from the other end of the table. “Most husbands can’t stand it and want to stay away.”
“And others want to stay and ogle the goods for themselves,” Maureen said, and everyone, except for Milly, laughed.
“So true,” Sadie said. “Funny how all the husbands come back in time to watch the Bathing Beauty Contest at the end of the week.”
“I heard Delores Mason is entering this year, Maggie’s daughter,” Maureen said, then she turned to Milly. “Maggie and her husband own the pharmacy. Her daughter’s been dying to enter for years—such a pretty girl—and she’s finally old enough.”
“Goodness,” Sylvia said. “I just know my Judith will want to enter once she turns sixteen. Already she and her friends want be part of all the fun, so I’m going to have to keep an eye on her.”
“Oh, Sylvia, I’ve been dying to ask,” Faye said, leaning in.
“What are you doing with your house? I walked in on Teddy and Walter discussing it quite seriously.” Faye turned to Milly.
“My husband Teddy works in real estate.” Then she turned back to Sylvia.
“At first I thought they were talking about putting it up for sale.” She laughed.
“And then I thought, goodness no, not Sylvia’s house!
Where would we all play bridge? Are you considering renting it out for Bal Week? ”
Milly noticed a look of confusion on her new friend’s face and a flush of color rise in her cheeks, but then Sylvia swatted the comment away.
“No, you’re mistaken; I would never allow my Walter to rent out our house for Bal Week.
Besides, we have to stick around to put on the Bathing Beauty Contest.” She smiled a little too enthusiastically, then she stood and waved down the waiter. “Ready for lunch, ladies?”
As the afternoon rolled on, the children played together in the pool, the older ones helping the little ones, taking a short break for hot dogs from the snack bar, then jumping back in again, while the adults ate seafood salad and sipped iced tea.
Milly could already sense how she might really enjoy it here, having a group of female friends.
It was something she missed from her college days, which she hadn’t really cultivated since she’d married.
At Sylvia’s suggestion the ladies skipped dessert and opted for a round of Tom Collinses.
They were just being delivered on a large silver tray when one of the kids from the pool screamed at the top of her lungs.
Milly leapt from her seat and was poolside in seconds, setting her eyes on Debbie and Jack, then counting the other children, eight of them, all hugging the edge of the pool.
The red-suited “lifeguard” was up by the snack bar, beside a young man and dangling a french fry above her mouth.
“What’s the problem?” Maureen asked as others from the table joined them at the kiddie pool.
“Somebody did a boom-boom,” a little girl screeched.
“What?” Milly asked.
“A poop,” the girl said, pointing to the center of the pool that was filled with pink-and-blue-striped inflatable toys, and, sure enough, a small brown lump was floating on the surface of the water.
“Eww, a poo-poo,” another little boy chimed in.
“For goodness’ sake,” Sylvia snapped. She was standing at Milly’s side now and sounded furious. This was her husband’s pool, after all. “Emily!” she called toward the snack bar. “Get over here!” But the girl seemed in no rush to help out. “Who did this?”
When all eyes turned to Jack, and Milly saw him sink his chin to his chest and start to cry, she thought she might begin to cry herself. Of all the things that she imagined might go wrong that afternoon, she hadn’t dreamed it would be something as awful as this.
“Jack, Debbie, out right now,” Milly said as she searched the area for something she could use to get the offending thing out of the water.
She reached down and grabbed the end of a pool toy that she thought she might be able to use to get the thing to float toward her, but it was no good.
She might actually have to get into the pool to retrieve the thing herself.