The Smart One (13 page)

Now Doug and her money problems were all in a mix in her head. She shouldn’t have started thinking about it. Lately, she tried to remember only the really annoying things about him. The way he read only nonfiction books on truly boring subjects. How when he slept he let his limbs fly everywhere, and how she was never really comfortable when she was in bed with him; how she remained still and rigid, right on the edge of sleep, tucked in the corner of the bed.

But then she remembered other things, like how he always unpacked her laundry when it was delivered, and stacked her mail on the desk. Or she remembered the time they were at a bar, drinking beer in the afternoon, watching a baseball game. The bar was pretty empty, just a few people watching the game, and one single guy on a stool at the end of the bar, wearing a knit hat and frowning at his beer and then at the TV. And Doug had leaned over and said, “Hipsters are so joyless,” and Claire had been so surprised that she’d spit her beer on the bar.

The thing was that it didn’t really matter what she thought about when she remembered Doug. Because the truth was that she would have married him if he hadn’t ended it. And that was the scariest thing of all. Because it meant either that she was stupid enough to commit to
someone who wasn’t really right for her or that she did love him and he left her and broke her heart. And honestly, sometimes she wasn’t sure which one it was.

ON THURSDAY, CLEO ASKED CLAIRE
if she wanted to go shopping on the boardwalk with her. The shops down there were full of animals made out of seashells and T-shirts that said things like
AA IS WHERE I GO TO MEET DRUNK SLUTS
, and
REHAB IS FOR QUITTERS
. But Cleo looked eager and so Claire agreed. Who knew? Maybe Cleo would find a beach cover-up that she liked.

They walked in and out of the little shops, quietly browsing through the ashtrays and postcards. Every once in a while, Cleo would hold up a T-shirt for Claire to read, and they’d both laugh.

Claire turned to examine a shelf of glass pipes, as though she were really looking to buy one. She picked up a red and brown swirled pipe, looked at it closely, and then put it back down. Cleo was watching her, probably wondering if she was a secret pothead, and Claire was just about to make a joke about it, when she heard someone calling her name.

She turned to see a girl in a jeans skirt and bikini top running toward her. “Claire!” the girl called out. “Claire, hi!” It took her a second to realize that it was Heather Foley, a girl she used to babysit for, and before she had a chance to say hello, Heather had thrown her arms around Claire’s neck and was squeezing tightly.

“I’m so happy to see you,” she said. “I didn’t even know you were here.”

The Foley family owned the house next to the Coffeys’ and had been going to the shore for as long as Claire could remember, before they even had any kids. For a couple of summers, Claire had been a mother’s helper for the family. It was a job she liked, holding the children’s hands as she walked them toward the ocean, making peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches for lunch, putting them down for naps in their stuffy summer rooms, promising that they could go back down to the beach as soon as they woke up.

Once when she was trying to get Bobby Foley ready for bed, begging
him to put his pajamas on, he’d declared, “No pajamas. I want to sleep naked like my dad does.” As soon as Bobby finished saying this, Claire looked up to see Mr. Foley standing in the doorway. He’d walked away as though he hadn’t heard anything, and Claire almost died of embarrassment. To this day, when she saw him at the shore, she always thought,
I know that you sleep naked
. It seemed too much information for her to handle, too personal for her to process.

Heather finally released her grip and Claire stepped back to look at her. “Oh my God, Heather. Look at you!” She sounded like an old person, but she couldn’t help it. Heather looked so grown-up. She’d just finished her freshman year at GW, she told Claire. She’d gained a little bit of weight in her hips and breasts and had that happy, pudgy look that freshman girls get. She was deeply tan, almost unnaturally so, like she’d been working on it all summer long.

“This is Cleo,” Claire said. “Max’s girlfriend.”

“Hi,” Heather said. Claire could tell she was trying not to stare.

“So what are you up to this summer?” Claire asked.

“I’m waitressing at the fishery. It’s so fun. There’s tons of kids working there that I know from high school and stuff.”

“That’s great,” Claire said. She was about to ask how her first year of college was, just to make sure that she sounded completely like an old lady. But she noticed that Heather was looking at something, her face getting red. Claire turned around to see a college-age guy in a bathing suit, taking huge bites out of a cheeseburger, as though it were just a little snack.

“Oh my God,” Heather said.

“Who’s that?” Claire asked.

“Bradley.” Heather was barely whispering and Claire had to lean in to hear her. “He works at the restaurant with me. We’re sort of—I don’t know.”

“Ohhh,” Claire said. She smiled. She remembered summers at the shore, running around with her friends and chasing boys. Every day exciting, not knowing who you were going to see or what was going to happen. Claire hadn’t felt like that in a long time. She hadn’t even wanted to feel like that, which was maybe more disturbing. The
thought of dating again, of getting back into that whole mess, was so tiring. But watching Heather skitter around, trying to pretend like she wasn’t watching Bradley, almost reminded Claire of why it was so fun. Almost.

When Heather was about three, she always wanted to brush Claire’s hair, which really always ended up getting it in knots. But one time, she’d sat there patiently, letting Heather run the brush back and forth so that her hair covered her face. All of a sudden, Heather had started laughing, really laughing, like she’d seen something so funny she couldn’t believe it.

“What?” Claire had asked her. She peeked out from behind her hair and saw Heather lying on her side, still laughing.

“You look like a donkey,” Heather said, and she rolled back and forth on the floor.

That was how Claire always remembered her. And now, here she was all giddy and excited about a guy, a Bradley. How had that happened?

ON FRIDAY NIGHT, THEY HAD
a Mexican feast. That’s what Weezy kept calling it, when it was really just fajitas and refried beans. She moved around the kitchen with a great sense of purpose, repeating the phrase “Mexican feast,” while Maureen sat at the counter and chopped jalapeños and Martha used the blender to make margaritas from a thick syrup, ice, and tequila.

Max and Claire set the table, and each time that Weezy said, “Mexican feast,” Max held up another finger to count. They were up to eight.

“Martha, did you tell Maureen about your job?” Weezy asked. Martha shook her head.

“What’s going on?” Maureen asked.

“It’s nothing, really. I’ve just been thinking about maybe leaving J.Crew. Maybe going back to nursing.”

“That’s great.”

“Well, it’s just an idea. I actually have to look into getting recertified and all of that. I’m not exactly sure what I need to do.” Martha looked overwhelmed just getting the words out.

“You’ll do it. We’ll figure it out. We can look it up online after dinner. I’m sure it will be no trouble.” Weezy’s peppy comments came out all in a row, and Max and Claire smiled at each other.

“You know …,” Maureen started. She held the knife in her hand and looked off in the distance, like she was trying to remember something. “I have a friend that runs a high-end caretaker business. Well, more of a friend of a friend, really. She places really smart, bright people in the homes of the elderly—the really rich elderly.”

“Really?” Martha asked.

“Yeah, and I was just thinking. That might be a nice way to ease your way back into it, you know? You could look into getting recertified, sort of reacquaint yourself with some parts of the job. And it pays pretty well.”

“That sounds interesting,” Weezy said. She looked so hopeful that Claire wanted to smack her. Weezy couldn’t hide how badly she wanted things to go well for Martha, all the time. “Don’t you think that sounds interesting?”

“Maybe,” Martha said. “Of course, the work I did as a nurse is totally different than a caretaker.”

“Oh, of course. We know that. But just like Maureen said, it would be a good way to ease your way back in.” Weezy was holding her hands together and staring at Martha.

“Okay, well, I’ll think about it.”

“I’ll get you in touch with the woman when we get back,” Maureen said. Martha nodded.

Weezy practically danced the fajitas to the table. She made a big deal of sipping her margarita and proclaiming it delicious. They all sat down and began assembling their fajitas. Max took three right away and piled on every topping there was, while Weezy repeated the conversation about Martha’s possible new job to Will, who had been upstairs while it happened.

“It’s very exciting,” Weezy said. “It just sounds great.”

They’d be talking about this all week. Whenever Martha did anything—got a raise, had a fight with a coworker, folded a shirt at her job—they all talked about it like it was the most interesting thing
in the world, like she had done something so fantastic they couldn’t believe it.

“Max, when do classes start?” Claire asked. She wanted to change the subject.

Max looked up from the huge fajita he was about to put in his mouth. “Um, next week. I have only four classes, though, so I don’t have anything until Wednesday.”

“How can you have only four classes?” Martha asked.

“Got ’em all done,” Max said. He smiled and shoved the fajita in his mouth.

“I had full semesters all through college,” Martha said. She was looking at Cleo, who was the only one polite enough to listen. “Nursing is tough, I’ll tell you that much.”

Max put his hand on Cleo’s thigh, which was bare, since she was of course still in her bikini. Claire wondered if her dad still felt uncomfortable eating with a half-naked stranger, or if he was getting used to it.

“What’s your major, Cleo?” Martha asked.

“Economics and French,” she said.

“That’s an interesting combination,” Weezy said. “I wouldn’t have thought those two go together.”

“They don’t, really.” Cleo laughed a little. “I wanted to study French, but my mother told me it was a waste of time and that I had to pick something in the business school. But I figured out I could do both if I took some summer classes and a couple extra here and there. I just love my French classes.”

“That’s great,” Weezy said.

“See?” Max said. “Cleo balances me out with her classes.”

“That’s just how Martha was with her nursing classes,” Weezy said. “She always had a mind for medicine, always got A’s in her science classes.”

“So did I,” Claire said. “I always got A’s in science too.”

Weezy turned to look at her and gave her a small nod and a little smile. Claire knew she shouldn’t let it bother her, the way her parents talked about Martha’s success in school, but it did. It was like they
thought if they focused enough on how smart Martha was, no one—maybe not even Martha herself—would notice that she didn’t have any social skills; like if they talked about it enough, they could make up for everything else. It was just that in the process, they made it sound like Claire and Max were dumber than dirt.

“Martha, do you like the fajitas?” Weezy asked. Max and Claire laughed. “What?” she asked.

“Of course she likes the fajitas,” Claire said. “It’s her favorite meal. Isn’t that why we had them in the first place?”

“Everyone likes fajitas,” Weezy said. “You all like them.” She sounded defensive.

“I wish Cathy and Ruth and Drew were here,” Martha said. She looked at Maureen and smiled.

“Me too,” Maureen said.

“We all do,” Weezy said. “Hopefully they’ll be able to make it next year.”

Claire wasn’t all that upset about Cathy’s not being there. They got along fine now that they were adults, but when they were kids, Cathy used to love teasing Claire, finding any reason to leave her out of a game or trick her into eating sand.

One summer Cathy had repeatedly called Claire a virgin, and Claire—assuming it had something to do with being Jesus’s mother and sure that it didn’t apply to her—had yelled back, “I am not! I am not a virgin!” They were all on the crowded beach, and Claire had yelled this over and over, until finally Weezy came over and told her to stop, then leaned down to explain in a quiet voice what that word meant. Claire only partly understood what Weezy was saying to her, but she knew enough to be mortified. She thought she was going to die right there on the beach.

That’s still how she remembered Cathy, even now, all grown up. Claire thought of her as that girl who loved to make her cry, who took so much pleasure in bossing other people around.

“We should go to Atlantic City tonight,” Max said. He looked at Claire. “Come on, let’s do it. I’m finally legal to gamble.” Cleo perked up and looked at Claire for her answer. She was probably dying to get
out of the house. If family time was hard when it was your own family, it had to be twice as hard when you were the girlfriend.

Claire was tired from the sun, the talk of Martha, and the whole week. She’d been planning to go sit on the porch after dinner and read. She was trying to think of a way to let them down gently, when Martha said, “I’m in, let’s go!”

Max let out a whoop and Weezy laughed. “Blackjack,” he said. “We can play blackjack. I’ve gotten really good.”

“You’re gonna go?” Claire asked Martha.

“Yeah, I’ll even drive. I barely touched my margarita.”

Claire was trapped. She couldn’t say no now that even Martha was going. “Let’s do it,” she said. She figured it couldn’t hurt. Who knew? Maybe she’d win big, hit the jackpot, and be able to pay her rent next month and put off telling her parents and moving home for another month or so.

Cleo was laughing and clapped her hands like she was a child. “Just give me a minute to change,” she said, and ran out of the room. Well, at least she wouldn’t be wearing her bikini to the casino. That was a plus.