Life's a Beach (21 page)

“Is
couplehood
a word?” I asked.

“Seth and I used to celebrate our anniversary every month before we had kids,” Geri said. “Now I’m lucky if he throws me a dozen roses once a year on the way out to soccer practice.”

I put the car into drive again and rolled forward another few inches. “So,” I said. “Any fun new ideas for your fiftieth?”

Geri tilted her head back and looked up at the ceiling of the rental car through her sunglasses. “One minute you think you have it all figured out . . .”

“Well,” I said. “Will you look at that. We’re next.”

Geri kept looking at the ceiling, and eventually the car in front of us was finished, and the green light at the entrance to the car wash bay came on. I put the car back into drive and rolled slowly in until the exit light turned red and started flashing
STOP
.

Geri waited until the machine covered the car with suds and we lost sight of the brownie poop. The car was rocking a little to the rhythm of the wash. She took off her sunglasses and whispered something that almost sounded like, “I got fired.”

“What?” I said. The
HIGH POWERED RINSE
sign had just started flashing, and it was really loud in the car.

“I said I got fired!” she yelled. I looked at her. She had really dark bags under her puffy red eyes. The sunglasses had been a good call.

“You?” I yelled. “I don’t believe it. Why would they fire you?”

“Restructuring,” she yelled. “Do you know how many people I got rid of by saying we were restructuring?”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you get rid of them?”

“Because they weren’t doing their jobs,” she yelled. Then she lowered her voice. “Fifteen freakin’ years,” she said.

I was at a loss. My sister never used words like that. “Did you tell them it’s almost your birthday?” I tried. “Maybe they’ll reconsider.”

“Do you know what the worst part of it was?” she yelled.

“What?” I yelled.

“They took my BlackBerry. And canceled the service. It was the only freakin’ perk I ever freakin’ had.”

Geri started to scream, loud and long. She was scaring me, but I didn’t know what else to do, so I joined in and we both just kept screaming and screaming and screaming.

When the light turned green again, we stopped. Geri fluffed up her hair and reached around in her bag for some lipstick. “Wow,” she said. “That was great. I feel like a new person. I almost wish I smoked so I could have a cigarette.”

I held out my hand for her lipstick. “You can’t smoke. You’re too perfect.”

“Not anymore,” she said. Her lower lip started to quiver.

I reached past the steering wheel to hug her. “Don’t cry. You never cry.”

She put her head on my shoulder. She was definitely crying. The car behind us beeped. “Sorry,” I said to both the driver and my sister.

I put the car into drive long enough to pull into a parking lot next door. Geri was still crying. “Come on,” I said. “Big deal. So you got fired. Everybody gets fired.”

“Not me.”

I sat. She sobbed. Occasionally, I reached over and patted her on the back. Twice I handed her a tissue. I wasn’t very good at this, but I was doing the best I could. The thing was, as annoying as she could be, my sister had always been there for me. I was born into her safety net, and even though I’d been trying to climb out of it since I could crawl, it had always been a soft place to fall. Or borrow money. Or makeup. Or clothes. For more than forty-one years, she almost always let me be the baby and hadn’t really asked for much in return. I owed her.

Finally, my sister blew her nose and took a long, ragged breath. “And the day after tomorrow I turn fifty,” she whispered. “That’s why they fired me, you know.”

“They can’t do that. That’s age discrimination. I think we should sue.”

Geri blew out a puff of air and sounded almost like my sister again. “No, not because I was turning fifty.” She shook her head. “Because I might have been a tiny bit obsessed with turning fifty.”

It slipped out before I thought it through. “Ya think?”

She reached up and tilted the rearview mirror toward her. “Why didn’t you tell me my eyes looked like this?”

I got my focus back. “You look fine,” I lied.

She lifted her head to get another angle. “How did I get this old? You know, I can see it already. I’m going to get one of those saggy necks like a turtle. Who would hire someone with a turtle neck?”

“I think it’s called a turkey neck. Grampa used to have one, remember?”

“Great.” Geri started counting off on her fingers. “I’m about to turn fifty. I don’t have a job. My husband never looks at me anymore. I have a pre-turkey neck.” Geri sighed dramatically. “You don’t know how lucky you are, your whole life stretched out in front of you.”

When she buried her head in her hands, she looked a little bit like Manny, which probably meant she’d been wallowing long enough. I looked at my watch. “Wow, do you know how long we’ve been gone? Riley’s going to wonder what happened to us.”

Geri’s lower lip started going again. “See,” she sobbed, “I’m not even a good mother anymore.”

“You’re a great mom,” I said. I patted her shoulder.

She found a tissue and blew her nose. “You’re a great aunt. The best, really.”

“Well,” I said. “The good thing is, now I definitely know I’m never having kids. They really turn on you fast, don’t they?”

“That was nothing,” she said. “You’ve got the easy one. Try living with Rachel and Becca sometime. Especially now that Riley’s here and they’re not.”

“COME WITH ME,”
I said after we checked on Riley. “I just have to return this.” I was hoping I could tiptoe into the electrical trailer, drop off the drill and the goggles, and then fade into the background somewhere. Tim Kelly had a busy life. He probably wouldn’t even notice I was gone.

We walked along the row of trailers in the parking lot until I found the right one. I tiptoed up the steps and put the drill and goggles down on the first shelf I came to. I thought about leaving a short note, but what would I say?
Dear Tim, Thanks for letting me borrow the drill. It worked great. P.S. About that kiss . . .

I ran back down the trailer steps. Tim Kelly and Geri looked up. “So,” Geri said. “It’s about time I got to meet your gaffer.”

“Your sister looks just like you,” Tim Kelly said. “Does this mean you can go out tonight?”

“Oh, thanks,” I said. “That’s so nice of you. But my sister just got here.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Geri said. “She’d love to.”

“Great,” Tim Kelly said. “How about an hour after we wrap for the day? I just need time for a quick shower.”

“Perfect,” Geri said.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll meet you in the lobby, Ginger.” Tim Kelly held out his hand to my sister. “Nice meeting you, Geri.”

23

I WAITED UNTIL TIM KELLY WAS OUT OF EARSHOT.
“I can’t believe you did that,” I said. “And you accused me of acting like I was Riley’s mother? News flash: You’re not
my
mother. Or my pimp, for that matter.”

“Oh, please. Like I’ll ever make any money on you.”

We left the parking lot and stepped onto the sand. “I can’t believe you interfered in my personal life like that. It’s not your business.”

“You should go out with him. He’s a nice guy.”

“Oh, right. You know him so well. What did you talk to him for, thirty seconds?”

“He’s really cute. Great eyes.”

I bent down and picked up a piece of sea glass. “So, why don’t you go out with him then? Maybe Noah and I can double with you or something.”

“Oh, sure. Like Noah would go on a real date.”

I stood up again and started walking. Fast.

Geri caught up with me and grabbed my arm. “Guess what? I decided what I want to do for my birthday.”

I hoped it wasn’t going to involve any more crying. This nurturing stuff was really exhausting. “What?”

She slid her sunglasses down her nose and looked over them. “Do you think they’d let me be an extra if you tell them it’s almost my birthday?”

“Geri, over here,” Allison Flagg yelled. She patted the picnic table she and her groupies had taken over. “Sit with us.”

She’d been here for mere minutes and already my sister was Miss Popularity.

“Come on,” Geri said. She put her arm around me and brought me into the group the way she sometimes used to when her high school friends were over and I didn’t have anybody to play with.

We sat down and everybody who hadn’t bothered introducing themselves to me earlier introduced themselves. Geri was twiddling her thumbs, I noticed. It seemed like a clear case of CrackBerry withdrawal. Maybe I’d have to get her a pair of knitting needles and some yarn for her birthday.

“So,” Geri said. “Ginger’s going to try to get me on as an extra for my fiftieth birthday.”

“Good luck,” one of the women said.

“What do you mean?” Geri asked.

“Everybody wants to be an extra,” she said.

Allison Flagg reached down and plucked a stray piece of beach grass. “Little sister might be able to make it happen. That gaffer can’t get enough of her.”

“I know what I’ll do,” I said, just to get out of there. “I’ll go ask Manny. I bet he’d do anything for Riley’s mom.”

“Shh,” Allison Flagg said. “They’re starting.”

“Quiet,” somebody was saying as I sat on the sand and casually started to slide my way down to Manny. I passed the high tide line, where there was a pretty good assortment of sea glass tucked in with the patches of broken shells and seaweed. I picked up some really teeny pieces, so small I hoped they wouldn’t get lost in my pocket. Maybe I could find a way to collage them all together and make a pin, kind of like the button pin I’d seen at Sand, Sea and Sky, but beachy.

Manny pushed himself out of his chair and adjusted his baseball cap. “Okay,” he yelled down to Riley, “when I say action, you’re going to look down and see what’s left of your arm for the first time.”

Riley nodded. “What am I feeling?” he asked.

“Goddamn method actors,” one of the people in the chairs whispered, and the people in the other chairs laughed quietly.

Manny ignored them and took a couple of steps toward Riley. “Shock, horror, revulsion, and then maybe it deepens to just a touch of morbid fascination.”

“Cool,” Riley said.

“Marker,” somebody said.

“Rolling,” somebody else said.

“Action,” Manny Muscadel said.

Everybody watched in silence as Riley looked down at his fake arm and his eyes widened in horror. “Cut,” Manny said. “Print. Let’s do one more just to be sure we’ve got it.”

Manny walked back and stood next to me. “He’s amazing,” he said. “You just see the kid. You don’t see the actor at all.”

I looked up at Manny from my seat on the sand. I wasn’t sure what to say. “Do you think it’s because he’s not an actor?”

Manny looked down at me for a long moment. “That’s a really good point,” he finally said.

This was my opportunity. I widened my own eyes, going for pleading and hard-to-say-no-to. “Sorry to bother you, but Riley would really like it if his mother could be an extra. For her fiftieth birthday. You know, he hasn’t had a lot of time to shop, what with the movie and everything. It could be sort of like a birthday present?”

“Fine,” he said. “Tell the background guy I said it was okay.”

I couldn’t stop myself. “Me, too?” I asked.

“It never ends,” he said. I waited for him to bury his head in his hands, but he resisted. “All right. Just keep an eye out for my mother while you’re at it, will you? Make sure she doesn’t get trampled or anything.”

“Will do,” I said. I looked over at my sister and gave her a big thumbs-up.

WE FOUND THE EXTRAS GUY
after lunch. He wasn’t overly receptive. “Isn’t that just dandy,” he said as he walked back and forth with his clipboard at breakneck speed. “Good thing I always save a few slots so nobody gets left out on their birthday. Jesus. I gotta tell you, Manny Muscadel is going to be shooting wedding videos when this is over.”

“Throw in a cake and some pony rides and you could probably have a sweet little side business,” I suggested. It was actually not a bad idea. I had to remind myself to stay focused on my sea glass. And my sister.

The extras guy unhooked his walkie-talkie from his belt loop. “Don’t start,” he said. “And don’t make me regret this. We’ve got the background holding set up over there. Act like you know what you’re doing.”

“Now?” Allison Flagg asked. She was standing beside my sister, practically holding her hand. “Don’t we get to go to makeup first?”

“What are
you
doing here?” I whispered.

“Geri said I could come,” she whispered back. “It’s
her
birthday present.”

“I don’t have to wear a bathing suit, do I?” Geri asked the extras guy.

He conked himself on the head with the clipboard. “Of course not, honey. Wear your favorite snowsuit. You’ll fit right in.” He turned and race-walked off.