Lost

www.mirabooks.co.uk

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to Sandra Aitken and Peggy Ruggieri, two
of the best gown-makers in the known universe,
for helping Jane Garner establish her business.

Kids Like Balloons

R
icky Lang dreams of his three children. Sometimes they are dressed in white cotton nightshirts emblazoned with cartoons from the Magic Kingdom. Goofy and Mickey and various ducks. Sometimes the children appear to be wearing garments made of light, glowing with an intensity that makes his eyes hurt. Sometimes the two girls float above the ground, grinning like mischievous angels while his son, four-year-old Tyler, tugs at his sisters as if they are wayward balloons. Making a game of pulling them down.

Sleeping or waking, it does not matter, he dreams of the children. For instance at this very moment he’s wide-awake, lounging in the hot, hushed shade of his tiki hut, staring at the glistening blue water in his brand-new swimming pool. Sipping on a tall iced tea and wondering why the water looks like Ty-D-bowl, the same bright color, and all the while his three children stand in a row on the far side of the pool. Dressed in their bathing suits, of course. All three of them waiting for his signal. His permission to enter the water. Waiting so patiently.

The children can’t be there, he knows that.

“Myla!” he bellows. “Get out here!”

Myla hurries out of the house. Slim brown legs, wears little white shorts low on her slender hips and a Victoria’s Secret cami top he purchased online. She’s barefoot, balancing a tray laden with sandwiches and salsa chips.

They’ve been together for two months, more or less, and she wants to please him. Nothing pleases Ricky, but she keeps trying.

“Hurry up, woman!”

Myla is barely twenty, has little experience with powerful men. Her big eyes always register a little fear at the sound of his voice, which is just the way he likes it.

“Never mind the food,” he says. “Hit the pool.”

“Pool?”

“Swim,” Ricky says. “In the water.”

“We’re going to swim?” asks Myla, confused. A few minutes ago he was demanding lunch at ten in the morning, not exactly lunchtime.

“Not me. You. Go change.”

Myla carefully sets down the tray. Smiles at Ricky and then licks a tiny daub of mayonnaise from the side of her hand, delicately, like a cat tonguing its pretty paw. “What should I wear?”

“Whatever,” Ricky says. “Use the cabana. Hurry.”

Without a word, Myla hurries away, heading for the striped cabana. She looks pleased and hopeful, as if of the true belief that obeying his command, this particular command, will make him happy.

Ricky stares at the plate of sandwiches. Normally he’s a man of vast appetites, but not this morning. The faintly salty odor of albacore tuna and finely chopped celery makes him feel slightly queasy.

“Myla!”

“Coming, Ricky!”

A few minutes later she emerges from the cabana wearing the latest itsy-bitsy-teeny bikini. Juicy, that’s what it says on her butt, in big white letters. Ricky likes the idea that he gets to read her ass—that’s why he selected this particular item—but at the moment sex is the furthest thing from his mind. Normally he can’t be around Myla for ten minutes without getting the urge, but today he has other things rattling around inside his head.

Myla executes a lithe pirouette, showing off her new swimsuit.

“You like?”

“Yeah, baby. Get in the pool. Swim.”

Myla lowers herself to the edge of the swimming pool, gingerly, because the tiles are hot. She’s not much of a swimmer, and this is how she enters the pool, by slipping cautiously into the chemical-blue water, no splashing. Ricky likes to dive, belly flop, get things wet. Not Myla.

Very careful girl. Ricky isn’t sure if he really likes careful, not for the long term, but for the moment she’ll do.

“Go on,” he urges. “Swim.”

She smiles, bright and nervous, and then begins to dog-paddle. Carefully, so as not to wet her hair. Ricky waits until she’s halfway through the first lap before checking to see if the children have gone.

He sighs. The muscles in his shoulders and his gut unclench.

“Like this, Ricky?” Myla calls from the pool.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says. “Good.”

It worked. Myla pushed his children back into the dream. Wherever dreams are supposed to go when you’re awake, that’s where the children went. Which is good, because seeing them there all in a row, ready to jump in the pool at his command, it made him want to scream.

He picks up a triangle of sandwich, eats. Delicious. The sense of relief pervades every fiber of his body. He begins to think clearly, and among the thoughts is the nugget of a plan. A plan of action. Something that must be done. Something long overdue.

After a while Myla calls out from the pool. “Ricky? Can I stop now, Ricky?”

“Nah,” he says, not looking. “Keep swimming.”

Part I
Island Girls

1. The Girl On The Crotch Rocket

It all starts to go wrong one perfect, early summer evening on the Hempstead Turnpike. That’s when something pulls on the secret thread that holds my life together, and starts the great unraveling.

I don’t know it at the time, of course. I think all is well, that I’m holding things together, as always. Okay, Kelly and I have been fighting a lot lately, but that’s what happens with teenagers, right? All I have to do is stick to my guns, keep on being an involved parent, paying attention to my willful daughter, and everything will come out fine. Right?

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Normally I try to avoid the turnpike at peak traffic hours, but this time there’d been no choice. Mrs. Haley Tanner wanted a third fitting for the wedding party, and when Haley calls, you drop whatever and respond. She and her new husband are hosting her stepdaughter’s very lavish wedding—nine tents, two bands, three caterers—at their Oyster Bay estate, and she’s worried the bridesmaids may have put on a pound or two. Despite her obnoxious habit of summoning people at the very last possible moment, Haley is actually sort
of likable, in a nervous, insecure, please-help-me way. So worried she’s going to do the wrong thing, make a mistake, and demonstrate to Stanley J. Tanner that he chose the wrong trophy wife. Turns out she’s his second trophy wife. Stanley, CEO of Tanner Holdings, ditched the original trophy wife not long after Haley served him broiled cashew halibut at Scalicious, a trendy little fish café in Montauk. At the time Haley was “staying with friends” while she waited tables, which meant she was paying two hundred a week to sleep on the floor. So nabbing Stanley Tanner was a very big deal. Haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Tanner in person myself—he seems to live in his Lear—but just looking at Haley, you know he’s a breast man. Which is fine. A man has to focus on something, right? Why not something that reminds him, however unconsciously, of his mother? As my friend Fern always says, what’s the harm?

Anyhow, poor Haley was melting down about the gowns not fitting and had summoned all five bridesmaids. Turns out two of them had actually lost weight and the very slight alterations were, to everyone’s relief, no problem. An hour later I’m thinking, as traffic inches along, that for all that money I wouldn’t trade places with Haley Tanner. I’d rather work my butt off as a single mom with a mortgage. Don’t get me wrong, it’s gorgeous, the newest Tanner mansion, tastefully furnished—one of five homes they own, by the way—but Haley never seems to have an unnervous moment or a peaceful thought. And no children, not yet. Maybe never, unless Stanley gets DNA approval.

Second trophy wives aren’t about kids, they’re about decorating.

Nope, I’ll stay plain Jane Garner, Kelly’s mom, the wedding lady. The go-to woman for custom gowns. The one driving
the very nicely detailed, seven-year-old Mercedes station wagon. Classy but reasonably priced, if you let the first owner take the depreciation. Anyhow, I’m cool with being a working mom who balances her own checkbook, who is socking college money away for her daughter, and who thinks she has, at this precise moment, no regrets, no regrets at all.

Lying to myself, of course. Lying big-time. I’ve been lying for sixteen years, not that I’m counting.

Thing about living a lie, if you do it really well, you sort of forget you’re lying.

I forgot.

That’s when the crotch rocket went by, scudding dirt and pebbles in the brake-down lane. Actually beyond the brake-down lane, right up on the grass. I know it’s the type of sleek Japanese motorcycle called a “crotch rocket” because Kelly told me. Pointed one out as it shot by us in, where was it, somewhere around Greenwich? Greenwich or Westport, one of those towns.
See how they bend low over the fuel tank, Mom? That’s to reduce air resistance.
And how did my darling daughter know this, exactly?
Everybody knows, Mom.
That’s her answer lately. Everybody always knows but you, Mom.

It’s not like I’m ancient. I’m thirty-four. Kelly thinks I’m thirty-four going on fifty or sixty. Which drives me nuts, but there it is.

What catches my eye isn’t the motorcycle—motorcycles cut and weave through traffic all the time—it’s the girl on the back, barely hanging on. One hand clutching the waist of the slim-hipped driver, the other hand waving like she’s riding a bucking bronco in the rodeo, showing off her balance. The girl on the back has no helmet, which is against the law in
the state of New York, and also very stupid and dangerous, but that seems to be the whole point of motorcycles, right?

Something about the girl reminds me of Kelly. Similar stylish mop of short dark hair, frizzed by the wind. Similar petite, gymnast-type figure in tight, hip-hugging jeans. Kelly has jeans like that, but not the tattoo just above the cleft of her buttocks. What Kelly calls a “coin slot.” Not the tattoo, but the cleft, you know? Anyhow, Kelly doesn’t have a tattoo of angel wings spanning the small of her back, because her totally square mom has forbidden tattoos until the age of eighteen at least.

And then the girl on the crotch rocket, the wild and crazy girl on the crotch rocket, the girl who is undoubtedly destined to die in some horrible wreck, or from tattoo-induced blood poisoning, that girl turns her pretty head and looks directly at me as the bike careens back onto the highway.

Looking a bit startled actually, the girl on the bike. A bit surprised as she makes unintentional eye contact.

I scream. Can’t help it, I open my astonished mouth and scream like a girl.

It’s Kelly. My daughter Kelly. No doubt about it.

2. Sleep With The Poodles

My friend Fern, who knows most of my secrets—not all, but most—she says the only way to win an argument with a teenage girl is to shoot her in the head. That’s just how Fern talks, like she’s related to the Sopranos, very tough in the mouth but soft in the heart. Even looks a little bit like that crazy sister on the show, the one who shot her boyfriend. Not that Fern’s ever shot anybody, certainly not her own daughter, Jessica, who finally went off to college upstate and is doing great. A sweet kid, basically, even though she and Fern can’t
discuss the weather without arguing. Jess had her moments—I’m thinking specifically of an all-night prom party in Garden City—and at times managed to put Fern over the edge, into psycho-mom territory. You know, threatening to chain her daughter to the radiator, things like that. My favorite was her plan to put a special collar on Jess, the kind for invisible fences. She wants to go Goth, wear those stupid spikes around her neck? Fine! She can sleep with the poodles!

Sleep with the poodles.
That’s my Fern. Always funny, even when she’s anxious or angry. Even so, she thinks I’m too hard on Kelly, that I am, in her words, projecting. Fern watches a lot of Dr. Phil. You’re projecting your own teen time on Kelly, Fern says, your bad old days. You gotta wrap your brain around the idea she’s not the same as you. She’s her own person and this isn’t the 1980s, this is a whole new century out there.