Page 12 of Bad Summer People
In all, Silvia was content with her setup. As a boss, Lauren was perfectly fine. She was gorgeous and chic and, Silvia knew, deeply unhappy. They all were.
The Parkers were her fifth and hopefully final family before she could retire. She had a little house in the Philippines that she’d bought with two of her sisters (she was one of twelve siblings, ten still alive), and she wasplanning to move back there in a few years. Her children, whom she’d raised alone, were all out of the house now—one son was a nurse, one daughter was a physician’s assistant, and one daughter, the mother to her only granddaughter, Molly, was a Manhattan nanny just like she was. Silvia’s husband had moved back to the Philippines years ago, and they were barely in contact. He called their children on their birthdays, and that was about it. Silvia was fine with that.
In the past, Silvia had enjoyed traveling with her families. It was a perk of the job. Aruba. Telluride. London. She’d stayed in fancy hotels. She’d even flown private with one of her families, the Jesseps. But before the Parkers, she’d only had summers in the Hamptons. The houses there were so massive, she’d nearly always had her own wing. She could go hang in her TV room, make tea in her own kitchenette, and not have to see anyone until 7:00 the next morning.
But Fire Island was different. More… compact. She couldn’t escape. And it was harder work, too. In the Hamptons, Silvia stayed at home most days, supervising pool time, dealing with meals, and babysitting when her bosses went out. In Salcombe, she was outside with the kids constantly, dropping them off at the camp (which only went until noon—why?), taking them to tennis and then the beach. She would occasionally befriend another nanny, but many families paid local teenagers to watch their children. So, she sat alone on her adult tricycle, which she rode for its large rear basket, big enough for towels and beach bags, waiting for the kids to finish activities, scrolling on her phone. Then she’d watch Amelie zigzag on her training wheels up and down the boardwalks. The boardwalks gave Silvia such stress. They were so far off the ground, and the kids went so fast on them. Someone was bound to break a bone. Then it would be her fault. But how could she prevent it?
The thought sometimes haunted her as she lay in bed, trying to fall asleep. Occasionally, there would be a mosquito buzzing around her room, taunting her, preventing her from her much-needed rest. The mosquitoes in New York loved her more than the ones in the Philippines. They sought her out, bit her ceaselessly, left large, red welts on her skin.
Silvia spotted one in the corner and got up to shoo it away with amagazine. She heard the door open and shut, and then Lauren’s footsteps passing by. Jason wasn’t with her. Those two were never together. Jason was having an affair. Silvia was sure of it. She’d done his laundry enough times to know that he was sleeping with another woman. His clothes didn’t smell like Lauren, who only wore Chanel No. 5. They smelled like someone else’s shampoo. And sex. Most of the dads she’d worked for were having affairs, but Jason was the most obvious by far. He didn’t even pretend to like Lauren. Even Arlo and Amelie could tell. Amelie once said to her that “Daddy hates Mommy.” She wondered if Lauren had said that to her, or if she’d come to the thought on her own. Silvia loved Amelie, who was beautiful and imperious. Like her mother. Arlo she could take or leave. There was always one child in a family like that.
Rich people were miserable, but they didn’t know how lucky they were. They paid her $1,450 a week, plus room and board, plus $20 an hour extra to babysit at night when they went out. It was nothing for them. She was at the top rate for a nanny. She wondered how she could squeeze more out of them before she retired.
She lay down on her bed and snuggled into her soft Frette sheets. The mosquito buzzed in her ear. She hit her own head, hard, trying to kill it. Another two months to go in this place.
PART IIJuly 4
7Lauren Parker
July 4 was Lauren Parker’s least favorite national holiday. It was always hot, always buggy, always chaotic. The town of Salcombe set up a full day’s schedule for its citizens, which sounded great in theory, but, in reality, was a long, annoying eight hours to endure. In the morning, there were games and races for the kids at the town field—an egg toss, a potato sack race, a three-legged disaster. Someone inevitably got hurt or had a tantrum, and Lauren ended up sweaty and covered in bites. Afterward came hot dogs and hamburgers and watermelon, set up on long picnic tables at the fire station next to the field. The firemen, or rather “firemen,” as Lauren thought of them, were Salcombe dads—lawyers and bankers and media executives—who, as part of their midlife crises, had decided it’d be cool to become volunteer firefighters. They took a training course together at the beginning of each summer, and then the townspeople were left to hope that nothing bad ever happened. You didn’t necessarily want Brian Metzner to come to your rescue during a five-alarm emergency. The firehouse was a quaint wooden garage-like structure that housed one smallish fire truck and mostly served as a hangout for said dads to relax and drink beers in the afternoons.
Lauren and Silvia had walked with Arlo and Amelie down from their house for the games and lunch, while Jason had stayed behind. He claimed he had “tons” of work to get through before his noon tennis game with Sam. Work on a Sunday that wasalsoa national holiday? Lauren didn’t buy it, but she also didn’t blame him for not wanting to join inthe forced fun with the rest of the town. Arlo and his friend August had won the three-legged race for their age group, and so he was wearing a plastic medal around his neck. Amelie, who’d had her face painted with fireworks, was in her Pink Chicken flag dress, which Lauren had bought specifically for today. Just because she hated the holiday didn’t mean she didn’t want cute pictures to post on Instagram. Both kids had spent the past week at the Salcombe camp in the morning, which involved art projects and swimming, and had been in various activities during the afternoons—tennis for both, sailing for Arlo, a crafts class for Amelie. Silvia had been escorting them to and fro, and so Lauren had time to play tennis every day. She was starting to feel okay about her game; the muscle memory was returning, and her strokes were getting smoother.
Yesterday, Lauren and Claire Laurell had played against Rachel and Emily. Lauren had been in good form—her backhand was working, and her first serve was going in. Claire Laurell was in her early sixties and had two teenage daughters, Lila and Reb, who occasionally babysat for Arlo and Amelie if Silvia needed a night off. Claire had been a terrific player in her youth but had slowed down considerably over the past ten years, and she couldn’t run to the net as quickly as Lauren wanted her to. But her ground strokes were still strong, and Lauren was able to scramble around the court to make up for Claire’s leaden feet. They’d beaten Rachel and Emily in the first set 6–4 and had been leading 5–3 when their hour was up.
“That was fun,” said Rachel, sweaty and red-faced as they picked up their balls and packed up their rackets. Rachel was the world’s sorest loser, and it always amused Lauren to see her try to be polite after she lost. “I really need to work on my follow-through; I’m going down instead of over my shoulder.” Rachel could never just say: “You played well, Lauren.” It was always couched in the way Rachel had failed, with the idea that if she’d been playing as she normally does, the outcome would have been in her favor.
Claire waddled up to them, her gray hair stuck to her forehead, a line of sweat dampening the area under her large breasts. In her brown tennis skirt and tank, she reminded Lauren of an Idaho potato.
“Nice game, girls,” said Claire. Lauren had heard a rumor that Claireand her husband, Seth, were swingers and that twenty years ago there’d been a group of them in Salcombe who’d regularly switch partners after a wild night at the yacht club. She couldn’t imagine Claire, and especially Seth, now stout and bald, with oddly hairless legs, having sex with each other, let alone being attractive enough for others to want in on the game. But that’s what everyone said had happened, so maybe it was true. If so, good for them. She and Jason barely ever had sex anymore. Maybe once or twice a month. Lauren was fine with that frequency—Jason grossed her out lately. His breath, which hadn’t bothered her before, now smelled faintly rancid. Maybe it always had, but for whatever reason, she was finally noticing. And she couldn’t even watch him chew. The smacking of his lips, the inhaling of his food. It made Lauren want to vomit.
When they’d first gotten together, she’d thought he was sexy. He’d been a chubby kid, he’d told her, but that wasn’t evident in his adult form, which was nicely chiseled. He had full, nearly puffy lips, and dark, deep-set eyes. His hair had nice, thick body, and there was something about his intensity that women, including Lauren, found attractive. But that was then. Maybe her type had changed as she’d gotten older. Or maybe Jason had just curdled.
She spotted Robert giving a lesson to Larry Higgins, a member of the Salcombe tennis committee, on the singles court behind where she’d played.
“Connect farther away, Larry!” Robert said as the old man hit yet another ball into the net. “You’re getting there. Remember, move your feet and turn your shoulders. Low to high!”
Robert was wearing black Nike shorts and a white Nike T-shirt, which hugged his slimly defined chest. He looked up and saw Lauren watching him, and though she was already warm from the July sun, she could feel her face burn. He waved to her, and she waved back.
She thought of their lesson a few days before that, her first of the season. Robert had come over to her side of the court to help her fix her forehand grip, which had always been off. She’d been wearing her cutest tennis dress, a white Lacoste number, and had applied a coat of waterproof mascara beforehand. She knew she looked good, and she’d wantedhim to notice. He had taken her small wrist in his large hand, holding her racket, and then sliding her fingers onto the handle in the proper position. Lauren’s legs had gone soft, and warmth had risen up her torso. On instinct, she’d subtly leaned back into Robert, pressing her back against his solid arm and leg. He didn’t resist; she’d felt him get an erection. He continued to give her pointers about how she needed to straighten her arm more to get more power, and Lauren pretended to act interested in what he was saying, pushing her body harder against his as she did. Robert finally took a step back, nudging her toward the bench on the courts next to them. Lauren, snapped out of her own head, looked over to see Susan Steinhagen sitting there, staring at them suspiciously. Lauren gave her a little salute and shook it off. Susan hadn’t seen anything, because there’d been nothing to see, she’d thought. She was probably just jealous that Lauren’s game was improving so quickly. Susan used to be one of the top female players at the club, but now she was old, with a bum hip, and was relegated to the “seniors tournament,” which no one watched or cared about.
Lauren had spent the past two days fantasizing about Robert. Thinking about him constantly, riding by the tennis courts to get a glimpse of him playing, turning the idea of having sex with him over and over in her mind. She’d never cheated on Jason; she hadn’t even had a flirtation with a man in years. Where would she have met someone? She’d stopped working when the kids were born and so was only around other women, doing school stuff and exercise classes and dinners. When men were present, they were always with their own wives, looking bored. And it’s not like Lauren found any of her friends’ husbands attractive. They had potbellies or were too small or too old. Jason was the handsomest of any of them. So, this feeling ofwantingsomeone, even if he was just a tennis pro, was completely new and thrilling. She kept coming back to what it felt like to touch Robert. Honestly, would Jason care if she did cheat on him? Lauren wasn’t so sure. He’d been so disengaged, so pissy lately. He never looked up from his phone. Maybe he’d just shrug and let her get on with it.
She scanned the July 4 crowd for Robert, hoping that maybe he’dstop by the firehouse for a beer in between his clinic schedule. She hadn’t booked another lesson since their last one. On the one hand, she wanted to be close to him again, but on the other, she didn’t want to come off as pushy. Or worse, desperate. What if he wasn’t actually into it?
They’d had that conversation at Rachel’s party, his face close enough to hers to kiss. They’d been talking about Robert’s dad—he’d told her he’d died a couple of years ago. She’d acted suitably sympathetic, though she couldn’t relate. Her dad was alive and well in California, living it up at the golf course with his buddies. But she loved the way his face looked as he spoke, the small crinkles at the sides of his blue eyes, his jaw square and masculine. There’d been a pause in the conversation, and Lauren, feeling tipsy and bold and furious at Jason for ignoring her for what felt like forever, said to him in a low voice, “I want to be alone with you.” What was wrong with her? Her husband was right there! This was a tennis pro! But Robert had just nodded and moved in closer, until, right then, Rachel had come over to offer them a drink, ruining the moment.
Then, at the lesson, he hadn’t pulled away. If anything, he’d leaned harder into her. She wasn’t imagining it, surely. It wasn’t like Lauren to be so insecure. She’d always gotten attention from men—they still turned to look at her on the street. But she was out of practice.
Amelie came running up to her out of the Fourth of July throng, her face paint smudged, her dress covered in ketchup.
“Mommy, Lucy Ledbetter pushed me and spilled ketchup all over me! And then her mommy laughed.” She collapsed in Lauren’s arms, wailing.
Lauren looked for Beth Ledbetter, whose kid, Lucy, clearly took after her. There she was, standing by the beer, laid out on a folding table in plastic cups. Beth Ledbetter, née Taubman, was a Salcombe lifer. Like Sam and Rachel, she’d grown up there and had inherited her parents’ house, a red cottage on the corner of Harbor and Pacific, when they’d retired to Florida. Though she’d been a constant presence in their youth, according to Sam, she’d never really fit in. Then, as now, she was combative, a know-it-all, and, on top of all of that, a huge liar. She literally made stuff up from scratch. (Jen, a psychologist, once clarified to Lauren that Beth wasa pathological liar—someone who lied to get her own way or manipulate others—rather than a compulsive liar, who lied out of habit.) She’d flat out deny things she’d done—“No, I didn’t take your 9:00 a.m. tennis lesson on purpose; the spot was open when I walked by”—and also stir up trouble where there wasn’t any—“I heard LisahatesRachel.”
Beth had disappeared from Salcombe summers from the ages of eighteen to thirty, showing up suddenly one year with a baby and a nearly silent husband, Kevin Ledbetter, in tow. She’d rebranded as Beth Ledbetter, dropping all trace of Taubman (though most other lifers stuck with their maiden names, if not in the real world then certainly here), and attempted to insinuate herself with the new couples who’d arrived in her absence, those who didn’t already know her reputation. It semi-worked—she now had a small group of mom friends, people like Jeanette Oberman, Jessica Leavitt, and Mollie Davidson, all of whom Lauren viewed as B-listers.
A couple of years ago, Lauren and her friends went from tolerating Beth to actively excluding her from drinks events and dinners at the yacht club. Beth retaliated by spreading a rumor that Lauren had been sending her children to camp with forbidden snacks like peanut butter pretzels, causing Lauren to get an angry call from Jessica Leavitt, whose son, Danny, had a deathly nut allergy. It wasn’t true!Onceat the beach, Lauren had allowed Arlo to have a bagel with peanut butter, but she’d made him stand far away from everyone and wash his hands afterward.
