Between Sisters

THEIR FIRST GATHERING AT LAKE CHELAN HAD BEEN IN celebration. Nineteen eighty-nine. The year Madonna urged people to express themselves and Jack Nicholson played the Joker and the first pieces of the Berlin Wall came down. More important, it was the year they all turned twenty-one. There had been five of them then. Best friends since grade school.

That first get-together had happened by accident. The girls had pooled their money to give Claire a weekend in the honeymoon cabin for her birthday. At the time—in March—she’d been head over heels in love with Carl Eldridge. (The first of many head-over-heels-in-love relationships that turned out to be a plain old kick in the head. ) By mid-July, on the designated weekend, Claire had been out of love, alone, and more than a little depressed. Never one to waste money, she’d gone on the trip by herself, intending to sit on the porch and read.

Just before dinnertime of the first day, a battered yellow Ford Pinto had pulled into the yard. Her best friends had spilled out of the car and run across the lawn, laughing, holding two big jugs of margarita mix. They’d called their visit a love intervention, and it had worked. By Monday, Claire had remembered who she was and what she wanted out of life. Carl Eldridge had most definitely not been “the one. ”

Every year since then, they’d managed to come back for a week. Now, of course, it was different. Gina and Claire each had a daughter; Karen had four children, aged eleven to fourteen; and Charlotte was trying desperately to conceive.

In the past few years, their parties had quieted; less tequila and cigarettes came out of suitcases these days. Instead of getting dressed up and going to Cowboy Bob’s Western Roundup to slam tequila and line-dance, they put the kids to be

d early, drank glasses of white wine, and played hearts at the round wooden table on the porch. They kept a running score for the week. The winner got the keys to the honeymoon cottage for the next year.

Their vacation had evolved into a sort of slow, lazy merry-go-round rhythm. They spent their days by the lake, stretched out on red-and-white-striped beach towels or sitting on battered old beach chairs, with a portable radio set up on the picnic table. They always listened to the oldies station, and when a song from the eighties came on, they’d jump up and dance and sing along. On hot days—like this one had been—they spent most of their time in the lake, standing neck-deep in the cool water, their faces shielded by floppy hats and sunglasses. Talking. Always talking.

Now, finally, the weather was perfect. The sky was a bright seamless blue, and the lake was like glass. The older kids were in the house, playing crazy eights and listening to Willie’s ear-splitting music, probably talking about the latest, grossest R-rated movie that everyone else’s mothers allowed their children to see. Alison and Bonnie were pedaling a water bike in the cordoned-off section of the lake. Their giggles could be heard above the others.

Karen sat slouched in her chair, fanning herself with a pamphlet from the water-slide park. Charlotte, completely protected from the sun by a floppy white hat and a diaphanous, three-quarter-sleeved cover-up, was reading the latest Kelly Ripa book club choice and sipping lemonade.

Gina leaned sideways and opened the cooler, rooting noisily through it for a Diet Coke. When she found one, she pulled it out and snapped it open, taking a long drink before she shut the cooler. “My marriage ends and we’re drinking Diet Coke and lemonade. When Karen’s dickwad first husband left, we slammed tequila and danced the macarena at Cowboy Bob’s. ”

“That was my second husband, Stan,” Karen said. “When Aaron left, we ate those pot brownies and went skinny-dipping in the lake. ”

“My point remains,” Gina said. “My crisis is getting the Sesame Street treatment. You got Animal House. ”

“Cowboy Bob’s,” Charlotte said, almost smiling. “We haven’t been there in years. ”

“Not since we started dragging around these undersize humans,” Karen pointed out. “It’s hard to rock and roll with a kid on your back. ”

Charlotte looked out at the lake, to where the little girls were pedaling their water bike. Her smile slowly faded. That familiar sadness came into her eyes again. No doubt she was thinking about the baby she wanted so much.

Claire glanced at her friends. It startled her for a moment, as it sometimes did on these trips, to see their thirty-five-year-old selves. This year, more than any other, they seemed quieter. Older, even. Women on the edge of a sparkling lake who had too much on their minds.

That would never do. They came to Lake Chelan to be their younger, freer selves. Troubles were for other latitudes.

Claire pushed herself up on her elbows. The scratchy cotton of her beach towel seemed to bite into her sunburned forearms.

“Willie’s fourteen this year, right?”

Karen nodded. “He’s starting high school in September. Can you believe it? He still sleeps with a stuffed animal and forgets to brush his teeth. The ninth-grade girls look like Solid Gold Dancers next to him. ”

“Why couldn’t he baby-sit for an hour or two?”

Gina sat upright. “Hot damn, Claire. Why didn’t we think of that before? He’s fourteen. ”

Karen frowned. “With the maturity of an earthworm. ”

“We all baby-sat at his age,” Charlotte said. “Hell, I was practically a nanny that summer before high school. ”

“He’s a responsible kid, Karen. He’ll be fine,” Claire said gently.

“I don’t know. Last month his fish died. Lack of food. ”

“They won’t starve to death in two hours. ”

Karen looked back at the cabin.

Claire understood exactly what her friend was thinking. If Willie was old enough to baby-sit, he wasn’t really a little boy anymore.

“Yeah,” Karen said finally. “Of course. Why not? We’ll leave a cell phone with him—”