Between the Tides by Susannah Marren Page B

outside the restaurant. Lainie notices as she pulls the collar of her jacket around her neck.
    â€œCold?” I ask her.
    â€œNo, I’m fine.”
    I sip my macchiato and am stunned. Evidently there’s been a mistake made in my order. I motion to the server, who knows me very well. “Greta?”
    Greta rushes over, harried and worn although the day is beginning and she is only in her mid-twenties.
    â€œYes, Mrs. Howard?” She should be repentant since it has unfortunately happened before.
    â€œGreta, meet my friend, Mrs. Morris. She’s moved to town and now that I’ve brought her here, she’ll be a frequent customer. Right, Lainie?”
    Greta is discontented with the idea but silent, knowing there is more to this than an introduction. She gives Lainie a doleful look.
    â€œGreta, I asked for skim milk. Always skim milk.” I frown in a way that gives away my Botox. If anyone asks, I say that I do it for my headaches. I’m too young to have begun for any other reason.
    â€œIt is skim milk, Mrs. Howard. Your regular order,” Greta defends herself.
    â€œI don’t think so.” I push my cup toward the periphery of our tile table.
    â€œI’ll order another, Mrs. Howard.”
    â€œYes, please do.”
    Greta scoops up the cup and vanishes. I turn my attention toward Lainie.
    â€œI suppose she’s never heard that the customer is always right,” I sigh.
    Lainie waits, knowing as well as I do why I’ve invited her. We want to hear what each other has to say about Saturday night.
    â€œMy husband doesn’t dance, thank God yours does,” I say.
    â€œYes, Charles is a good dancer,” she agrees, sipping her macchiato. “Jess, do you remember the summer that we worked at my father’s marina?”
    â€œHow could I forget. I haven’t done a stitch of clerical work since,” I say. “There was the one small window that faced the boatyard and the bay. To this day when someone uses the word ‘repair’ I remember keeping track of the boats, the endless follow-up system we had to follow ‘to please the clients.’”
    â€œWe talked incessantly about what we’d do on our time off. I was always trying to sketch at Higbee Beach.”
    â€œNo, you also swam before the lifeguards were on duty. Your father used to go nuts. He’d say, ‘Every year, a local drowns, Lainie. Promise me you won’t go beyond the markers.’ Still you did; you would have lied and cheated for those swims.”
    We both laugh.
    â€œDidn’t you work at the Pier that summer?” she asks.
    â€œYup, by the waterfront. I was seating customers and my grandmother kept saying I should waitress instead for the tip money. I wanted the prestige of hosting, it appeared to be classier. Then I’d go with friends to the different beaches—not to swim or with a charcoal pencil and pad—to be the babe in the string bikini.”
    â€œYou were. You and your friends had that contest, whose bikini bottom stretched most across her hip bones.”
    â€œI won. I didn’t have an ounce of extra fat on my stomach.” Three espresso machines make a loud swooshing sound at once. Greta returns with the skim-milk macchiato.
    â€œYou showed up sometimes in the early mornings when the lifeguards did their aerobic workouts. Mostly to flirt with Matt.”
    â€œAh, Matt. I’m not sure we should go there, Lainie.”
    Matt, captain of the Cape May lifeguards, whom I’ve pushed out of my mind for years, along with much of my experiences in Cape May. Once our repeated trysts were known up and down the beaches, Lainie announced how little she cared for him, how his swagger bothered her.
    â€œDon’t you see that everyone likes him, everyone wants him, Lainie, everyone?” I had said to her. She warned me that my fling with Matt would end badly, and it did when I swallowed sixteen of our friend