The Jetsetters Read online

  “Zoë hired a private investigator. Regan won’t even look at the report.”

  “Oh my God,” said Lee. “Do you know what it says?”

  “Yes!” said Cord. He told Lee, thrilled not to be alone with the disgusting news. Cord had vague memories of Lee being not only his ally but his best friend. In the YMCA pool, swimming butterfly, or afterward, in her swim-team suit and gray sweatpants, she seemed invincible. A warrior. She protected Cord from Winston’s wrath—she defended them all. One time, when Lee found Cord crying because Winston was making him join the flag football team with kids who bullied him, Lee stormed into the kitchen, where Winston was pouring himself a drink, and told him he should be ashamed. She actually said those words! And Winston said, “Give me a break, Lee Lee. That kid’s going to need a sport.”

  “What he needs,” Lee said, “is a father who supports him!” She’d been thirteen, the bravest girl in the world, her hair in a chlorine-smelling ponytail, her voice strident and strong. And Winston had relented! Cord, clutching brand-new football cleats in the hallway, was filled with profound relief when Winston rounded the corner and snatched the shoes from his grasp. “Forget it,” he said. “Just forget it. I’ll return these.”

  “How about telling him you love him?” Lee said, appearing behind him, her hands on her hips. Winston didn’t answer, just went into his den and shut the door.

  Cord looked at Lee. “Thank you,” he said.

  “I’ve got you,” she said. He ran to Lee and she embraced him. “We’re in this together,” she whispered. “I’m here.” Cord realized later that maybe this was what she’d wished someone would say to her. That Lee, as the eldest, had never felt she had anyone to watch out for her, so she became what she most needed.

  But after Winston died of a sudden heart attack, Lee changed. She stopped coming home except to sleep. When Cord tried to enter her room to talk, she told him she was tired or busy. She bought a lock at the True Value hardware store and installed it on her bedroom door. Cord knew she was embarrassed by their cramped rental house. It dawned on him slowly that she wanted to flee her family, Cord included. She thought she was better than they were, above their paltry circumstances. It was as if talking to her low-rent siblings depleted her. This knowledge was crushing to Cord. By the time she left for California, she was a stranger. Even now, with Lee standing next to him, he missed her.

  “What should we do?” said Cord.

  “It isn’t really any of our business,” said Lee. Cord felt surprised—he thought Lee would figure everything out, save Regan. Our business? Were you allowed to not give a shit about your family like that? Cord didn’t think so. He followed Lee onto the bus and sat next to Charlotte.

  “Cord,” said his mother, “what’s going on?”

  “Nothing, nothing,” said Cord. He wanted everyone to be happy so much it hurt.

  Charlotte pursed her lips. “You don’t have to tell me twice,” she said. And then she added, with cold jubilance, “I’m ready for some fun, fun fun.”

  “Three funs, Mom?”

  Charlotte shrugged. “I deserve three funs,” she said.

  As they settled into their seats, Cord considered this proclamation. He was a person who felt he deserved no funs, and he wondered if it was because his mother felt she deserved three funs.

  You get no funs, said the lonely voice. You are the trampoline, not the gleeful jumper.

  “I don’t want to be the trampoline,” Cord whispered. “I want to be the gleeful jumper.”

  “What’s that, dear?” said Charlotte.

  “I’m very tired,” said Cord.

  “Oh, please,” said Charlotte. “You think you’re tired? At least you’re not seventy-one years old and alone.”

  Cord bit his tongue so forcefully he drew blood.

  * * *

  —

  THEY PASSED THROUGH A forty-foot-thick fortress wall and emerged in a medieval world: narrow streets lined with sandy-colored castles, minarets rising high. Tourists in sun hats marched like ants, pointing at towers and gazing in shop windows. Though he was the one in a bus, Cord felt superior as they veered out of Rhodes’s Old Town, merging onto a highway.

  The bus lumbered up a hill, and Cord took in the panorama of terra-cotta rooftops, bright green copses of trees, and faraway, scrubby hills. They turned a corner and the ocean appeared below. Cord could see two enormous cruise ships in the cobalt Mediterranean: an elegant Cunard and the cheesy Splendido Marveloso with its crimson snake of a waterslide.

  Why weren’t they going inside the castles? Who had chosen to go to a beach rather than contemplate an honest-to-God moat? Cord had the panicked feeling that he should be doing something differently, better…but then again, he could use a day in a beach chair. Work had been so stressful lately, as they watched their earnings dribble away and it became clear that the firm was utterly dependent on the 3rd Eyez investment.

  Giovanni won’t want you when the money’s gone, said the lonely voice.

  “Shut up,” said Cord. He needed a few more drinks to silence the lonely voice.

  “What?” said Lee.

  “Sorry,” said Cord. “I wasn’t talking to…” He stopped himself. Lee wouldn’t understand the lonely voice. He’d thought, growing up, that his family was just better at ignoring the critics in their heads. But he had come to believe that Lee just didn’t hear a lonely voice at all. Nor did Charlotte or solid Regan, the only one who’d made a family of her own. It was a strange reckoning to accept that his brain came with the lonely voice and others’ didn’t. Giovanni told Cord it made him deeper, more able to feel things, more incredible. He tried to believe Giovanni, whose low, rational words were taking the place of the lonely voice on good days. Handy told Cord he needed inner child work, EMDR, trauma therapy. Handy was probably right. But it was so much easier just to drink.

  Outside the bus window, rows of bedraggled olive trees spilled down to the dazzling sea. They turned a corner and fruit groves came into view: bright yellow lemons among iridescent leaves. Cord gazed at the low stone houses and thought, I should move to Greece and harvest olives.

  “I should move to Greece and make honey,” said Charlotte.

  “You mean olives,” said Cord.

  “No, Cord, I mean honey. Have you even tried Greek honey? Real Greek honey?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Cord.

  “Ah,” said Charlotte knowingly. “It tastes of thyme.”

  “Does it?” said Cord. His mother’s cheeks were flushed. He shuddered, imagining she’d been reading some honey-drenched sex scene in one of the filthy books she and her pals trafficked in. Church ladies! They were some down-and-dirty gals.

  “I’ve never had real Greek honey,” said Regan forlornly.

  Their bus driver spoke into a microphone. “Rhodos, she means rose,” he said. “My island makes many items for sale, including carpets, brandy, cigarettes, and soap.”

  “Faaa-scinating,” said Charlotte.

  Cord suddenly wished for Giovanni so much he felt dizzy. He wanted Giovanni to meet his eye when Charlotte said, “Faaa-scinating,” to wink at Cord, making him feel loved and understood. Giovanni was so kind and untarnished. He would help care for Charlotte. He would laugh at her jokes, compliment her J. Crewish outfits. And she would adore him—his sweet asides, his belief in the kids he taught, his ironic sense of humor. Charlotte would fall for Giovanni entirely…if only she were someone else, or if Giovanni were a woman.

  AT TSAMPIKA BEACH, PERFECT azure waves lapped at white Greek sand. Next to Regan, Lee untied her bikini top and stretched, her impossibly symmetrical breasts glistening in the sun.

  “Lee!” cried Charlotte. “Your top!”

  “Oh, Mom,” said Lee. “In Europe, people aren’t so ashamed of their bodies.” This was true, Regan realized. There were many leathery old breasts on
display. (And leathery old penises, for that matter.)

  Lee stood, then said, “I’m going for a dip!”

  When they were kids, Regan was desperately jealous of her glamorous older sister. But now, watching Lee watching men watch her made Regan sad. When had Lee become pathetic? A slim guy stood up as Lee passed. She waded into the ocean and he followed like a shark smelling blood.

  Regan had been aping her sister all her life, trying and failing at being a stunner. But Regan was realizing that she might be ready to put that burden down, to leave horny men’s gazes to women like Lee, who seemed to want them.

  Although most of her magazines and many of her mom-friends seemed to believe otherwise, Regan knew in her gut that the person she needed to love and nurture was herself. Trying to keep her face unlined and her body teensy was a battle that would take all her might. Regan wanted to use her mind for other things—creating art, raising her girls, understanding what was happening in the world. God had given her a big bottom, strong thighs, a Rubenesque stomach. Her chest and pillowy arms were made for comforting, for loving. She could go to Orangetheory every day and drink only Shakeology drinks, but she wasn’t going to look like Lee. That was the truth, and Regan was tired of pretending the truth didn’t exist. Charlotte’s staunch insistence on denying anything real was exhausting. Regan wanted to live another way.

  She stood, her own bathing suit on, and walked along the beach. In the waves, she spotted an older Greek couple frolicking. The woman was deeply tanned, her hair mashed unattractively, her breasts long and veiny. The man’s breasts, too, were paunchy and full, his round tummy gleaming in the sun. The woman was splashing water up into the air, and the couple danced as it rained back down on their shoulders. Regan smiled.

  And then she ran into the sea.

  LEE SWAM UNDERNEATH CRAGGY cliffs toward a rock painted with the Greek flag. Her period hadn’t come, but the cold water cleared her mind of worries. Tsampika was so different from the beaches in L.A., which had always struck Lee as pretty, sure, but lackluster. This beach had character. It looked exclusive. It was the kind of backdrop you saw in famous people’s Instagram photos—you could simply tell it wasn’t some low-class American shoreline.

  And the man who approached her in the water wasn’t American, either. His teeth were the giveaway—they were yellowed and a bit crooked; an American would have had them fixed. He was tall, his very tanned chest sleek as an otter’s. Gazing back at the shoreline, Lee pretended she didn’t see him.

  “You’re an actress, right?” said the man in a British or maybe Australian accent.

  Lee pretended to be startled, letting her manicured hand flutter to her elongated neck. (She’d read somewhere that both swans and humans exposed their necks to attract the male gaze.) “I am,” she murmured.

  “I knew it. That movie about the bank robbery?”

  Lee looked at him through her eyelash extensions. “No.”

  “The one in outer space, where you’re wearing a silver suit and those fabulous moon boots?”

  Lee laughed. “No,” she said.

  “I know! Wait…the TV show, the one where you’re the coach of a Little League team, and one of the kids goes missing?”

  “Yes,” said Lee. “My God, that was ages ago.”

  “But those red shorts.”

  Lee laughed. Run All the Way Home had been one of her last big roles, though at the time, three years before, she’d thought it had been her first big role. How depressing. Almost as depressing as the news about Matt. Lee pushed Regan’s problems out of her mind and turned to her new suitor.

  “I’m retired,” said Lee, trying out the words.

  “Retired?” said the man. “Lucky girl.”

  “I’m finished with the rat race,” said Lee airily. “I’m on to bigger and better things. L.A. is in the rearview mirror, if you know what I mean.”

  “Sure,” said the man, looking puzzled but game. “So where do you live now?”

  “I’m…in transition,” said Lee.

  He smiled. “I’m in London,” he said, holding out his hand. “Pete,” he said.

  “Lee.” She shook his hand.

  “Race you,” said Pete, and before she could respond, he lunged into the water and began swimming out toward a dock moored in the distance.

  “Damn,” muttered Lee, knowing her hair looked better dry and blown out. Still, it would feel good to get her blood pumping. She took a deep breath and went under.

  * * *

  —

  LEE HAD QUIT THE swim team when she found a new dream: to be an actress. She’d tried out for A Midsummer Night’s Dream on a whim, but was cast as Hermia, opposite Felix Henderson, the hottest thespian in her class. His floppy blond hair was irresistible, and as Lysander, he looked so unflinchingly into her eyes that Lee wondered if maybe he loved her in real life as well.

  Spending time with her dad had grown stale. The intervention had made no difference. He’d say he was quitting drinking, but after a white-faced night or two, he’d be back at it. Lee hated his weakness for booze. It exposed him as fallible, and seeing him this way was so awful that she had to avert her gaze. Toward Felix. And his floppy hair.

  The night she was cast, Lee announced the news during a chicken dinner she shared with her siblings and mother in the kitchen. This was the usual way of things: Charlotte would cook and share the “kids’ dinner” in the kitchen while Winston drank alone in his den, and then she would prepare another meal for Winston and serve him in the dining room with full place settings, sitting down opposite him, cleaning up after him when he was done. Some nights, Winston brought his plate and utensils into the den, leaving Charlotte alone at the table. Lee could remember seeing Charlotte staring out the window of the dining room, her sad face illuminated by the candles she’d lit for her husband.

  “So I’m quitting swimming,” Lee had said. “It’s at the same time as play rehearsals, so.”

  Charlotte put down her napkin. “Have you told your father?” she asked.

  “No,” said Lee.

  There was a poignant silence. Winston sat just a few rooms away; they could hear the television from his den.

  “He’ll be disappointed,” said Charlotte.

  “But rehearsals are at the same time!”

  “I understand, dear,” said Charlotte. Helpless anger filled Lee: as usual, her mother was tossing her to sea without even a floatie of assistance, much less two floaties, which would hold her above the choppy waves of her father’s drunken wrath.

  “I’ll come with you,” said Regan, putting down her plate and utensils.

  “You’re not finished,” said Charlotte. “And you haven’t been excused.”

  “I’ll come, too,” said Cord, rising, reaching for Lee’s hand. Charlotte pursed her lips and sawed at her chicken. She wouldn’t argue with Prince Cord, thought Lee. This was a source of constant annoyance, and yet there he was, standing and waiting—he was her prince, too. He smiled. “Let’s go,” he said.

  He was only twelve, yet he was so handsome, the bones of his face emerging from baby pudge. Winston rode him hard, wanting him to be a man, but Cord had a few close friends who balanced the scale. He’d found three pals who got his weird sense of humor; Lee would see them whispering and giggling in the seventh-grade hallway at Savannah Country Day. And seventh grade seemed simple to Lee, from her ninth-grade vantage point.

  Fine, thought Lee. She could use the backup. She placed her hand in his. Regan rose to cover her other side, giving her a quick side squeeze. Regan! The sweetest little girl. She would be no help at all, but her hug was warm. United, they approached the den. Cord was the one who knocked.

  Winston didn’t stand from his leather chair, but turned toward them when they entered, his face a portrait of annoyance. He raised his eyebrows and waggled his face, a rageful gesture that said
, “What idiocy now?”

  Lee swallowed, then spoke. “I’m quitting swimming. I thought you should know.”

  He sat back in his seat, returned his attention to the television. Regan squeezed her hand. They waited. After a moment, he turned back to her. “You’re too slow anyway,” he said. He tapped a cigarette from his pack, lit it with a silver lighter. “Got your mother’s thighs,” he said.

  Lee bit her lip. She left the den, pulling her siblings with her. They knew Winston wasn’t done; they knew Charlotte offered no protection. By leaving Charlotte alone in the house, they were putting her at risk, but one thing their upbringing had taught them was that you had to take care of yourself.

  Cord and Regan led Lee to the place in the rocks. They played Cave Family until the sun went down, never saying a word about Winston, or Lee’s intermittent tears. Lee was too old for Cave Family, but she ate the invisible wild rabbit Cord brought home anyway, and played the stick game with Regan. Nobody came to look for them. The sun went down. When it began to lightly rain, they put themselves to bed.

  Charlotte made Lee promise to never tell anyone—including her brother and sister—that Winston had not died of a heart attack. The fact that they had not saved him from suicide—had maybe driven him to it—was so shameful that Lee had not even told Matt. So while Winston’s death was a reprieve of sorts for Cord and Regan, who bloomed without their father’s dark presence, for Lee it was the start of her life as a fraud. She held it all—the fear, the sorrow, the pain of seeing her dead father. She couldn’t stand to be around her siblings, and fled as soon as she was able. But the secret had eaten away at her. And no one would ever thank her for keeping it, of course—how could they know what she had done—was doing—to keep their world intact? And yet she yearned to tell them, the only ones who would understand.

  A month after Lee quit swimming, and a few weeks before he hung himself, Winston tapped on her door, pushed it open without waiting for her reply. He was swaying a bit but not too drunk yet. “What?” she said. This insouciance with Winston was new to her; she tempered it with a “What do you need, Daddy?”