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Under other circumstances he might have admired her fine features, but these were not exactly normal circumstances.
How normal could it be given the fact that he was forced to stand in front of a bunch of strangers, not to mention his former grammar school teacher, wearing the only pair of swim trunks he had managed to find in the bottom of his dresser drawer. Not just any trunks, either, but some faded board shorts, half-forgotten mementos from a surfing vacation during his junior year spring break.
But enough about his laughable figure—too bad he wasn’t laughing—since his attention anyway was fixated on this real-life grown-up female. Wearing a bright orange bikini that barely held her bountiful curves.
Hunt blinked, amazed that here at the Grantham Middle School swimming pool of all places, the embers of sexual urges long dormant—one of the many side effects of chemo that didn’t really compute until you experienced them—had suddenly started to smolder. Talk about less than normal circumstances.
And the smoldering was especially bizarre given that her little scraps of stretchy material did nothing to hide the fact that not only did she have the breasts of a pinup, she also was very pregnant—very, very pregnant.
Hunt cleared his throat and turned to address Ms. Freund, or rather, Doris. “Please do not take this personally if I slip up now and again. I seem to find it difficult to call my fourth, no, fifth grade teacher by her first name.”
Doris clucked. “You’re your mother’s son, that’s for sure.”
There were some twitters, and Hunt searched out the source of the laughter. He recognized Lena Zemanova, the grandmother of Ben’s wife. The sprightly seventy-something-year-old wore a no-nonsense racing suit, navy with white piping, and a red bathing cap. She looked ready to swim the English Channel. The woman next to her, with spiky black hair and a leathery tan that spoke of years of retirement and a complete disregard for sun block, also looked familiar. Though Hunt couldn’t quite place her, unless…unless…. He raised his eyebrows.
“That’s right, Huntington,” she replied with a snap of her gum. “I’m your worst nightmare. Wanda Garrity, your high school math teacher from freshman year. And I’m still waiting for your problem set on quadratic equations.”
Hunt caught sight of her pierced belly button, visible through the large silver ring holding together her low-cut silver swimsuit. He closed his eyes. “I’ll have it for you next week.”
“Well, now that we’re all here, why don’t I explain how the course works,” Doris went on in full lecture mode. “As you know from the course description, this class is designed to provide a low-impact aerobic workout. I promise to raise your heart rate in a way that will not tax your joints but instead strengthen your muscles. We’re also going to work on flexibility and strength exercises that are appropriate to your conditions, whether recuperative or reproductive.”
Doris waited. “Does everyone understand?”
A MIASMA OF CHLORINE-INFUSED air produced a rainbow glow around the wall lights. Moisture clung to the white tiles like a sheen of sweat. Sarah patted the back of her neck. Now that she was here, she was ready to get on with things.
Lena leaned across and nudged Sarah. “I’m excited but a little nervous. What about you?” She smiled.
Sarah smiled back at Lena’s bright blue eyes, sparkling with encouragement. “I feel the same,” she said.
“And you’re sure you’re not achy and tired after so long a day? I worry, you know,” Lena said.
Sarah leaned down and whispered, “Not to worry. I’m glad I’m here.”
“Good things will come of it, I promise,” Lena told her.
“Excuse me.” Doris gave them an evil look and went on with various bureaucratic details, like how to notify her if they had to miss a class and the policy on makeups, until finally she put her clipboard and reading glasses on a low bench by the wall. “So, if there are no questions or further interruptions—” she eyed Lena “—why don’t we all get in the water? Congregate in the shallow end and find your partner.” Doris brought her whistle to her mouth and gave an emphatic blow.
They shuffled to the end of the pool. Some of the couples jumped in. Spray splashed up. Giggles arose again, as the pregnant women floated, their bellies giving them terrific buoyancy. Carl, the older gentleman from earlier, used the ladder and steps on the side. Lena and Wanda squatted down and slipped in from the water’s edge. Lena immediately got wet all over. Wanda was careful not to get her hair wet.
Finally, all twelve members of the class were in the water.
Except for two.
Sarah and Hunt stood by the water’s edge, seemingly frozen to the tiled floor.
Doris sniffed. She was at the side of the pool ready to make a formal entry. “Is something wrong?” she asked.
“Partner? Did you say something about everyone having a partner?” Sarah said.
HUNT SHIFTED HIS EYES between the woman in the electric-orange bikini and Ms. Freund. “No one told me about a partner, either.” Doris tsk-tsked and slid into the water gracefully. “Didn’t you read your course book?” She managed to look down her nose despite standing below them in the shallow end.
Sarah shook her head. “No, I…ah…friends enrolled me in the class without giving me all the details.”
“I’ve got much the same story,” Hunt added.
“Well, then you two will just have to pair up,” Doris said. She turned to the rest of the class. “Let’s do some gentle bobbing as a warm-up.”
Hunt frowned. He looked at Sarah. “One of your friends wouldn’t happen to be my mother, would it?”
“I don’t know. Who’s your mother?”
“Iris Phox.”
“The Iris Phox?”
“So you know her?” he said.
“Well, of her. You can’t live in Grantham without having heard of her.” She sought out Lena in the pool. Her bathing cap bobbed up and down. “Lena, do you need a partner?”
Lena pointed to her right. “I’m with Wanda.” Wanda was bobbing up and down. Whatever gel she had applied to her hair kept the spikes perfectly in place.
“I guess I don’t measure up to your idea of a partner,” Hunt said casually. Not that he was looking to be anybody’s partner, but if there was going to be a rejection handed out, he found himself annoyed that he had been the one to be dumped.
Sarah turned to him. “Listen, it’s nothing personal, but these days I don’t do men partners.”
“You have something against men?”
She shrugged. “Hypothetically, no. In practice, yes.”
He made a gesture toward her protruding belly. “Does that mean you used in vitro?”
She protruded her lower lip and blew upward, sending her bangs flying. “I should have been so lucky.”
“You two,” Doris called out from the pool. “No dillydallying.”
“We could both just leave,” she said under her breath.
“And have my mother find out? I don’t think so. On second thought, maybe you could explain it to my mother?”
“I don’t think so. I’m not even sure I could explain it to my friends, especially when two of them are eyeing me from the water right now.” She waved at Wanda and Lena. Then she turned back to Hunt. “I guess we have no choice.”
Hunt sighed. “I suppose you’re right. In which case, shall we?” He brought his hand forward in a gesture of invitation.
“I’m Sarah, by the way,” she said.
“Hunt.”
She dipped one toe in the water.
He noticed she used pearl-pink nail polish.
“I’ve got to warn you, though,” she said.
“You don’t swim?” he asked.
“No, I swim all right. But if you’re looking for a partner to square things away with Wanda, I’m not much help. I don’t remember a thing about quadratic equations.” She jumped in the water and waded toward Wanda.
Hunt followed, sinking immediately. He bobbed up and wiped the water from his eyes. “And here I was counting on you to save my butt,” he said, joining her.
Wanda cracked her gum. “If you only knew.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“IT WAS HUMILIATING,” Sarah blurted out. She wandered around the reception area of the salon in the nearby little town of Craggy Hill, looking at the wide array of OPI nail polishes on display. The salon was located on the first floor of an old frame house, with the cozy, cream-colored carpeted living room serving as the reception. Small back bedrooms worked perfectly as private spa facilities for pedicures, manicures, facials and massages.
Katarina and Julie were treating Sarah and themselves to pedicures as a prelude to the official baby shower that evening at Katarina and Ben’s house.
“I’m sure you’re exaggerating,” Julie said. She was inspecting the line of France-themed colors, turning each bottle to read the label. “Ooh La La Lavender?” she asked to no one in particular. “A must for the fashion-conscious obstetrician on the go-go.”
Katarina checked out the bottles lined up on the mantel. “I never knew there were so many types of clear polish. All right, I’ll take the plunge and go for Shell Pink Shimmy.” She clutched the bottle and turned to Sarah who was wriggling around in a club chair, trying to find a comfortable position. “And what about you, Woman of the Hour?” She leaned her head in the direction of Sarah. “What color will allow you to recover from the humiliation of water aerobics?”
“As if it matters? I’m so big I can barely see my feet.” As if to prove her point, Sarah raised one leg just to get a good look at her sneaker. “So that’s my right foot. Somehow I remember it being smaller.”
“Well, what color is the bathing suit they got you for your class? You could go for that complete ensemble look,” Katarina suggested with what seemed to be sincerity.
“Are you trying to be cruel? It was more like incomplete ensemble. Do you know how little the top part of a bikini covers a pregnant woman’s boobs?”
“I’d give anything to have boobs like yours. Why am I the only Italian-American woman I know who is flat as a pancake?” Julie asked.
“Please, let’s not get into body issues. You, after all, have not entered the world of elastic-waist pants.” Sarah glanced over at the selection of the new Spanish-themed nail polishes grouped atop a gateleg table. “What about that one?” She pointed to a deep pinkish-red one on the right.
“Wow!” Katarina walked over and picked up the bottle Sarah had indicated. “Conquistadorable. You have someone in mind to conquer?”
Sarah waved off the suggestion. “It’s more like I think it matches the cherry pie I baked.”
Julie shook her head. “That’s our Sarah. Bakes a pie for her own baby shower.”
“Well, I just wanted to help out. You guys have done so much on top of working and all. Besides, it’s my way of relaxing,” Sarah said.
And her way of connecting to her roots. Only she didn’t say that.
Sarah might have run away from rural Minnesota as soon as she turned eighteen, but it didn’t mean it was out of her system. True, when she’d followed Earl and become a rock band groupie, she’d gone completely “gonzo”—inky-black nails and purple-dyed hair, plus the requisite tongue piercing and studded neck collar. She’d lost her farm girl glow by staying up all night and bartending at clubs catering to local bands that sporadically favored Earl’s erratic bass playing. But no amount of cheering improved Earl’s musical ability, and it never kept him from straying.
Eager to redeem herself in her parents’ eyes, she became a determined student/working girl. She’d enrolled at Hunter College’s School of Health Professions, commuting to Manhattan from her dumpy apartment in Queens. This time she strove for upward mobility. She switched to bartending at Upper East Side haunts frequented by investment bankers and female interns at Sotheby’s. Sarah had let her hair go back to her natural blond. She learned about button-down collars from the men and artists like Cy Twombly and Helen Frankenthaler from the women. At the same time she racked up a sizable debt for tuition bills, which dismayed her parents yet again when they realized the financial straits she had landed herself in.
So she tried again. Armed with a degree in physical therapy, she gravitated to Grantham for its college town atmosphere and close proximity to New York. And in an area populated by families with sports-happy kids, weekend warriors and aging retirees, the physical therapy business was booming. After first working at a large rehab facility, she landed her current job with a practice affiliated with the hospital. She liked the variety, and liked the feeling that she could follow the progress of a stroke victim from the hospital to at-home care through outpatient appointments at the office.
But still Penny regularly asked, “Is it true that most people in New Jersey are Italian? Not that I have anything against Italians. After all, your father and I enjoy eating pizza at the firehouse fundraisers.”
Zach’s most favorable qualities in her mother’s eyes had been that he wasn’t Earl, and that he’d proposed to their only daughter, just when they’d given up hope.
Now, though, Sarah knew she was truly disappointing them. It was one thing to be an unmarried mother-to-be, but it was another to have left your gay fiancé at the altar. She wondered how Penny explained that one at the firehouse fundraisers.
So here she was, soon to be a hardworking single mother. And while she told everybody that this is what she wanted to do with her life, there were many moments when she wondered, “Is this who I really want to be?”
At least she had baking to keep her company. Besides the cherry pies, there were the peach cobblers, the pineapple upside-down cakes and the snickerdoodles. The trick was to find other people to eat the baked goods so that her ever-expanding waistline was at least somewhat manageable.
Rather than rehash her inability to plot a straight and self-fulfilling course for her life, she decided to give herself a break. To enjoy the sensation of sitting down and knowing that nothing more strenuous awaited her than letting someone else pamper her for a while. Feeling a bit light-headed, she closed her eyes and rested her head on the back of the chair.
“You know, guys, this was a great idea to get pedicures. But I feel guilty.”
Julie looked up from checking the messages on her iPhone. “When have we heard that before?”
Sarah opened her eyes. “Please tell me you’ll let me help pay.”
“Absolutely not!” Katarina protested.
“I know. You can bake the pedicurist some brownies,” Julie said.
“What a good idea,” agreed Sarah.
Julie dropped her head in her hand. “Tell me she’s not serious.”
“Sarah, don’t even think of it. It’s our treat. You see, I was reading online that the third trimester is the time to indulge in girly things,” Katarina said, and grabbed a chair next to Sarah. “Besides, this gives Ben a chance to clean up the empty Cheetos bags and dirty socks and running shoes before the ‘Big Event.’” She made little quotation marks with her fingers.
Sarah swallowed. Just the thought of Cheetos and smelly socks was enough to make her nauseated.
“What I wouldn’t give for a bag of Cheetos now,” Julie said. She scrounged around in her hobo purse on the floor and came up with a packet of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
“Can I tempt anyone?” she offered. Katarina and Sarah shook their heads, and Julie wasted no time consuming the candy. How the woman managed to live off junk food and still remain rail-thin was a mystery to Sarah.
The owner, Erika, approached them. “Well, ladies, we have one room ready now, and the next two will be free in a few minutes. Who wants to go first?” Her voice had that melodious lilt of some unidentifiable Eastern European language. Her skin was flawless, as well. Clearly, there was something about sour cream, cabbage and potatoes.
Katarina held out a hand toward her friend. “Sarah, I don’t want to hear any objections. This is your evening after all.”
“It may be her evening, but she still hasn’t given us the gory details about yesterday’s water aerobics partner.” Julie stopped munching and texting long enough to speak. “Though considering the pool of candidates who would have signed up—yes, I meant that terrible pun—it can’t have been anyone all that interesting.”
“Oh, he was all right,” she said with a shrug.
All right?! her inner voice objected. Tell them about Hunt Phox’s steady stream of irreverent banter, how it had helped to pass the ninety minutes of class with surprising ease, it demanded impatiently.
Because then I’d have to tell them that not only was he trying to allay our mutual awkwardness, but that fifteen minutes into the workout of stretching and bouncing with Styrofoam noodles and floats, the guy was exhausted.
So what?
Because it was clear from his determined look that he didn’t want to be babied, didn’t want to admit his limitations.
So?
