Thank God. Otherwise I wouldn’t have heard Maureen Holmes’ sharp intake of breath when she came around the corner and saw us. I tilted my head back at the sound and saw her standing at the edge of the house, just coming around the side. She stared with wide, shocked eyes, jaw dropped, a strange image to see from my angle, upside down.
Then she turned and stumbled off.
I bolted, panicked. I had to stop her. Explain. Something.
“Where are you going?” Doc muttered when I shimmied out from under their arms like a snake, grabbing a towel from the back of one of the chairs, wrapping it around myself.
“I’ll be right back.” I stage-whispered, not wanting to wake Carrie, who had slept through my escape. “I think I heard the baby.”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
“I’m just gonna go check on her.” I grabbed the monitor-just in case-and opened the sliding back door.
I ran through the house and out onto the front porch. Maureen Holmes was just getting into her Lexus. I noticed there was no one in the car.
“Wait!” I cried, panting from my sprint, grabbing her arm. “It isn’t what you think!”
“I forgot to get these signed.” Her face was white, voice strained, as she held up a clutch of papers in her fist. “For camp… I just…”
“Listen, what you saw…” I swallowed, trying to think of a way to erase it from her brain, to find the right words.
“Oh, I know what I saw.” She shook me off, that clouded look lifting, eyes brimming with anger. “What kind of sick perverts are you? I’m reporting you to the authorities!”
“The authorities?” I clutched my towel tighter around me, glad there wasn’t another house or neighbor here for a mile or more. “What we’re doing isn’t illegal, Mrs. Holmes.”
“It’s immoral and that’s bad enough.” She balled up the papers in her fist and tossed them into the car. “Those poor children. You expose them to this filth?”
“They’re innocent. They don’t know anything,” I insisted, racking my brain for something, anything, that would stop this woman from ruining my life-ruining all our lives. “Do your children know you had a threesome with the Baumgartners?”
That stopped her. Her face, which had drained completely of blood, now filled with it.
“That was long before I had children, young lady!” She actually shook her finger at me, lecturing. Then her tone changed to self-righteous. “That was before I’d fully accepted Christ into my heart.”
“You had a fiance,” I reminded her, playing my next card. “And you married him and had his children. Does he know what you did with the Baumgartners?”
“I’m leaving,” she whispered, but I grabbed her arm again to keep her from getting into the car, hoping to appeal to her younger self, the one that had to still be in there, the one who had existed before all the crazed, fundamental cult-like religion warped her perception.
“I know you loved them,” I said. “And I know they loved you. Do you really want to ruin their lives because you can’t tolerate some else’s way of life? Are you that much of a hypocrite?”
I saw something flicker in her eyes, some memory, some feeling. That’s when it occurred to me that maybe she wasn’t so much angry as she was… hurt. Jealous? Was it possible?
“This is sick and twisted.” Maureen shook my hand off her arm for a second time, getting into her car, but I stood in the way of the door. “And it needs to be stopped.”
“Well then I’m sure your husband would be interested in the sick and twisted things you were doing with the Baumgartners.” It was nearly my last card to play. I was desperate.
“He won’t believe you.” She looked at me like I was a bug she wanted to squash, trying to shut her door, but I was literally in the way.
“He’ll believe me when I show him pictures,” I said softly, bending down so I knew she heard me, holding my towel close.
“Doc said…” She turned her head to me, eyes dazed, confused. “He said he’d never…”
“He didn’t.” I shook my head. We were close enough I could smell the coffee on her breath, a Starbucks cup sitting in the cup holder. “I found them. But I will show them to your husband if you say a word to anyone about this. Anyone. Do you understand me?”
“I…” She swallowed, hands gripping the steering wheel, looking straight ahead now through the windshield, looking for all the world like she wished she’d never come today, had never seen us, and that was good. That was exactly what I was hoping for.
“Do. You. Understand. Me?” I emphasized each word.
“Yes.” She snapped her head toward me. That wasn’t just anger in her eyes anymore. That was hate. She hated me for making her look back, making her face those two parts of herself, the two parts she swore would never meet. “Now get out of my way.”
I stepped back, shutting her door for her, and she started the car. I watched from the porch as she drove away, hearing Holly beginning to stir. I’d almost forgotten I had the baby monitor in my hand. I went inside, closing the front door behind me and locking it, as if I could lock her out, as if that one act could keep her from doing what I feared most. Had she believed me? I hoped so. Because I wasn’t kidding. If she decided to hurt me or the Baumgartners, I would do everything in my power to hurt her back. In my world, there was no God looking over us from on high-and life was too short to wait for karma.
Chapter Nine
The Baumgartners hired a babysitter and took me to a bar called “Captain Tony’s.”
We drank a lot and danced together, the three of us moving as one, arms draped around each other, mouths often slanting, hers, mine, his. No one cared. This was Key West-everyone was wild and gender was unbelievably fluid.
A guy approached, asked me to dance. He was cute-dark hair, scruff on his chin, blue eyes-and Carrie waved me onto the dance floor with him. I didn’t want to leave the two of them, it felt a little like cheating, but he was a good dancer and had me smiling and laughing by the end of the song.
He bought me a drink at the bar and we talked a while, but I kept looking over at the Baumgartners and finally, I excused myself to go back and join them.
“You can bring him home if you want.” Carrie leaned in to whisper this into my ear. She was looking at him, still sitting alone at the bar. I did kind of feel a little bad, leaving him like that. He seemed like a nice enough guy. “Or you can go home with him. What’s his name?”
“David.” I smiled. “That’s not against the rules?”
“Gretchen, you’re free.” Carrie laughed, throwing her arms wide. “You can do what you want. Or who you want. Boys, girls. In between. Life is too short to limit yourself.”
“But before, Doc said he couldn’t touch me…” I glanced over at him, sipping his beer and keeping an eye on the television. Some game was on, but I didn’t even know what sport was being played, let alone who was playing it. I remembered that little photography session on the beach, when he said he could look but not touch.
“That was before we decided to be with you.” She nudged me playfully under the table with her knee. “Now that we have, well… anything goes. You can be with me, with him. You can bring home anyone you want.”
I’d never felt so free and so contained at the same time.
We spent the night drinking, dancing, until we were all hot and sweaty and desperately hungry for each other. We took a cab back to the timeshare, relieving the babysitter. It was strange, letting someone else do my job so I could go out with the Baumgartners.
We all stopped in to check on the baby in my room. She was sleeping peacefully and, as we crept into the big bed together, we reminded each other to be quiet. We didn’t want to wake her. Of course, we all forgot, at various times during the night, but thankfully, she slept through until morning.
And in the end, I had no regrets. I didn’t go home with David, because I didn’t want him. I didn’t want anyone else.
I went home with the Baumgartners, because the Baumgartners were my home.