The High Tide Club

Pete Haynes missed her. He wanted to see her. Have lunch. Catch up. After three plus years. She could already picture the conversation.

Her: How was Alaska? How are the caribou? Is it really cold there?

Him: Alaska’s great. The caribou are awesome, and it’s cold as shit. How about you? What have you been up to?

Her: Oh, you know, the usual. Practicing law and raising your son. Wanna split dessert?

She ran her fingers through her hair and groaned. This could not be happening. The call had come in while she was bathing Henry. It was too late to call Pete and try to beg off.

Instead, she texted Farrah.

Hey. Can you keep Henry for me tomorrow morning? Gotta run up to Savannah. Also need sitter for Saturday night. Heavy date. I’ll pay double your usual rate.

Farrah’s reply came back in less than a minute.

So sorry! Can’t tomorrow. It’s graduation. I’m a maybe for Saturday night. Can I tell you tomorrow?

No! she wanted to shout. Commit already. But she couldn’t really blame Farrah. This was a big weekend for a graduating senior. Who wanted to be saddled with babysitting? And maybe it was for the best. Maybe this was the universe telling her she needed to stay home and take care of her kid and concentrate on building some kind of a career.

Or maybe it was the universe telling her to call her mother.

Good thing Marie was a bit of a night owl, Brooke thought.

“Hi!” Marie said. “Shouldn’t you be in bed by now?”

“I was, and then I had a missed call. From Pete.”

“Oooh. Tell.”

“He’s got a layover at the Savannah airport tomorrow on his way to a conference in Miami, and he wants me to meet him for lunch and to catch up.”

“You’re going, right?”

“Not sure. He gets in at ten. But Henry gets out of day care at noon tomorrow because of teacher conferences. And Farrah’s graduation is tomorrow, so she can’t pick him up and keep him. I hate to ask, especially after you had him all day today…”

“Bring him to me,” Marie said quickly. “How was he tonight? I didn’t want to jinx anything, but he was a little crabby. And he hardly ate anything.”

“He seemed fine,” Brooke assured her. “We were both wiped out after the long drive home. In fact, he fell asleep in the bathtub after dinner.”

“How are you feeling about seeing Pete tomorrow? Are you excited? Nervous?”

“I haven’t had time to process it yet. A little of both. Oh, shit!” Brooke wailed. “I have to figure out what to wear. I haven’t even done laundry since I got home from Talisa.”

“I looked in your closet when I was putting away clothes last time I was there,” Marie said. “You have half a dozen pairs of white jeans. Put on a cute top that shows some cleavage. Wear those sexy black sandals I gave you for your birthday. Pull your hair back with those tortoise clips, and wear some dangly earrings.”

“Mom! Pete gets in at ten. I’ll look like a hooker on the stroll for a john if I show up at the airport in cleavage and spike heels at that hour of the morning.”

“You wish. And don’t forget to wear makeup, for heaven’s sake. You do still know how to apply makeup, right?”

“Very funny. I wear makeup all the time.”

“Like when?”

“Like if I have a court date or something.”

“You’re going to tell Pete about Henry tomorrow, aren’t you?”

“I haven’t decided,” Brooke said. “I thought I’d see how it goes.”

“No matter how it goes, you have to tell him,” Marie insisted. “Henry is his son. He has a right to know, and you have a responsibility to your son to allow him to have a father in his life. Even if you decide that your relationship with Pete is over, you need to do this, Brooke.”

“We’ll see,” Brooke said. “I gotta hang up now. See you in the morning.”

“Makeup. Heels. Cleavage. Earrings,” Marie said. “And courage.”

* * *

She rang the doorbell at her mother’s Ardsley Park house and then fumbled in her purse for the house key. The door swung open.

Marie stood in the hallway dressed in her bathrobe and slippers, which was unheard of. This was a woman who never left her bedroom unless she was dressed and perfectly groomed.

But there she stood with lank, unwashed hair. Her eyes were red-rimmed with dark circles beneath. She held a tissue to her nose.

“Mom!” Brooke shifted Henry from one hip to the other. “You look like death. What’s wrong?”

“Fever. Chills. Started an hour ago. You look nice,” her mother said, giving an approving nod to Brooke’s deep V-neck top and eyeliner. “I, on the other hand, feel like I’ve been run over by a dump truck.” Marie’s voice was a hoarse rasp.

“You should have called before I left home. I would have just canceled,” Brooke said. She stepped into the hallway and took Marie by the elbow. “Come on. I’ll fix you some tea with lemon and honey, then you need to get back to bed.”

“No,” Marie croaked. “Go. Just go. I’m going back to bed. But you need to go to the airport and see Pete. Go. Shoo.” She made shooing motions with her hands.

“And take Henry? Are you nuts? What’ll I say? What will he say?”

“You two will figure it out,” Marie said, turning her head aside to cough. “No matter what else happens, he’ll fall in love with Henry. Who wouldn’t? Promise me you’ll go. Promise me you won’t back out and run away again.”

Run away. Again. Like she had the weekend of her wedding. The words stung. Because they were true.

“All right,” Brooke said. “We’re going.”

* * *

Pete had neglected to tell her where he was flying in from, so she had no idea of his flight number or where they should meet. She’d been so keyed up about the meeting that she’d arrived at the airport thirty minutes early and had spent the past ten minutes pacing up and down the airport’s carpeted retail concourse. Her back ached from carrying the heavy toddler, so she finally put him down.

“Toy!” Henry cried, pointing to a gift shop where a giant stuffed Snoopy was perched in the front window. He set off at a run for the shop.

“Whoa there,” she said, following after, scooping him up just before the boy made it to his quarry. The back of his pants were damp. She held him aloft, sniffed, and gagged.

“Oh, Henry, nooooo. Not now.”

“I poop,” he said proudly.

“We poop in the potty, remember?”

“No potty,” Henry said.

She’d almost left his diaper bag in the car but at the last minute had shoved her purse inside and looped the bag over her shoulder. It was navy blue, quilted cotton with a pattern of elephants and tigers. Not nearly as cute as the black designer clutch she’d planned to carry. She hurried to the ladies’ room, breathing through her mouth while she stripped off the boy’s shorts on a drop-down changing table. “What we have here is a shituation,” she muttered, stuffing his soiled shorts, shirt, even his socks into a plastic sack she kept in the diaper bag for just such emergencies. She used half a bag of baby wipes cleaning him up, then dressed him in a fresh outfit.

Finally, she went to the sink to wash her hands and check her makeup. “Oh God,” she moaned, looking at the mirror. Her cute low-cut top had somehow come into contact with Henry’s soiled backside. Gagging, she scrubbed at the top with a wet paper towel. The quarter-sized damp spot grew to the size of a half-dollar, directly over her left nipple.