SC-Epilogue, Part 4b

Jul 1996

✧ ✧ ✧

Leah and I walked around the lake toward the others. Then she glanced over my shoulder and grinned.

“Oh, this should be fun,” she said.

I turned and watched Erin and Tom walk down the hill. A mischievous part of me was looking forward to my mother’s reaction when she met him, and she didn’t disappoint.

“Why didn’t you tell us you’d met someone?” she said to Erin.

“Because I’m a grown woman, mother. I don’t need your permission.”

I pursed my lips, and my father coughed into his fist. Erin only called her “mother” when she was annoyed.

“Besides,” she added, “I don’t discuss my relationships with you anymore, remember?”

Tom politely cleared his throat, the equivalent of Christy’s “be nice” looks. I chuckled when I realized that Erin and I had both found people who curbed our worst behavior.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Beth,” he said. “You too, David. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“I doubt that,” my mother said under her breath.

“Now you see where she gets it,” I said to Tom, who grinned.

“Gets what?” Erin said irritably.

“Your slightly prickly personality, sister dear. No one is ever going to accuse you of being a shrinking violet.”

“And no one’s ever going to accuse you of having charm or tact.”

Dad broke in at that point. “So, what do you do, Tom?”

“I teach psychology,” he said immediately. “And I occasionally write a book about it.”

“Sounds interesting,” Dad said with bland politeness. “I mostly read aviation magazines. And the occasional thriller. Tom Clancy, John Grisham, that sort of thing. I don’t imagine your books are anything like that.”

“No,” Tom chuckled. “Mine are…”

My mother listened to Tom and my father talk about books for nearly a minute before she connected the dots. She could be a little slow on the uptake sometimes. (I came by it honestly.)

“Hold on,” she blurted, and Tom fell silent.

Erin actually smirked.

“Tom. As in Thomas?”

“Yes,” he said.

Mom actually stared at him and tried to remember where she’d seen him before.

Bless her heart…, I thought wryly. A book flap, perhaps? A talk show? Late night TV?

Erin leaned toward me and said quietly, “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this.”

“Thomas Ryland?” Mom said in growing disbelief. “The Thomas Ryland, PhD?”

“That’s me,” Tom said with subdued amusement. He’d obviously been through this before.

“What about him?” my father asked.

“He writes those books! You know the ones. I read one last year. What was it called?”

Tom waited a polite moment before he supplied the title.

“Exactly! How’d you—?” To her credit, my mother didn’t actually finish her thought. Instead, she realized she’d been played. She turned a baleful eye on Erin. “Very funny.”

“I thought so,” Erin smirked.

“Be nice,” I warned her, and Tom backed it up with a glance.

“You’re no fun,” she griped, cheerful instead of churlish.

“I’m sorry,” Tom said to my parents. “We should’ve told you.”

“I thought you looked familiar,” Mom said. “I saw you on Oprah. Last year. That’s when I bought your book.”

“Ah, so you’re the one,” he said drolly. “Well, I hope you enjoyed it.”

“I did. How do you know so much about…?”

They fell into conversation, and I leaned toward Erin.

“Happy?”

“Oh, immensely.” She watched Mom for a moment, and her expression softened. “I don’t know why I let her get to me.”

“She pushes our buttons,” I said simply.

“All of them.”

“I suppose it’s her prerogative. I mean, she made them and all.”

“Ha! No kidding.”

Laurie climbed out of the lake and ran toward us. She arrived with a breathless pout. I tried to be cheerful instead, which was more of my mother’s influence.

“What’s up, Flower?”

“Emily’s splashing us.”

“It’s a lake,” I said. “Sometimes you get splashed.”

“Make her stop.”

“Have you asked her yourself?”

“Yes. She won’t listen.”

I sighed and glanced at my own parents, who’d stopped talking to Tom and were doing their best not to look amused. My dad was more or less successful, but my mom shouldn’t have tried.

“Will you come swim with us?” Laurie begged. “She listens to you.”

“Ah, so that’s what this is about,” I said. “All right. But I have to warn you, I might need help crossing the lake. Will you protect me from the evil water fairies?”

Laurie rolled her eyes. “Oh, Daddy. There aren’t any evil water fairies. That’s only in stories.”

“What about Mommy?”

Christy squawked indignantly from several feet away.

“She’s only evil when we disobey,” Laurie said.

“I am not!” Christy protested.

Laurie knew better than to argue, but she set her jaw defiantly. (Did I mention that she had my personality?)

“Come on,” I chuckled, “let’s go see about these water fairies.”

“Don’t worry, Daddy, I’ll protect you.”

“I’m counting on it!”

✧ ✧ ✧

I was still in the lake with the kids when I saw a familiar figure walking down the hill. She was too far away to see any details, but that didn’t stop me from watching her. She looked good, although I sighed at the man beside her. He was wearing shorts. I wasn’t sure what I’d been hoping for, but he wasn’t it.

After a moment I sighed again, although at myself this time. Don’t rush to judgement. Always be mindful. I focused on my breathing and heart rate instead, things I could change. Then I sent a silent prayer of thanks to Glen Otis, wherever he was.

“All right,” I said to the girls, “I need to get out for a while.”

“No, Daddy!”

“Unh!”

“Sim!”

“Sorry,” I said, “I’m worn out. And I need to talk to an old friend.”

Wren had seen them too, and she hopped into the water to relieve me.

“I know,” she said to the girls, “let’s see if the boys want to race. I bet we’ll beat them. What do you say?”

Laurie was all for it, which meant that Emily was even more for it. Missy followed Emily’s lead, and the younger girls were happy to join in the excitement. Kara’s twins weren’t very competitive, but they shrugged in unison and decided that a race sounded fun.

“Thanks,” I murmured to Wren on the way past.

“Mmm. Good luck.”

I grabbed my towel and dried my hair as I walked around the lake, although my eyes never left the couple. They’d reached our little family group and were talking to them.

In my head I’d always thought of Gina as the teenage girl I’d fallen in love with, but the current reality was thirty-three and still beautiful. Her breasts were a little heavier and her stomach wasn’t as flat as it had been, but at least she wasn’t rail-thin anymore. I realized with a shock that the cocaine had probably kept her that way.

She looked good otherwise. Her hairstyle was an LA version of the Rachel (yes, from Friends), which made me smile. Christy had gone through the same phase, although her current hair was a layered bob, more like Monica’s. It was easy to manage, so our towheaded princesses sported the same hairdo.

Gina and the man both turned when I approached. She smiled, warm and genuine, but her dark eyes were different. They were calmer now, filled with a peace that hadn’t been there the last time I’d seen her.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey yourself.” I was acutely aware of all the people around us—her family and mine, but especially Christy—so I shifted my attention to the man. I wanted to say something about his shorts but decided not to. Different strokes. “You must be John,” I said instead. “I’m Paul. Nice to finally meet you.”

“You too.” We shook hands. His were soft and smooth, surgeon’s hands. “Gina’s told me a lot about you.”

He was tall, dark-haired, and normal-looking. He wasn’t ugly, but he wasn’t Hollywood handsome, either. His skin was darker than mine, although not from a tanning bed. His teeth weren’t unnaturally white, his fingernails hadn’t been buffed to a high gloss, and he didn’t look like he spent hours in the gym. In other words, he wasn’t at all what I thought a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon should look like.

Gina could still read me, even after all these years. “What’s the matter?”

“Honestly?” I laughed. “I was looking for a reason not to like him.”

John’s eyebrows rose.

“Gimme a minute,” I said, “I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

Be nice, Christy warned, but John knew I was kidding.

“I can help if you want,” he offered. “I know all my bad qualities.” Then he gestured at his shorts. “I’m shy, for starters.”

“Eh, who cares,” I said. “You have excellent taste in women. That’s all that matters.”

Gina couldn’t decide whether to be exasperated or relieved. She settled for the latter and smiled at the compliment.

We made small talk for a couple of minutes before cheers and then shrieks of triumph reached us from across the lake. We all turned to look.

Laurie had won a head-to-head race against Davis, and the younger girls were celebrating. Wren gave Laurie a high-five, which Davis didn’t like. Trip wasn’t the most enlightened guy in the world, but he wasn’t about to let his son get away with poor sportsmanship. He prodded Davis in the back, and the boy reluctantly congratulated Laurie.

I watched for another moment, until I was sure that Wren and Trip had things under control. All of our kids were competitive, but Davis had a legitimate complaint that the girls ganged up on him sometimes. Wren bent and said something to Laurie, who waded forward and hugged him.

“Can I meet your daughters?” Gina asked. She included Christy in the question, but we all knew she was talking to me. And it wasn’t really a question. It was an invitation to talk. Alone.

“Sure.” I glanced at Christy, but she didn’t have a problem with it.

John didn’t either. “I’ll stay here, if you don’t mind.”

Gina smiled and stretched upward to kiss him. Then she nodded to me, and we strolled toward the deep end of the lake. I didn’t know where to begin, so I started with the obvious.

“You look good.”

“Thanks. You too. I forgot how much you work out.”

I shrugged. “It’s a habit now.”

“You weren’t really pudgy. I always thought you were cute.”

“I dunno about that,” I chuckled, “but thanks.”

“Mmm.”

“So… how’re you? For real, I mean.”

“I’m good. You?”

“Good, thanks. Looking forward to moving back to Atlanta.”

“I bet.”

“How’s the other thing?” I said. “The program, NA?”

“Nine months clean.”

“So… you’re done with it? Coke, I mean. No more problem?”

“I’ll never be ‘done with it,’” she said neutrally. “I take things day by day.”

“Is Regan still…? Um… clean?”

“She is. And going to meetings with me. She had a relapse a couple of months ago, but she’s doing better now. It’s… harder for her.”

“How so?”

“Stress. Her job. Her family. Or lack thereof.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah. I’m the only one she has, so…” Gina looked over her shoulder, toward John. “She sort of lost it when he asked me to marry him.”

I hadn’t noticed the ring, but I hadn’t been looking at her fingers, either. I chuckled.

“What’s so funny?” she asked. “Never mind. I think I know.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

She shrugged. “It’s nice to know I can still get your attention.”

“You always could.”

We shared a smile that wasn’t exactly sad, but it carried a lot of baggage, the things that might have been, if only we hadn’t been so young and focused on our own problems.

“How’s life otherwise?” I asked. “Your career? Doctors Without Borders?”

“Good. We returned from a trip a couple of months ago. They’re building a new clinic in San Salvador. John recruited some other specialists, and they’re teaching the local surgeons how to use the new equipment. Oh, Paul, you should’ve seen some of the machines they had before. The new ones are all obsolete here in the States, but they’re decades newer than the ones they had. It’s heartbreaking.”

“What about you? What do you do when you’re there?”

“My job’s a little easier. We mostly focus on family planning and access to contraceptives.”

“Seriously? That’s more important than healthy childbirth?”

“Paul, women have been giving birth for thousands of years, often in primitive conditions. But if you give them control over their bodies and reproduction, you improve life for them and their children—the entire family.”

“What do their husbands think? I mean, that’s a pretty macho society.”

“Poco a poco,” she said.

“Which means…?”

“Oh, sorry. Little by little. We’re changing society as much as individual lives.”

“How’re things going back in LA?” I asked. “Leah said you have a new clinic.”

“Two, actually.”

“Oh?”

“We just moved our main practice to Beverly Hills.”

“Ah, so you’re in 90210?”

“Only three days a week. I work at the other clinic the rest of the time.”

“Where’s that?”

“East LA.”

My eyebrows flew up. I wasn’t an Angeleno, but even I had heard about the problems there.

“Aren’t you worried about the gangs?” I said.

“Not really,” Gina replied calmly. “We’re sort of neutral territory.”

“For real?”

“Yeah. We had problems in the early days, but not since.”

“How’d you manage that? Security guards or something?”

“No. The women took care of it.” She smiled at the memory. “They convinced the men that it was in their best interest to let us operate without problems.”

“Convinced…?” I prompted.

“They cut them off.”

I felt a stab of sympathetic pain. I might’ve gulped audibly too. “Not… their balls?”

“No!” Gina laughed. “They cut off sex.”

“Oh, okay.” My cheeks warmed in embarrassment. “I… um… hadn’t thought of that.”

“We have some smart chicas in the barrio.”

“Ha! You sound almost Mexican yourself.”

“The language is Spanish, Paul. And the people are Americans.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay. It’s a sore spot with me.”

“I should know better,” I admitted.

She looked at me with a question.

“A friend,” I said vaguely. “Someone I used to… um…”

Gina’s laugh was soft and full of warmth. She understood.

“Anyway,” I continued, “her family’s Hispanic, all the way back to the Conquest. But her father made a big deal about being American. He wouldn’t even let them learn Spanish in school. She had to take French instead.”

“That’s like John’s family,” Gina said. “Well, not the French part, but the rest. They’ve been in California since before the American Revolution. They’re proud of their heritage, though. They should be.”

“Why?”

“They were LA royalty, back when it was still part of Mexico.”

“For real?”

“Yeah. They were big landowners. One was even alcalde— Sorry, the mayor of Los Angeles. These days, they just have a street named after them. Still, it’s the longest in LA.”

I shrugged ignorance.

“Sepulveda Boulevard.”

“Oh, wow. I know that one. It’s by LAX, isn’t it?”

She nodded, and we settled onto the blanket that Wren had been using. She was still in the lake, helping the girls maneuver the raft into the shallow end so they could have a floating tea party.

Gina and I fell silent and watched them. Then she sighed.

“Ready to start a family of your own?” I said.

“How’d—? Never mind. Of course you’d know.”

“Mmm.”

“I am,” she said after a moment.

“So… he’s good for you?”

“He is. Better than I deserve, that’s for sure.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. You’re one of the most intelligent, dedicated, caring people I know.”

“Thank you,” she said softly.

“And it’s about time you found someone who appreciates that. Not to mention someone who inspires you.”

“He does,” she agreed.

“Good. Then I like him.” I paused to consider my next words. “This is going to sound weird, but I think you’ll understand. I’m glad things didn’t work out with you and me.”

She thought about it and smiled. “I am too.”

I put my arm around her, and she leaned into me. She even felt different than I remembered. She felt…

Happy.

✧ ✧ ✧

Stacy, Jason, Sydney, and Woody were sitting around a table with Kara and Victor when we returned from the main camp. I hadn’t seen them in more than a decade, although I’d heard updates through the grapevine. Susan had more or less adopted Stacy, and all four of them were part of Kara and Victor’s extended swinging group.

They lived in Greenville, where Stacy was a senior marketing manager for a big tire company. Jason and Woody were partners in a small accounting firm, and Sydney worked for a theater and concert hall in downtown Greenville. They looked good, albeit older than I remembered.

Stacy had changed the most, although I realized that eighteen years had passed since Susan and I had first met her. She’d been a waif back then, a cashier at Winn-Dixie. Her abusive husband had disappeared, thankfully, and she’d been living in a small mobile home.

The years since had been good to her. She’d gained weight, although she looked good for a woman who’d had two children and was approaching forty. She kept her pubic hair completely shaved, and her nipples were pierced. She saw me looking and arched an eyebrow with a challenge, something she never would’ve done before. Then she spotted the little barbells through Christy’s nipples. Her lips quirked in a grin, recognition of a kindred spirit.

Jason and Woody were older and heavier versions of the men I remembered from Kara’s wedding. They were middle-aged dads now, CPAs with desk jobs. Sydney alone hadn’t filled out. She’d been even thinner than Stacy when I’d first met her, and she was still thin.

Victor rose and made the introductions.

“Thanks for organizing this,” Jason said to me, and the others nodded agreement.

“You’re welcome. This might be our last chance to enjoy the camp as we knew it.”

“It makes you think, doesn’t it? The things you take for granted…”

✧ ✧ ✧

Carter and Kim arrived in a red Mercedes convertible that I hadn’t seen before. He parked out of sight behind the clubhouse. And when they didn’t appear immediately, I suspected he was ogling Tom’s Porsche. They eventually walked around the corner, and conversation stopped as they approached.

Carter was even more handsome in his forties than he’d been in his thirties or even his twenties. His blond hair was still thick and untouched by gray, and the lines on his face gave him an air of authority. He’d gained weight since we’d first met, but he’d never been a small man. Besides, he had the bone structure to support the extra pounds.

Kim had aged as well, although she was still beautiful. Her body had changed in the usual ways, especially after the birth of their sons, but obsessive dieting and exercise kept her slim. I thought she went a little overboard on both, but she wanted to look nice for Carter. Besides, who was I to judge?

I introduced (and reintroduced) everyone, and we exchanged the usual pleasantries.

“I brought several cases of wine,” Carter said, “but we need to run back to town for groceries. We didn’t have room for everything in the trunk.”

“Tell me about it,” Tom complained.

“I don’t wanna hear it, y’all,” Trip said. “I’m driving a mommy van.”

“They aren’t so bad,” I said. “We’ll probably buy one when we move.”

“Then you can drive it,” Christy said. She pointed toward the cars behind the clubhouse. “I want one of those.”

Carter’s eyebrows went up. “A Porsche?”

“No, a convertible, like yours. My mom had them when I was growing up.” She turned to me. “You remember.”

“Of course. But… I think we need something more practical.”

“Maybe you do,” she said. “I want a convertible.”

“We’ll see.”

A little while later, Carter and I drove to town to buy groceries, and I filled him in on the other couples.

“Holy shit,” he said about Tom. “Is he for real?”

“I know, right?”

“I’ve met guys with big dicks—the scene tends to attract them—but they’re usually big guys themselves. You know the type. A guy Tom’s size looks like he has a third leg or something.”

“No kidding!” I laughed.

Carter and I had always been able to talk about other guys without hang-ups. Mark and I were the same. It was a refreshing change from Trip, who was only a little less homophobic than he’d been in college. He didn’t mind swinging and seeing another guy in action, but he still wasn’t comfortable with friendly fire or the occasional contact.

“And I hope you don’t take this the wrong way,” Carter continued, “but he makes you look small. How big does that thing get?”

“No clue,” I said. “I haven’t seen it in action yet.”

“Well, we’ll have to change that. I can’t wait to see you two with Kim.” He thought for a moment and then glanced at me sideways. “They live in Florida, right? What did you say he did again?”

“I didn’t. We hadn’t gotten that far.”

“Right!” he laughed. “Sorry about that.”

I told him about Tom’s career.

“Hey, wait,” Carter said, “I know him. His books, at least. Kim made me read the last one. He really gets it. About us.”

“He does.”

“And I’d be surprised if he’s not a Dom himself. I mean, look at him. A guy like that? Yeah, he’s for real.”

“I think so,” I agreed.

“He’d have to be,” Carter chuckled, “if he tamed Erin. Although… I don’t think anyone will ever tame her. Not for real.”

“Um… no.”

He grinned at me sideways. “Very diplomatic. As usual. Are you sure you aren’t an attorney?”

“Pretty sure.”

“Oh, hey! Speaking of which, congratulations on MIT. Very prestigious. Sorry we couldn’t make the ceremony. I had a big case that actually went to trial.”

“No worries,” I said. “I got your card and the case of champagne.”

“Any of it left?” he teased.

“Are you kidding? You’ve met my wife, haven’t you?”

“I’ve had the pleasure. Many times, as a matter of fact.”

We shared a grin.

“So, tell me who else is supposed to be here this weekend. Any other guys like us?”

“One,” I said. “Nate. Brooke’s new boyfriend.”

✧ ✧ ✧