Two Truths and a Lie - Meg Mitchell Moore Page 0,5

breath all day long, and into the night.

“Hi, girls!” she said cheerfully, the way she thought a normal mother in a normal situation might.

“Drink?” said Brooke. She unwound herself from the chair. She was wearing, very well, Sherri decided, a small black bikini with a strap over one shoulder. A drink? Sherri glanced at her watch. It was 2:30 in the afternoon. She hesitated, and before she had a chance to decide, Brooke had disappeared into a pool house that Sherri had just noticed and, once returned, was pressing a cold glass of rosé into her hands.

“Thank you,” Sherri said.

“Summer Water,” Brooke said. “It’s my favorite.” She pointed toward the sweating bottle, which she had placed on one of the side tables. There was a side table next to each chair, along with a pool towel rolled up the way they did them in resorts. Brooke tipped her wine toward Sherri’s and they clinked glasses.

Sherri took a sip. “Delicious,” she said. The wine was dry and light and Sherri thought she tasted grapefruit or maybe lemon. In her old life she had gone for the hard stuff, and plenty of it. A glass of rosé felt tantamount to drinking a Capri Sun.

“Sit down,” said Brooke, gesturing toward one of the lounge chairs. It was more command than offer. Sherri sat, then leaned back awkwardly into the cushion. She wasn’t wearing sunbathing clothes; she was wearing an unfashionable set of khaki capris and a plain white T-shirt. She’d left her old wardrobe behind. She and Katie both had. It was better that way, easier. In fact, it was imperative.

She took in the yard. It looked like it had come straight out of a magazine, all of it, even the two girls in the pool, because they were young, suntanned, and happy. “Is Taylor your only child?” she asked.

“Oh gosh no,” said Brooke. Her expression said, What a question! Who would have only one child? Her voice said, “She’s my baby.”

“I see,” said Sherri, waiting.

“Alton is going to be a sophomore, and Ceci is going into eighth grade. Ceci went to Salisbury Beach with a friend, and Alton, well, who knows. Once they go into high school, you never see them again.” She waved her hand in the air like a magician, whisking her eldest child away.

High school was only three years away for Katie. The thought of never seeing Katie again in a mere three years filled Sherri with a brutal sort of rage and terror. She was not going to let that happen, she had only Katie left in the world. She looked at the pool. There was a diving board and a winding slide. Lined up on the side like soldiers awaiting orders were a series of brightly colored pool floats, not the cheap kind you have to blow up. These were made of thick, expensive foam. They looked like they were floating even when they were on the ground. The pool house had an indoor/outdoor bar with six stools, and Sherri could see an outdoor shower attached to one side of it. This outdoor shower was nicer than the indoor shower in hers and Katie’s current accommodations.

What she couldn’t see were the heads of two girls. The panic came over her in a flash and she jumped up from the chair and ran to the edge of the pool. The tile was dark gray, so you couldn’t make out what was under the surface.

“We’re having a contest,” said Taylor calmly, and Sherri saw that she had failed to notice Taylor sitting on the edge of the deep end of the pool, holding a phone. “To see who can stay under the longest. I’m timing her. I already lost.”

Now Sherri felt foolish. Obviously the girls were okay. And yet. Shouldn’t Katie have surfaced by now? Instead of abating, the terrible panic picked up strength and force. “Katie!” Sherri cried. A distant part of her noted the way her voice went up at the end in a kind of ridiculous shriek. Katie’s head broke the surface and she gasped for air. “Katie, I’m here!” said Sherri.

Katie was laughing. She was laughing, and Sherri thought she was dead. Sherri had been about to jump in the water after her.

“Two fifty-one,” said Taylor admiringly. “That’s the pool record.”

“Yessss,” said Katie, treading water with one hand, fist pumping with the other. “What was the old record?”

“Two twenty-nine,” said Taylor.

Sherri put her hand over her heart and wondered if it would ever slow down