“Oooh, Emma do you think you saw a ghost?” Georgia asked.

  “Stop it.” Emma smiled at her. “No, I do not think I saw a ghost.”

  “Oh, I totally believe in ghosts,” Hannah said.

  “Really?” Stephanie said, “Actual ghosts, as in boo!”

  “Well,” Hannah said, “not like cartoon ghosts, but spirits. Sure. Georgia remember when Baba made us do that ofurai in the attic because she was convinced they had a vengeful ghost up there?”

  Georgia smiled. “The Japanese are big on ghosts,” she explained to the rest of them. “Our grandparents are pretty vigilant.”

  “Scary!” Emma said. She adored Hannah and Georgia’s grandparents: they were in their nineties and seemingly still sturdy, despite being about five feet tall and greeting with you a taxonomy of their ills each time you saw them. “You be good, Baba die soon!” had been one of their grandmother’s favorite refrains to the girls for the last fifteen years or so.

  “Not all of them, there are lots of harmless ghosts in Japan. And in August, all your ancestors come back to party with the family. It’s pretty fun actually,” Georgia said. “We took a big trip to Okinawa for Obon once when we were kids.”

  “Ojii think Febreze gets rid of your average household spirit,” Hannah added.

  “Febreze?” Stephanie looked incredulous. The cousins shrugged.

  Abby came barreling out of the house with the book in her hand and an additional bottle of champagne. “Got it!” she said. She clumsily climbed back into the tub and steadily refilled everyone’s plastic cups before rifling through the paperback in search of something.

  “Let’s see: San Juan, Orcas, oh! Here we go: Walker Island!”

  “Read it out loud!” Georgia said.

  “Okay, ready? So ‘Walker Island is home to several ghosts, the most well-known of which is a woman known as the Lady in Red who haunts the Madrone Manor . . .’ ”

  Emma felt her throat tighten; she hadn’t described the woman to them, had she? Just said she thought she saw someone.

  “ ‘Guests at the manor have reported seeing her both in the hallways there or wandering the perimeter or the edges of the cliffs.’ ”

  “Where’s Madrone Manor?” Hannah asked.

  Emma felt a relief that she hadn’t said Bay House, and then felt silly for being relieved. Abby shrugged and continued, “ ‘She is believed to be the spirit of Ruth Ericksen, the wife of German industrialist Heinrich Ericksen. He is rumored to have purchased Madrone Manor specifically to have a place to stash his troublesome wife, who struggled with alcoholism and addiction throughout her short life. She was known for riding her motorbike into Walker’s Landing, scandalizing island residents by showing up in a red dress or negligee. It’s said she became infatuated with a local fisherman named Aksel Nielsen who took up residence in Madrone Manor, much to the horror of the islanders. Sadly, their love affair ended in tragedy when Ruth discovered Aksel was having an affair with a local shopkeeper’s daughter. She became so distraught that she threw herself from the cliffs and perished on the rocks below. She was believed to be thirty-five at the time of her death in nineteen forty-four. Numerous guests of Madrone Manor have reported hearing a woman crying when there was no one around and some reports even have her standing on the cliffs where she plunged to her death, perhaps considering her fate. Heinrich would go on to remarry and have six children. Ericksen Heating and Cooling is today helmed by one of his grandsons: the sad fate of his first wife became a mere footnote in the titan’s history.’ ”

  Abby looked up at Emma wide-eyed and smiling. “Do you think you saw Ruth Ericksen’s ghost?”

  Emma rolled her eyes. “No. We’re not at Madrone Manor, are we?”

  Abby shrugged. “Maybe she wandered up here? I don’t know what ghosts do.”

  “That poor woman! Can you imagine being so distraught over some cheating bastard that you off yourself?” Georgia said.

  “But she was cheating on her husband with him, so . . .” Hannah said.

  “Yeah but,” Georgia went on, “it’s not the same. She had no control over her life; her husband just stuck her out here and left her. I mean this island is pretty sleepy now, can you imagine what it was like back then? It must have felt like the ends of the earth.”

  “Whew,” Stephanie said. “God, being a woman was no picnic back then.”

  “Dude, it’s no picnic now,” Abby said, suddenly turning serious, ascending a soapbox. “We’ve still got the wage gap, access to abortion is under siege like, constantly, and then of course there’s the unrelenting tide of sexual violence that goes mostly unpunished.”

  “You’re right, you’re right,” Stephanie said, “but still. Seriously being a woman any other time in human history? Soooo much worse.”

  Emma was dismayed: they were supposed to be having fun and somehow the conversation had turned to infidelity, death, ghosts, and deconstructing feminism.

  “Abby, you would have made a pretty groovy Second-Waver,” Georgia said.

  Abby put a fist in the air.

  “I think Anna Ericksen should have shoved Aksel off the cliff. Or maybe her husband,” Hannah said.

  “Can you imagine?” Stephanie said. “Not that I could ever picture Garrett cheating.”

  “I’d cut his balls off, like literally just get in there and whack,” Georgia said, making a slicing motion through the air. She and Abby were the only truly single girls on the trip: Hannah’s days were numbered. “You know we’re like, biologically designed to become murderous when someone takes our mate?” she continued. “I’m not saying it’s right, but damn, that is like the definition of blind rage.”

  Emma nodded and smiled but held her tongue. Only Hannah knew about what Spencer had done. It was a woman not known to Emma—small mercies—a barista at a local coffee shop in San Francisco where Spencer went frequently for work. It had started as a harmless flirtation; and everyone had those, didn’t they? The cute guy you smiled at at the gym, the college girl working as a hostess for the summer. It was fine. And then it wasn’t. Three years ago and it had cost her dearly to come back from it.

  “I think it would depend on the circumstances,” Hannah said.

  “Sure. Like if you have an open relationship. That’s not really cheating,” Abby added.

  “No, I just mean I don’t think you can be super idealistic about marriage. People are human. Life is long,” Hannah said, “there’s so much time to fuck up.”

  “What a cynical bride!” Stephanie said with a smile.

  Georgia shook her head. “Huh-uh, life is short. Too short to live with someone who does that to you. But what do I know? I’m single as a nun.”

  Exactly, Emma thought, you don’t know. She knew Georgia wouldn’t be so insensitive if she knew about her situation, but that was just the point, right? You never did know what the people sitting next to you had been through. And Georgia had no idea what it meant to have your entire life intertwined with someone the way Emma’s was with Spencer’s. They’d been together for ten years. She barely remembered herself without him. This was, of course, not a thing you could say to a group of liberal women, but it was the truth.

  “I’m single. But not like a nun.” Abby smiled. Her dyed red hair was dangling in the hot tub, making the tips look almost black in the darkness. “I did date a married guy once.”

  “Oh, Abby,” Stephanie said, as though deeply disappointed by this woman she’d known for less than forty-eight hours.

  “Dude, I didn’t know he was married. Not how I roll. I found out when I got a call from his wife.”

  The group let out a collective “Oooooooh!”

  “Yeah, no bueno. She refused to believe that I didn’t know he was married. Like it’s my job to ferret that shit out. I got the distinct impression that I was not the first.”

  “Of course you weren’t! A cheater is a cheater,” Georgia added. “I almost think that would be the worst part, dealing with the other woman.” For Georgia, unmarried, and with opportunities for girl time few and far between, it was bonds between women that seemed the most sacred, the most inviolable. She knew nothing of the dark and beautiful corridor that marriage could be, the narrow space allowing for only one fellow traveler.

  “Dealing with other women is kind of the hardest part, but not in the way you would think.” Emma said quietly. “The girl doesn’t matter; she’s a symptom. But once you find out, it feels like you have two options: leave him and upend your life, maybe regret it forever. Or stay with him and wonder if you’re being weak and deal with everyone’s judgment; and to be honest, it’s other women who judge, not men.”

  The group was silent as what she’d said sunk in. Emma looked past them for a long moment. The hot tub was on a back patio that faced out onto the sound. The view on this particular night was spectacular, with a nearly full moon and a thousand more stars than could be seen in the city on the clearest night.

  “Spencer?” Stephanie finally said. She and Emma had been on double dates together; they’d even gone on a weekend trip with their husbands, along with Hannah and Steven. Stephanie clearly felt betrayed not only on Emma’s behalf but also on her own.

  Emma nodded.

  “When?”

  “A few years ago. It was when Ruby was a year old. We were going through this awful period: it was the only time in our marriage when we’d go whole days without speaking. Not that that’s an excuse, obviously. He was on a business trip. He told me right away, said he thought confessing was the right thing to do.”

  “Was it?” Georgia asked gently.

  Emma shrugged. “Maybe? In some ways, I think it would have been better not to know—like that would be his punishment, to take it to his grave. Knowing is what’s made everything so hard. The really fucked up part is I don’t love him any less, I just hate him a little more. The two don’t cancel each other out, as it happens.”

  “Damn,” Georgia said. “Well, I feel like an asshole now. Don’t listen to me. I don’t spend enough time with humans, I’m not properly socialized anymore.”

  “It’s okay,” Emma said, “I would have said the same thing before it actually happened to me. The truth is, I don’t want to leave Spencer, that’s why I stayed. It’s selfish.”

  “And did things get better? I mean, how do you trust someone again?” Stephanie asked.

  “Things get better little by little, but yeah, it’s a process. I don’t know if it ever goes away completely.”

  “But trust isn’t some immutable thing, right?” Hannah said, “It gets built, it gets destroyed, you can rebuild, right?”

  “I guess,” Stephanie said, clearly reeling from the damage to her worldview. “But what the heck?” She said, “I mean Jesus, look at you. Who cheats on you?”

  Emma smiled. She knew she was still attractive at thirty-four: her auburn hair still long and lustrous—though increasingly expensive to keep that way—her figure, even after two babies, still decent, though not like it was, never like it was. And men still looked at her when she walked into a room, though it wasn’t quite with the electric intensity that it had been ten years before. She was embarrassed that she noticed, more embarrassed that she cared.

  “That never matters,” Georgia said, “I mean hello, Beyoncé got cheated on.”

  “Better call Becky with the good hair,” Abby sang. They all laughed. It broke the tension. Plus, they were all drunk.

  “You’re right. And besides it’s just, marriage is hard, you guys! And no one is perfect,” Stephanie said.

  Abby laughed. “I’m so relieved to hear you say that.”

  Stephanie looked at her, confused.

  “I mean, no offense at all, because I mean this as a compliment, but you’ve got this whole like, Elle Woods thing going on.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Relax, didn’t I say it was a compliment? Blonde, gorgeous, smart, loveable, sticks it to the patriarchy. Elle Woods! Modern hero.”

  Now Stephanie smiled. Emma felt the knot in her stomach loosen; she didn’t want to have discord on this trip. A group of women together—some of whom had met only once—with the alcohol and the prospect of a wedding hanging over them, it was like travelling with nitroglycerin.

  “Well for your information, Punk Rock,” Stephanie said, her tone affectionate, “I have not always been the perfect wife.”

  “Do tell!” Abby said.

  The rest of them looked at her expectantly.

  “I can’t, you guys will hate me.”

  “Nope, this is the hot tub of truth,” Hannah said solemnly, shaking her head as a little bit of her drink sloshed from the side of her cup. “No judgment here!”

  “Right, at least not on each other. And nothing leaves these waters, agreed?” Emma added. The group turned back to Stephanie; now they were a sisterhood, a coven. Georgia raised her cup full of champagne and they rammed their plastic cups together in a sloppy cheers to seal the deal.

  “Tell us, tell us,” Abby chanted.

  “Seriously, I’m dying,” Georgia said.

  “Okay, okay,” Stephanie said. “I don’t know if this is strictly considered cheating but I did slip up once.”

  Their eyes went wide, and suddenly they looked like nocturnal animals in a strange ritual.

  “You cheated on Garrett?” Emma asked. Did this make her feel better or worse about her own sorry case? She could not say.

  “Well, not like I had an affair, but okay, here’s what happened. So we’re on our honeymoon.”

  “The honeymoon!” went the surprised chorus.

  “Yes. So we’re in Hawaii and we get in this ridiculous blowout fight. It was one of those fights you have, completely over nothing, but all of the stress that had built up over the wedding just came out sideways. I stormed out of our suite and went down to the bar at the next-door hotel. I drank like four Mai Tais. And, oh god, this is mortifying! The bartender was this hot, blonde surfer guy and I sat there drinking my face off until his shift was over. We went for a walk on the beach and made out.”

  “Then what?”

  “Nothing! I made out with him for like ten minutes and when he tried to take things further, I ran away.”

  “You ran away? Was he being aggressive?”

  Stephanie laughed. “God no, I think I just suddenly realized what I was doing. He was bewildered, poor thing. Thank god I didn’t choose the bar at my own hotel. I went back to the room and puked my guts out. Garrett and I made up and that was the end of it.”

  “Did you tell him?” Georgia asked.

  “No! What good would it do?”

  “None!” Hannah said.

  “Emma, I just hope you know that what Spencer did has nothing to do with you, zero.”

  Emma nodded. She knew this as much as she could know it. She knew that was what she was supposed to feel; that her husband’s actions were no reflection on her desirability, her lovability. And yet.

  “Because seriously,” Stephanie continued, “I get a lot of women in who suddenly want a referral for a face-lift because their husband cheated on them.”

  “No way,” Abby said. “What bullshit.”

  “Well, it’s Mercer Island. Boy, I bet we’re really getting you psyched up for marriage, huh Hannah?” Stephanie said.

  Hannah smiled. “Come on, I’m thirty-five years old,” she said. “It’s not like I think it’s all a fairy tale or something. I’ve lived some life, I’ve seen some things.”

  “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard the story of how you and Steven met,” Abby said.

  “We met in law school.”

  “No, I mean how you got back together. Not how you met your boyfriend, how you met your husband.”

  “Oh,” Hannah said, “at the grocery store. At the Met Market in Queen Anne. I kid you not, I was like, knocking on a cantaloupe and he just appeared.”

  An obligatory awww rose up from the four of them.

  “I guess what struck me is he didn’t seem bitter at all about the breakup, he just told me I looked as beautiful as ever and seemed genuinely happy to see me.”

  “He was pretty wrecked when you broke up with him,” Emma recalled.

  “Don’t remind me. He brings it up every once in a while, just jokingly, but still. It makes me cringe.”

  “So did he ask you out right then and there?” Abby asked.

  “Actually, I called him the next day,” Hannah said. “I just . . . seeing him again. He seemed so different to me than he had at twenty-five. I realized I’d been stupid to disregard him.”

  There was a layer to this—Emma knew—that Hannah wasn’t sharing. Hannah had run into Steven shortly after her thirty-fourth birthday, which had sent her into a depression spiral that for a time had them seriously worried. Hannah had struggled with depression as a teen; and she’d acted out here and there in the usual teenage ways, dating a steady succession of older boys, who kept her parents up at night and didn’t do much for her self-esteem. But she’d grown out of all that. But when she turned thirty-four, Hannah, who hadn’t been terribly focused on romance in her adulthood, was suddenly pining for a partner. All at once the specter of a husbandless, childless existence seemed to descend on her, and for a time, it appeared to be crushing her spirit, giving her heart no space to breathe. It wasn’t that Emma didn’t understand: this fear, often somehow a shameful one for women, passed over them all at some point or other unless they’d married young. What if I miss my chance? Then Steven had shown up—true to Hannah’s story, near the cantaloupes at Met Market—but this had always seemed a little too perfect to Emma.

  “So it was love at second sight,” Abby said.

  “Sure,” Hannah said with a smile and a shrug. “Like I said, I’m too old for fairy tales.”

 

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