The Lifeguards - A Novel

Informationen zum Autor Amanda Eyre Ward Klappentext The bonds between three picture-perfect--but viciously protective--mothers and their close-knit sons are tested during one unforgettable summer in a gripping novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Jetsetters. Leseprobe -1- Liza Our boys were lifeguards, we told ourselves, and were surely safe. Weren’t they safe? They knew CPR, had shown us their fanny packs filled with Band-Aids and plastic breathing tubes. Xavier, Bobcat, and Charlie (my son) had taken the course together, weekend mornings at Barton Springs. We’d dropped them off at dawn, the Texas sun just starting to climb above the horizon, making the surface of the spring-fed swimming hole flash red and orange. We’d said we’d walk Lady Bird Lake together, or we’d stand-up paddleboard or grab coffee. Instead, we smiled as we dropped the boys, went home to the adult lives we’d begun to create again, now that our children were fifteen. I was ghostwriting a cookbook; Annette was working at Hola, Amigos Daycare; and Whitney had become an Austin real estate titan. Now that we no longer had endless summer days with elementary schoolers underfoot, it was harder to connect. But our friendship was unbreakable, as safe as the neighborhood where we’d raised our sweet little kids. Or so we thought. By the end of the summer, one of us would be gone. “Where are they?” I said, glancing at my watch. (I liked wearing a thin gold watch I’d bought at an antiques store. Sometimes, I told people it had been my mother’s, conjuring an “old money” family that didn’t exist. Oh, how I loved the idea of a mother who’d wear such an elegant timepiece on a slim wrist! My actual mother, in contrast, had a tattoo of a snake on her hand.) It was 11:00 p.m., which was definitely too late. “Riding their bikes around the neighborhood, they said,” said Annette. Her son, Bobcat, was rail-thin and six-three, a reluctant ninth-grade basketball star. Despite Bobcat insisting he just wanted to build computers in his room, Annette’s husband forced their son to keep playing. During the last game of the season, an opponent elbowed Bobcat—hard—in the soft place underneath his rib cage. It was awful to see Bobcat’s face crumple in pain . . . but he only glanced toward the stands at his father . . . and didn’t make a sound. When my son, Charlie, went over his mountain-bike handles on a trail and cut his forehead, I felt his pain viscerally. I could scarcely watch him pedal away, even now that he wore the most expensive safety equipment available: a two-hundred-dollar full-face helmet, padded bike shorts, neck brace, wrist, elbow, and knee pads, and a back protector made of VPD, whatever that was. Despite Charlie’s complaints, I’d bought all the items at Dick’s Sporting Goods on layaway. (The sign above the gear was a siren call: you can buy the feeling of safety!) Sure, the other kids made fun of him with his braces and helmets, but I’d rather my son be embarrassed than dead. It was possible, as Charlie had suggested gently, that I had anxiety issues. Maybe, as he’d said, I should “use our money to talk to someone.” But you couldn’t see a therapist on layaway, now could you? I’d handle my brain when I’d somehow gotten Charlie to college without any major bodily damage. Splurging on things that made me feel more secure was working for me, so I ignored Charlie’s complaints and insinuations and loved him hard and bought him safety equipment. Annette went to every game wearing Austin High colors from head to toe. She had platinum blond hair and bronze skin, wide brown eyes. She carefully sculpted her thick eyebrows into perfect arches, accented her high cheekbones and naturally plump lips with drugstore makeup, and wore expensive jewelry at all times. When Louis (who had been too short to play basketball himself) led cheers for Bobcat from th...

About the author

Amanda Eyre Ward

Product details

• Authors: Amanda Eyre Ward, Amanda Eyre Ward
• Publisher: Ballantine
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.04.2023
• EAN: 9780593159460
• ISBN: 978-0-593-15946-0
• No. of pages: 384
• Dimensions: 132 mm x 203 mm x 21 mm
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; Fiction > Narrative literature > Contemporary literature (from 1945)