In the Swim

DEBORAH CROMBIE: When I’ve turned in my book (soon, soon, I promise!) my daughter wants to take me for a day at a multi-pool spa place. Apparently there are all sorts of different mineral pools at different temperatures in which you can lounge to your heart’s content. And there are food and drinks and other fun spa things. It's called World Springs and doesn't it look fab?? Check it out, seriously. I'm very excited.

But my very first thought was I’LL HAVE TO GET A NEW SWIMSUIT.

And that is a big ugh because I don’t think there is anything worse than shopping for a bathing suit–unless it’s shopping for jeans. (Guys, you may be exempt from this particular trauma–unless you are torn between boxer trunks and, dare I say, the Speedo?)

Does anyone else still say bathing suit, by the way? I have a suit, and I’m pretty sure it still fits. What I don’t know is whether the fabric will have disintegrated since the last time I wore it… Obviously, I need to get in a pool more often.

Does everyone do their swimsuit shopping online these days? My email inbox is stuffed with swimsuit ads from Land’s End and LL Bean, but the suit I have, a cute Marimeko print with a matching cover-up, I bought at Target. I quail, however, at the thought of trying on suits in the cubicle of a store dressing room.

Reds, especially the swimmers among you, what is your favorite place to shop for a suit, and what style do you prefer?

LUCY BURDETTE: I’m waiting eagerly for good advice on this topic, because my suit is also disintegrating. The question is where to find a suit that doesn’t expose bulges that I swear weren’t there last year? My sister in law wears a bikini and she’s older than I am–not a chance for me!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I still call it a bathing suit, Debs! I have three. One is for when I’m swimming for exercise at the Y; it’s a standard one-piece, very boring but it stays on and stays up, which is an important quality if you have bosoms. Which I do. The second one is my Official New England Old Lady suit, a sort of short empire dress with the rest of the tank underneath. I famously wore this at the nude beach in Hawai’i, and was quite comfortable doing so. The dress is VERY forgiving of anyone’s figure flaws. 

Finally, I have the “oh, no, everything else needs to be washed” suit. We’ll see if the elastic has hung on for one more season when I bring down the summer clothes from the attic.

I don’t know what I’ll do if I ever have to buy a new suit. Probably order twenty online and try them on in the privacy (and more forgiving light) in my bedroom. Thank goodness for free returns.

JENN McKINLAY: We have a swimming pool that I live in during the AZ summer months. Every spring, I usually buy two bikinis (I’m too tall for a one piece - rides up constantly - very uncomfortable!) at Target and by the end of summer they are worn out. I try not to overthink it! 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Yes, I love Land's End. There's a really cute tankini that seems to work. High cut pants, separate top, flattering. (I guess...) I still I also have a high-necked (yes) scuba looking suit which is kinda cool. But with all my heart, if I never had to wear a bathing suit again I would be happy.

And I can tell you, sisters, I will NEVER got to a store and try on bathing suits ever again. I mean, I am not a masochist.

DEBS: Hank, this is one place where online shopping was a boon to woman kind. And Jenn definitely has the right attitude! Writing this blog post got me in gear, too. When a Land's End ad popped up in my email first thing this morning, I picked out a suit for half price. Hope it fits because it was non-refundable! I went for a two-piece tankini because if there's anything worse than trying on swimsuits, it's trying to get in and out of a wet one-piece. It's similar to the one in the photo above, but I couldn't copy Land's End's ad photo.

Now I will be prepared to celebrate book-finishing in the mineral pools!

How about it, dear readers? Are you swimming this summer, and what are you swimming in?

An Oldie but Goodie with Some *Very Good* Advice on Marriage

 LUCY BURDETTE: We're running this post from four years ago because some of you will have missed it and it's good enough to read over and over! (In my humble opinion.) Plus it has the most adorable picture of Rhys and her John you will ever see...

The Reds Dish with Advice on Marriage

 LUCY BURDETTE: Tomorrow is the 30th anniversary of John and me getting married. Thirty years! How did that happen? Last year at this time, John was in the hospital with medical problems, so I feel even more grateful this year. I hoped the Reds might help us celebrate with pictures of their wedding day, and best advice for folks just starting out. (Or really, people in the middle might use this too!)

A wise therapist once told me that there’s not really any such thing as one marriage. You and your spouse embark on what becomes a series of marriages, depending on how each of you might be changing internally, plus changes outside with family challenges, health issues, aging, money, etc. To make it through all this, keep talking, stay kind and calm, and focus on the positive reasons you married this person in the first place.  How about you Reds, advice for newlyweds?

HALLIE EPHRON: I hate to say it, but the most important thing is to get lucky and marry the right person. Not as easy as it sounds. I could have walked off with quite a few Mr. Wrongs.

Jerry was Right and his timing was impeccable. It helps if he’s easy to look at and laughs at your jokes. 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I knew Jonathan was the one the moment I saw him. There’s no way else to describe this, and he felt the same way. We were “older,” me 46 and him 56, and I think that meant that we’d both been through a lot of experiences before, and realized not only what mattered, but what didn’t. 

Little stuff does not matter. If we’re feeling cranky, we just say–”I’m feeling cranky, it’s not you”. Individual items do not escalate into “you ALWAYS.”  We are both polite to each other–if someone does something small, like empty the dishwasher, the other always notices it, and remarks on it. We respect each other and we listen to each other. We take turns. I think he is fascinating and brilliant, and yes, he thinks I am funny, which is so important, because I think I’m hilarious but that’s not universally felt.

 We compliment each other every day. We are not one bit competitive with each other (except at Scrabble, another blog), and are truly supportive. We are patient with each other (although it doesn't feel like “patience,”) team players and good friends. We both think we are very lucky. And laughter, right?

JENN McKINLAY: Laughter. I often tell the Hooligans that the only reason that their dad and I are still married is because he makes me laugh. That’s a big part of it, I believe, but even more importantly, when adversity strikes, you have to jump in the fox hole together. Our marriage was a bit unbalanced as Hub suffered some big setbacks in the beginning, and I was always right there at his side. I thought I didn’t need him as much as he needed me. Then a crushing blow hit me, and lo and behold, I discovered my marriage had layers that I’d never even suspected. Hub kept me tethered with infinite kindness and patience, being there for me just like I’d been there for him. My advice? Keep your sense of humor and have each other’s back and you’ll be just fine. 

RHYS BOWEN: We were off to a rocky start as John was raised old school upper-class British–meaning you don’t show your emotions and the husband expects the wife to do the child rearing. He came from such a reserved background, boarding school at age 10, a father who only shook his hand, so I can understand how he turned out the way he did. Now he realizes how much he missed out on, not really knowing his kids. He has had so much more enjoyment from knowing his grandkids.

What has kept us together is sharing basic values on money, religion, ethics. Also we enjoy the same things–we love to travel, we love to get together with family and friends, and to laugh at British comedies. And as the years have progressed he has been so supportive of my career, my biggest champion. In fact the moment he retired he became a different person–much warmer, friendlier and encouraging. So perhaps the stress of work was an overriding factor.

Now he can tell the kids he loves them when they call him. He can be appreciative, in fact he tells me almost every day how lucky he is to have married me. So all’s well that ends well, I guess!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I would agree with everything said so far, and add 'practice kindness.' No matter how much you love someone, there will be days, weeks and sometimes even months where you would just as soon turn the garden hose on your spouse as talk to them. One of the most important things I learned in marriage counseling was to act loving, even when I wasn't feeling it. This does two things: it keeps your determination to make your spouse's life better alive. And, in the principle of fake it until you make it, you find that acting with love helps restore those feelings of love.

The second most important thing I learned was, if things aren't going well, get help! People often comment on what a great marriage Ross and I had. Well, that was because we worked hard at it, including going into couples therapy when necessary. If you have doubts about how well it works, take us as proof: we raised three fantastic children together and made it to our 30th anniversary.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Wow, I think we should go into marriage advice business! We are just a couple of years behind you, Lucy, as we just celebrated our 28th. Rick made me this graphic.

So obviously I agree that a sense of humor is super important, although it's not something that usually tops people's lists when they are looking for "romance."

But just when I am so annoyed at Rick I can hardly stand it, he'll make me laugh, and then whatever I was aggravated over doesn't seem nearly as important. And simple kindness and shared values can't be stressed enough.

How about you Reds? What's been important in your relationships? Or heck, things that haven't worked? Any advice for newlyweds or those out looking?

Whose Life Is It , Anyway?

 HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I was talking to another author the other day-–he writes under a pseudonym. And his nom de plume books are far more successful than the books he wrote under his real name. 

Why do you think that is? I asked.

He said he’d really thought about it, and decided that when he was someone else, he felt–free. Beyond judgement. That he was powerful and confident enough to write whatever he wanted, and no one would know who he was.

Whoa.

Which brings me to the fabulous debut author Connor Martin. Who, as he so tantalizingly describes, became "someone else” as part of his job.

Whose Life Is It, Anyway?

by Connor Martin

Double lives are the heart of all great mysteries, but that’s especially true of spy thrillers. Maybe it’s the hero, running from something or someone, or maybe it’s the villain, tricking the innocent – but show me a character pretending to be someone they’re not, and I’ll show you instant plot tension.

 

This theme of double lives runs throughout my debut novel THE SILVER FISH, published this April by Mysterious Press. THE SILVER FISH is an espionage thriller about Danielle “Dani” Moreau, an American journalist in Ghana, who gets caught in a U.S.-China spy battle over the fiber optic cables that power the global internet. There are four primary characters in the book, and each of them lives some version of a double life (one of them is literally called The Double!). As one character says: “Your life; another person’s life. They were right next to each other all along... All you had to do was step sideways.”

 

The theme resonated with me because I, too, lived a double life for a while. For several years, I had a job I couldn’t really talk about. Sure, I could tell people my job title (Deputy Director in the Office of Investment Security) and give a vague description – I worked in a secure office space in Washington, D.C., reviewing national security risks connected with financial transactions – but I couldn’t discuss the contents of my days, not even with my wife.

 

It was funny kind of double life, because it felt so ordinary. My wife knew where I was, and at the end of the day it was still just a job: we wrote memos and emails, we had meetings and phone calls. But the fact that I couldn’t talk about any of it outside the office left me feeling strangely bifurcated. You got used to it, but it never felt normal.

 

Those are the kinds of tensions that I wanted to explore in writing THE SILVER FISH (and am continuing to explore in the sequel, which I’m writing this summer!) And whether spy thrillers are your jam or you prefer murder mystery, psychological suspense, detective puzzles, or any other genre, I’m guessing that you’ve come across the narrative power of the character with a double life in your reading.

 

But really, don’t all of us have multiple versions of ourselves? You don’t have to be a spy to act differently at work than you do at home, or to emphasize some aspects of your personality with one group of friends, but not with another.

And don’t we read crazy real-life stories in the news that bear this out? The creepy New York City architect is really the Gilgo Beach serial killer – or, more happily, the mild-mannered insurance lawyer is really a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet.

 

Nowadays my double life is in the past. I don’t work for the government anymore. But even so, my vocation as a novelist means I’m still living different lives every day – my characters’ lives. When I get up from my desk and stop writing for the day, I get to leave my double lives on the page. But they’re constantly running through my head.

 

So here’s what I want to know, Reds and readers – have you ever felt as if you were living a double life? What’s the version of you that nobody else would believe? I’ll be in the comments!

HANK: Ooooh, what a good question! I have gone undercover and in disguise for my TV stories, and it is weirdly...freeing. I think all of the expectations that people might have for “me” are gone, and I can truly be someone else. And now I sitting at my desk in baggy jeans with my hair on top of my head and no makeup–that, Reds and  leaders you will never see. But I think, actually, that you believe it. 

Living a double life,  though? Who has stories?  Anyone know anyone who may not be who they seem?

(And Connor, can we also have a blog from your wife? I'm so curious to know how she feels/felt about this....)

(And I want to know if that's really your photo below...)

photo credit Jeremy Varner

Connor Martin is a writer and former senior US national security official, most recently serving as Deputy Director on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) at the Treasury Department. He is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and he splits his time between Washington and Brooklyn. The Silver Fish is his first novel.

 

www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Silver-Fish/Connor-Martin/9781613167359

www.connormartinauthor.com

www.instagram.com/connor.martin.author/

 

In this thrilling espionage fiction debut, an American journalist in Ghana is pulled into a dangerous struggle for control of the world's fiber optic cables.

Journalist Danielle "Dani" Moreau has spent a lifetime trying to outrun the privilege she was born into. Fresh off a personal tragedy, she lands in Ghana to uncover corruption in the local oil industry. But when she crosses paths with James Aidoo, an idealistic young Ghanaian whose father is a local populist politician, Dani remembers what drew her to journalism in the first place: you go looking for a story, but when the real story appears, it's never the one you expected.

Dani soon finds herself chasing a scoop that involves an American operative with a violent past, a Ghanaian double agent, and a fight between the United States and China over one of the world's most dangerous and least-known technologies: fiber optic cables. Underwater tubes as thick as a garden hose, the cables snake along the seafloor carrying the world’s information at the speed of light from one continent to another, and the fight to control them is increasingly visible on the world's front pages. Amidst this world-changing struggle, Dani and her new associates will be forced to make deadly choices that impact each other and their own lives in ways nobody expects.