Lost Along the Way (13 page)

“Meg, wait,” Cara said as she watched Meg scurry toward the door. “Don't leave like this!”

Meg closed the door behind her, climbed into her car, and headed home. When she got there she curled into a ball on the couch and waited for Steve to come home from work. Her phone rang two different times, but she never got up to answer it. Over the next few weeks she received multiple calls and at least a dozen e-mails from Cara, but she didn't answer any of them. What was there for her to say? She was jealous, and angry, and hurt, and depressed, and felt like she'd been betrayed. There were no words left. After a while the calls stopped coming, and they both understood that the friendship was over.

Slowly, Meg got used to having lost her dream of having children, her best friend, and eventually her husband. She was learning to live this new life alone with her walks on the beach and her bread making and trying really hard to be okay with everything that she had lost along the way.

And then Cara had the nerve to selfishly show up on Meg's doorstep without ever wondering if Meg had any interest in seeing her.

“Cara, wait!” Jane yelled, but Cara ignored her. “Meg, please. We didn't come here to fight.”

“Then you shouldn't have come,” Meg whispered, all the emotions she'd felt at that kitchen table years ago flooding her again.

“I'm sorry I was an asshole. I know I was. I know I owe you an explanation, and I will give it to you, but can't we just come in? I need you guys right now. Please. Let's just talk about whatever happened between you two. I think it's time all of us sit down and figure this out. It's been too long, and we'll never get the time back. Let's not make this worse than it already is. Please, Meg. Say something. We just drove over two hours to get here.”

Beep
. The oven sounded. Finally, her bread was ready.

C
ara stifled tears as she sat behind the wheel of her car. She knew she shouldn't have come here. She knew that she should've just told Jane to figure out her problems on her own. By trying to help her, Cara would be opening up the old wounds that she'd let heal years ago. But how was she supposed to let Jane go through all of this alone, especially when she was looking for a way out herself? She'd stupidly believed that maybe this was her chance to fix the friendship that she'd so desperately missed. She should've known that things couldn't be that easy.

Cara was surprised at how different Meg looked, how much she'd changed over the past three years. She had the same hair, a short blond bob with a piece tucked behind her right ear, and the same sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She had the same pale skin and the same blue eyes, but she looked nothing like her former self. Her eyes seemed vacant, her skin was sallow, her energy was gone. She looked like she'd aged ten years over the course of three. Most people probably wouldn't notice the subtle way her shoulders slumped forward, or the few extra pounds she was carrying on her hips, or the dark hollows under her eyes—but to Cara, she looked as worn as the faded green cardigan hanging loosely off her body. She wasn't over anything. If anything, time had only made things worse.

Deciding to end her pregnancy hadn't been easy, especially since she'd been thirty-four, and well aware that time was no
longer on her side. One morning she was in the shower getting ready to show a four-bedroom Tudor on the other side of town when nausea overwhelmed her. After the appointment, she stopped at the drugstore and bought a test, but she knew she was pregnant before she ever peed on the stick. She had stopped taking her birth control because it seemed unnecessary. Her husband hadn't touched her in months, and she thought pumping herself full of hormones was stupid. Meg had gone through hell trying to get pregnant, and all Cara ever heard women talking about was the innumerable problems they were having trying to conceive. What were the odds that one night, after her husband had had too much whiskey with his buddies, he would get lost in the hallway and wander into her room when he got home, and that she would actually let him stay? What were the odds that one night was all it would take?

Reed had become particularly insufferable at that point in their marriage. One morning he woke her up by throwing a pair of gym shorts at her head.

April 2010

“Get up. It's six
A.M.
—I've already run five miles and you're still in bed like some lazy housewife.”

“What?” she asked, still pulling herself out of a deep sleep. It was still dark outside—she was hardly oversleeping, and even if she had been, why should he care? If she spent more time in bed lately it was because it was the only place in the house she could count on him leaving her alone.

“You should care about how you look. I don't understand it. Why don't you go for a run or something? You used to work out all the time.”

“I weigh the exact same as I did the day we got married. I don't feel the need to run five miles before the sun comes up. Just add it to the list of things on which we don't agree.”

Still, Reed was right. Cara used to exercise all the time. She was the captain of the tennis team, the basketball team, and the soccer team in high school. She used to love to spend her weekends skiing, kayaking, hiking, or spinning—the tougher the workout, the better. But then Reed started grilling her about the women she played tennis with, constantly asking her questions about their conversations, specifically what she told them about her marriage. Somewhere along the way, Reed had become completely paranoid that Cara was airing their personal problems to anyone who would listen, and forced her to stop playing with her foursome every week. After that, he began to question her relationship with her spin instructor, and the clothes she wore to the gym, and the amount of time she was gone. Eventually, he'd somehow managed to take something she'd always enjoyed and ruin it. She was tired of dealing with the reprimands that came every time she left the house to go to an early exercise class. She was tired of answering detailed questions about every conversation she had with every woman she encountered. She was tired in general.

And now he had the nerve to wonder why she didn't work out anymore?

I can't win,
Cara said to herself.
No matter what I do, I'll never win with him.

“That's how you're going to talk to me?” He grabbed her duvet and ripped it off the bed, exposing her to the cool fall air that leaked through the poorly insulated windows.

“It's freezing in here. Stop it!” she yelled, already feeling assaulted despite having been awake for a total of two minutes.
Another start to another beautiful day as Mrs. Reed Chase,
she thought. “Can we please get someone in here to redo the windows? I shouldn't have to wear mittens in my own home. We're both going to get pneumonia.”

“You know, the kitchen is the warmest room in the house. Why don't you try using it sometime? The stove gives off heat.”

“The last time I cooked for you, you told me you hated it. You told me I overcooked everything and that I should take cooking classes in town. Do you remember that? So which is it, Reed? Do you want me to cook for you or not? I can't keep up with your constant demands anymore. They change daily.”

“I've given you everything you could want, Cara. You should just say thank you for the roof over your head and the clothes you buy with my credit card and maybe for once try to do something that you think might make me happy. Why is my happiness never a concern of yours?”

“I'm sorry,” she whispered as she sat up and shoved her feet into the pair of slippers she kept at the foot of the bed in case she needed to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. “I'm trying my best to make you happy. You don't make it easy.” Cara realized that fighting with him was a waste of her time. She would never win. It would be easier to just do what he wanted and hope that he'd leave her alone. Over time, he'd slowly sucked the fight out of her, and now there was very little left.

“Start by getting up. That will make me happy.” He left the room and went down the hall to the master bath. These were the moments, after his tirades, when she sat and tried to think of all the things she'd like to point out to him if she only had the nerve. He had no problem telling her when she had a blemish on
her cheek, or when her gray hairs were showing, or that cellulite was now visible on the backs of her thighs. She never pointed out that he needed to start trimming the hair that was beginning to sprout from his ears, which would soon be long enough to braid. She didn't point out that she could see the skin on his scalp when his hair was wet from the shower. She didn't dare mention that despite the push-ups and the chest presses and the bench presses, his pecs were beginning to sag and soon he'd be able to fill out one of her bras. She never said any of these things. She was too much of a wimp to handle the consequences.

She exhaled when she heard the door close and the water start to run. She already felt attached to the baby she thought she was carrying, and at the same time resented it, because without meaning to, it was binding her to him forever. She wished she could be one of those women who had no problem admitting her marriage was a disaster. She wished she weren't so stubborn. She wished she weren't such a perfectionist.

She wished she weren't pregnant.

After the test confirmed her suspicions she lay on her bed for hours feeling alone and helpless. There was no one for her to call. She knew she couldn't confide in her mother—how could she admit that she was going to deny her only chance at being a grandmother? She couldn't call Meg, knowing how insensitive it would be to involve her in a decision that was inherently at odds with where she was in her own life. The feeling of isolation was the main reason why she finally worked up the nerve to call her doctor and schedule an appointment: she didn't want to be responsible for bringing a child into a home with a man who was
incapable of feeling love for anyone but himself. In her heart, she knew that if she did have the baby, he'd somehow manage to use it against her. That was no way for a life to begin.

It had haunted her ever since, but she still didn't think that it was any of Meg's business, or anyone else's for that matter. Some things you just had to go through alone.

A month later she'd driven herself to her appointment, despite the doctor's insistence that she have someone with her to drive her home. How was she supposed to tell him that as a grown, married woman, she had no one who could escort her home when everything was over? She'd lain in a recovery room for a half hour, eating saltines and drinking orange juice in an effort to appease the nurses and reassure them that she was able to drive. Then she slinked back to her house with a super-plus maxi pad between her legs and a sheet of paper that detailed how she should take care of herself following the procedure. When she got home she made herself a cup of tea. She was sitting alone in her kitchen, trying to figure out how the young girl with the freckles and the tennis racket ended up a lonely, middle-aged woman who decided she shouldn't have children, when Meg burst through her back door. It never occurred to her that Meg might see the letter from the doctor until it was too late.

Cara hoped that maybe Meg had stopped feeling so sorry for herself by now, and that she would be able to see Cara's side of things. She had imagined them reconciling thousands of times, convincing herself that if they could just sit down and talk, everything would be okay. She'd been wrong. The years had done nothing to dull Meg's misguided feelings that Cara had somehow intentionally hurt her, which was always Meg's problem. Cara wasn't going to let Meg play the martyr and continue to make her
feel like she was a horrible person who had somehow taken her friendship for granted. She was over paying for things she never asked to have happen to her in the first place. She had paid more than enough.

Cara glanced at Jane and Meg still standing on the stoop and was struck by how different they now all were from each other. Back in high school they'd tried their hardest to look exactly alike. They'd had the same anoraks and the same sweaters from J.Crew. When they went to flea markets on the weekends they bought the same bracelets and enamel earrings and wore the same Dr. Martens to school and the same Nike sneakers during after-school sports. They had the same dancing bear bumper stickers on their cars and listened to the same CDs—Pearl Jam and Counting Crows and Tracy Chapman—as if having all of the same things would somehow bring them closer together. Those girls were long gone, and the women who replaced them didn't seem to have anything in common. Cara decided it was time to admit that and let the past stay where it belonged.

She put the car into reverse, backed out of the driveway, and pulled away. She didn't feel bad about leaving. Jane may have asked her to bring her here, but she never said anything about taking her home.

W
as she your ride back to Manhattan?” Meg asked. She stood next to Jane on the porch and happily watched Cara's car turn right out of the driveway and speed off.

“I hadn't thought that far ahead. But yeah, I guess so. Now what am I supposed to do?”

“If you still want a ride just go stand in the middle of the road. She'll be back in one minute,” Meg said.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because she went the wrong way. The road dead-ends that way. She's going to have to turn around and pass us again.” Before Jane could answer, they heard a car approaching and watched Cara speed by them again in the opposite direction. “That probably wasn't the grand dramatic exit she'd been hoping for.”

“Get your keys. We're going after her,” Jane ordered, pointing Meg back into the house.

“I most certainly am not. I have recipes to test, then I'm going to go out back and water my herb garden, which is exactly what I was planning on doing before you rang my doorbell and ruined my day.”

“Do you hear yourself? You just threw her off your doorstep and you don't even know why we came to begin with. You're too old to be acting like this, and honestly it's not like you. You can be pissed all you want, but I'm going after her. You can either give me your keys with the knowledge that I live in Manhattan
and haven't driven a car in about eight years, or you can drive and take me with you. Either way, your car is leaving this driveway. Do you understand?”

Meg didn't appreciate being bossed around in her own house, but there was something in Jane's voice that made her reconsider her initial reaction. It wasn't that Jane was being her typical bossy, brazen, obnoxious self, it was that she looked legitimately panicked. She was acting like Meg had just done something much worse than deny Cara entry into her home. If something bad happened to Cara after she made her leave without ever knowing why she was there to begin with, Meg would never forgive herself.

Meg spun on her heel, went directly into the kitchen, and removed the loaf of bread from the oven with the striped oven mitts she'd bought in town on Memorial Day weekend. Then she turned off the oven, grabbed her car keys from a rattan basket on the kitchen counter, walked past Jane, and climbed into the driver's seat of her car.

“I didn't ask
for any of this,” Meg said as she drove west down Montauk Highway. “You guys just show up on my doorstep and barge into my life, and now I'm chasing Cara down the highway why, exactly?”

“Because my phone died and I don't have a better idea. Do you?” Jane answered.

“That's not what I meant. I don't understand why any of this is
my problem.
You don't need her to get back to the city. I could've dropped you at the train station. We should just let her go,” Meg said, trying to sound completely detached, which was nearly impossible for her.

“You know what, Meg? It's not your problem, okay? Does that make you feel better? You've never done anything wrong and we are just horrible, evil people for driving all the way out here to check up on you. Did it ever occur to you that we were worried about
you
?”

“Why would you be worried about me? Don't you have enough going on in your own life right now to worry about?” Meg asked.

“Well, when your husband told us that you've been out here alone for the better part of a year and won't talk to him anymore, we found that to be cause for concern. I don't know, I guess we're just crazy overprotective or something.”

“He told you that?” Meg asked, the color draining from her already too pale face. “He really said that?”

“You should've seen the look on his face when we walked into his classroom. He thought we were there to tell him that something awful happened to you. What the hell is going on with you that that is the impression your husband has of your mental state?”

“Nothing's going on with me. I've just decided that he's better off without me,” Meg said, still trying to sound unaffected—and failing miserably because she was intrinsically one of the most sensitive people on the planet.

“That's a nice decision that you made for him, but I don't think he agrees with you. He's a nervous wreck. To be honest, now I am, too. We came here hoping that maybe we could help.”

“You guys came here because you need something. Don't make it sound like it's all about me. Nothing has ever been all about me. Stop pretending that you're here out of the goodness of your heart, because I've known you too long for that. Just tell me the truth.”

“You're right,” Jane said, her frustrations overflowing. “I need some help, and I realized that I've made some very, very bad decisions in my life. I turned my back on everyone who really cared about me and surrounded myself with vapid, selfish people. I guess you don't really learn those things about yourself when times are good and the champagne is flowing. I went to Cara's to escape the camera brigade set up outside my soon-to-be-repossessed apartment, and she let me crash there for the night. It turns out that things aren't all that great for her, either. Of course, you would know that, if you had given either of us a chance to talk to you before you ripped our heads off. That said, it seems like you could maybe use some friends too, so why don't you stop being so fucking stubborn and admit that you're happy to see us!”

“What's wrong with her?” Meg asked. “Did one of her pearls get scratched?”

“No, Meg. Actually, for starters, her jackass husband is abusing her,” Jane said. “Is that statement enough to force you out of your tough-girl act? It's starting to annoy me.”

“What? Reed hits her? There's no way,” Meg said. She squeezed the wheel so tightly her knuckles turned white.

“No, at least not that she's admitted. I heard him talking to her, though. It's psychological. He tells her what to wear, who to see, what she's allowed to buy at the store. I think it's been going on for years. You can pretend you don't care anymore, but I know it's complete bullshit. You care. A lot. And you know her mother died, right?” Jane asked.

“I didn't. No,” Meg said, surprised at how quickly sadness overcame her. Cara's mom had always been a second mother to both of them. She was the one who made sure they had the good ice cream at sleep-overs, and the one who picked them up from
parties when they drank too much and couldn't drive home. Cara and her mother were extraordinarily close, and losing her must have been outrageously painful. It must have been even harder for her to go through it without a husband who supported her or friends who even knew enough to send a card.

“I went to the funeral. I thought maybe I'd see you there. I was surprised when I didn't.”

“I haven't talked to Cara in years. I didn't know any of this was going on. I never thought Reed was the fuzziest guy in the world, but I didn't know things had gotten that bad.”

“Believe me, they have. He's been awful to her, Meg, and she's been all alone. She just had to sell her mother's house. She cleaned out the whole thing with no help whatsoever. I don't know why you guys are so angry at each other, and right now, I don't care. Well, that's not true. I'm actually really curious about it, but I've accepted that this is something that I'm going to have to pry out of one of you over time and probably after a few glasses of wine. Anyway, the point is, she has nowhere to go now except right back to Reed. She doesn't deserve that. I don't care what she's done to you. Unless she slept with Steve. She didn't sleep with Steve, did she?” Jane asked.

“No, Jane. She didn't sleep with my husband. You're the only one living out a soap opera.”

“I'm so glad we had this talk. I see you've been reading the tabloids. I don't need to be reminded of the drama surrounding my life. I'm living it, remember?”

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that.”

“It sucks bad enough to be judged by strangers who don't know any better. It's excruciating to be judged by friends who should
know that I'm not a criminal. Christ, I'm aware that no one is offering me up for sainthood, but is it really too hard to believe that I wouldn't knowingly steal? Why are you even reading those stupid tabloid stories? You know they're all garbage.”

“I had to keep tabs on you somehow,” Meg joked.

“I think it's too early for humor in all of this.”

“I'm sorry. You're right. I'm just trying to make you laugh a little, I guess.”

“Can we try to figure out a way to help each other here? No one is free from blame in how our relationship disintegrated over the years. You can either try to make it better, or you can cling to the anger that you've let overtake your life and remain a hermit on the far reaches of the island. Those are your options. All things considered, I think it's a pretty easy choice, but what do I know? I'm just living out my own little soap opera over here.”

“I don't know if there's any way for us to help each other. We don't even know each other anymore.”

“Well, then try to get to know us. Honestly, you need to chill the hell out. The mood in this car is not exactly Zen, and if I'm supposed to be the glue that holds this group together, then we are all completely fucked. Mediation was never my strong suit.”

“Is that her car?” Meg asked, pointing to the side of the road across the street from Jack's Coffee House. Meg wasn't surprised that Cara had noticed the small clapboard coffeehouse on the side of the highway, as it was undeniably cute and comforting—just the kind of place she'd like.

“Yes. She must've stopped for coffee. This place looks adorable, actually. Do you ever come here?”

“Not really. Twenty minutes is too far away to travel just for a
cup of coffee, and in the summer the crowds descend on it with such fury you'd think they were giving away gold bricks with the lattes.”

“Gotcha. Well, are you ready to play nice with her, or what?”

“It's not that simple, Jane. If I were her I wouldn't be in a rush to come back. You're going to have to run this show.”

“I've been running this show since the beginning of time. Don't forget that.”

“How'd that work out for you?” Meg asked.

“Fair point. I didn't say I was good at it.”

They crossed the street and pushed through the rickety wooden door into the coffeehouse. Meg was immediately overwhelmed by the smell of cedar and arabica beans. The chalkboard behind the counter listed elaborate drinks with cute names that enthralled the Hamptons summer set who liked extremely expensive specialized java. These days, Meg was a simple girl who took her coffee with a splash of whatever kind of milk was available and two packets of sugar. This new trend of half-caf, skinny, low-fat, vanilla, mochaccino nonsense aggravated her. She'd just as soon make it at home in her French press and call it a day—one less reason to leave the house.

She saw Cara talking to the barista with the green apron behind the counter.

“This herbal tea is decaffeinated, right?” Cara asked, examining the tag from the tea bag that was hanging over the rim of her drink.

“I don't know for sure, but I think so,” the barista answered, not seeming to care one way or the other.

“What do you mean, you think so? You work here, shouldn't you know?”

“I think it is, but I'm not one hundred percent sure,” the girl behind the counter said again.

“I see. If you went to buy a car and asked the sales guy if the brakes worked and he said ‘I think so,' would you still drive it? If you went to a drugstore to pick up a prescription and the pharmacist told you that he thinks it's penicillin, but he's really not sure, would that be okay with you?” Cara yelled.

“It's not a narcotic, lady. It's just tea.”

“I'll have you know that caffeine is a drug. Why do you think high school kids spend half their free time sucking down cans of Red Bull?”

“Ma'am, there's a line, so if you could please just step aside . . .”

Meg waited for Cara to turn around and notice the two of them standing in the corner, stifling their laughter, which Meg felt bad about. No one should find humor in someone else's mental breakdown, but it was just so hard to see Cara lose her marbles over an herbal tea and not laugh.

“I get that pouring coffee is one step removed from nuclear physics, but you should care that you're giving your customers life-altering chemicals, instead of being preoccupied waiting for some casting agent to call and tell you that you got your big break jogging down the street in white shorts for a tampon commercial. Things matter. So you really should start thinking about how your carelessness can affect others,” Cara reached over and snatched a comment card off the stack, then began scribbling on it furiously. “Yes, I'd like to leave a comment. You suck at your job.” Cara grabbed her tea and a muffin as the barista continued to wait, immobile behind the counter as if she was afraid to make any sudden movements. When Cara spun around, she smashed into Jane, who had moved toward the line and was about to tap
her on the shoulder, spilling her tea all over Jane's cashmere sweater.

“Oh my God, that's hot!” Jane said, delicately pulling her soaking-wet sweater away from her skin.

“What are you doing here?” Cara yelled before turning back to the barista. “Nice job putting the lid on my cup! Can you do anything right today?”

“Cara, pull it together! You should be more concerned with the fact that my boobs now have third-degree burns!”

“Oh please, you can't feel those things and you know it. You already told me that, remember?”

“The skin on my stomach and arms is real! Of course I can feel it!”

“Hey, aren't you Jane Logan?” the barista asked.

“I thought the Hamptons were known for being discreet. Can you please keep your voice down?” Jane begged.