Lost Along the Way (25 page)

“You were great back there,” he said.

“Thanks,” Cara said shyly, suddenly feeling silly for shooting her mouth off and hijacking Nick's listing without his permission. “I really hope I didn't overstep. I don't know what came over me.”

“What are you apologizing for? I was losing them, and I knew it. You managed to turn that entire appointment around! It was quite impressive. That doesn't mean I have to share the commission with you if the sale goes through, though.”

Cara laughed. “Of course not. How do you manage to show people who are so lucky to have the opportunity to live out here house after house and have them shoot them all down because they don't like the carpets or the paint color?”

“People are lazy. These are vacation homes; buyers think of them as a place where they come to relax. Doing any work at all is an added stress in their life. At least, that's how most of my clients see it. Not you, though. You really know how to sell a piece of real estate. Do you do it full-time at home?”

“Not even close. I would never have the nerve at home to act the way I did. The other women would eat me alive. It's very competitive.”

“Doesn't seem to me like you have any problem with competition. Why do you let that get in the way?”

“I'm more the invisible type at home.”

“If you act like you did today, you couldn't be invisible.”

“You'd be surprised.”

“Why do I get the feeling that this is about your husband? What, he convinced you that you suck at it, is that it?”

“Something like that.”

“Stop listening to him and start listening to yourself. You know way more than you give yourself credit for. And if you don't want to listen to yourself, then listen to me. You were really great.”

“Thank you—again!” Cara smiled as she held her hand out the window, letting the wind snake through her fingers as they drove back toward the house. When they got to the turn that would lead them back to Meg's, Nick instead kept his course. “Where are we going?” she asked.

“To a bar by the docks. You just helped me get their bid, and while that doesn't entitle you to a commission, it does entitle you to a beer. What do you say?”

Cara checked her watch. “It's two o'clock. I should probably get back to the house sooner rather than later.”

“Come on! It's on me. I want to hear more about your life as a real estate agent. I think maybe I could learn a thing or two from you.”

Cara felt a feeling she barely remembered, but she was pretty sure it was pride. “Okay. You're on,” she said. “I'd love to.”

I
think we should go out for lunch today,” Meg said the following afternoon while Cara filed her nails at the kitchen table and Jane did sit-ups on the rug in the den. “We've spent too much time in the house. Let's go into town.”

“I think that's a great idea,” Cara replied. “You deserve a break from cooking anyway.”

“I'm happy to go to lunch, I just don't know if I can pay for it. Can we go somewhere cheap?” Jane grunted in between crunches.

“I'll treat,” Cara offered. “You went and bought Meg stuff from the farm stand and I haven't done anything yet. Let me take both of you to lunch to say thank you.”

“Sounds good to me!” Jane yelled. She hopped up from the floor and grabbed her sunglasses from her bag. “I'm ready when you are!”

“Great. Let's go have a nice afternoon in town.”

They all piled in Meg's car and drove to East Hampton, grabbing a table at an Italian restaurant with sidewalk seating and an impressive selection of wood-oven pizzas.

Jane had just ordered a bottle of wine from the waitress and a round of waters with lemon when Meg caught sight of Tracey Hines, a woman she typically tried to avoid at all costs. Close on her heels was her crazy toddler, Milo, who had no respect for his parents, other children, or the word
no,
and who Meg was reasonably certain was going to grow into a sociopath. Tracey waved as Milo weaved in between tables, knocking into anything
in sight, waving his hands over his head, and screaming like a teenage girl at a Katy Perry concert. Much to Meg's horror, Tracey stopped at their table to make small talk.

“Meg! It's so great to see you. It's been forever, how are you?” Tracey asked. “I'm sorry to interrupt your lunch.”

“It's no problem, it's nice to see you, too. These are my friends Cara and Jane,” Meg said, silently praying that Tracey wouldn't recognize Jane and make a scene. Tracey was the kind of woman who went out of her way to talk to you for the sole purpose of gossip or information gathering.

“Hi,” Jane said, as Cara nodded politely. Meg could tell by the somewhat defensive tone in Jane's voice that while she'd never met Tracey before, she already knew her type. She watched as Jane pulled her back a little straighter.

“That over there,” Tracey said as she nodded toward her son, now crawling around on all fours under their table, “is Milo.”

“He's a handful,” Meg said with a smile.

“Oh, he is! He's just so extraordinary and filled with energy, you know?” Tracey said with pride, as if it were totally normal for her child to disrupt the entire restaurant despite the fact that he was small enough to fit into a garbage can. Meg had a pretty good feeling that the rest of the people in the restaurant were dreaming of actually throwing him into one.

Suddenly, Jane screeched and jerked her legs out from under the table. She grabbed her napkin off her lap and wiped her shin with it. “Did he just lick my leg? Why is he licking me?” Jane was disgusted and it was obvious.

“Oh, sorry about that, yeah. It's a phase he's going through. He'll grow out of it. I think it's adorable.”

“A phase? More like a fetish. You better hope he grows out of
it before he turns sixteen. I'm sorry, but that's not normal behavior,” Jane said, turning her legs sideways to place them out of reach of Milo's serpentine tongue.

“I take it you don't have children?” Tracey asked Jane, clearly more than a little annoyed by the criticism.

“Nope. Can't say I've had the pleasure,” Jane shot back.

“What about you, Meg?” Tracey asked, finally grabbing Milo's hand and forcing him up from under the table, probably because she was now concerned that Jane was going to “accidentally” kick him in the head. “I'm sure you'll be chasing one of these around yourself pretty soon, huh? You guys are trying, right? You've been married for a while now and we're not getting any younger!”

Meg's mouth began to water as she fought back her nausea and forced herself to smile. Anyone with any sense at all would know that this particular topic of conversation was off-limits with even the closest of friends. Bringing it up with an acquaintance was inappropriate by any standard. “Well, I guess we'll just see what—” Then, before she could finish her lie, Jane swooped in.

“I'm sorry, on what planet is it okay to interrogate someone about her personal life while she's trying to have lunch?” Jane asked, looking at Tracey with contempt. “And while she's with other people, no less? Is that what's considered normal now? Cara, do you think that's normal?”

“I think it's horrible, actually.”

“Tasteless,” Jane said.

“‘Moronic' is another word that comes to mind,” Cara added, falling right back into the rhythm of their old banter.

“I agree. It's not at all normal to completely invade someone's
privacy for no reason other than that you're a gossipy little troll with nothing better to do. Unless, of course, you'd like to have a real heart-to-heart, in which case please pull up a chair because I'd love to hear all about how long you had to try before you got knocked up with your little leg-licker over there. Months? A year? Did your husband shoot blanks the first couple of times before you finally decided to go to a clinic and get pregnant via turkey baster? Seriously, I'm curious . . . since we're all sharing and apparently no topic is off-limits.”

Tracey stared at her, mouth agape, seemingly appalled by Jane's outburst, until suddenly her demeanor changed. “Wait a minute, aren't you Jane Logan?”

Cara and Meg froze.

“Oh God,” Meg sighed. This was actually going to get worse.

“You bet your ass I am,” Jane responded, indignant. Meg felt her heart ache knowing that while the last thing in the world Jane wanted was to be recognized, she was more concerned with protecting Meg than with protecting herself. “Do you have something you want to say to me? Maybe you want to get home and wash your kid's mouth out with disinfectant or something, since his tongue was just all over Doug Logan's wife's leg. I hope being a criminal isn't contagious or he's screwed.” Jane turned to Milo and in her best baby voice said, “Can you say ‘juvenile detention,' Milo?”

“What is wrong with you?” Tracey screamed as she grabbed Milo and left the restaurant, while Cara started to shake with laughter.

“I can't believe you just said that to her. Even though she totally deserved it,” Cara said.

“Whatever. Let her run around the Hamptons gossiping about how I told her off in a restaurant for being a nosy pain in the ass. I'd much prefer she gossip about me than Meg's reproductive organs anyway. Besides, she started it! God, the nerve of some people.”

“Thank you,” Meg said, still trying to process what had just happened. “Sadly, that's not the first or even the hundredth time something like that has happened to me. I wish I had you around all the time, Jane. Thanks for making it go away.” She took a long sip of wine. “I never know how to handle those questions.”

“Some women can be bitches,” Jane said.

In between bites of her slice, Cara added: “It's not an acceptable topic to just bring up in public like that. People don't think sometimes. I'm sure she didn't mean anything by it, but seriously, use your brain, you know?”

“No, no. Don't give her too much credit. She's a bitch, believe me. I know her type and sniffed her out the second I saw her,” Jane said.

“That was one of the hardest things for me to deal with. Comments like that don't hurt all that much anymore, but they nearly killed me when I was doing in vitro. I can't tell you how many times I canceled lunches or avoided going to parties because someone was going to be there who was either pregnant or had just had a new baby and it was too hard for me to be around them. I used to have some really close friends from town who I don't even speak to anymore because of my own stupid issues. No one ever warned me that this type of stress could cause serious divides in your relationships. Maybe if someone had prepared me for it, I would've handled it better. Instead I let it rip apart every relationship that was important to me—even ours, Cara, and you were never any
thing but supportive and respectful of my privacy. It just overtook my entire life. I felt like I couldn't escape it.”

“I understand where you're coming from,” Cara said.

“What do you mean?” Meg asked.

“Do you know how many people just assumed that I didn't have children because I was having physical problems? Two different women offered to give me the name of their fertility specialists, unsolicited. I used to just take the info and tuck it away because it was either let them think that I was having problems with my body or admit that what I was really having problems with was my marriage. I felt like I couldn't win either way. What was I supposed to say? ‘Actually, I've decided against having kids because my husband and I hate each other. It would be a toxic environment in which to raise a goldfish, never mind a child'? How do you think that'd have gone over at Reed's club?”

“But that drives me crazy!” Jane said, refilling her glass for the third time from the bottle in the silver bucket. “We shouldn't have to feel pressured to answer these questions, or defend the choices we make as grown-ass women. Why is it that we can be our own bosses, run our own households, even run for fucking president, but we have to answer questions about our decisions to have families? Why is that something that needs to be explained? If I don't feel like having kids at this time in my life because I'm not ready to get fat and push a watermelon out of my vag, then that's my decision and I don't have to justify it to anyone. Certainly not over my lunch in the Hamptons.”

“Amen,” Cara said.

“Is that really why you don't want kids?” Meg asked.

“No,” Jane answered. “I think the issue of my husband being
incarcerated is a much bigger problem at the moment, don't you? I mean, logistically that would just be a nightmare. I don't think the warden would be interested in scheduling conjugal visits to coincide with my ovulation dates, you know?” she joked, causing Meg to finally crack a smile.

“I could see how that could be a problem,” Cara said.

“No matter what, women are still defined by these labels: wife, mother, grandmother,” Meg said. “And if you don't fit the label people make you feel like you're a dragon lady or like . . .”

“Like there's something wrong with you,” they said in unison. Children—a strange and surprising intersection to meet at, one that none of them had really ever wanted to talk about . . . until now.

“It's the same bullshit we do to each other in our twenties with getting married, and look how we handled that! Maybe we all let some kind of weird pressure influence the decisions we made there, too. This is the thirties version—fertility. What do we have to look forward to in our forties? Who hits menopause last?
That's exciting
. I look forward to that one,” Jane said.

“It makes me angry and it's so hugely unfair. There's nothing wrong with any of us,” Cara said.

“Seriously? You're going to say that with a straight face?” Jane asked.

“Okay, fine. That's not entirely true, there's a pretty strong argument to be made that there is something very wrong with all of us, but you know what I mean.”

“Cara, if I were you, the next time that someone asked me why I don't have kids, I'd say that I currently sleep in a separate bedroom from my husband, who doesn't like the way I buy groceries, so I figure that adding a kid to the mix would probably not go
over well. And Meg, you should just say you tried, and it hasn't worked yet, but you realized that baking muffins like a lunatic has helped soothe your soul so now you're okay with it. See how fast they run away.”

Cara burst out laughing. “This is amazing. I don't remember the last time I've felt this good. It's just so nice to finally talk about it with people who get it, with people who don't think I'm a freak.”

“Oh, make no mistake, I think you're a freak. But I also get it, so I guess that's okay,” Jane added.

“You're right. It feels good to just put it out there. I've been afraid to admit a lot of this because of what people would think of me,” Cara agreed.

“Me too,” Meg said as she flagged down the waitress and asked for the check. Cara slipped the waitress her credit card while they finished off the rest of the wine, and five minutes later, the waitress returned, holding the card in her hands.

“I'm sorry, ma'am, your card has been declined,” the waitress whispered politely so the rest of the diners wouldn't overhear. They'd given them enough of a show for one afternoon.

“What? That's impossible,” Cara said.

“It could be our machine. Do you want to try another card?”

“Yeah, maybe the strip is worn,” Cara said. Meg knew immediately that the second card wouldn't work, either.

“He canceled my cards,” Cara said as soon as the waitress left again, reaching over and grabbing Jane's wineglass to finish off her drink. “I was wondering how long it would take. He lasted longer than I thought he would.”

The waitress returned before Meg or Jane had a chance to ask a question. “I'm sorry,” she said. “This card isn't working, either.”
Cara wondered which one of them was more embarrassed, the waitress for having to say it, or herself for having to hear it.

“Can you give us a minute?” Jane asked the waitress politely. She nodded and walked away. “Okay, this is not that big of a deal! I've been there, and while I can't say that the day when the ATM refuses to give you money because of insufficient funds is fun, exactly, I can tell you that it's not the worst thing in the world. I'd offer to cover you for lunch but I'm broke, too, which means that Meg is now lodging and feeding us both for free. God, we are awful houseguests.” She added, “Then again, that's another reason why it's probably a good thing we don't have kids. You and I can't afford them, and Meg is too busy taking care of us at the moment to buy onesies and diaper bags.”