The Best of Us (13 page)

“Wonderful,” her mother had said, and then the complicated swirl of emotions that had washed over her face—relief, joy, and was that a bit of regret, too?—was gone. “I could use a cup of tea,” she’d said. “Will you have one with me?”

Now Pauline glanced back down at her phone and read the weather forecast. The tropical storm was still heading in their general direction, but it looked like it would miss them by a hundred miles. Still, they’d probably get rain on Thursday and maybe Friday, too—heavy rain, not like the light afternoon showers that routinely refreshed Negril.

She clicked through her mental inventory of indoor activities: They had the game room, of course, and she’d arranged for delivery of some first-run DVD movies. Plus she could have the sommelier come to the house for a wine tasting. No one knew it yet, but she’d instructed him to monitor everyone’s preferences. When they returned home, her guests would discover they’d each been delivered a case of their favorite wine, as a way of commemorating their week together.

Still, she’d need to stay on top of the weather. Storms were notoriously unpredictable; this one’s direction could shift at any moment. She’d need to create a backup plan for that, too—they couldn’t stay on the water if things became dangerous. Jamaica was in the hurricane belt, after all. She’d find the name of the best hotel in town and book a block of rooms, just in case they had to leave quickly.

“Everything all right, Ms. Glass?”

Pauline glanced up to see the chef watching her as he hefted the final platter.

“Yes,” she said, smiling. She tucked her iPhone back into her purse. “We’re in Jamaica. How could it not be?”

*   *   *

“You are kidding me!” Allie shouted. “Really?”

“I’ve never been on a helicopter in my life!” Tina squealed.

“Jamaica is at its most beautiful at sunset,” Pauline said. “A spin around the island, then a late dinner at home. How does that sound? Of course, if you’d rather stay here and rest, that’s completely fine, too. Everyone should do exactly what they want.”

“No way am I turning down a helicopter ride,” Ryan said, as everyone added their assent.

“They’ll be touching down within the hour,” Pauline said. “We’ll need two helicopters for all of us.”

“I’m going to hop in the shower and wash off the salt water,” Tina said as she stood up.

“I’m right behind you,” Savannah said, yawning.

“Me, too,” Allie said. She reflexively reached for her dirty plate, but Pauline shook her head.

“Oh, no, please leave that. It’ll be cleared away. You girls just go take your time getting ready.”

“Ryan? You coming?” Allie asked.

“Yeah, buddy, don’t you need to go primp?” Gio said, leaning over to elbow Ryan in the ribs.

“Forget that,” Ryan said. “The only primping I’m doing is diving in the pool.”

“My man,” Gio said, holding up his beer to clink against Ryan’s. “Gives us more time to toss back a few.”

“Hoo-yeah!” Ryan shouted.

Allie rolled her eyes. She loved Gio, but whenever Ryan was around him, her husband acted like he’d just gotten a shot of testosterone.

She glanced over and noticed that since Tina had gotten up, there was an empty lounge chair separating Dwight from the other guys. He wasn’t excluded from their conversation, exactly, but the distance would make it harder for him to participate in it.

Move over,
she thought, but he didn’t.

“Dwight?” Allie asked. “Do you need a cold one as long as I’m up?”

“Sure,” he said. “Thanks.”

She reached into the poolside cooler, then walked over and handed him a Red Stripe.

“So, Dwight, you guys travel like this all the time?” Gio was asking in a loud voice.

Allie smiled and began to go inside, but then Gio continued and she paused on the landing.

“Must be nice. I mean, private planes, helicopters. You going to buy a train next? Just so you can cover every mode of transportation?”

Something in Gio’s tone marred what should’ve been light banter. Was he drunk? Allie wondered, studying him. He was leaning back, one arm folded behind his head, his legs crossed at the ankles. His position was relaxed, but the way he was staring at Dwight . . .

A memory popped into Allie’s mind: Gio pushing a guy up
against the wall at a college bar, a blue vein in his neck bulging as his forearm pressed against the guy’s throat, cutting off his air while a girl screamed and Tina pulled on his arm, yelling, “Gio! Stop!” The guy had pinched Tina’s behind, Allie remembered. And Gio would’ve really hurt him—Allie was certain of that—if the bouncers hadn’t broken his grip and thrown him out of the bar.

Gio hadn’t seemed to be putting away too many beers today, but maybe she just hadn’t noticed. She
had
seen Savannah drinking a lot, though. Allie paused under the pretext of pouring herself a glass of water from the pitcher on one of the outdoor tables and kept listening.

“A train. Yeah,” Dwight said. There was a little pause, then Dwight laughed, but he was the only one who did so.

“So, Gio, buddy, how the hell do helicopters stay up in the air?” Ryan said. “It can’t all be in the propeller.”

“Same basic principle as an airplane,” Gio said. He broke his stare at Dwight and turned to look at Ryan, and when he spoke again the tension had left his voice. “Seriously, man, you don’t know this? They get lift and thrust from the main rotor . . .”

Allie exhaled and went inside. She should have known Ryan would defuse the tension; he was good at that. But Gio’s comments stayed with her while she showered and applied mascara and cherry ChapStick, and slipped on a long flowered skirt and white tank top. Finally she went downstairs and knocked on Tina’s door.

“Come in!” Tina called, and Allie opened the door. Tina was on the phone, having either an imaginary conversation with George Clooney or a real one with her children, judging from all the “I love you”s and kissing sounds. Allie sat down in an oversize chair to wait. The French doors were open to the breeze, and an arrangement of delicate purple orchids in a vase sat atop the dresser across from the bed.

“Ice cream sundaes after dinner?” Tina was saying. “You’re so lucky! Yup, just a little while longer . . . Okay, sweetie . . .”

Allie smiled. She’d talked to her mom right after the snorkeling trip, and although she had sounded a little tired, her mother had insisted everything was fine. The teenage babysitter was a big help, and all the kids were getting along beautifully so far.

“Oh, do I love your mother,” Tina said as she put down her cell phone. “My kids sounded happy!”

“Of course they are,” Allie said. “Just like you are, right?”

“I think I’m a little too happy right now,” Tina said. “I can’t believe we only have five days left.”

“Don’t think about that,” Allie said. “Just concentrate on the now. That’s what Buddhists say is the key to joy anyway.”

“You’re right. So what do you think is really going on with Savannah and Gary?” Tina asked as she reached for a comb and began to untangle her mass of wet curls. “I tried to ask her today on the boat, but she kind of brushed me off. She’s not wearing her rings, but sometimes she doesn’t. She once told me she takes them off when she plays golf or works out and never remembers to put them back on.”

“I started to ask, too, but then Pauline walked up to us, and I didn’t want to bring it up in front of her,” Allie said. “Do you think he really had to work this whole week?”

“Even a doctor gets time off,” Tina said. “Especially for a free trip to Jamaica. I mean, unless he got offended because Dwight was paying for everything and he didn’t want to come because it was an insult to his male ego. Lotion, lotion, where’d I put that bottle of lotion? No, something else is going on between the two of them.”

Allie reached for the Lubriderm on the table next to her and handed it to her friend. “Tina? Does Gio feel weird about that, too? I mean, about Dwight paying for everything?”

Tina stopped moving. “Why do you ask? Does Ryan?”

Allie shook her head. “No. I mean, not that I know of. He understands it’s a gift Dwight really wants to give us.”

Tina finished moisturizing her legs before she answered. “Things are . . . really tight for us right now,” she said. “Gio’s worried he might lose his job.”

“But he’s so good at it!” Allie protested.

“Yeah, but so were the guys who got laid off last winter,” Tina said. “And if his company doesn’t land another big project soon, it won’t matter how good he is. And you know he wants our kids to go to private Catholic school, and it’s ridiculously expensive. So we decided they can’t, and I think on some level Gio feels like God is going to be angry with him. You know how old-fashioned Gio is. It’s just how he was raised.”

“So he feels like he’s not providing well enough?” Allie asked. “Even though you have a nice home and you’re raising four kids?”

“I don’t think he feels that way all the time,” Tina said. “It’s . . . well, seeing everything Dwight has, especially right now . . . I mean, Dwight was just this shy little twerp in college, and now he’s this hotshot. And the crazy thing is, Dwight didn’t even work that hard to get his money! It all came from an idea!”

“It was more than that,” Allie corrected. “He started a great dot-com company. Everyone thought it was going to be the new UPS.”

“I know,” Tina said. “And I agree, the idea was brilliant. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be able to click a computer button and have anything from Chinese food to wine to DVDs—or all three—delivered within thirty minutes?”

“So that bothers Gio, too? That he feels like Dwight got lucky?” Allie asked. “Because no one knew the dot-com bubble would burst.”

“Seemed like Dwight did,” Tina said. “He cashed out a lot of his stock right before it happened.”

“See? It was more than luck,” Allie said. “Maybe he sensed it was coming. And it’s not like he doesn’t work. He’s always dabbling in new things! He started that company to develop new apps, and he’s got some rental properties in Breckenridge . . .”

“I don’t know, Al, we haven’t even really talked about it.” Tina sighed. “Gio said something last night, a little jab about Dwight’s prissy gold Rolex. It wasn’t hard to figure out where it was coming from.”

“What did you say?”

Tina shrugged. “I ignored it. Why? Do you think it’s a big deal?”

“I don’t know,” Allie said, choosing her words carefully. She didn’t want to stress Tina out, not now, when she was finally getting to relax. “But you might want to reassure Gio about how well he’s doing, if it’s a sensitive point. Everyone has different emotional triggers, and even if they don’t make sense to the rest of us, it’s important to respect them. I’d just hate for Gio to feel even a little bit badly when this trip is supposed to be a fun vacation for you two.”

Tina crossed the room and gave Allie a hug. “You know why I love you? Because you care so much about everyone else. Now let’s go grab a glass of wine and jump aboard that helicopter.”

Allie stood up, feeling as if she hadn’t conveyed the urgency she was sensing about Gio’s feelings.

“Let me just throw some gel in my hair. I’m going to let the wind dry it,” Tina was saying. “And how about tonight we dance on the beach? I feel like dancing again! That was so much fun last night!”

Allie forced herself to tuck away her worries, and she reached for the bottle of lotion Tina had left on the nightstand, intending to smooth a little on her hands. But it slid out of her grasp and bounced off the floor.

“Butterfingers,” Tina joked.

Allie stared down at the bottle, stricken. Was it slippery, or had something inside of her begun to misfire?

“Allie?” Tina scooped up the bottle and handed it to her. “You okay?”

The bottle
was
slippery—a sheen of lotion, probably left over from Tina’s fingertips, clung to its surface.

Just concentrate on the now,
Allie thought again. Those five words would be her mantra this week.

Allie took a slow, deep breath, focusing on it like she’d learned to do in a meditation class. “I’m great,” she said.

She linked arms with Tina, and they walked through the house to the pool. The guys were no longer there, and the dirty plates and glasses and damp towels had been cleared away and magically replaced with a table full of fruity rum drinks in hollowed-out pineapples.

“Don’t you feel as if we stepped into a fantasy?” Allie said, handing Tina a pineapple. “Or maybe a movie set.”

“All we need is Ryan Gosling to rise, dripping wet, out of the pool,” Tina said.

“Did someone say a naked Ryan Gosling?” a voice called. “I think Pauline can probably arrange that.”

They turned and saw Savannah. The warm late-afternoon light hit her as she crossed the patio toward them, illuminating the red and gold in her hair. She wore a white dress with navy blue trim that clung to her slim hips, and her lightly tanned skin was flawless.
She has never looked more beautiful,
Allie thought.

“Van! We didn’t say naked!” Allie protested, laughing.

“Ah, but you were thinking it. Don’t you love those flowers?” Savannah asked, pointing to a trellis covered in white-blue and purple blooms. “They’re passionflowers, the butler told me. Native to Jamaica.”

“Gorgeous,” Allie said.

Savannah picked up a pineapple drink. “Cheers, girlfriends. To passion.”

“I’m so glad we’re here together,” Allie said. “I’ve missed you, Van. I feel like we haven’t really talked in a while.”

Savannah nodded. “I know. Things have been . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she took another sip of her drink. “Look, I know you guys have been tiptoeing around the subject, so just let me say this fast, okay? Gary and I are splitting up.”

Savannah lifted her chin, and Allie could see a defiant gleam in her eyes. It didn’t fool Allie, not one bit.

“I’m so sorry,” Tina said.

Savannah nodded again.

“Whenever you want to talk, I’m here.
We’re
here,” Allie said.

“I know that. Just—not now, okay? I really want to have fun tonight.”

“Then we better go tell Pauline about our Ryan Gosling request,” Tina said. She squeezed Savannah’s arm. “Do you think we should order him lightly oiled?”