Catching Air (19 page)

Someone was sleeping on the big sectional couch, a big guy whose feet were dangling off the end. Tucker! Her heart pounded faster before she could banish that ridiculous thought. She squinted and drew closer.

It was Rand, snores escaping through his open mouth, one arm thrown back behind his head and a few empty beer bottles on the table in front of him. Dawn edged back toward the kitchen. Rand hadn’t just fallen asleep out here accidentally; he had a pillow and quilt. What was he doing there?

A fight, Dawn surmised. Alyssa had thrown him out of the bedroom for some reason.

Opening the front door would likely wake Rand, and if she activated the garage door, everyone in the house would startle at the loud, grinding noise. Slipping out the kitchen door into the backyard was equally problematic; there was a dead bolt, but she didn’t have the key and had no idea where one was kept.

She stepped lightly back into the kitchen and sank down on a stool. Maybe this was a sign. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to leave. She didn’t
want
to leave!

Her grandmother had been a big believer in signs. She’d come to live with Dawn’s family when Dawn was in junior high school, but she’d never adapted to life in a new country. She spent most days watching reruns of soap operas and baking. On Sundays she joined them for a family walk, which was always truncated by her grandmother’s superstitions: A black cat, a ladder leaning against a house, the threat of rain—every direction portended doom. Maybe her grandmother had been right, Dawn thought, since a dark cloud seemed to hang over their family. A year before her parents’ death, Dawn’s grandmother had suffered a fatal heart attack.

As Dawn sat there, debating what to do, she spotted a folded newspaper on the counter, turned to a page with a mostly finished crossword puzzle showing. She’d seen Peter working on it the previous day. If she stayed, she could ask him for help. He’d understand why she couldn’t do the background check. Maybe together they could come up with a new plan; it would be such a relief to have someone to share her burden. Peter liked puzzles. Maybe he could solve hers.

The sun cracked over the horizon, and light spilled into the kitchen. If signs were trying to point her in the right direction, Dawn thought, this could be another one.

She retraced her steps to her makeshift room, unrolled the sleeping bag, and climbed back in, relishing the warmth after the early-morning chill of the house. She picked up Peter’s book and lay in Peter’s sleeping bag and waited for the house to come alive.

• • •

Incredibly, they’d pulled off the tasting. The only difficult moment had come when Jessica and Scott went out to their car and brought in overnight bags, clearly planning to take advantage of another free night at the B-and-B. Kira had started to say something, then she’d swallowed her words. Better to keep Jessica happy, Kira had decided. At least they’d left right after breakfast the next morning.

And Dawn had been amazing, mincing garlic and sautéing vegetables and washing dishes, managing to be exactly where Kira needed help without receiving constant instructions.

“Do you cook a lot?” Kira had asked, but Dawn had shaken her head.

“My mother did, though,” Dawn had said, her voice soft. “I used to love helping her in the kitchen.”

“She taught you well,” Kira had said, noticing the sadness that came into Dawn’s eyes. “And that health inspector! I was panicking until you came along and distracted him.”

Dawn had smiled. “I used to work for a—um, this guy. He was really busy and a lot of people wanted to see him, so I learned how to get people in and out of his office quickly.”

This guy
, Kira thought. Dawn seemed determined to avoid giving any hints about her life up to this point. But Kira wasn’t complaining: Dawn had arrived just when they needed help, and she was happy to work for room and board, which was really all they could afford. The match seemed almost too good to be true.

And yet something was nagging at Kira. It was the way Dawn had flinched when Kira mentioned the background check. Maybe she should ask Peter to perform a preliminary one, just to be safe. If Dawn was hiding something, it wouldn’t be good for the adoption agency to discover it.

The mail slid through the slot in the door and thumped onto the floor. Kira picked up the envelopes and catalogs and began sorting. Junk, junk, a letter for Alyssa from her mother—those arrived every few weeks, handwritten in a deep purple ink and charmingly old-fashioned—more junk . . . then, at the bottom of the pile, like the cold eyes of a crocodile lurking behind a cluster of lily pads, was a newsletter from her old law firm. The postal service had forwarded it from her address in Florida.

Kira stared at the glossy newsletter incredulously. It had always been a brag sheet for the firm, a mass-produced way to impress present and future clients. On the front page, photographs of the associates who’d made partner were lined up. Rich, the guy with the low golf handicap and even lower work ethic, was grinning toothily in the top row. Then there were color shots of the firm’s splashy annual trip—this one to the Bahamas—as well as highlights from some of the biggest cases won that year.

The case Kira had worked on, the one she’d been at least partly responsible for salvaging, was given top billing.

Kira crumpled up the newsletter and jammed it into the trash can, feeling a hot brew of anger and shame rise within her.

Her photograph should’ve been there. The years she’d spent grinding away in her office, sacrificing time with Peter and days at the beach and lazy weekend brunches at neighborhood cafés, had been a trade-off for the secure future she craved with an intensity that felt rooted in her very bones. Kira had imagined that once the crunch of her associate years was behind her, she and Peter would become modern models of parenthood. Peter would strap their baby to his chest in a BabyBjörn, and after a Gymboree class or trip to the park, he’d walk to her office—a big, sunny one with lots of windows—so they could all have lunch together. He’d keep his tech-support company alive, of course, but he could work during the evenings or while the baby napped. They’d buy a pretty little house that she could pay off with a fifteen-year mortgage, and she’d max out her 401(k) and they’d start a college fund. Her credit cards would be paid off every single month; their refrigerator would always be full.

A rising star
. That’s what Thomas, the puffy-faced managing partner, had called her. But he was a man who spewed words like shiny coins spilling from a slot machine; to him they were tools to enrapture clients and entrance juries. The truth meant nothing to Thomas. Winning trumped all.

When she handed in her resignation, she’d thought he’d balk, telling her the firm needed her. She’d hoped he’d leap up from behind his desk and hurry to her side, leading her to one of the love seats by his gas fireplace.

“Let’s not be so hasty,” she’d imagined him saying as he pulled out the bottle of hundred-year-old scotch he kept on the bar in his sprawling corner office. She’d never tasted a drop of it—only a privileged few had—but she’d visualized him pouring a generous three fingers into a thick-cut crystal glass.

“You know we can’t lose you.” Then he’d pour himself a glass, too, and take a sip while he surveyed her with the eagle-sharp eyes that contradicted his good-old-boy persona.

“Then you can’t postpone my partnership.” Kira had practiced that reply—six succinct words. She’d savor the smooth scotch on her tongue and the feel of the creamy leather love seat beneath her legs while she kept her eyes steady on Thomas. She’d make sure she didn’t blink first.

“You’re tougher than I thought,” Thomas would’ve said. “I like that.”

By the end of the day, everyone would have been whispering about her again.

But it hadn’t happened that way. She’d delivered her little speech, the one she’d practiced for hours while pacing her small living room. She didn’t get emotional or cry, thank God. Her voice had stayed steady and clear as she’d told Thomas she deserved to become partner and if it didn’t happen this year, she was going to take another job. She already had an offer on the table.

He’d stared at her for maybe five seconds. Let him think the offer was from a competing firm, rather than a half-baked idea from her irresponsible brother-in-law to run a B-and-B in Vermont.

“All right,” he’d said.

Then he’d taken a phone call.

His phone had rung, and he’d actually picked it up. “Johnny boy!” he’d cried, his voice containing such delight that she knew it was a high-paying client.

She’d stood there, feeling her body beginning to tremble. That was it? He hadn’t looked at her again. She was obviously being dismissed.

She’d underestimated Thomas. Or maybe she’d just forgotten that winning meant everything to him. She’d packed her things and left the office within the hour.

During her tenure at the firm, she’d managed to pay off most of her school loans, but she still owed nearly ten thousand dollars for her law school education. She’d given up years of her life, and she’d come out behind.

And now, with reservations trickling into the B-and-B at a slower rate than everyone had hoped, she’d probably be no better off by the end of this year.

She sighed and reached for the wedding binder she kept on the kitchen counter. The wedding was what would pull them through this year and help them at least break even. Her main priority was keeping Jessica happy—and making sure the wedding stress didn’t affect Alyssa and Rand, who were burdened by too much already.

At least there was one piece of good news. As it turned out, renting linens, tables, and place settings had been easier than she’d expected. With a few clicks of the keyboard, Peter had found a service that could deliver everything they needed in one batch. Although there were probably cheaper options, Kira was happy to opt for expediency when someone else was footing the bill.

Kira heard the roar of Rand’s motorcycle approaching the B-and-B, then the sound of the front door slamming as he came inside. She sat down on a stool to review her proposal before sending it to Jessica. She’d calculated a hundred dollars a head for food and drinks—her cost would be sixty dollars, and the rest would be profit—and she was tacking on the rental items in separate categories for Jessica to review.

“Hey,” Rand said as he wandered into the kitchen, his nose and cheeks bright red from the cold. He grabbed a red apple from the fruit bowl and crunched into it. “Where is everyone?”

“Peter’s out with Dawn,” Kira said. “He found a rug for her room and they went to pick it up.”

“Wedding stuff again?” Rand motioned to the binder.

“Yeah.” Kira flipped a page. “Can you believe how expensive it is to rent flatware? Thirty-seven cents a fork. At least you don’t have to wash it before you return it to the rental company.”

“Huh,” Rand said. He tossed his apple core into the trash and began rummaging through the refrigerator. “Is this salmon up for grabs?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Kira said distractedly. “It’s left over from the tasting, but it should still be good.”

He pulled out the platter and began attacking a piece.

“Let’s see if I’ve got everything . . . Champagne glasses, wine and water glasses, napkins, bread plates, main course plates—”

“How much are plates?” Rand interrupted, his mouth full.

“Here.” Kira started to hand him the papers, but he waved them away. “Just read it off to me.”

She started to bristle—she wasn’t his secretary!—but then she remembered Alyssa had mentioned a few weeks back, when Kira had asked if she should save the newspaper for Rand or recycle it, that he was dyslexic. Funny how learning something like that could flip your entire perspective. Now Kira wondered: Had she been misjudging Rand all along?

He was tricky, that was for sure. He exuded charm and energy, but she’d never had a deep conversation with him. Even now, when she knew he had to be upset about the risks to the baby and Grace, he acted carefree. Yet she could see shadows under his eyes, as if he hadn’t been sleeping well. Rand was the kind of guy who could befriend strangers, but he seemed to let very few people in. Peter, on the other hand, disappeared into a rowdy group, but in a one-on-one situation, he shone.

“Okay.” She ran her finger down the first page of the proposal. “Ten-inch dinner plates are thirty-three cents, if we go with plain white,” she said. “Hang on, let me find champagne glasses . . .”

“So forty cents a plate,” he said. “Sounds about right.”

“No, thirty-three . . .” Kira looked up.

“You’re not going to tack on a little surcharge?” he asked.

She blinked. “Really?”

“Why not?”

Kira put down the papers and cupped her chin in her hand. Could she actually get away with it? She was essentially serving as a wedding planner as well as the caterer. And didn’t wedding planners traditionally take a percentage of the cost of the event?

She reached for her computer and pulled up its calculator and began tweaking her numbers. She’d been planning to send all the paperwork to Jessica with every cost broken out and itemized. But maybe Jessica wasn’t expecting a detailed report. Kira could scale back the proposal and simply lump all the rental fees into one line with the grand total.

She thought about Jessica’s 7:00
A.M.
texts and her changing menu requirements, her little nose wrinkling as the bride-to-be dismissed Kira’s own wedding china.

With a quick motion, Kira’s finger hit the Delete key, and her carefully constructed lines disappeared from her screen. When her page was blank, she began again, typing
Jessica & Scott’s Wedding
at the top of the page in a pretty font.

She drafted a paragraph detailing the menu, making sure to add elegant-sounding flourishes, like “citrus-infused” and “amuse-bouches,” and she highlighted the Jessica-tinis and Scott scorpions the bar would serve. Then she added a second paragraph encompassing all the items that would need to be rented, from bread plates to tablecloths and warming racks.

She pulled up her computer’s internal calculator and tacked twenty percent onto the grand total.