There had to be something wearable in the house. A ten-day trip to the U.K. shouldn’t deplete a woman’s reserves. She pulled out the second drawer of her lingerie chest and dumped the contents in a pile. T-shirts from various island paradises. A garter belt with tiny roses embroidered across the handmade lace, remains of a long-ago Valentine’s Day celebration. More bras than any one 34B woman needed in three lifetimes. A puka shell necklace. The black lace mantilla she had found in a shop in Seville during her last married vacation. Ticket stubs, a McCarter playbill, a deflated balloon dachshund, and what was easily the worst birthday present her mother had ever given her: the infamous red lace thong.
Maeve had come of age at the start of the turbulent sixties, and she believed in shaking up the status quo whenever she had the chance. How better to ignite some passion in her forty-year-old daughter’s life than to present her with outrageously sexy underwear in front of friends, colleagues, relatives, and a half-dozen prospective boyfriends? Unfortunately the passion Maeve ignited in her daughter had nothing to do with romance and everything to do with embarrassment. Kate had tried to be a good sport about it, but it had taken every ounce of self-control at her command to keep from throttling her own mother.
She held up the thong. It wouldn’t cover a Barbie doll, much less a full-size woman. What on earth had Maeve been thinking?
She considered making a quick run to Target for a three-pack of Jockey for Women, but the clock was ticking and Professor Armitage wasn’t known for his patience. And there was the fact that she was way beyond exhausted. Jet lag rarely bothered her, but today she was having trouble keeping her eyes open long enough to finish getting dressed.
She cringed her way into the scrap of lace and elastic and then peered at herself in the mirror opposite the bed. That was better than a jolt of caffeine. The thong should have come with a warning sticker. This much reality so early in the morning was hard to take.
She looked closer. That couldn’t possibly be right. The human body wasn’t supposed to have quite so many indentations. Maybe they should add an instruction label too for the lingerie-impaired. She slipped off the thong, spun it around, then tried again.
A forty-one-year-old woman with a red lace wedgie was a sight to behold.
Thank God it was a sight nobody else on the planet would likely ever see.
Rocky Hill, New Jersey—9:45 a.m.
“Congratulations,” the real estate agent said as Mark Kerry handed her four signed copies of the contract. “It’s now official: your house is sold.”
It was also officially the point of no return. “Now what?” he asked, wishing he felt more enthusiastic about the sale.
Bev scanned the signature pages and then slipped them into a large folder. “We have a tentative closing six weeks from today. I’ll arrange for the appraisal, the home inspection, radon testing, smoke alarms, yadda yadda yadda. All you have to do is pack for your move,” she said with a cheery smile.
“And dig up the township permits for the new roof.”
“See?” Bev rolled her eyes. “I’d forget my head if it wasn’t attached. We’ll need the roof permits, the signed lead paint disclosure, and your attorney’s name. You can fax copies to me and I’ll pick up the originals.”
“So far it’s been almost painless.”
“Five days from listing to contract,” Bev said, clearly pleased, “and we managed to get top dollar. It doesn’t get much better than that.”
She gave him a contact sheet with pertinent phone numbers and a metaphorical pat on the back.
“You look shell-shocked,” she said as he walked her down the gravel driveway to her car. “I promise you the hard part is over.”
Easy for her to say. When Memorial Day weekend rolled around, he would be on his way back up to New Hampshire to find out if you really could go home again.
Where was home anyway? This small stone cottage in New Jersey didn’t have much going for it, but somehow over the last two years it had become home. Or as close to it as he was likely to get.
Two postage-stamp bedrooms. Small kitchen. No dining room. No family room. A basement with its own share of troubles. When he walked through the front door he knew he was where he was meant to be.
But nothing lasted forever.
The other contract he needed to sign was propped up against the toaster, along with a note from his old friend Maggy Boyd, who was shepherding him through the process.
The funny thing was, he thought he would have more time. Bev had warned him to be patient. The New Jersey real estate market wasn’t as hot as it used to be and the whole thing might take a while.
It didn’t.
Kris and Al Wygren showed up on Sunday for the first open house and fell head over heels in love with the place. They loved the wonky windows, the big stone fireplace, the squeaky floorboards, every single thing. He had pointed out all the flaws and they only loved it more.
The Wygrens were all of twenty-five or twenty-six. Newly married. Newly pregnant. Ready to build a nest of their own.
He and Suzanne had been just like them. Young and in love with their entire future spread out before them like a field of wildflowers. Not that he would have ever thought of the wildflowers simile. That was pure Suzanne. She had seen life through a prism of joy that even in memory still amazed him.
Her mother used to say that God had been feeling generous the day he made Suzanne. He had granted her beauty and wit, intelligence and a kind heart, a sense of humor that could still make Mark smile across the years.
But the one thing God hadn’t seen fit to grant her was the one thing that would have made all the difference: a long life.
When she looked at him, she saw a hero. The kind of man his father had been, the kind of man he wanted to be. But time hadn’t been on their side. She had been taken from him while he was still very much a work in progress.
At least Suzanne never saw him stumble and fall. She never saw him flat on his face on their front porch, stinking of cheap whiskey and pain. She hadn’t been there to see him try to outrun the memories of their past. The lost days, those dark nights, belonged to him alone, and for that he was glad.
She never found out her hero was only a man.
Coburn, New Jersey—around 10:30 a.m.
Kate was stopped in traffic near the Bedminster exit on Route 287 when a wave of something uncomfortably close to nausea swept over her. Jet lag on an empty stomach was bad enough, but for sheer misery she would put her money on the thong.
Traffic eased up as she neared Bridgewater Commons Mall, but the cell phone calls kept coming. Her assistant, Sonia, called twice. Clive phoned from England to tell her she had left a pair of sunglasses behind. Armitage’s secretary wanted to make sure she was on schedule. Jackie the furniture refinisher had another one of her minor emergencies designed to boost her going rate another ten percent.
They all called for different reasons, but every call ended the same way.
You sound exhausted . . . You need a vacation, not a buying trip . . . I’m worried about you . . .
Bless call waiting, the greatest exit strategy ever invented. What was wrong with everyone? Sure, she had noticed the dark circles under her eyes, but that was genetic. Maeve had them and Maeve’s mother before her. And unless she missed her guess, Gwynn had something to look forward to. Kate wasn’t twenty any longer. Not even Estée Lauder could turn back the clock.
She shifted around in the driver’s seat, tugging at the elastic band pinching her hip bone. Her mother had promised her that the thong would release her inner goddess and turn her into a siren capable of luring men away from ESPN and repeats of
Baywatch
, but so far her inner goddess was missing in action.
Her cell burst into the
William Tell Overture
as she neared the Route 1 exit. Her mother’s theme song.
“What did you say to Gwynn? She called me, sobbing.”
“Hello to you too, Mom. I thought you were in New Mexico.”
“I am and our girl woke me up with her tale of woe. What is going on back there?” Maeve was on the other side of the country, touring for her latest self-help tome, but family drama transcended geography.
“It was Gwynn being Gwynn,” Kate said. “She wanted to talk, I needed to finish dressing and get on the road.”
“You hurt her feelings. She had some news she wanted to share with you.”
“I cut her short once in twenty-three years and it’s a major incident?” She took a series of deep breaths and tried to calm herself. “I haven’t slept in almost thirty-six hours, Maeve, and my body thinks it’s the middle of the afternoon.”
“You don’t sound like yourself,” Maeve observed. “What’s going on, sweetie? We’re worried about you.”
“Is Mercury in retrograde again or something? There’s nothing wrong with me that a good night’s sleep won’t take care of. Why is everyone suddenly asking if I’m okay?” Jet lag was hardly a new concept.
“Maybe because it’s clear you’re not yourself. You’ve seemed a little depressed, forgetful—”
“Ma!” Kate practically shouted into the tiny cell phone. “I think your imagination is running away with you.”
“You might be entering perimenopause,” Maeve volunteered.
The morning was actually deteriorating. She wouldn’t have believed it possible.
“So how did things go in London with Liam? Any sparks?” Her mother was nothing if not resilient.
“We had tea together my first day. That was it.”
“Sharon said he would be perfect for you. She’ll be so disappointed.”
“Next time why doesn’t Sharon fix you up with the Liams and Nigels of this world. I keep telling you I’m not looking for a man and I mean it.”
“You might not be looking but you wouldn’t turn down a good one if he popped up.”
“I’m not sure there are any good ones,” she said, “at least none that I’d be interested in.”
“That’s not normal, honey. You sound like you’ve given up.”
“Mom, this is old news. I’m perfectly happy being on my own, even if that seems to bug the living daylights out of everyone else in the world except me. Can’t we just leave it at that?”
“Sara Whittaker’s son is back in town. He’s been working in Tokyo the last few years, a graphic artist. I think you two might hit it off.”
“Mom, I have another call. We’ll have to pick this up later.”
“You don’t have to use the call-waiting excuse with me, sweetie. I know when you’ve had enough.”
Kate had to laugh. “It’s a real call this time,” she said as her irritability lifted. “I’ll call you tonight. I promise.”
Paul Grantham, old friend and confidant, was next in the queue.
“Took you long enough, French.”
“Thank God it’s you,” she said, adjusting the headset. “This thing hasn’t stopped ringing since I got off the plane.”
“So how was the big buying trip? Is there anything left on the other side of the pond?”
“Not much,” she admitted. “I may have struck gold.” She told him about the stack of Revolutionary War-era letters she’d found in a tiny shop near Lincolnshire written to a colonel’s wife in New Jersey.
“When will you know if you found the mother lode?”
A truck, horn blaring, appeared out of nowhere in her blind spot. “Oh, damn! Sorry!” She veered back into her lane, heart pounding wildly. “What were you saying?”
“Are you okay?” he asked. “You sound a little out of breath.”
“I’m not out of breath. It must be the connection.” That and her surging adrenaline.
She held on while Paul answered an assistant’s question.
“Sorry,” he said. “Crazy morning. We’re still on for the Hospital Gala this week, aren’t we?”
“I take it Lisa’s no longer on the scene.”
“Lisa is looking for somebody who’s willing to go the distance,” he said, “and we both know I’m saving myself for you.”
It was an old joke between them, but lately she had the feeling there was more behind her old friend’s words than either one of them cared to acknowledge.
Paul was a partner in a prestigious Manhattan law firm, another one of the Coburn High School Class of 1982 who made good. He had been in her life for as long as she could remember, part of their crowd from kindergarten through high school. He had hung out with them at Rutgers, where Kate had struggled unsuccessfully to combine marriage, motherhood, and college, and he had stayed a good friend even after their respective marriages fell to the divorce statistics. They had tried dating once early on but the absurdity of dressing up and staring at each other over candlelight and a bottle of Tattinger had pushed them both into helpless laughter, which was pretty much where they had stayed.
Or so she had thought until recently.
“Oh my God,” she said through clenched teeth. “I almost rear-ended a cop.”
“You sure you’re okay?” he asked. “Maybe you should take the day off and catch up on your sleep.”
“That’s something you say to your aging aunt,” she snapped. “I’m not ready for the nursing home yet, Paul.”
“Tell you what,” he said. “How about if we’re not both hooked up by the time we hit retirement, we pool our Social Security checks and move in together.”
“Sweet talker.” She rolled to a stop. “No wonder Lisa’s not going to the gala with you this weekend.”
“She’s twenty-eight. I don’t have time to wait for her check.”
She tried to think of something suitably witty to say in response, but her mind was filled with nothing but air.
“Kate?” Paul’s voice poked through the fog. “Are you still there?”
“Sorry,” she said yet again. “I don’t know what my problem is today.”
“Did you eat anything? You’re probably hungry.”
“I grabbed a brownie and a Frappuccino at the airport while I was waiting for my bags to get through customs.”