by Olivia Miles
“Dinner was delicious as always,” she said, wishing for not the first time that she could reciprocate the hospitality and invite her friends over for a meal for once. Trish had been there, of course, popping in to her apartment, and once she’d been sweet enough to watch Emma when Bridget had a late closing and Ryan wasn’t able to get away from the bar to watch his kid for an hour. But there was something sad about inviting a couple, a couple with a big house and secure jobs and two sons, into her single-mother world. Abby said it was her issue, and maybe it was. But what Abby didn’t understand was that it wasn’t the square footage or the quality of the finishes that made Bridget hesitant to have people over. It was the fact that nothing about her apartment felt like home. It said nothing of her personality or her hopes or dreams. It spoke only of her circumstances. Her situation. And the future that she was supposed to have and didn’t.
“Are you sure you don’t want to take some leftovers home? That way you won’t have to cook tomorrow night for Emma.”
“I promised Emma I’d take her to the festival tomorrow. You guys going?”
“Of course!” Jeffrey said, throwing a casual arm around Trish’s shoulder.
Bridget stifled a sigh. That shoulder could have just as easily been hers as much as this house might have been her home if she’d played her cards right and accepted that invitation to the school dance all those years ago. It wasn’t that she was particularly attracted to Jeffrey, but then, attraction was clearly overrated, considering how things had turned out with Ryan.
She stepped toward the door. She was getting silly. These were her friends. Her very happy and happily married friends, who were clearly meant to be, and it was best for them all that she had stepped back when she did. Trish was besotted with Jeffrey, and Jeffrey was such a good man, he deserved that. Their life had turned out the way it should have. And her life…Well, she didn’t know the ending yet. And she told herself that this was okay. Even though some days, it didn’t feel okay at all.
“I should get Emma,” she said. It was ten minutes to eight, meaning she couldn’t linger any longer even if she wanted to, and she did. Being with Trish and Jeff was always a good time, and their home was a perfect escape, not just because of the delicious food and overstuffed sofas near the crackling fireplace, but because it wasn’t burdened with the endless responsibilities she felt when she walked through her own door.
Well now, she was feeling sorry for herself again, something she tended to do on the nights that Ryan had Emma.
She walked to the car, all too aware that Jeffrey and Trish were standing in the doorway, his arm still around her as they watched their poor single friend head out into the night on her own, as if she were their teenage daughter, not the girl who had shared a banana seat with Trish as they pedaled into town for bags of taffy after school.
She pulled her phone from her pocket to see if Ian Fowler had left any word yet, and frowned when she saw a message from Ryan instead. Mike, his bartender, had called in sick. He was at the pub. With Emma.
Bridget cursed under her breath as she pulled out of the driveway and gripped the steering wheel, cruising at a speed of five miles over the limit and mercifully hitting every green light on the way into town. Maybe she was overreacting. After all, this was Oyster Bay, and Ryan ran a gastro pub, not a strip joint, but she couldn’t help it. Her eight-year-old little girl should have spent the night at the bowling alley, not sitting on a bar stool.
By the time she pushed by a group of rowdy guys hovering outside the front door and into the overly heated room, her heart was hammering in her chest. She didn’t know who she hoped to see first—her daughter, so she could be sure she was all right, or her ex, so she could give him a piece of her mind.
Her eyes locked on Emma, sitting at the bar, of course, perched on a stool. A basket of fries was in front of her, and no doubt that was Ryan’s latest lady friend at her side. Ryan didn’t like the word girlfriend. It implied a commitment that was never there.
Bridget sized up the size-two blonde as she marched over to her daughter. Big boobs, fake tan, too much eye makeup. Yep. Ryan was painfully predictable. He’d only broken the mold once, and look how that turned out.
“Mommy!” Emma’s face lit up just as the blonde’s face fell. “Look! Daddy made me a kiddy cocktail.”
Nice. When she was a kid they called them Shirley Temples.
“Where is your father?” she asked, her gaze drifting to the mound of fries that was, no doubt, Emma’s dinner.
“He’s busy,” the blonde cut in, jutting her chin.
Too busy for his daughter? Bridget didn’t blink. “And who are you? The babysitter?”
The girl narrowed her eyes. “I’ll go find him.”
Bridget knew she should say thank you, and the old Bridget would have—but that was before Emma, before another person became more important to her than herself. Back when her mistakes were hers alone.
Ryan came over to the bar, alone, Bridget noted. “What’s wrong?” he asked, giving her one of those boyish grins that used to work on her and no doubt still did with the under twenty-five crowd.
She wasn’t smiling. “Tonight is your night with Emma.”
“Yes.” Ryan nodded, trying his best to look earnest, but failing miserably. God, how she hated the way Ryan always managed to make her feel like a school marm, when she was just trying to be a responsible adult. One of them had to be.
“You’re supposed to be spending time with her.”
“I am spending time with her.” He looked at her like she was half-crazy, and maybe she was. Crazy to have ever fallen for a guy like Ryan, who was all looks and charm and dreams. Crazy to ever think there would come a day when he didn’t find a way to let her down.
“No, your flavor of the week is spending time with her.”
Ryan’s lips thinned. “Oh, so this is what it’s really about.”
“Excuse me?”
Ryan folded his arms across his chest shaking his head in disappointment. “I’m not going to apologize for moving on with my life. And I’ll remind you that you left me.”
Bridget felt a surge of anger that only Ryan could bring out in her. “You’re right, Ryan. I did leave you. I left because then, like now, this pub was more important to you than me or Emma.” She glanced over her shoulder, making sure that Emma was out of earshot, though it was a wonder anyone could hear anything from the noise in this place. “Do you have any idea how much Emma looks forward to these nights with you? She spent half the morning telling me how the two of you were going to go bowling and then out for ice cream.”
The shame that darkened Ryan’s eyes was brief. “I’m not going to apologize for having a job to do. I said in my message—”
Bridget held up a hand. “I know, I know. Mike was sick. And last time you got a last-minute party of twenty booked. And the time before that your kitchen was understaffed.” She shook her head. “What’ll it be next time?”
“She’s having a good time,” Ryan said.
“It’s eight fifteen on a Saturday night and the two girls in the corner are slurring their words and doing shots.” Bridget was clenching her teeth so hard that her jaw ached. “And she’s eight. She shouldn’t be sitting in a bar.”
“It’s a restaurant that also has a bar,” Ryan replied.
Bridget’s mouth moved, but no sound came out, and maybe that was for the best. There was no point in trying to reason with Ryan. Hadn’t she learned that years ago?
“I’m taking Emma home now,” she replied.
“I’m supposed to have her until eight thirty,” Ryan replied, but Bridget shot him a look and he said nothing more.
She moved toward the bar, but Ryan’s hand was suddenly on her arm. She turned, bracing herself for an argument, but instead he gave her an apologetic smile. Another thing he’d mastered. “Why don’t you stay and have something to eat?”
“I already ate,” she said, refusing to feed into those puppy dog eyes, the very ones
he used to give her when he said they’d have to wait to talk about a house next year, and next year became the year after that.
“Wait. There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.” His smile slipped, and he thrust his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He looked as contrite as the man could, which wasn’t saying much.
Of course. He needed something. A loan. A favor.
“You’ve said enough for one night,” she said, and walked over to Emma, whose cheek was now cupped in her palm, her eyelids drooping as her dirty blond hair dipped into the pool of ketchup next to her fries.
“Come on, honey,” she said with forced cheer. “Time to go home.”
Emma’s eyes immediately filled with tears. “But…but we didn’t go bowling yet! Daddy promised!”
Your father promised me a lot of things, too, she wanted to say. Instead she said, “I’ll take you bowling next weekend. Just us girls.” It wasn’t the same, and she didn’t expect it to help, but it was the best she could offer. She took her daughter’s hand and walked her to the door, and as she bundled her into the car, she knew there was only one thing worse than being disappointed by her ex: watching him disappointment their daughter, and knowing that there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Chapter Nine
The Fall Fest was an annual tradition in Oyster Bay, held the first weekend of October, rain or shine. When the girls were young, their parents would dress them in matching wool coats, something their mother was keen to do at holidays until Bridget grew too old for smocked dresses and began to protest dressing like Abby, who was six years her junior, after all. Back then, though, they didn’t mind the coats, or the matching hats. They came to the festival with pumpkins they’d each picked out that morning and would decorate in the children’s pumpkin contest. It was without saying that Margo, artistic from a young age, frequently won, much to Bridget’s annoyance and Abby’s dismay.
“I’m happy to see that you’re entering the pumpkin contest, Emma,” Margo said as she crossed the street to the town green with her sisters and niece. It was a chilly day, the salty breeze was blowing her ponytail, and she was especially grateful for the coat Bridget had lent her. She knew she should break down and buy herself one, but she couldn’t justify the purchase, not when she had a perfectly nice wool coat at home. Buying one here would be admitting to herself that she didn’t plan on returning, and that was too much to think about right now. It was easier to not think about Charleston or her house or her husband at all. Easier to fall into the routine of life here in Oyster Bay. It was Fall Fest. A day for hot cider and hay rides and binging on pumpkin spice doughnuts.
“I’m entering a contest today too,” Abby announced with a grin.
“Oh, really?” Margo looked down to the brown paper bag her sister had been carrying all the way from Bridget’s apartment. “What’s in there?”
Abby seemed to hesitate, then stopped at a bench on the sidewalk. She reached into the bag and pulled out a beautiful apple pie, topped with a lattice crust that was sprinkled in sugar.
“You’re entering the pie baking contest?” Bridget looked as surprised as Margo felt.
Abby nodded. “I saw the flier and well, it seemed like fun.”
“Where’d you learn to do that?” Margo wondered if there was more that she’d missed in her absence than Mimi being sent to Serenity Hills.
Abby shrugged. “I like watching cooking shows and experimenting. Mimi taught me some of her recipes, too. I used to visit her and we’d cook together. Before she moved.”
Bridget frowned. “I didn’t know that.” She looked almost hurt.
Abby carefully set the pie back in the bag. “Anyway, this was one of the last recipes we worked on together, so I thought…why not?”
Why not. It was such an Abby thing to say. Abby who had switched majors in college four times in as many years, barely pulling together enough credits to finish with a degree in Philosophy, which she’d never put to any real use. Abby who flitted from boyfriend to boyfriend, never really investing or caring if things didn’t work out. Abby who was perfectly fine hopping from one job to the next, never committing to an actual career.
Margo suddenly envied her cavalier attitude, her ability to enjoy the moment and not worry about tomorrow. “Well, you have a good chance at winning if it tastes as good as it looks.”
Abby just shrugged again. “We’ll see!”
They had barely crossed the threshold of the green when Abby let out a whoop of delight and, rattling off an apology that was far from sincere, went hurrying across the lawn to where a band was setting up in the gazebo for the afternoon concert.
Margo watched with interest as Abby set down the bag, climbed the steps of the gazebo, and leaned in to embrace a man in a white T-shirt and faded jeans.
“He doesn’t look as grungy as I’d imagined him,” she observed.
Bridget rolled her eyes. “And by Thanksgiving, he’ll be history. You know how Abby is.”
Margo nodded. Sadly, she did. Ever since she was twelve, Abby had been boy crazy. She’d use her birthday money to subscribe to teen celebrity magazines and cover the walls in pinups of her current crush.
“She’s as fickle about her career as she is about the men she dates,” Bridget sighed. “You know that job at the doctor’s office won’t last until Thanksgiving either.”
Margo wished she could believe otherwise, but Bridget had a point. Abby would soon claim she was bored, or behave in a way that indicated just how bored she was, which would lead to termination—something that had happened at the dentist’s office, the insurance agency, and a handful of other places off the top of her head.
“Abby needed parents,” Margo said, feeling bad. “We were lucky we had them for as long as we did.”
“I tried to guide her,” Bridget said, taking the pumpkin out of Emma’s sagging arms. “But she was in college by then and didn’t want to listen to my advice. I think she resented me for not being Mom.”
Margo nodded. “She’ll never admit how much she misses them.”
“I miss them every day,” Bridget said, blinking quickly as she looked away.
Margo didn’t reply. The ache in her chest wouldn’t let her. It was just the problem with Oyster Bay—she may be able to escape her marital troubles here, but all the other painful parts of her life were front and center and unavoidable.
“How was the showing?” she asked instead, even though a part of her didn’t want to know.
“Oh, fine.” Bridget shrugged. “Not much to tell. He’ll get back to me.”
“Did he seem interested?”
Bridget gave a little smile. “For a moment, I thought he was interested in me.” She laughed, but not happily. “He’s engaged.”
Ah. As far as Margo knew, Bridget had never dated since her divorce from Ryan. She never complained about it, or made it seem like she even wanted a romantic life. Now Margo wondered if her sister was lonely, and the thought of it made her sad. If she had lived closer, she could have stopped by for dinner more often, taken Bridget out to get her nails done, let her have a little time to pamper herself.
Guilt weighed heavy as they walked toward the site of the pumpkin decorating contest, where dozens of children were already seated and hard at work. Bridget set Emma’s pumpkin on a picnic table and guarded it while Emma ran to the supply table to select her decorations. She returned with markers, glitter, glue, pompoms, and multiple sheets of stickers. “I think I’m going to win for sure,” she said, beaming as she slid onto the bench.
“She’s precious,” Margo said to Bridget, for the first time wondering if Ash’s betrayal would have been easier if she had a daughter to look after, or if that would have just made things worse.
“You and Ash thinking of having kids anytime soon?”
Margo swallowed the lump in her throat. “I don’t think so,” she said, realizing the horrible truth in her statement. She looked away, across the crowded green, to where Abby was still chatting w
ith her man friend. “Abby really seems to like this guy. Don’t you think she’ll ever settle down?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Bridget led them to a bench under a maple tree that was just starting to turn, its leaves becoming a vibrant orange. She kept one eye on Emma, who was so engrossed in her project, she hadn’t even noticed her mother step away. “I’m not sure Abby has what it takes, honestly. Marriage is hard.”
“You’re telling me,” Margo replied before she could stop herself.
Bridget looked at her sidelong. “How is Ash? You haven’t mentioned him much.”
“Not much to tell,” Margo said, but damn it, her voice was shrill. There was a lot to tell, but that would require thinking about it, stirring up the hurt and the sadness, the humiliation and the anger.
Her professor husband was shagging his law student. Her life had become a cliché.
“Do you really miss not being married?” she dared to ask, thinking of what Bridget had said the other night at her apartment. She and Bridget rarely discussed the divorce, only loosely, in terms of her continued tense relationship with Ryan.
Bridget shook her head. “Not to Ryan. He was never the marrying kind, and I refused to see that. Sometimes it’s easier to see what you want to see, I suppose.”
Margo understand all too well. It was easier to think of her relationship with Ash as safe and easy and comfortable, not looking too closely at the truth of the situation. Was it really normal to eat dinners in silence each night, or in front of the evening news, before going off for the evening to separate quarters of the house? Where was the laughter, the spontaneity, the joy? Even when they went out, they kept things polite, peaceful. Low conflict. They never argued. She hadn’t even said anything when he gave his mother a gold locket for Christmas last year and bought Margo a new gardening spade; instead she’d told herself he knew how hard she’d been trying with those rose bushes…
She sighed. There had been red flags, lots of them now that she was willing to look for them.