He pulls up her name on his phone and begins to type. Hiya, can we talk?
* * *
Well, that was an interesting day. Joel steers the car back to the hotel while the soft hum of NPR on the radio fills the air. Meredith’s eyes are closed, though he can’t tell if she’s actually asleep or merely lost in thought. If he had to make a list of the top ten most memorable moments from today, there are some he would have expected, and a few others that he couldn’t have dreamed up. In no particular order of importance, he formulates the list as they shoot along the highway:
1. The invasion of the frogs. (One for the record books, for sure.)
2. The ungodly heat. (Also for the record books. It must have been one of the hottest graduations in Bolton history. Joel thinks he probably lost five pounds.)
3. The kids receiving their diplomas. (As amazing as he’d dreamed it would be, even if Cody’s was delayed.)
4. Running into Kat, her wife, and her daughter. (Not as weird as he’d expected.)
5. The meeting with the dean. (Weirder than he’d expected.)
6. Roger’s private meeting with the dean. (Was Cody involved in drugs and should they be worried? Apparently, Roger didn’t pay off the dean, which is a relief. Meredith managed to tell him this on their walk back to the car tonight. But why must Roger be such a perennial prick?)
7. The spaghetti and meatballs at Artu. (Out-of-this-world delicious and probably helped him gain back the five pounds he’d sweated off earlier.)
8. Watching his wife poke holes into Lily’s job description.
9. Getting Roger’s Bora-Bora trip sprung on them over dinner and watching Meredith squirm, as if she were ready to fly over the table and strangle Roger.
10. The fact that his mother-in-law had been toting around two thousand dollars in her purse all day. (Two thousand dollars!)
Forty-eight more hours to go.
He’d almost felt sorry for Lily tonight while he watched her across the table, smiling at all the right moments, her eyes glazing over with an expression that suggested she was listening when, really, she wasn’t—until, of course, Meredith laid into her. Joel has been there before, knows how it feels to be the odd man out. And he wonders if Lily dislikes these awkward, blended family gatherings as much as he does. If anything, she might feel even more uncomfortable—after all, he’s had several years of experience with this kind of thing. The relative newbie on the block, she still has to prove herself. And Meredith was definitely not making it easy for her tonight. If only he had his guide for stepfamilies to hand to Lily. He bets she could add a few choice chapters of her own to it.
Grant me strength. Grant me patience. Grant me a sense of humor. He’s had to recite his serenity prayer only a few times this weekend and feels pretty lucky with the first two, although the one about humor has faltered here and there. Tough to keep his sense of humor during the meeting with the dean. Funny how the explosions he’d been expecting—like Harry’s or Edith’s saying something off-color or Lily’s wearing an inappropriate outfit—haven’t occurred. At least not yet. But other things have rightly blindsided him.
If Cody really is involved in drugs, then Joel has missed all the signs—and he’s more than a little irritated with himself. Maybe he’s fallen into the trap of granting Cody golden-child status like everyone else in the family. Still, he’d kept a sharp eye on him throughout dinner, and there was nothing to indicate that his son was high or jacked up on any kind of illegal substance. To the contrary, Cody and Georgie were probably his two favorite dinner companions of the entire evening.
Well, at least everyone is still in one piece, he thinks. And, most important, both kids have their diplomas in hand.
Only forty-eight more hours to go, he repeats to himself.
If only he didn’t fear that the worst was yet to come.
* * *
When they get back to the hotel, Meredith hugs her mom good-night and tells Joel she’ll be up in a few minutes. She can’t bring herself to rehash the evening with him just yet, and she wants to check in on Mason. During dinner, Jill left a voice mail with a brief update, but Meredith wants to make sure he’s doing okay. A comfy, oversize chair next to the fireplace in the lobby catches her eye, and she collapses into it. Though it’s much too warm for a fire tonight, she thinks it must be wonderful to sit here by a roaring hearth during the winter. Maybe they can come back for the holidays. If Roger and Lily can go to Bora-Bora, then surely she and Joel can afford another long weekend in Boston. No reason they can’t start feathering their emptying nest with vacations, too!
When she dials the NICU, Jill answers right away and informs her that Mason is doing as well as can be expected. “He seems to have calmed down since this afternoon. That sponge bath really helped. Thanks. He pretty much needs nonstop cuddling, though, poor thing. As soon as I put him down, he starts crying bloody murder again.”
Meredith’s heart breaks for the little guy, but she knows that he’s in good hands. “Okay, thanks for keeping me updated. Good luck tonight. Hope he falls asleep for you so you can get a few minutes’ break.”
On the other end, Jill laughs. “That would be nice, but I’m not counting on it. Hey, how was your day? How was graduation?”
“Oh, good.” For a second, Meredith almost launches into the highlights but then remembers she shouldn’t hold Jill up. Besides, what would she say? Cody almost didn’t graduate. He might be into drugs; we don’t know for sure. My ex-husband’s new wife looks like she could be his daughter. We were attacked by slimy frogs in the scorching heat. Roger is treating the kids to a trip to Bora-Bora, and I made them these lame scrapbooks for graduation gifts.
Instead, she says, “It was fine. I’ll fill you in next time I see you.”
When she hangs up, a group of bridesmaids clutching bouquets of long-stemmed white roses sails through the hotel lobby. Their dresses are a tasteful shade of deep purple, almost an eggplant, a color and style pretty enough to be worn again after the wedding. Meredith thinks back to her own wedding day with Joel. They’d wanted to keep the ceremony simple and had tied the knot at a small Unitarian church in New Haven, followed by dinner with a small group of family and friends. No bridesmaids, no groomsmen. Meredith didn’t even wear a traditional white gown, just a three-quarters length ivory silk dress. Funny how little she remembers about the actual day. The memories that stay with her are, instead, those tied to family. Like when they all headed up to Canobie Lake Park and Joel won an enormous stuffed giraffe for Dawn and a stuffed gorilla for Cody. Or when they rented a house on the Cape for a week and everyone would sit around the campfire at night and try to one-up each other with scary stories.
In contrast, she remembers more about her and Roger’s wedding day and less about their years together as a family. Maybe it’s because Roger, determined to log the insane hours to make partner at his firm, was so seldom around when the kids were young. Or maybe it’s simply because when she’d married him, she was young enough to care about the details of her wedding day. Naively, she’d assumed that a beautiful wedding ensured a beautiful life together. Theirs had been a huge fete at a country club with ocean views and more than two hundred guests. An eight-piece band played, and the guests had danced until the band flicked the lights and shooed everyone home. It had been the kind of wedding a girl dreams about, followed by a romantic honeymoon in Bali.
Quite a contrast to how they’d first met, back when she was working as a nurse in the ER. Roger had presented with a broken nose, cracked by a teammate’s elbow in a pickup game of basketball, and he’d been holding a blood-soaked T-shirt. The shirt caught her eye: Green Bay Packers. Meredith, who’d grown up in Wisconsin, struck up a conversation.
“So, you’re a Packers fan, I see.”
“Oh, no, it’s my buddy Brian’s. He lent it to me. Or, I guess gave it to me is more like it. Can’t imagine he’s going to want it back.” And
he’d cracked a half smile before wincing. Meredith could see that the nose was askew, the crack up high. “Anyway, he’s from Wisconsin. A die-hard Packer fan.”
“Must be a good guy,” she said. Had she been flirting? “Aside from the fact that he broke your nose, of course.”
Roger grinned. “That’s all right. I won’t take it personally. He is a good guy, but I’m nicer. Want to go out to dinner with me sometime?”
Surprised, Meredith paused in her cleanup efforts. Roger looked so forsaken, but the deep-set blue eyes, the five o’clock shadow and his smile were enough to make her see past his crooked nose.
“Okay,” she said, as if accepting a dare. “Sure. Why not?”
“Sure?” he’d asked, sounding dubious. “I can promise you that I’m much better-looking than I’m presenting myself at the moment.” Which had made her laugh. And after that first date a few days later, which had evolved into an entire week traveling back and forth between each other’s apartments, they were more or less inseparable until Roger proposed on the beach, the waves eddying around their bare feet.
Until, of course, the day he told her he was leaving her for someone else.
Meredith sighs at the memory. She used to be fun. What happened? A few weeks ago, an old high school friend posted a photo of her and some pals on Facebook. Meredith was looking off to the side, but she seemed so happy, so young, so carefree in the picture that she almost didn’t recognize herself. What was she thinking in that photo when she was sixteen or seventeen? The years (and motherhood!) have surely aged her, but have they aged her so much that she’s forgotten what it feels like to have a good time?
Things used to be different (she knows they were), but the details of how, exactly, remain hazy. Once upon a time, she and her girlfriends would go out to dinner and a movie and gossip about the guys they were dating. Once upon a time, Meredith would shop for real, actual clothes, and not just a fresh pair of scrubs or new clogs for her swollen feet. Yes, once upon a time, a long time ago, it dawns on her with a jolt—she was young and carefree—and not so unlike Lily.
Maybe, she thinks as she takes the elevator upstairs, she’s not supposed to be the Jackie O. of graduations. Maybe she has been going about this weekend all wrong. Maybe a cross between Meryl Streep and Sarah Jessica Parker is more like it. Or, how about, Tina Fey and Reese Witherspoon? Now, that would be a winning combination. She’ll never be as gracious as Jackie O. (she pretty much proved that at dinner tonight), but funny, quirky, sexy? Meredith can be all those things. She is all those things, she thinks, at least on a good day, and she takes a moment to pause outside their suite door before going in, channeling her best movie star vibes and realigning herself with the parts that she knows to be true.
FIFTEEN
Saturday morning
Lily is having trouble remembering what day it is. Which is ridiculous because, of course, it’s Saturday, the day of the party. Somehow, though, it seems as if it should be Sunday, as if she has already lived through and survived the party and should now be permitted to relax. She slides her sleep mask up and kneads her forehead. She vaguely remembers Roger’s helping her up to the bedroom last night after their romantic interlude on the deck. Beyond that, it’s all a blur, although something clearly woke her. Bang! Oh, right. The clanging of pans downstairs in the kitchen. The bedside clock reads 8:07 a.m. Donna must already be up and at them. Lily can’t imagine what else could possibly need doing this morning, aside from some last-minute tweaks she wants to make to the slideshow. All the food and decorations are set, save for the pink-and-white peonies, which will be delivered at eleven. Then she hears it: a crackle of lightning followed by a rumble of thunder.
She reaches out for Roger and shakes his arm gently. “Honey, listen.” She groans. “It’s raining.” On the ceiling the soft thrum of raindrops plays. The forecast predicted a slight chance of rain overnight and perhaps into early morning, but every weather station promised the sun would poke through by nine o’clock, the morning ripening into a perfect afternoon. And that was the part Lily had focused on: a perfect afternoon. There’s another rumble of thunder, and she flops onto her back. “Great,” she says. “Just what the doctor ordered. A thunderstorm for our party.”
Roger stirs slowly, rolls over, and drapes an arm over her. “Oh, honey,” he says, his early-morning breath sour. “Don’t worry. It’s early. It’s supposed to clear. Have faith.”
She slides his arm off and swings her feet over the side of the bed. Have faith? Have faith when she’s devoted the last few weeks of her life to ensuring that this party goes perfectly? No, thank you. If she’d counted on faith alone, she’d still be stuck in Kentucky. Lily has learned the hard way that if you want anything done in this world, you have to take responsibility. Well, she’s taken responsibility for this party. Whether or not it succeeds will be a reflection squarely on her.
It needs to be fantastic. There is no other option. Although, given how poorly Meredith treated her last night, Lily is surprised by how much she still cares that the party go off without a hitch. Unless Meredith thinks she’s a complete idiot (which, Lily grants, is a distinct possibility), she must have known Lily would pick up on her underhanded insults about her not having a “real” job. About Lily’s being just a hop and skip away from Kim Kardashian in her self-absorption. It was all Lily could do not to shout across the table at her, Who do you think is organizing this huge graduation party for your children? Certainly not yourself! But she knew how important it was to Roger that the whole evening unspool amicably, so she’d kept her mouth closed. Besides, Meredith would have probably played her holier-than-thou nursing card—how could Meredith possibly plan a graduation party when she’s charged with saving the lives of tiny infants in the NICU three days a week?
Oddly enough, Lily actually admires the work that Meredith does. On occasion, she thinks about a nursing profession for herself. She suspects she’d be good at it. She knows how to take care of others, doesn’t flinch at the sight of blood. For eighteen years she more or less took care of herself, anyway. Lily likes the idea of doing some good in the world, beyond suggesting what sweater or handbag people should buy. Maybe, if Meredith has calmed down today, Lily will ask her how she broke into nursing.
She stumbles into the bathroom, brushes her teeth, and smooths her hair. This morning requires two things if she’s going to survive: coffee and a pill. Already, the scent of hazelnut New England coffee, her favorite, floats up the stairs, so Donna will have taken care of that part. She opens the medicine cabinet for the bottle of oxycodone, feeling a palpable craving in her fingertips.
Except something’s wrong.
The bottle isn’t in its usual spot, wedged in between the Tylenol and Pepto-Bismol on the top shelf. Her eyes quickly scan the shelves below, but there’s only the typical stuff: cough syrup, Advil, nail polish remover, a box of Band-Aids, a bottle of leftover antibiotic pills from when she contracted bronchitis last winter. She takes out the amoxicillin, shakes it, peers inside. There are only a few pills left, and she tosses them into the toilet and flushes.
A stab of panic grips her next. There was a bottle with at least thirty pills on the shelf yesterday, she’s sure of it. She shook them out and counted them! Did she put the bottle back somewhere else? She yanks open the top drawer of the vanity. Toothpaste and extra toothbrushes. The drawer below holds all of her straightening irons and hair products, and the last drawer brims with stuff she’s forgotten about. Expired teeth-whitening strips, some fancy face cream she bought online, abandoned combs and barrettes. It’s disgusting—she should clean it out after this weekend. But where did she put the pill bottle? She thinks back to when she transferred the painkillers into her zippered makeup bag for graduation yesterday. Maybe she left the bottle out by accident? She scans the bathroom, then slides the door open, and walks into the bedroom, where Roger has rolled over and fallen back asleep. She checks her bedside table, t
he top of her bureau, her walk-in closet, in case she misplaced the bottle somehow. But it’s not there.
She spins around, her eyes scouring the bedroom. Has she left it downstairs somehow? But no, she knows that’s crazy. Lily never took the pill bottle out of the bathroom for fear Roger would notice it missing. Nevertheless, in a last flicker of hope, she searches her pocketbook. Maybe she dropped the bottle in after she filled her straw clutch? Her fingers rummage through but find nothing except a tin of mints, money, and lip gloss.
Then it occurs to her: maybe Roger moved them. It’s his prescription, after all. Maybe his hand was acting up and he needed to slip a pill into his drink to ease the soreness, the stiffness that settles in from time to time when he misses a physical therapy session. And didn’t he skip his appointment yesterday for graduation? Yes, that must be it. Lily’s heart settles—she’s so relieved by this easy, sensible explanation. But how to ask Roger where he has left it without inviting suspicion? She scans his side of the room, his bedside table and bureau, but it’s nowhere obvious. She’ll have to ask him directly.
She sits down on the bed next to him, gently shakes him awake. “What time is it?” he asks, slightly panicked. “Did I sleep through the whole party?”
Lily laughs lightly. “Of course not. I wouldn’t let you do that.” She hesitates for a moment. “Hey, did you take one of your painkillers yesterday for your hand?”
Roger is still half-asleep but manages to answer. “You mean my oxycodone?”
“Yeah,” she says, reluctant to offer more.
“Oh, no. I threw them out. Tossed them down the toilet. I don’t need them anymore. Didn’t want any of the kids sneaking around our medicine cabinet during the party. It seemed smarter to get rid of the stuff.”
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