by Rea Frey
“I’m starved,” Luca says. His face is flushed, and his uniform is stained from grass and mud.
“Go put on some clean clothes.”
He opens his closet and balls his clothes inside, the wheels of his dresser drawers sliding and slamming as he plucks out fresh pajamas.
She scoops the stir-fry onto his plate, then hers, and carries them to the back door.
“Want to eat outside?”
He struggles to get his T-shirt on. “Sure.”
They settle on the patio. He regales her with soccer stories and tells her all about Chad. She listens patiently, never slandering his father, and sits back, ogling the stars. “Isn’t this nice?” she asks. Unexpected contentment spreads—for her life now, for the upcoming trip, for her secret—and she smiles into the darkness, feeling like nothing can go wrong. She has worked so hard for this life in this exact moment in time. Nothing is going to screw it up.
Nothing is going to take away her happiness.
wednesday
18
noah
He should say it. He doesn’t like keeping things inside, doesn’t like pretending one thing when he feels another. Why doesn’t he just tell Lee? He knows she is nervous about the trip. He knows she’s probably still embarrassed about what happened the other night. He also understands, more than anyone, what it’s like to leave someone who needs you.
While he gives Mason his last lesson of the day, he finds himself thinking of his brother, Wyatt. He’d had a dream about him last night—more of a nightmare really.
He watches Mason write. The clock ticks. He shifts in his chair, and the hardwood floor groans beneath his weight. They are working on Mason’s fine motor skills. Simple things like holding pencils, buttoning and unbuttoning shirts, and passing objects through the midline have improved drastically over the last few months. Mason stops, erases, restarts.
“It’s okay. Let’s try this phrase.” He tries to stay present with Mason, but thoughts of Wyatt drag him back.
“I don’t understand this,” Mason says. “Tell me another way to do it.”
Mason looks at him. He could swear Wyatt stares back. The curly hair. The pensive brows. The tapping. It’s like a constant mirror that shuttles him back in time and gives him an emotional kick.
Though he’s been working with Mason for six months, every day it’s an adjustment. He has to regularly remind himself that Mason is not Wyatt. That they are different. He feels unnaturally close to him because of the parallels. He knows he’s not alone—lots of therapists show preferences for students for all types of reasons.
They continue to work, and once the day dies down, Noah drives the short distance home during rush hour, eager for a beer and the game. The city is now overrun with transplants from New York and California. The streets have been scooped with potholes, the traffic giving LA a run for its money. There’s the hope of the overpriced transit system. Tall skinnies popping up on plots of land once unoccupied. Bachelorette parties dominating downtown. Price tags swooping into the millions. His hometown has become a destination. Luckily, he bought his condo years ago before the whole city lost its mind and inflated its prices.
Despite the influx, he enjoys the urban boon of energy. He likes that he can walk to bartaco when he wants to feel like he’s at the beach, to imogene + willie when he needs a pair of custom jeans, or to the farmer’s market to load up on produce.
He misses his family, but he’s invested in Nashville. He’s spent his entire life here, building his career. He left his teaching position at a school to start his own private practice. He now has good friends and a group of students he looks forward to teaching.
But then there’s Lee. He doesn’t know how to handle what’s happening between them. He can still see her lips, wet, pink, and searching for his. The way her body had ignited. The way she looks at him. The way he looks at her. The interest … No. It’s far too complicated to ever get romantically involved, not to mention highly unethical.
He shakes his head, parallel parks his car, and enters his home. It is cold and quiet. He should get a dog. Maybe two. Something to kill the silence. He unpacks his folders from his bag and rustles through paperwork as he does at the end of every night, sorting through various client files.
He takes a quick shower, shelves the files of the children he won’t see until next week, grabs a beer, and flips on the TV. He looks at his phone, checks his texts, and smiles. He wants to go out tonight, but he should really get some sleep.
He types out a lengthy reply, takes a swig of beer, and sinks onto the cushions. His eyes grow heavy as all the various thoughts swirl—Wyatt, Mason, Lee—until he wakes, mouth dry, TV blaring, and drags himself upstairs to bed.
He still can’t shake thoughts of Wyatt. The day of graduation, the day he left him. The day they left him. He brushes his teeth and climbs into bed, not wanting to remember. What good does it do? He closes his eyes and lets his mind wander. It’s hours before he falls asleep.
thursday
19
lee
Thursday comes.
Lee tosses her new novel into her carry-on, makes sure she has all her toiletries, and knocks three times on Mason’s door. How will she say good-bye to him? How will he ever really understand why she’s leaving?
“Mase, open up, please. I need to talk to you.” She waits the obligatory thirty-three seconds, and then he yanks the door.
“Password, please?”
“Sassafras.”
He performs a ceremonious bow, his spindly arm cradling his waist. “You may entah.”
“Why thank you, kind sir.” She and Mason went through a Downton Abbey phase, and he’d become obsessed with accents. She steps into his tidy room and soaks in the order: the books alphabetically arranged, the science projects lined up on pristine shelves, the globes of varying shapes, the calming posters of the solar system tacked to the walls. “I need you to sit. Can you do that for me?”
“Of course I can sit. I have legs that bend, don’t I?” He crosses his legs on the edge of his bed, and the weathered mattress squeaks beneath his weight.
“I’m leaving for my trip now. I will be back in seventy-two hours. Noah is going to take great care of you. Are you still okay with me going?”
“Yes.”
“Is there anything you want to talk about before I go?”
“Can you shut the door on your way out?”
She snorts. “I can. Can I tell you something?”
“I don’t know. Can you?”
“I can. I love you.”
He sighs and recrosses his legs. “I love you too.”
She absorbs those three precious words Mason often withholds and wishes she could press pause.
“Are you ready to go now?”
She swallows. No. “Let’s say good-bye.”
He cocks forward and offers his forehead, their own version of a hug or kiss. She kneels by his bed and presses her head to his. The bones of his skull meet hers. He pulls away first. Before she stands, she quickly kisses his cheek.
“No thanks. No thanks. No thanks.” He smears her kiss from his flesh and simultaneously stomps his feet.
“I’m sorry. I know you don’t like kisses, but I’m just going to miss you so much.” She chokes on the last words and retreats a few steps. Her fingers graze the top of his head. He swats her hand. “You be a good boy, okay, Mason? I will be back very soon.”
“Seventy-two hours is not very soon. It’s three days,” Mason states.
She grapples with how to respond. “Well, in the scheme of your entire life, that’s very short, remember? We talked about how in the scope of all time, three days is not long.”
“But you’ve never been gone that long.” He shrugs. “To me, it’s long.”
“You know what I think? I think you’re going to have so much fun with Noah, it’s going to go fast.”
“Maybe. Okay, bye-bye.” He shoos her out the door, and she shuts it like she promised. He
r hand lingers on the knob while panic seizes her chest. Should she stay? Is he nervous about the amount of time she will be gone? She palms her roller bag and purse and meets Noah in the dining room.
“All set?” Noah asks.
He stands in her home, as if he already lives here. Possession trumps her fears of leaving, and she longs to cling to routine, to undo the promises she made to the girls and instead crawl back in bed and stay put. But she doesn’t.
As if reading her mind, Noah approaches her with compassion. “Look, I know this is hard, but we’re going to have a great time. I promise.”
Lee looks at her feet so he doesn’t register the anguish in her eyes. “I know you will.”
Noah pulls her into a hug, and she inhales his intoxicating smell and the warmth of his skin.
“Take good care of my boy, okay?”
He nods and steps back, his eyes searching her face. “Lee, when you get back…”
Her heart shoots to her throat. She can actually taste it, the blood, which traverses like silver across her tongue. “Yes?”
“I want to talk about something.”
“What do you mean? Mason?”
“No. Not Mason. Just something between us.”
Us? There’s an us? She nods, unsure of what to say. “Sure.” She reaches up to give him another hug. His arms linger, and finally, they separate.
“You have nothing to worry about. I promise I’m going to take good care of him.”
“I know.” His words swirl inside her like helium. “Please keep me updated.”
He wags his phone in the air. “Hourly. I’ll have it on at all times.”
They step onto the front porch and he waves as she rolls her bag to the car. She hesitates before starting the engine, her emotions all twisted and coiled.
She makes the short drive to Carol’s. The girls are already hoisting their bags into the back of Carol’s rented SUV, laughing about something. Lee smiles as she parks and pops her own trunk. She does deserve this. No matter how she got here, she’s here. She belongs.
“We thought you might not show,” Carol teases.
She locks her car, the alarm chirping. “Sorry. But you’ll be happy to know I’m late for a possibly exciting reason.”
“Oh?” Grace asks.
“Noah.” Even saying his name makes her smile.
Grace lifts her eyebrows. “Did something happen?”
“I’ll tell you on the way.” Lee wiggles her own eyebrows and piles her belongings into the car. She sits in the back with Grace. Alice distributes mimosas in to-go cups—a virgin one for her, made with kombucha, even though she longs for champagne. She feels celebratory, almost sees no harm in taking a tiny sip. Though she wants to revel in a bit of normalcy with the girls, she raises her virgin glass in a toast as Carol backs out of her drive onto Windemere and winds her way to I-40E.
“Everyone got everything?” Carol asks.
They all scream yes, and off they go, merging onto the highway from Briley Parkway. As the girls laugh and Alice cranks the music, Lee has never felt happier—or more uncertain—about what lies ahead.
duplicity
duplicities
duplicitous
Sometimes I feel like two different people.
The one I present to the world and the one no one knows about.
It’s not that I don’t think people would like the real me … I just don’t think they’d understand who I really am and how I’ve gotten here.
All the things I’ve done.
All the things I’m doing.
People really do just see what they want to see, don’t they?
They never expect betrayal.
They never expect deceit.
They never expect you can hide who you really are because it’s all part of the master plan.
But I’m ready. I feel it.
I’m feeling duplicitous.
Part 2
black mountain
I can handle the truth. It’s the lies that kill me.
—Anonymous
20
grace
Lee talks about Noah almost the entire five-hour drive. Grace wants to interject—he says he isn’t interested, don’t get your hopes up, don’t spin this out of control—but she lets Lee get it all off her chest. Still, it fuels Grace’s anxiety. The way Lee takes Noah’s words out of context. The way she revs from zero to sixty. But it’s the first conversation in a while that hasn’t been filled with worry or stress, and Grace knows it’s good for her to be excited about something.
After they unload their bags and check into Arbor House, they step toward Lake Tomahawk. The crisp mountain air revives her skin. The women walk the short .55-mile loop, stepping over duck droppings and past yapping dogs and walkers. Grace takes it all in: the mountain peaks that slash the clouds in horizontal zigzags, the blue sky that rubs against the blossoming trees, the orange buoys that bob in placid water. She trots up to Carol and slings an arm around her shoulder. “This place is heaven.”
“Isn’t it? It’s just dreamy here.”
“Dreamy. Magical. Amazing. Any good word ever invented. Thanks for arranging this.”
Carol adjusts her sunglasses. “My pleasure.”
They walk in silence. Grace expects Carol to launch into the oodles of research she’s collected about the city, all its various merits, its nut-free schools, its healthcare, its little city center, and the specific details about Arbor House, but her chatty friend says nothing.
“Everything okay?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re just abnormally quiet.”
Carol shakes her head. “I’m fine.”
She’s not fine. Her brain works overtime. Marriage issues? Financial trouble? Zoe? Grace’s tongue preps all the questions, but she knows not to push. “I hope it’s nothing too serious?”
Carol smiles and shrugs—she isn’t much of a shrugger; she is a definitive person, a nodder or a head shaker, someone who always says yes or no—and leans against her friend. “It’s definitely serious. But it will be okay.”
“I’m here if you need me.”
“I know.” She lifts her head. “What’s up with you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Something’s going on with you. I can tell.”
Grace reddens. Is it that obvious? “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Okay. Fine. We’ll both play the nothing’s-going-on card. I’m cool with that.”
“You know me too well.” Should Grace tell her? Carol has an uncanny ability to get friends to confide, but then in a matter of minutes, the entire world knows. No. Lee should know first.
She glances behind them at Lee and Alice, laughing and walking. Grace is relieved that Lee stepped outside of her comfort zone, away from home, open to a new adventure.
* * *
The first night, they venture into town and stop for drinks and gourmet cheese at the local wine shop. Grace decides not to drink, in solidarity with Lee. Lee pulls her aside and insists she enjoy herself, but Grace assures her it’s fine.
“Hello, cutest town in America! I love you!” Alice exclaims. Grace smiles and eats another cube of cheese, as Lee obsessively checks her phone.
She’s been gone almost a whole day, and there’s not been one issue with Mason. No matter what Noah says to reassure her in his texts, Grace knows that Lee is waiting for the life-changing message that Mason has accidentally burned down the house, choked on a grape, or somehow escaped and been run over by a speeding car.
They walk through the tiny town square, settling on a delicious seafood restaurant.
“Who’s up for a hike in the morning?” Carol asks.
Everyone raises their hand, except Lee.
“Oh, come on.” Alice takes a generous sip of wine. “It will be so refreshing. We never get to hike at home.”
Lee smacks Grace on the shoulder. “We hike. Tell them.”
Grace laughs and stabs a piece of lettuc
e with her fork. “Well, we walk, sure. But we don’t hike. I haven’t hiked in ages. Is it a tough climb?”
“Hiking is walking. You walk,” Carol reminds Grace. “You two walk the greenway all the time!”
“And Marge says the view from the top is worth it,” Alice urges. The inn owner had told them about the two-mile trail close to the house.
Grace nudges Lee. “I’m in if you are. Could be a nice way to start the day.”
“Look,” Lee says, swallowing a bite of her own salad, “part of my coming here is to do things I never get to do. And those things might sound boring to you guys, but sleeping in sounds like heaven.”
“I get that,” Grace rushes to add. “You really don’t ever get to sleep in.”
Alice and Carol look at each other. “Neither do we.”
“Yeah, but you two have husbands. It’s just different,” Grace says.
“How about this,” Lee offers. “Let me just see how I feel in the morning.”
“Fair enough,” Grace says. She lifts her glass and offers a toast. She wants her to take the hike. She can tell her on the way up. Or on the way down. Or over breakfast.
A few hours later, they walk the short distance back to Arbor House, giggling and shushing each other as they climb the porch stairs.
Grace washes her face, brushes her teeth, and crawls into bed as Lee gets ready. The light from the bathroom slits beneath the door. She can hear Alice and Carol, slightly drunk, whispering about something in the next room. She hopes Luca is doing well. She grabs her phone from the nightstand to make sure Chad hasn’t texted, but she knows Luca is not awake.
Lee tiptoes into the room in her pajamas, her cosmetic bag tucked under one arm.
“You don’t have to be quiet. I’m not asleep,” Grace says. She clicks on the lamp beside the bed. “Actually, I should set out my hiking stuff. Just in case you sleep in.”