by Lian Dolan
“The bowls are lovely. But not for the gallery.”
“Keep this one, then, for you. A gift. From an old friend.”
Never once had Liza thought of Gray as an old friend. “Thank you.”
“Well, maybe I’ll see you around.”
Liza shrugged. “It’s a small town.”
As soon as the door shut behind Gray, Liza picked up the bowl and ran her hands over the smooth dark cherry wood. She felt something taped to the bottom of the bowl. It was Gray’s card. She slipped it into her pocket.
The house felt enormous and empty. Even the sound of Bear barking for his dinner couldn’t fill the void that the kids and Whit left. There were days when the twins were little that Liza would dream about a moment like this: alone in her own house for weeks. She would have settled for a few hours. But between Whit’s nonstop travel, the constant coming and going of the kids and their playmates, the breakneck activity schedule, the household help in and out, and the ever-present contractors or painters or drywallers, Liza barely managed a few hours alone, never mind weeks. But this was not how she thought it would feel when she daydreamed. She thought she would feel satisfied, at ease. Instead, she was exhausted, anxious, lonely, and, yes, hostile. She was the entire Signs of Grief list in one human being. “Come on, Bear. Let’s get you supper.”
Please don’t die, Bear, Liza thought, looking at the sweet old boy. That would be the end of me.
Gray Cunningham. Goddamn Gray Cunningham. He had ripped her confidence to shreds at twenty-one. It seemed so stupid now that she put so much time and energy into a guy who used her and treated her like an accessory, helpful to have around to deflect trouble but easily forgotten if he wanted to get high with his buddies, none of whom were really his buddies, just guys in it for Gray’s stash. It blew Liza’s mind to think that she was only five years older than Vivi when she had fallen for Gray one night at that old bar Sidetracks, the only place where her fake ID fooled the guy at the door. Or maybe it was the extra-big smile she’d employ. She’d spotted Gray throwing darts in the corner, surrounded by people laughing at his jokes, and that was it. Long before, they’d seen each other at tennis tournaments or country club dances, but Gray, a few years older, had headed to prep school, failing from one to another, and disappeared from the proper Southport social scenes.
That night, Gray had told Liza that he was “between educational institutions” and Liza thought it was the funniest line she’d ever heard. Over the next four years of a volatile romance, Gray used that line a hundred times on different people, mainly his clientele and the occasional mother. Somehow, he got a laugh every time.
But not from William Sweeney. Her father had never fallen for Gray, never shared a beer and a joke with him. Liza flashed back to the scene at three in the morning in the driveway at Willow Lane, the worst night of her life. Liza and Gray pulling up on his motorcycle and her father storming out of the house with a baseball bat. Gray didn’t yield at all to Bill Sweeney and that enraged her father. Both men had had too much to drink. Both men had enormous egos. And both men felt they had a claim on Liza. It was lucky no one got hurt or worse. The sight of Maeve, so sick and thin she could barely walk, standing in the doorway in her nightgown, pleading for them to stop fighting was the image Liza still couldn’t get out of her head. She’d never gotten over the guilt.
Maeve had stopped Bill Sweeney from killing Gray Cunningham. Such an old-fashioned territorial and pointless scene, father versus boyfriend, but it sent Gray packing. And Liza married Whit for what? Penance?
Liza poured herself a glass of white wine and rummaged through the fridge for some food. She grabbed some olives, cheese, and prosciutto that still looked edible. She sliced some apples and made herself a plate. She always joked with Whit that she really wasn’t an entrée person, preferring three square meals a day of hors d’oeuvres. But Whit liked a plate of meat and potatoes, so that’s what she had cooked for years. Well, now I can eat olives all day long, she thought. One upside to being alone.
She thought of something else, too. I could sleep with Gray if I wanted. Nothing’s stopping me. Whit had all but asked for permission on his end; why should the rules be any different for her?
It was too quiet here. Liza picked up her phone and sent a text.
Chapter 17
“You’re up late.”
Tricia looked up from her laptop as Maggie, covered in paint, came into the kitchen and grabbed a beer. “So are you.”
“Where’s the hot librarian? I saw you two headed off for a sail. The old ‘trapped in a boat’ scenario. Very clever. I thought for sure you’d be in the boathouse doing some late-night archiving.” Maggie was delighted with herself.
“Just stop. He’d never sailed before and tonight I realized how much I miss it. It’s relaxing, being out on the water. That’s all it was.” That wasn’t all it was, but Tricia wanted to keep the details to herself for a while longer. Raj’s nervousness that turned to laughter and joy. Her own confidence with the tiller in hand. Catching Raj staring at her while she washed the salt off the sails and the rudder after putting the boat away. Then Raj asking her to dinner tomorrow night at her favorite place and nodding seriously when she said yes and then saying, “Good. Very good. Tomorrow night, then.” Maggie didn’t deserve those details quite yet, so Tricia repeated to Maggie, “A short sail. That’s all it was.”
“That is not true. I’ve seen him look at you. He’s very handsome. I’m just saying, you could stand to cut loose a little.”
“I’m not you, Mags. Cutting loose is not my thing.”
“One day, you’re going to discover the joy of not being so goal-oriented. At the party on the Fourth, I’m going to dress you up in one of my sundresses and you’ll be halfway there. Loose, flowing, sending out those good vibes to Raj.”
Tricia laughed. “I wish it was that simple. Put on a magic dress, change your personality.”
“It works for me!” Maggie handed Tricia a beer. “You had it rough, Trish.”
They weren’t talking about boys and boats now. “I’m not even over missing Mom. And now I have to add in missing Dad, too?”
“I was thinking about Mom all day. Being in her studio, it’s like her ghost is there inspiring me. I know you don’t believe in all that woo-woo stuff, but I feel like she had all these things to say still and didn’t get the chance.”
“I believe that Mom sacrificed her career for us. It’s the ghosts I don’t really believe in.”
“She was so amazing and we never appreciated it. Why were we so awful to her? Remember that time Mom told us she was taking us to a surprise concert and we were so excited because we thought it was the Spice World tour and it turned out to be an acoustic Ani DiFranco show and we were such assholes the entire night?”
“You and Liza were assholes. I was ten. I was happy to be included in the big night out. I had no idea what was happening at the concert.”
Maggie took a sip of beer. “Why do you think he did it, Tricia?”
“What, hide the manuscript or die suddenly?”
“Sleep with Birdie Tucker. I can’t stop thinking about the why. I mean, I know why, but why?”
“Ego. Both his enormous public ego and his fragile private ego. He spent his whole life answering to both those extremes.”
“Maybe. I’ve been wondering if it was something else. Like a sticking-it-to-the-Man kinda thing. And by the Man, I mean those WASPs. I’ve been rereading Never Not Nothing and Dad did not like those super-preppy types. Those were not his people. Other than Cap, there’s a lot of hostility toward the ruling class from the poor Irish kid from Hamden. Maybe Birdie Tucker was some sort of revenge relationship.”
“Wow! You have a theory and literary supporting evidence. You’re halfway to a master’s.”
“That’s what I need, a career change and student debt. Are you mocking me?”
“No. I assumed it was all about wanting something that minute and not being willing to wait. But you
have a point. Sometimes I would see that underlying mistrust when he talked to Whit. It was more than a personal issue. It was about class and background. You know, like how he liked Whit, but didn’t trust him.”
“I don’t trust Whit.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you think it’s weird that he’s spending the entire summer in North Carolina? No wife, no kids, no Bear. Leaving Liza alone weeks after her dad dies. Now he’s going to Maine for the Fourth by himself? I don’t feel good about it. To me, Whit has classic narcissistic personality disorder.”
“Did they teach you about that at yoga school?”
“That’s not what yoga teacher training is about. I took an online psychology course at UCLA when I was with Darren because I wanted to know why he cheated on me all the time. Why he thought an open relationship was a super idea for him, but not for me. And it’s because he’s a narcissist. Lack of empathy, needs attention, above the rules, exaggerating talents. Doesn’t that sound like Whit?”
“Not at all. It totally sounds like Darren, but not Whit. Whit is a pretty straight shooter. Isn’t that kind of the problem? Super predictable. He didn’t even like his name in the local paper. Liza told me he stopped coming to art openings because he didn’t like the publicity. He may not be the guy for you, Maggie, but he was decent to Dad, he loves his kids, and he and Liza have made their relationship work.”
“I don’t know. I have a feeling. Something’s up with him.” Maggie got up and started pulling eggs and cheese out of the fridge. “Want a fried egg sandwich?”
“Yes, please.” Tricia refreshed her screen. Four new emails since Maggie had walked in the kitchen, all from the law offices of Kingsley, Maxwell & Traub except one forward from Richardson & Blix. “I’m so tired and I have work to do. This family-leave thing is not really the holiday I imagined. The new team in charge at the firm has a lot of questions. And there are a bunch of emails from Cap. We need to find that manuscript. The wolves are closing in.”
“What do you mean?”
“There have been some overtly threatening letters from the publisher and some mildly threatening emails from Dad’s agent who is supposed to be on our side. Et tu, Lois?”
“I never liked her. Very suspicious.” Once Maggie latched onto a new idea, she did not let go. But, as much as Tricia hated to admit it, Maggie did have a good radar when it came to the duplicitous. Maybe it took one to know one.
So Tricia fished around. “Another case of narcissistic personality disorder? Or something else?”
“Lois has some sort of secret life. Or a scalp disease. I’m sure of it. It’s the hats. The hats aren’t normal.” Maggie put a grilled cheese, egg, tomato, and pesto sandwich next to Tricia. “I’m headed back to the studio. One more hour. Get some sleep, Trishie.”
“Thanks, Mags.”
Tricia looked out to the boathouse. The light in the upstairs window was on.
“I thought you might be thirsty.” Tricia stood in the doorway of the boathouse, holding two beers and a blanket. It was the first seriously humid night of the summer and the wind had died down to nothing. She was in a camisole and cropped jeans, flip-flops on her feet. She’d put a swipe of lipstick on in the twenty seconds between “Don’t be an idiot” and “I should do this.” She’d practically sprinted across the lawn so she wouldn’t lose her courage. A light sheen of sweat appeared around her neck and across her chest. She was slightly out of breath. “I, I . . .”
Raj didn’t need to hear the whole sentence. He pulled her toward him and kissed her softly, first on the mouth, then down her salty neck, and back to her mouth, this time harder. His glasses bumped her and they both laughed.
“You can take those off.”
“That’s a good idea. Come in. Please come in.”
Too many ghosts. Maybe I do believe in them. She shook her head. “Let’s go down to the rowboat. You know the one under the dock, on the little beach.”
“Is that where you took all the boys in high school?”
“There were no boys in high school.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“It’s true. Too skinny.”
“Too intimidating.”
“Maybe that, too. But it is where I fantasized about taking all the boys.” Tricia pulled his hand and started toward the well-worn path in the rocks to the beach. Raj hesitated. “I don’t have . . .”
“I do. I have everything. Come on.”
The rowboat, beached under the dock for twenty years, was definitely not seaworthy. Tricia had spent many afternoons there as a kid, hiding out reading. As a teenager, she did more daydreaming, imagining just such a night. The fantasies had started again after Raj arrived at Willow Lane. She dug the beer bottles into the wet sand at the edge of the water to keep them cold. Then, she spread the blanket out over the wooden slats as he watched. She turned to Raj and touched his chest like she’d been thinking about for days, letting her hands slide all over him. His T-shirt was a soft cotton, but underneath the fabric, she could feel his taut muscles. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back as she took in his whole body with her touch—his arms, his shoulders, the back of his thighs and around to his abdominals. She reached under the T-shirt and felt the soft hair on his belly, then slipped her fingers under his waistband. “Let’s get in the boat,” she whispered to Raj. “Do you want a PFD? Would you feel better with a flotation device on?”
She picked a couple of orange PFDs off their hooks on the wall on the boathouse and tossed them in the boat for pillows.
“Very funny.” Raj opened his eyes and grabbed her. She let him. He let his fingers run across her collarbone and slowly down to her breasts, tracing them once, twice over the tight material. Then he used his lips to arouse her, but he wanted more. “I do think we should remove this, though. I wouldn’t want it to get waterlogged and drag you under should the ship go down.”
“That’s a good idea.” Tricia pulled the camisole off, then her jeans while Raj watched. She tossed them on the sand. She had nothing on but a pair of hot-pink boy shorts. Raj admired her standing there in the dark, lit only by moonlight. “I didn’t figure you for a pink lingerie kind of girl.”
She climbed into the boat and lay back against the blanket. “Good. Then there will be a lot more surprises for you.” He took off his glasses, folded them, and placed them carefully on a nearby rock. Then he peeled off his own shirt while she watched and climbed into the boat.
“Careful there, landlubber. You’re never supposed to stand up in a rowboat,” Tricia said. He dropped to his knees and melted into her body.
Chapter 18
It was Maggie who found the hidden memoir by accident. She was looking in the attic for a vintage Fourth of July patchwork skirt that her mother used to wear. She thought it might be in the old camp trunk with the other dress-up clothes from childhood. When she opened the trunk, it was filled with all the photos of Maeve that had disappeared from all over the house, random awards for various literary accomplishments, and a stack of old magazines, but right on top was a manuscript box with the words Snap: A Memoir by William Sweeney in her father’s loopy lefty handwriting. Maggie grabbed the box. Inside was a thumb drive—no note, no explanation, just a thumb drive. Snap: A Memoir.
The title gave her chills.
It took everything she could muster not to run downstairs screaming, “I found it! I found it!” She knew it would be a huge relief to both Liza and Tricia, whose behavior had become increasingly frantic over the last few days as the legal threats had increased. But they would also find it galling that she had found the golden manuscript after spending about forty-seven seconds total searching for it while they had spent weeks combing through everything from junk drawers to laundry baskets to boxes of old tax returns. Maggie wanted her moment of glory. But she had a better idea, a bigger idea, so she slipped the thumb drive into her pocket.
Now, I want to find that skirt.
By the time the guests arrived on the Fou
rth, Maggie was practically bursting out of her skin. She wanted this to be one of those nights they talked about in Sweeney family history forever. She’d managed to organize dinner, decorations, even find the skirt and pair it with a simple tank top for a perfect throwback look and salute to previous Fourths that their mother had hosted. On top of that, the two commissioned paintings had shipped to their new homes, and her work for the show was done and she knew it was something next-level. Maggie, attuned to the universe, believed her mother was guiding her these days. She could feel her spirit in the conservatory when she was painting. Even the inspiration to search the camp trunk came from her, Maggie was sure of it. Her mother wanted to clear the air, free the past before the house was sold and all the bits and pieces that had constituted a family were packed away or given to charity. Maggie needed to honor her intuition. She wanted tonight to be as inspired as she felt.
Serena was set to show up and Maggie encouraged her to bring along any refugees from the Winthrops’ more civilized party who wanted an escape to a more casual event. That nice couple from Brooklyn—Connor the architect and David the shoe designer, whom Liza had invited to stay at her house for the entire month of July at the last minute—offered to bring lobsters, which was a relief because Maggie couldn’t afford them. (She’d put the meat and the gourmet brownies on her father’s house charge at Spic & Span, hoping her sisters wouldn’t ask, wouldn’t notice, or wouldn’t mind once they saw the bill.) At Maggie’s insistence, Raj invited two colleagues from Yale, newlyweds Nina and Devon, who happened to be staying in a rental in town, because she wanted a few more witnesses and because it was clear that Raj and Tricia had something going on. Maggie was all for it and wanted Raj to feel like one of the family. Tim was coming because he’d been fired for stealing twenty pounds of frozen shrimp and a bottle of Scotch from his restaurant job and she really did need someone to grill the tri-tip. (“It was a barbecue for everyone from work. I thought they wouldn’t mind,” Tim explained to Maggie, who could totally see his side of the story.)