by Nancy Geary
Grace’s hands trembled. She wished she hadn’t left her champagne flute on the windowsill after all. She needed something to calm her frayed nerves. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, hoping a moment of peace could rejuvenate her spirits. But all she could imagine was the dark-haired, full-lipped waiter leaning toward her with his platter of shrimp.
She opened her eyes and strolled through the rose garden, her labor of love. All but two bushes were in full bloom; the remaining had buds waiting to open, and the bushes abounded with an array of pink, red, peach, coral, yellow, and white. Their simple, timeless beauty was what she loved most. That was why she’d chosen them as Sarah’s memorial flower. Roses had been cultivated and adored for centuries and would outlast them all.
More than anything in the world, she wished Sarah were here now to share this day, as well as each of the ones that had preceded it, and every single day that lay ahead. Her daughter wouldn’t have sworn at her or accused her of being weak. Her daughter wouldn’t have insulted her at her own anniversary celebration. Sarah would have had the grace and dignity to make a toast in honor of her parents.
She walked to the opposite end of the path to where her favorite rose was planted. She reached out to touch the beautiful blooms and buds. The creamy white petals of ‘Honor’ were soft, and she pulled one from its flower to roll between her fingers. A quarter of a century of marriage. It was hard to believe that she’d been Mrs. Alcott for more years than she’d been Grace Montgomery.
How did she feel? It was a question she rarely allowed herself to ask because there was little if anything to be done with the answer. What had she expected? Her husband was a good provider, faithful and decent; her sons were healthy; her home was beautiful; she had friends, interests, plenty to keep her busy. That was a full life, wasn’t it? It was more than enough to make most ordinary women happy, and there was certainly nothing about Grace Alcott that made her extraordinary. So there was her answer.
Then why was she spending her anniversary consumed by the thought of a twenty-five-year-old waiter making ten dollars an hour to feed her guests? All this ruminating had to stop. She’d never be able to eat—or even look at—a shrimp again.
“Grace.” She heard a voice behind her.
Startled, she turned to see Prissy. Her golden tan accentuated the wrinkles on her forehead and around her eyes, but otherwise she looked as lovely as ever.
Prissy raised her bottle of Heineken. “Cheers. I’m incredibly proud of you for making it this far,” she said with a smile. “Let’s just say I never could have.”
“You’ve made it longer.”
“But not in the way you have,” she answered mysteriously.
“I’m thinking maybe I should consider your way.”
Prissy laughed but said nothing.
Then Grace added, “I didn’t think you’d come.”
“We go back a long way. And good friends are hard to come by.” She took a sip of her beer. Then, seeing that Grace’s hands were empty, she offered her the bottle.
Grace raised it to her lips. The alcohol tasted bitter.
“What are you doing out here alone?” Prissy asked. “Didn’t you notice, the party’s in there?”
Grace didn’t reply.
“I can hardly blame you. Cocktail parties and I are not a match made in heaven. In fact, if you won’t be offended, I’m going to be going. I really just came to give you a hug and offer congratulations.”
“Tonight I could use condolences.”
“It’s all relative.”
They both laughed. The familiarity felt comforting.
Prissy smiled, stepped forward, and wrapped her strong arms around Grace. Standing in the rose garden with her old friend, Grace began to cry. Prissy’s presence, her gesture, her kindness were all too emotional. She wasn’t exactly sure why she wept: for Sarah, for the memorial service when Prissy had done the same thing, for the times they’d shared, for the years that had passed, for Erin and Hank and Marley and the boys in rock-band T-shirts, for her disappointment, for the house that was now full of Money People she didn’t know and hoped she’d never see again, for the party she hated, and for the fact that all the hors d’oeuvres and liquor in the world couldn’t make it palatable.
“Please don’t leave me here,” she mumbled. Her words were muffled by Prissy’s shoulder.
“What?” Prissy stepped back. Noticing Grace’s teary eyes, she grabbed hold of her arms and shook her slightly. “What’s going on?”
“I just . . . it’s not . . . I can’t.” She didn’t know how to reply and struggled to pull herself together.
“I’m not going anywhere.” Prissy’s smile seemed to illuminate the darkening sky.
Grace sighed with relief. “Let’s go to the beach,” she said in a conspiratorial tone. “Let’s get away from this dreadful event.”
“The beach? Now? Won’t Bain be furious if you leave?”
“Maybe. But my guess is that he may not notice. He’s doing what’s known in the industry as business development, and for that he doesn’t need me. His attention is on his corporate guests. I’m not even sure he’s said hello to most of our friends. The caterer has everything running quite smoothly as far as I can tell. And I need a swim.” She smiled, pleased with the prospect. “Make that a skinny-dip. I almost had a moment of overheating.”
Prissy looked skeptical. “With these people? Do tell how you managed that?”
“I’ll tell you at the beach.”
“You can’t skinny-dip now.”
“If we walk down past the town landing, no one can see us from the patio,” Grace replied, feeling animated at the prospect.
Prissy laughed. “You’re crazier than I thought.”
“Oh, please, if someone at this party needs to gape at a naked, forty-seven-year-old body that has produced three babies and has the varicose veins to show for it, they can be my guest.”
“Look, you don’t have to convince me. I’ll never see any of them again,” Prissy replied. “That is, except for you . . . and maybe Bain if he lets me in the driveway after this escapade.”
“Yes. The Big Maybe.” They both laughed again. “Don’t forget to grab Ferris on your exit. He must be beside himself with boredom by now. Speaking of which, I haven’t even seen him. Perhaps he’s lost in the savings-and-loan morass.”
“Close. Try passed out on the chaise in your guest room.”
Grace blushed. Ferris’s alcohol consumption, especially in public, was an embarrassment. She needed to speak to him, but it would have to wait for another time. No doubt it would take him the rest of the night to sleep off whatever he’d consumed. “Let’s go,” she said, wanting to forget. “I’ll leave through the back door. We can meet at the dock in a few minutes.” Grace’s growing excitement was displacing the sorrow of moments before. She wanted to sit with her friend and talk and laugh, swim in the cool salt water, watch the darkness fall and stare at the stars, leave Bain to deal with the drunken teenagers and the sleeping arrangements. “I’m beginning to think that whoever said it’s important to live life with no regrets, never truly lived,” she said as she disappeared around the side of the garden.
Only a few cars and a pickup truck remained in the driveway when Grace wandered up from the beach with a towel wrapped around her. She carried her clothes in a bundle, a now empty bottle of champagne that she’d taken with her when she left, and two crumpled paper cups. Sand clung to her feet and water dripped from her hair.
The lights glowed in the house, and she realized once again how beautiful it was, the simple architectural lines, the weathered shingles, the well-proportioned rooms. For all the time they spent in Boston, this place was home.
Inside, she could see silhouettes moving about; a few remaining employees of the caterer were wiping counters, gathering rumpled napkins, and attending to the last details before departing. She could hear voices wafting across the lawn. Her favorite waiter came out the kitchen door carrying several rack
s of rented glasses, but she looked away. She’d behaved badly enough already.
Alone, Bain smoked a cigar on the patio. A cognac glass rested on the table in front of him, but he didn’t touch it. As she stood debating what to do, what to say, how best to apologize, Bain waved.
“I was wondering where you’d gone,” he called.
His good nature surprised her. She’d expected a reprimand, something along the lines that she’d disappointed him by ditching her hostess duties. It had been a big night for him and for Alcott Savings & Loan, and she’d no doubt spoiled it to some degree.
“Look at you,” he said with a smile. “I suppose this is your way of letting me know it was a rotten party, and I ruined our anniversary.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what I was thinking ever letting most of those people in our home.”
“It wasn’t so bad,” she said halfheartedly.
“Let’s see how fast we can forget it, shall we? If I promise a romantic dinner for two at the Chatham Bars Inn, could we have a real celebration tomorrow? Or better yet, why don’t you drop that towel and come sit with me?”
“Oh, Bain,” she scolded. “The caterer is still here. And our children are, too.” She didn’t want to spoil his playfulness by inquiring how the sleeping arrangements had been resolved.
“Actually, they’re not. Hank is spending the night at Troy’s house, or so he said. And Erin and his girlfriend left.”
“Gone?”
He nodded.
“What time?”
“I don’t remember.”
“They were going to drive all the way back to Vermont?”
“I presume so. I didn’t ask.”
Grace felt a pang of dismay. Her elder son had left without giving her a chance to explain. He’d drive all night harboring the notion that his mother was a coward. She wondered whether he’d even taken a moment to look for her to say good-bye.
“What about Ferris?”
“He’s out for the night. He did come down a little while ago and made a Bloody Mary, but disappeared back upstairs. When I went to check, he was asleep in his clothes on top of the covers.”
“Poor Ferris.”
“He’ll be all right. He just needs to learn the concept of moderation.” Bain extended his arms. “Come here,” he said.
She sat down on his lap and let the towel fall open.
He rubbed her stomach gently, then cupped her breasts in his hands and kissed her shoulder. “Thank you,” he said, speaking softly. “Thank you for putting up with me.”
She twisted around and stared at Bain, the familiar features, the subtle lines along his forehead that had arrived over the last decade, the slightly graying hair. In some ways she knew him better than she knew herself. And yet he still remained an enigma. She never would have anticipated this display of affection, not after she’d defected to the beach. Perhaps he’d read her mind and knew what she needed on this night more than anything else. Perhaps he knew her better than she realized.
She kissed his nose. “Thank you,” she replied. “Thank you for making me your bride.” And for the first time all evening, she meant it.
2002
Chapter Eleven
What in the world is he doing?” Prissy asked, positioning herself beside her friend with her hands on her hips.
Grace couldn’t take her eyes off the backhoe rolling slowly along the driveway. Just to the right of the house, it turned and veered off the gravel. A few yards in front, Bain stood beside a man with a hard hat, who beckoned the enormous machine with an orange flag.
“He’s putting in a pool.”
“A swimming pool?”
Grace nodded. The gesture was almost invisible.
“But where? You don’t have the setbacks. Most of this property is wetlands.”
Grace closed her eyes, not wanting to answer. Speaking the location out loud would make it all too real. But the arrival of the backhoe meant the destruction was imminent. Its huge rubber tires had already left deep grooves in the neat lawn.
“Where is it going to go?” Prissy repeated.
“In the rose garden.”
How had life changed so much in less than a decade? At times her honeymoon, her few months with Sarah, Hank’s and Erin’s childhoods, her life as the corporate wife of a Bank of Boston executive seemed so vivid that it could have been yesterday, or a week or a month previous; at other moments these same memories were distant, faded. Her children were grown, married. She was a grandmother to Erin’s two; Hank and his wife, still babies themselves, were expecting their first. A whole generation had elapsed.
Had she actually worn a green leather suit to the dinner when Bain won an award for the highest volume of new investments for the year? That must have been 1972 or 1973. Long ago the suit had been donated to the thrift shop at St. Christopher’s, and no doubt bought by a teenager as a costume for a seventies party, but she still remembered the compliments she’d received from the president’s wife. “So chic, so stylish, you put the rest of us to shame.” Bain had overheard the praise and beamed with pride.
That her wardrobe had changed was the least of the transitions. Business success hadn’t been theirs since Ronald Reagan left office. Despite Bain’s efforts, nonstop work, and considerable experience in the industry, his savings bank went the way of most and closed just eighteen months after it opened its offices in a lovely brick building on Beacon Street. In an attempt to salvage what capital he could, he’d auctioned off the office equipment, safes, and copiers before closing the doors to the single branch of Alcott Savings & Loan.
He’d been way too late to ride the tide that had brought riches to so many; the scandals in the banking industry had brought in extensive regulations; the climate wasn’t right; the government had destroyed opportunity. He’d offered the reasons more as explanation than excuse to virtually anyone who would listen. It had nothing to do with his financial acumen. His reputation wasn’t tarnished.
So he put that endeavor behind him and slept for nearly a week.
But a series of consulting jobs met with similar fates. Bain had a reason for each of the departures—nothing seemed a “good fit,” as if a job were a pair of tassel loafers—but at some point Grace had to wonder if he would ever be the right size. This man who’d done so well, who’d climbed the corporate ladder swiftly and seemingly effortlessly, struggled. Was he now virtually unemployable? It was a question she would never ask, or at least not ask aloud.
“I’ve decided to write the novel I should have written when I was at Harvard,” he announced to her one afternoon. “We’ll have that life we once dreamed of: time together, travel, and the joys of writer’s block. Remember?” He smiled.
He was fifty-seven. Grace knew he couldn’t bear to start over. The world was a different place. He didn’t understand the Internet. They hadn’t even been able to figure out how to sell a pair of andirons on eBay, and so had given them as a more-valuable-than-usual Christmas gift to Hank and his wife for their home in Natick.
Early retirement seemed the best solution, and writing allowed him to think he’d made a choice. He wasn’t a failure; he was moving in a different direction, finally fulfilling the dreams of his youth. It even sounded romantic.
Grace had never been much involved in their finances. Bain took care of all that. But she knew enough to know that much of what he’d saved for that eventuality—his retirement—was a casualty of the many failed business experiments. He’d needed capital from somewhere, and he’d had faith in himself. They’d already refinanced their Boston apartment with its views of the Public Garden. So it was no surprise that shortly after his pronouncement, they sold their city home, took the remaining equity with them, and drove over the Sagamore Bridge to become year-round residents of Cape Cod.
Grace registered to vote and volunteered on the First Night Committee.
A representative from the Chatham Newcomers’ Association paid a visit. The plump woman who’d arrived by bicycle almost choked on her sh
ortbread when Grace mentioned they’d owned the house for thirty years. “Why, you should be welcoming me!” she’d exclaimed awkwardly.
And then came Bain’s growing obsession with the pool.
She knew he wanted to make a statement, to indicate to their neighbors and friends that his retirement had been a choice; that they were as financially comfortable now as before. A forty-thousand-dollar capital improvement would be just the ticket to publicize their solvency.
But in her mind the price was impossibly high.
“We live right on the ocean. We have our own beach. Why would we ever need or want a pool?” she’d protested as she handed him a turkey sandwich and some Cape Cod Potato Chips. She’d watched him all morning, wandering around outside with a survey map, a yardstick, and some stakes.
“You’re the hardy one. That you can swim in sixty-five-degree water is something I love about you. But I want the luxury of laps in eighty-degree peace and quiet—no boats, no seaweed, no fish, and no sand. I guarantee you’ll come around as soon as it’s in.” He unfolded his paper napkin and placed it on his lap.
“It’s not safe, Bain,” she added. “You don’t need me to remind you of that. What about the children?”
Both Erin and Hank brought their families to the Chatham house. It was a beautiful vacation spot—a destination—and under the guise of a reunion, the boys availed themselves of her hospitality, her organization, and her housework. Better than hotel service, and it was all free of charge. That much of her time was then spent driving to the fish market, picking up produce, unloading the dishwasher, and vacuuming up sand dragged in from the beach bothered no one. She didn’t want to seem bitter or resentful. Her boys worked hard and deserved a break. And it was one of the few times each year that everyone was together. Still, it would have been nice if once—just once—they’d arrived with a bottle of wine, a small bouquet, or a bag of scented soap as a hostess gift.
But neither their selfishness nor the amount of housework had any bearing on the issue of the pool. To that her objection was deep-seated, visceral. Her grandchildren were still small, not yet swimmers. It would be years before all of them would be comfortable around a pool, and with parents who were hardly vigilant, it was an accident waiting to happen. She’d be paralyzed with fear—just the thought of installing a pool filled her with panic—and forced to spend the entire visit as lifeguard. She imagined herself in night-vision goggles patrolling the perimeter in case an Alcott toddler opened the gate. Housekeeping, meals, socializing, everything about their life would shut down for the duration of the visit. She wouldn’t rest until the grandchildren were safely buckled into their car seats en route home.