by Nancy Thayer
Maud was petite and Audrey Hepburn pretty. Carley was lanky, brown-haired, and athletic. Vanessa was tall, voluptuous, and raven-haired. So they weren’t like peas in a pod. They weren’t like anything, really. They weren’t rebels, they were just young wives and mothers who shared a sense of humor, and that got them through some pretty hard times. And through some funny times, too.
Six years ago in January, the town was hit with a flu epidemic at the same time a gale force wind blasted a blizzard across the island, dropping mountains of snow, toppling trees across driveways, tossing the huge ferries in the harbor around like toys in a bathtub. This was the side of Nantucket life the tourists never knew about and it wasn’t pretty. The DPW wasn’t prepared for snow removal of this magnitude because it so seldom snowed with such fury on the island. Roads were blocked. Shops were closed. Schools were closed. Worse, the ferries carrying the necessities of life—fresh milk, bread, orange juice, cough medicine—couldn’t make it over from the Cape because of the wind. People shared their baby aspirin and ginger ale as if it were gold.
When the front finally passed and the sun came out, life returned to normal. The children, over their flu, went skipping energetically back to school and the husbands shaved off their caveman bristles, took much-needed showers, and went back to work.
Carley could never remember who it was who made the first phone call. Probably Maud; she was the most imaginative. She suggested they fly to the Cape for the day, to shop, see a movie, have a girls’-night-out dinner, and fly home on the last plane. Carley asked her mother-in-law to have her daughters and Gus over for dinner, and Annabel was delighted. Margaret was only a little over one then, but she’d spent a lot of time with her grandparents and loved being in their home. Everyone would be fine for one day without Carley.
It was a brilliant escape from reality. They shopped like women just set free from a sensory-deprivation tank, shrieking with joy over the January sales and discovering the pretty young women they still were under all their practical L.L. Bean fleece. When they finally settled around the table at the Mexican restaurant, their arms, necks, and ears jangling with new, totally unnecessary jewelry, they ordered the most extravagantly unusual margaritas on the menu.
“Oh my gosh!” Maud stretched her arms above her head. “I feel like I’ve just been let out of prison. Carley, you have two kids, too, but you have girls. Believe me, little boys are different. Manic. Little animals. Sometimes I watch them run through the house bellowing and the entire history of the world comes clear before me.”
Carley snorted. “Cisco and Margaret were easy, I guess, even though they were both so sick. It was Gus who was driving me crazy. We all had the flu, but with Gus it was like the last act of Romeo and Juliet.”
For years, Vanessa had been trying to get pregnant, and it hadn’t happened—or as Vanessa always insisted optimistically, it hadn’t happened yet. Still, she waved her hand. “No, no, you haven’t seen sick until you’ve seen the doctor sick. True, Toby worked at his office all day, and true, he did have the flu, but he so seldom gets sick, he acted as if he had cholera. The coughing, the sneezing, the whining—I’d bet good money he didn’t do that at the office. And could he ever ask for two things at the same time? No. First, could I bring him tissues. Then a blanket, because he had to languish on the sofa, watching TV. Then a whiskey, mixed with the scientifically precise amount of soda water. Then some crackers. No, not the wheat thins. Just plain saltines. Then—”
Carley and Maud were laughing with Vanessa, sipping their drinks, eyeing their jewelry, when they suddenly became aware of a man standing in front of their table. He was wildly handsome in a Ricky Martin way, wearing a satin shirt unbuttoned for full exposure of his own fine gold chains, and he was young. They were around twenty-six. He was probably twenty-one. His skin was like honey, his lips full, his dark eyes deep with sexual promise.
He swept his thick-ebony-lashed eyes across the three of them. He said, “¡Hola!”
The three women stopped laughing. For a long moment they just stared, lips clinging to their margarita glasses.
Vanessa, who spoke some Spanish, replied, “¡Hola!”
At this, the Ricky Martin clone leaned toward them, and putting his hands on the table, unrolled a series of silken Spanish words toward them with such speed not even Vanessa could understand him.
“¿Perdón?” Vanessa asked.
And then the spell was broken by the arrival of their waiter, not nearly as handsome as Ricky Martin. In rapid-fire Spanish, with many gestures, the waiter made it clear that the young man was bothering the ladies and should leave them alone pronto.
Ricky Martin shrugged sadly, and walked away, turning only to say, “Las tres enchiladas.”
“What?” Maud demanded of Vanessa. “What did he say?”
“It sounded like he called us enchiladas,” Vanessa told her.
“Yeah,” Carley agreed. “I heard that, too. Las tres enchiladas. Why would he call us enchiladas?”
“Well, obviously, he didn’t call us enchiladas,” Maud said. “He must have said something that sounded like enchiladas.”
Carley suggested hopefully, “Maybe in Spanish enchilada is a compliment. Like in French they call someone ma petite choufleur.”
“I don’t think so,” Vanessa dryly disagreed.
“Well, I’m going to buy a Spanish dictionary!” Maud decided. “I’m going to go through every word that sounds like enchilada until I find one that he might have meant.”
“Girl,” Carley teased, “you are desperate for a compliment.”
After that night, they called themselves Las Tres Enchiladas. When people asked them why, they said it was too complicated to explain, which made people like Beth Boxer, the gossip of their married group, suspect all sorts of erotic misbehavior. That made it all the sweeter. Really, the word sparked a touchstone in their spirits, reminding them vividly, for just a moment, of that evening of freedom and lighthearted camaraderie. It brought back the jangling jewelry, the silken non-mommy clothes, the salty margaritas, and the hooded-eyed young man.
It was good for them to have a tight little clique in those days because shortly after that night, Maud’s husband John left her for a much younger woman. He moved to California, never called his sons, and was systematically late with child support checks.
Maud struggled along financially, writing children’s books. She illustrated her books, too; she was very talented. Her Flip and Bob books, about two harbor seals (brothers, like Maud’s sons) and their adventures in the waters around Nantucket, became popular, bringing in the income Maud truly needed.
Maud had wanted daughters. She’d dreamed of having three little girls she could dress in identical white dresses with blue sashes. Instead, she had her two boisterous, energetic, noisy boys, named Spenser and Percy by her English-teacher ex-husband. After John left her, Maud often called Carley and Vanessa in a panic; her two sons were accident-prone, or perhaps, Carley thought, they were just normal. Carley drove Maud and the boys to the emergency room when Spenser fell out of a tree and broke his arm. When Percy stuck his soggy chewing gum in his older brother’s hair Vanessa drove over to help Maud cut it out because Maud couldn’t get Spenser to calm down and sit still.
And when Carley’s husband died, Maud and Vanessa had been her rock, her parachute, her safety net, her emotional 911. Carley didn’t know how she’d have survived without them.
Tomorrow morning Vanessa was coming over to help Carley make several dozen cookies for the bake sale Margaret’s kindergarten class was running to raise money for a trip to Boston. Carley would talk things over with Vanessa then, and make plans to see Maud, too.
Perhaps Carley could start a bake shop? She loved to bake. But there were already too many good bakeries on the island. Was there something she could sell on eBay? Should she take a course online? What kind of course? The wind whipped the waves up so that they crashed down on the sand in a relentless roar. The low winter sun sparkled on the
water, sending shards of light into her eyes. She couldn’t think. She needed help. She’d be tired enough when she got home to be calm around her girls, and tomorrow she would begin again.
7
• • • • •
Saturday morning, Carley whipped her hair back into a high ponytail and slid her feet into flip-flops. She went down the back stairs. Sounds led her to the den, where Cisco and Margaret sat side by side on the sofa, munching cereal out of the box and staring at the television set. They were not supposed to watch television in the morning, but since their father’s death, Carley had relaxed the rules. Cisco and Margaret seemed normal now, after the first crushing weeks of sorrow and shock. And that was what mattered, that her girls were healthy and happy.
“TV,” Carley said, disapproval in her voice.
“It’s not TV,” Cisco argued sweetly, tossing her mother a glowing smile. “It’s Swan Lake.”
Carley couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re going to grow up to be a lawyer.”
“Just like Daddy and Granddad!” Margaret squealed. “I am, too!” She’d seen the DVD of the ballet before and didn’t really care about it, but she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be with her sister.
And there! Carley thought, her heart lifting. Margaret mentioned her father without sadness, without crying. She was healing. They all were. She gave herself a moment to soak in the glory of her daughters. Their black hair, ebony eyes, and snowflake skin, direct genetic echoes of their father, gave them a fairy-tale-princess aura. Like their mother, they were tall and lanky, which sometimes made them clumsy. As adults, they would be stunners.
She tore her eyes away. “I’m making coffee. Vanessa will be here soon.”
While she drank her coffee and ate her granola, she flipped on the computer and scanned the newest recipes for cookies. She loved cooking and baking, loved experimenting with unusual ingredients. The kitchen was at the front of the house, facing the street, giving the long living room and den the fabulous blue views of the waters of Nantucket Sound. She’d see Vanessa’s SUV when she arrived.
Carley was sipping her second cup of coffee as Vanessa parked her car, lifted out a bag of groceries, and came up the walk.
No doubt about it: Vanessa was gorgeous. A sex bomb. Carley and Vanessa were the same age and the same height, but Vanessa’s figure was voluptuous while Carley was wide-shouldered, small-breasted, and angular. Carley’s hair was a glossy brown, manageable, no bother, but Vanessa had wavy black hair that bounced and tossed around her face in sensual curls as rounded as her body. Men always did a double take when Vanessa walked into a room.
Vanessa was just naturally nice. Humorous, easygoing, and generous, in spite of a life that had more than its share of woe. The only child of two only children, Vanessa lost her father when she was in college, and during the past year her beloved mother had died of Parkinson’s disease. Fourteen years ago, she’d married Toby when he was in med school and in spite of her fertility goddess looks, hadn’t been able to get pregnant. Some women might be bitter, but not Vanessa, who loved life and people, who had a great, exuberant excess of energy and compassion. She was a natural giver. She sat on almost all the major nonprofit boards on the island: The Boys and Girls Club, A Safe Place, the library, the AIDS network, and the hospital. She was definitely the kind of woman to make lemonade. Or, today, cookies.
Of course she was wearing a dress. She was the only female on this windy island who regularly wore dresses. She insisted she couldn’t find jeans to fit, but really Vanessa had developed a kind of camouflage of loose dresses covered with looser sweaters to make less of a display of her shape. Her arms were full of bags of flour, chocolate bits, butter, and sprinkles, and when she came in the front door, she was laughing.
“I couldn’t help it, I sampled some of the chocolate, the bag was just leaning there, tempting me.”
Carley lifted one of the bags into her own arms. “You’ve got chocolate on your chin.”
Vanessa followed Carley into the kitchen. Together they unpacked the groceries.
“There’s fresh coffee if you want it,” Carley told her.
“Yum.” Vanessa knew this kitchen as well as her own. She took a mug off a shelf and poured herself a cup of the fragrant brew.
Cisco strolled into the room. Lanky and trim in the tee shirt and boxers she wore for pajamas, she edged herself onto the corner of the table. “Whatcha doin’?”
Vanessa gave Cisco a big hug. “Good morning, darling. We’re going to make cookies for the bake sale. Want to help?”
Cisco hugged Vanessa back. “No, thanks. I’m going over to Delphine’s to practice.”
“When’s your next recital?” Vanessa asked.
“I’m not sure,” Cisco told her. Her face grew wistful. She was longing to wear pointe shoes, but at twelve, she was not yet allowed. Lost in her reverie, she slid off the table and wandered out of the room.
“She’s such a beauty,” Vanessa observed.
“I’m not thrilled about this ballet obsession,” Carley confided. “Cis worries about her weight, and she’s already a little twig. I don’t want her becoming anorectic.”
“Honey, she’s not. Enjoy this phase. In a flash, she’s going to be getting her teenage hormones, complete with periods, breasts, zits, and mood swings.”
Carley rolled her eyes. “Oh, help.”
As they talked, they moved around Carley’s kitchen, sharing the work with familiar ease. Carley was proud of her kitchen. It was the one part of the venerable old house she’d insisted on having renovated. It had two ovens, and a rack hung with pots, skillets, and utensils over a central island. She’d had the two rooms that once had served as pantry and butler’s pantry opened up to make one large room, and a long pine kitchen table with comfortable captain’s chairs stood at one end of the kitchen, next to a small desk where the household calendar and computer were kept. Her kitchen was the command control center of her own domestic world. Sometimes she thought she’d rather be here than anywhere else.
She set out the measuring cups, mixer, and bowls. “How’s Toby?”
Vanessa shrugged. “Busy. Too busy. We really could use another pediatrician on this island. Well, I knew what I was getting into when I married a doctor. Or I thought I did. Most days we scarcely have time to talk before he falls into bed, exhausted.”
Vanessa measured out two cups of flour, then stopped and looked directly at Carley. “Carley, sometimes … sometimes Toby kind of bores me.”
Carley gave Vanessa a gentle smile. “Every marriage goes through phases like that.”
Before Vanessa could reply, the front door opened. Footsteps sounded down the hall and Maud appeared, her two exuberant sons at her side.
“Hi, Carley! Hi, Vanessa!” Maud’s enormous blue eyes were wide in her heart-shaped face, and she looked rather like a child herself, with her turned-up nose and brown hair cut in an easy Dutch-boy bob. Under her quilted jacket she wore black tights and a leotard, which made her look even more petite. She kicked off her clogs and settled into a chair. Recently she’d been dropping her boys off at Carley’s while she went for an hour of yoga. “I’ve got a few minutes before class. Tell me everything.”
“Chocolate chips!” Spenser yelled.
“Chocolate chips!” echoed his brother Percy.
“Cookies later,” Vanessa told them sternly.
Margaret ran into the kitchen. “Percy! Spenser!”
“Hide and seek!” Spenser yelled.
The three children exploded out of the room.
Maud rolled her eyes. “Wild things.”
“Want some coffee?” Carley asked. “It’s fresh.”
“Sure. No, it will make me pee. Any gossip? What are you doing?”
Vanessa told her, “Making cookies for the bake sale.”
“Oh! You should have asked me. I would have helped.”
Vanessa gave Maud a steady committee woman stare. “And that would be before or after yoga?”
&n
bsp; Maud dodged the issue. “Vanessa, it should be against the law to look that gorgeous in such baggy clothes!”
Vanessa smirked. “Flattery will get you nowhere.”
“What can I say?” Maud leaned her flower-face in her hand. “I’m selfish, unaltruistic, and useless. I’ve never baked for a good cause in my entire life. You two are admirable, and I admire you, I really do.”
“Oh, stop,” Carley ordered. “You write fabulous books that make children happy.”
Margaret raced into the kitchen, hair flying. A pink barrette had slipped down and dangled from one clump of black hair.
Maud caught Margaret in her arms and kissed her. “Slow down.”
“Can’t!” Margaret giggled, and raced off, down the long front hall. Seconds later, Spenser stampeded into the room, followed by Percy, who tripped over his shoelaces and did a perfect comedic pratfall onto the floor. The five-year-old didn’t allow himself to cry.
“Ooopsie,” Maud said.
“Shoelaces.” Capable Vanessa captured the child. She held him on her lap and managed to tie the flopping laces even as Percy wriggled to get down.
“Which way did she go?” Spenser demanded.
“We’ll never tell,” Carley said.
The boys burst from the room, yelling with glee.
“All that energy,” Maud sighed. “If I could only plug into it for half an hour.”
“Tell me about it,” Carley agreed. Pulling herself up straight, she announced, “Listen, you two. I need some advice. I need to make some money.”
Vanessa’s brow wrinkled with sympathetic distress. “Oh, honey. Of course, with Gus gone …”
Maud tilted her chair back and stared at the ceiling for inspiration. “Sell baked goods?”
“I’ve thought of that,” Carley told her. “Too many great bakeries already on the island.”
“Sell your body?” Maud teased.
“Right,” Carley snorted. “That’s an attractive thought.”