by Amy Poeppel
“It’s not funny,” Bridget said, but she started laughing, too. “God, what’s happening to my life? Can you imagine Sterling in this mix? How would I explain this?”
“So maybe it worked out for the best, in a way, with your kids here and no Sterling.”
What the hell was a sterling?
“No,” said Bridget. “My kids should be off living their lives, and I’m supposed to be living mine and having sex all summer.”
Jackie was pretty sure they’d forgotten she was there.
“I actually thought,” Bridget said, sounding super bitter, “that I might be the one getting engaged because it’s my turn. That’s what was supposed to happen.”
“I’m sorry,” Gwen said, and she patted Bridget on the knee. “I know this is tough.”
Bridget made a subtle move that Jackie caught: she touched at the corner of her right eye, very quickly and with a shake of her head, and then wiped her fingers on the leg of her jeans.
Gwen, meanwhile, sighed dramatically. “God, I feel like I aged today, don’t you?” she said. “Seeing Dad there, on the floor like that? So pitiful and old in that hospital gown? And then, boom. That was some news.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“I guess it’s time to go dress shopping,” said Gwen.
What her boss’s falling on the floor and buying dresses had in common was a mystery, unless Gwen was predicting a need for funeral attire. Was her entire job coming to an end? Maybe Mr. Stratton was too old to finish what he started. When her own grandfather fell down in the bathroom a few years earlier, he had one problem (immobility) after another (bedsores) after another (pneumonia) until he died. That was that.
“Lottie!” said Bridget. “Wow. What would Johannes think about this? And what is Hans going to say?”
Apparently, the cast of characters from a World War II movie was part of the story.
“Hans, oh my God, I remember Hans,” Gwen said. “He was awful.”
“You hated him so much, and he was only, like, ten when we met him.”
Gwen scoffed. “He was a little shit at ten.”
“I think I’m having an anxiety attack. Do you have a Xanax?”
Ugh, thought Jackie, rich people are the worst.
“Breathe,” said Gwen, rolling down the window and taking a left so hard that Jackie’s shoulder knocked into the door of the car.
Gwen started driving up a bumpy, long driveway, and Jackie had to hold on tight to the desserts to keep them from flying off her lap. She looked out the window and saw the house. It was pretty, but not nearly as elegant as Mr. Stratton’s. Less intimidating, less like some kind of grand hotel. And, holy shit, there were real, live barnyard animals out in the yard. God, these people were weird.
“What the fuck?” Bridget said, her hands on the dashboard as she leaned forward to look out the windshield. “Kevin must be out of his mind.”
They hadn’t even come to a stop when not one but two totally freaking hot guys approached the car. Wait, make that three, although the third was handsome in an older Clooney kind of way. It was like she’d stumbled onto the set of an Abercrombie commercial. They were all, every last one of them, wearing jeans and T-shirts, and Jackie had never felt such regret for her choice of clothing in her life. She could not possibly have gotten it more wrong, wearing shoes she could barely walk in, looking like she was heading to work at an insurance firm.
And why was she tasked with holding the stupid pies? She wished she had something more dignified, like a bouquet of flowers or a box of Russell Stover.
The older hot guy opened the door for her, and as she got out, he offered his hand as though she were stepping out of a carriage. He saw the desserts, and said, “Oh, thank goodness, because I had to throw out the ice cream. I’m Will, family friend.”
“Jackie,” she said and tried to duck as a Frisbee grazed her head and sailed on into a huge field. “I work for—”
“What’s with the sheep?” Bridget was asking, but she got distracted before anyone could answer, and started hugging one of the two cute guys, hard. “What are you doing here?” she shrieked at him, sounding excited and happy but also kind of like he was yet another uninvited farm animal hanging out on her property. The guy didn’t, Jackie noticed, answer her question.
Isabelle introduced Jackie to him, saying he was her twin, and then to Kevin, not saying who he was, and then they all walked inside the house together, making their way into a big, noisy kitchen, where bad singer-songwriter bullshit was playing off a laptop and martinis were being made. There was a cat on the counter, right where the food was being prepared, and no one seemed at all grossed out or even bothered by it. Jackie watched as the cat rubbed its neck and face on the sink faucet. Bridget turned the water on, and the cat started drinking out of it, its tongue actually touching the place where the water came out. No fucking way would Jackie drink tap water tonight.
Something smelled really good, like cooked onions and grilled meat, and she realized she was absolutely starving, having eaten nothing other than half a stale muffin at Grand Central early that morning.
Without even asking her what she wanted, Gwen stuck a big glass of pink wine in her hand, took her out to the porch, and left her there alone, saying, “Make yourself comfortable, back in a jiffy.”
Jackie looked around the porch and saw a tray full of cheese on a low table, but she was too uncomfortable to help herself. Instead she pulled out her phone to check her email. She had a hideously long row of unopened messages, all having to do with Mr. Stratton’s travel. When she’d taken the job, she thought it was going to be a challenging, interesting position, assisting one of the world’s most influential musicians. But soon after she started, she found out that the work was easy stuff pretty much anyone could do, booking flights mostly. But a job was a job. Unfortunately, this one meant spending much of the summer, and in fact all of August, up here in the middle of nowhere, at a place that didn’t even have a public transit system.
She felt something massive brush up against her ass and jumped as an enormous, shaggy black dog, drooling and clumsy, galumphed up to her, stuck his head in her crotch, leaving slime all over her skirt, and then promptly began eating all of the cheese off the platter. “No, no, no,” Jackie said, backing away from the beast and into the house. “Umm, there’s a dog eating the cheese…” she said to anyone who would listen.
“No!” yelled Bridget from the kitchen. “Oscar, get Bear off the porch.”
“Got him,” he said. Smiling broadly, Oscar came out and pulled the dog away, putting the platter up onto the table that was nicely set for dinner. Jackie did a quick count and saw that there were only six place settings. She knew instantly that of the seven in attendance, she was the one who wasn’t supposed to be there.
Oscar took the dog, who was the size of a love seat, by the collar and back into the house, saying, “Sorry about that.”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” Jackie called after him. She did mind, and no way was she going to eat that cheese now; she could see a long black dog hair stuck to the perfectly gooey brie. Her stomach growled.
She was alone again. She took a napkin from the table and wiped the dog drool off her skirt and knees. She then folded the napkin neatly and put it back under the fork.
The other young guy, Kevin, came out on the porch with a bottle of beer and sat down, taking in the view. “Gorgeous evening.”
Jackie sipped her wine and smiled.
“You’re up from the city, right?” said Kevin. He was stocky and strong-looking, the picture of health with his ruddy cheeks and thick forearms.
“I arrived this morning,” she said. “I’ve never been here before.”
“Ahhh, welcome to Litchfield County,” he said. “Incredible wildlife. Bears, bobcats, deer, turkeys.”
Jackie sat down, crossing her legs. She looked at her shoes and felt ridiculous. This guy was wearing lumberjack boots. “I’ve never even seen a turkey that wasn’t on a Thanksgi
ving plate.”
“Turkeys are very intelligent,” said Kevin in all seriousness. “Ben Franklin thought they should be the country’s national bird, but the bald eagle won out.”
“They’re not my cup of tea,” Gwen said, coming out to join them and refilling Jackie’s almost-empty wineglass. “I’m not a fan of anything going droopy under the chin.”
Isabelle and Oscar came out then, too, sitting on the wicker furniture, and Jackie felt very popular. She was filling the room. She looked at Kevin and Oscar, sitting side by side. How had she managed to find the two cutest guys in the whole state of Connecticut, and possibly New England?
“I hope whoever buys this place keeps the barn,” Isabelle said, looking across the field.
“Excuse me?” said Oscar, leaning forward. “What?”
“Buys the place?” said Gwen. “What are you talking about?”
Isabelle seemed to like that all eyes were on her now. “Mom’s thinking about selling,” she said.
Oscar looked upset, and Jackie felt an urge to sit on his lap and comfort him. The wine was going to her head.
“She’s not selling,” said Oscar, waving his sister off. “I don’t believe that for one second.”
Isabelle shrugged like it was no big deal, and suddenly Jackie wasn’t so sure she liked her after all. Jackie couldn’t imagine being the owner of a property like this, and she certainly couldn’t imagine letting it go so nonchalantly.
“Did you guys know,” said Kevin, “you’ve got one of the oldest barns in the county. It just needs a little love.”
Bridget appeared out of nowhere with yet another wine bottle. “Love and a whole lot of money,” she said. She, too, topped off Jackie’s glass.
“Is it landmarked?” Kevin asked.
Isabelle pointed at him and then turned to her mother. “It should be. Can we do that?”
“I can look into it for you,” Kevin said. “I can ask at the town hall.”
“Here’s a better question,” Bridget said, sitting across from him. “What’s with the sheep?”
It was clear Bridget wasn’t thrilled about the animals. What kind of life path does one have to be on, Jackie wondered, to end up with a flock of sheep you didn’t ask for?
Kevin sat up straight like he was at a job interview. “Well, you said you wanted the field out there under control, and sheep are terrific lawn mowers.”
“What about coyotes?” Bridget asked.
Kevin didn’t answer for a second. “Coyotes don’t eat grass.”
“I know that,” said Bridget. “No, I mean, am I going to have a massacre on my hands tonight?”
Jackie shuddered. The country seemed full of dangers, from ticks to coyotes to murderers breaking into the house. She wondered how she would sleep tonight and felt homesick for her safe little apartment in Queens with its one door and four locks.
“I’ll round the sheep up into the barn before it gets dark,” Kevin said. “And if you don’t like them, I can return them to their farm. You can do the job with machines instead. I know a guy—”
“No!” said Isabelle. “We’re keeping them. They’re so cute. And so are alpacas; they have loads of personality.”
Oscar gave his sister a push on the shoulder, a fairly hard one. “I’m surprised you haven’t invited them all in for drinks,” he said.
Kevin considered that. “Sheep are very social, so they’d do well at a party, as long as you invite the whole flock. They panic when they’re alone. Same with alpacas.”
Jackie felt like she was an extra on a movie set. She was watching the ones with speaking roles and trying to figure out the plot. Isabelle, she decided, was a brat but not a bitch. Kevin was not exactly one of them, but not out of place either. He was very literal but seemed to enjoy the banter. “Beautiful” was the wrong word to describe Oscar, although it would not be incorrect because his face was perfect. She remembered the conversation in the car and put it together that he was the one maybe getting divorced. He didn’t look old enough to be married in the first place; maybe that was the problem. Whatever, she thought, he was unbelievably cute.
He turned to her, as though he could tell she was thinking about him, and she blushed. “How do you like working for my grandfather?” he asked. He reached in his martini glass, picked out a fat olive between his fingers, and popped it in his mouth.
Jackie took a sip of her wine, giving herself a second to think. She hated to be put on the spot in front of everyone. “I like it.” If there was a prize being given tonight for lamest answer to a question, Jackie decided she’d just won it.
“It’s cool he’s still accomplishing so much,” Isabelle said. “I wish I could find a job I love as much as he loves his.”
“Your grandfather has some rather unexpected news,” Bridget said and then paused. “He’s getting married at the end of the summer.”
The perfectly perfect twins went berserk,asking a million questions, while Jackie managed to keep her face completely still so no one would know this was the first she’d heard of it. It did explain, however, who Charlotte was, something Jackie had been wondering about every time she booked another hotel reservation. Her boss was, like, seriously ancient. Why would someone that old be getting married?
“I love that!” said Isabelle. “Good for him.”
“Are you on the wedding-planning committee?” Oscar asked. Jackie realized he was talking to her.
“No,” she said. Weddings were in no way her area of expertise. “That’s outside my job description.”
“What’s he got on your agenda this summer?”
Something about the way he posed the question made Jackie want to impress him, prove that she wasn’t some girl fetching coffee. She took another sip of wine; it was so tasty. “I’m helping Mr. Stratton with everything he needs to be able to do his work efficiently.” It would be indiscreet to go into detail, so she decided to share something noncontroversial. “For example, I recently set up an electronic music library for him, catalogued by composer, year, conductor, and genre, with all of the music he wanted. He can access the recordings and the accompanying scores on an iPad that connects to a speaker system.” She wished she’d chosen a different task to describe; this one sounded like something any high school kid could do. “Also, I’ll be helping run his retreat in August when the composition students come.” That task sounded a bit more impressive.
“Ah, the composers,” said Oscar.
“What happened to him today?” Isabelle said, clearly uninterested in Jackie’s job. “I can’t get over seeing him lying on a stretcher like that.”
Jackie wished she could unsee that disturbing image; she couldn’t unhear the sound he’d been making either, an angry sort of moaning. She took another sip of wine, shaking off the memory.
“He lost his balance,” said Bridget.
“I can’t believe he’s getting married,” said Oscar. “I’m more mystified by Edward getting it up than Edward falling down.”
Gross, thought Jackie. That was not an image she wanted in her head either.
“Ewww, stop,” said Isabelle.
“Oh, please, Oscar,” said Bridget. “Let’s keep it clean, shall we?”
“Are you selling the house,” Oscar asked her bluntly, “without even talking to us about it?”
“Probably not,” said Bridget casually. “But I’m at a stage where I need to think about my options and make some rational decisions about my life.”
“Exciting decisions,” said Isabelle, encouraging her. “You’re at a stage where you should do all the things you’ll regret not doing.”
Jackie liked Isabelle’s attitude, though it was privileged as fuck. Bridget was the most down-to-earth of the whole group, but she seemed sad. Where, Jackie wondered, was Mr. Bridget, father of these preppy, polished children?
“I know whatcha mean,” Oscar said. He got up. “And my first exciting decision is: I’m going to go smoke a joint. Who wants to join me?”
“Oh,
come on,” Bridget said. “We’re about to eat.”
“A little weed will spark our appetite,” said Isabelle, getting up as well and putting her arm over her brother’s shoulder. “And look at Oscar: he’s clearly experiencing anxiety of some kind.”
Jackie felt for him. You and me both, dude, she wanted to say.
Bridget leaned forward as if she were about to ask Oscar a question when Kevin raised his left hand high in the air, waiting to be called on.
“Yes, Kevin,” said Isabelle.
“I’d like to join you,” he said.
“Excellent.”
“Gwen,” asked Oscar, “are you coming?”
“No, thanks, kiddos,” Gwen said.
Isabelle looked at Jackie.
“No, thank you,” Jackie said. “I’ll stick to wine.” She did not understand these people. Bridget was allowing her kids to smoke pot? In her own backyard? Jackie’s mother would… Jackie’s mother… well, it was so inconceivable, she couldn’t even finish the thought.
Oscar held the door open for Kevin and Isabelle, and as they started to leave, Jackie felt left out. She belonged outside with the cool, fun young people, not on the porch with the two boring old ladies, drinking rosé that wasn’t as sweet as pink wine should be but was yummy nevertheless.
“But I wouldn’t mind coming along,” she said. She felt like she was applying for membership to a private club. Oscar was squinting at her stilettos, and she knew she was about to be rejected for a dress code violation.
“Outstanding,” he said warmly, “but we need to find you some more suitable shoes.”
The next thing Jackie knew, she was walking a mile in somebody else’s Uggs, wandering through a field with grass up to her knees, and getting stoned with some rich kids and their slobbery dogs. She’d somehow landed a role in this strange movie, with a cast of characters and a setting completely foreign to her.
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