by Amy Poeppel
Charles. She should have known better than to pick a man with the same exact name as the cheating husband in the musical her father adapted for Broadway. Her Charles had been far worse than the “careless husband” onstage. He was certainly more lecherous than the fictional Charles (played by a young John Cleese), who cheated on his wife (Madeline Kahn) in her own house as the audience laughed at her expense. Gwen was a child when she saw her dad’s musical, but it had an impact. She remembered all too clearly when the wife, Lady Easy, wandered in on Charles as he slept beside another woman, and rather than let him have it, she covered him up with a blanket, worried that he might catch cold. Yeah, well, when Gwen caught her Charles with another woman in her house, she was no Lady Easy. She was Lady Your-Worst-Fucking-Nightmare. She snapped pictures, hired the most vicious divorce attorney in Manhattan, and dragged him to court to massacre him. If the game was to make him very, very sorry, she’d won.
* * *
Now she lived alone and arranged her schedule exactly the way she wanted. She went off to her father’s when time allowed, and she never had to worry what was happening between her expensive sheets while she was away. She would lock the door and leave, glad to know that no one, but no one, would be there in her absence.
Gwen spent this hot July morning in Connecticut on the phone in her room, trying to explain to her producer, Lucy, why she had no intention of interviewing that fucking Sterling character after she’d explicitly requested an interview with him a month ago.
“I thought you said you wanted him,” said Lucy, sounding confused.
“But then I reread his books,” Gwen said, although she hadn’t. “His writing is so derivative, and I didn’t respond to the themes of his most recent novel at all.” The truth was, Gwen hadn’t cracked the spine of his latest, nor would she. Once he’d dumped Bridget there was no way she’d give him a single second of her time and certainly not a millisecond of airtime. “Honestly, Lucy,” Gwen said, “and I hate to say it, but he’s so overrated. I can’t imagine what I would even talk to him about.” And then she went in for the kill: “I’ve heard from a friend of a friend that he’s boring.”
Boring worked with Lucy. Boring meant low ratings. Lucy gave in, and they crossed him off the list.
After that victory, Gwen went downstairs to the kitchen, still wearing her pink-striped pajamas, to refill her coffee cup.
Marge was in the kitchen, and when Gwen told her about canceling Sterling, Marge pinched her cheek affectionately, saying, “Good girl.”
It still felt nice getting Marge’s approval.
“I hope I never wind up on your bad side,” said Marge.
Edward barged into the kitchen, dressed to go riding, clearly agitated. “Where’s Jackie?” he asked.
“Good morning,” Gwen said pointedly.
He looked at her. “Ah, my apologies. Good morning.” He turned to Marge. “Good morning. Will that suffice? Now, has anyone seen Jackie?”
“Jackie strapped on some very fast-looking red sneakers,” said Marge, “and she took off like a gazelle. She may be halfway to Manhattan by now.”
“I can’t find my email anywhere in my computer,” he said, “and I need to contact a colleague in China. When will she be back?”
“Relax,” said Gwen, knowing it would be impossible for her to explain where email actually was. “I wouldn’t work for you, even if you asked me to.”
“Which is precisely why I would never ask. I’d rather remain on good terms,” he said. “Now listen up: No one is to distract Jackie this week. No more long dinners at Bridget’s or afternoons at the pool—”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Marge with a sigh. “She doesn’t even have a bathing suit.”
“I need her to do her work, so I can focus on mine.”
“Calm down,” said Marge, turning back to the dishwasher. “You’re going to give yourself a heart attack.”
Gwen smiled. “What work, Dad? What are you up to?”
“I’m working on a new piece, and it took a dramatic turn today. When Jackie returns from wherever she’s hiding,” Edward said, “tell her to come to the library. And ask her to be quick about it.” He left the room, riding crop in hand, and Marge rolled her eyes.
“A little introspection,” she said after the door closed behind him. “Is that too much to ask?”
Gwen’s phone buzzed. She had a message from Bridget:
SOS meet me at the pool don’t tell anyone I’m here.
“Introspection,” Gwen said, looking for an excuse to go, “is best practiced… outdoors.”
Marge looked baffled. “Says who?”
Gwen remembered the self-help book Lucy gave her that was on her night table. “Says Juliette Stark. I’ll be back.” Gwen got to her feet.
“Who’s Juliette Stark?” Marge called after her as Gwen abandoned her coffee and went out the kitchen door. Running in bare feet through the woods and down the pathway, feeling the intensity of the heat, she opened the gate in the white wooden fencing that encircled the pool.
There was Bridget, floating facedown in her bra and underwear. Gwen, unsurprised by her own heroism, dropped her phone in the grass and jumped in to rescue her sister. As soon as she hit the water, Bridget popped upright, just as Gwen grabbed her.
“What are you doing?” Bridget yelled.
“What? You… I thought you were dead.”
“Why would I be dead?”
“Well, who swims like that? You looked unconscious.”
They stared at each other, treading water.
“I’m trying to lower my body temperature,” Bridget said. “Menopause and ninety-degree temperatures are killing me.”
They swam to the shady side of the pool and put their arms over the edge.
“What happened?” Gwen asked, knowing there was more to it than hot flashes.
“I got in a fight with Will,” said Bridget.
“Oh, please.” If there was one thing Gwen believed in, it was in the unbreakable bond between her sister and Will. “You’ll make up. What happened?”
“Caroline Lee bailed on us, and Will kept it from me. And then,” she said, “he went behind my back and got a replacement for us. A replacement! Without even checking with me first. He goes and picks someone, just like that.” Holding on the pool’s edge, she leaned her head back and looked up at the sky, saying, “He’s brought back Gavin.”
Gwen gasped and slapped the water with her hand. “No!”
“Yes,” said Bridget, wiping the pool water out of her eyes.
“What was he thinking?”
“That Gavin could rescue us from the mess we’re in.”
“If Gavin thinks he can waltz in here after all these years,” said Gwen, “he can forget it. You and Will don’t need him.”
Bridget raised her shoulders. “It wouldn’t have been such a terrible idea… if someone hadn’t made me tell him the truth.”
Gwen, justifying her stance once again, said slowly, “Just because he’d moved to Australia didn’t give you the right to keep it from him.”
“I disagree.”
“Will hates him,” Gwen said. “I can’t believe he’d do this.”
“Gavin’s the best violinist we ever had, and Will knows it. Everyone knows it.”
“Well, he can’t show up in your life now.” Gwen was running through options in her mind: there was certainly no grounds for a restraining order, but a harshly worded letter might make an impression. “What if he says something? What if he tells the kids?”
Bridget didn’t answer. She pushed off the wall and floated on her back, her ratty sports bra exposed to the sun. “When you get back to New York,” said Gwen, “I’m taking you lingerie shopping.”
“I’m not in a Victoria’s Secret chapter of my life,” said Bridget loudly, water stopping her ears.
“Victoria’s Secret? What are we, fifteen?”
Gwen swam over to the steps and climbed out of the pool, took of
f her dripping pajama bottoms, and draped them over a lounge chair. She wrapped a towel around her waist and sat back down at the pool’s edge with her legs in the water, watching her sister float on the surface. She refused to feel guilty. It’s true she was the one who made Bridget tell Gavin that he might be the father. It never occurred to her that Gavin wouldn’t give a shit in the slightest that Bridget was pregnant. She’d loathed him ever since.
“I don’t think Gavin will say anything about it,” Bridget said, treading water in the middle of the pool. “It certainly isn’t something he wants to bring up now.”
Gwen considered that possibility, knowing how many people in midlife rethink their choices, question their past decisions, maybe even feel a need to right wrongs. Surely even her ex-husband had regrets.
“He can’t possibly want this out in the open,” Bridget said confidently. “The whole thing was an accident anyway.”
“An accident?” said Gwen.
Bridget swam to the wall. “It certainly wasn’t on purpose,” she said.
Gwen gave her a withering look. “You knew exactly what you were doing that night.”
“It just happened,” Bridget said innocently. “Gavin and I were hanging out and drinking too much, and then we— It wasn’t planned.”
“Oh, come on.” Gwen knew how smart her sister was, and she couldn’t abide watching her act dumb. Gwen didn’t resent Bridget for her beautiful twin children, especially since her sister had made the bold decision to prioritize having babies over finding a man to raise them with. But it still smarted when Bridget implied she was a victim of her own fertility, like the whole thing was some distorted, modern version of the Immaculate Conception. “You knew perfectly well that you were ovulating like a motherfucker that night. You adored Gavin’s quirky personality, his looks, and his brain; you thought he had great genes. You liked him and the whole musical-prodigy horse he rode in on, and you figured his sperm was as good, if not better, than whatever you’d paid for. Be honest.”
Bridget splashed water at Gwen. Gwen kicked water at Bridget.
“Can we stop rehashing the past and figure out what to do now?” Gwen said. “I mean, are you sure he’ll pretend like nothing happened?”
Gwen watched as Bridget sank underwater and felt protective, like she might have to punch Gavin in the balls if she needed to.
Bridget came to the surface again, wiping the water from her eyes. “He called me back,” she said.
“Who did?” It took Gwen a moment to understand. “Gavin? When?”
“A few weeks after I called him in Sydney to tell him. He felt bad about being so harsh, and he said he was sorry and asked what I needed him to do.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Bridget looked ashamed. “Because I told him I didn’t want anything from him, even if the kids were his. I said it wasn’t his business, and I basically told him to… fuck off.”
“Bridget!” Gwen was recasting Gavin in her mind, moving him off her shit list and into slightly more neutral territory. “He apologized? He wanted to find out?”
“I knew he wasn’t anywhere near up to the challenge of being a parent,” Bridget said defensively. “He was immature and selfish and focused on his career, he was living halfway around the world, and I didn’t want him in my life like that.”
“And he let it go? That was it?”
“I hurt him,” said Bridget. “He said he’d wait to hear from me when I wanted to talk about it.”
“And?”
“I never spoke to him again.”
Gwen suddenly felt sorry for Gavin. Bridget had gone into motherhood with the intention of doing it on her own, and she hadn’t been willing to make room for him. Everything would have been different if there’d been a man in the picture. Even her friendship with Will would have been rocked by having Gavin in her life.
Gwen was jealous of Will, only a little, and she knew it was petty. Nevertheless, it had meant a lot to her that Bridget had told her the secret about Gavin; she liked knowing something important about her sister that Will didn’t.
“I’ve been very consistent,” Bridget was saying. “I didn’t want my kids to know then, and I don’t want them to know now. What good would it do for them to find out that Gavin Glantz might be their father?”
Gwen caught sight of fast-moving red sneakers darting behind a tree. “Jackie?” she called.
“Shit,” Bridget hissed, “did she hear me?”
Gwen got to her feet and threw a towel to Bridget at the edge of the pool, while Jackie, red-faced and panting, walked up to the fence.
“I wasn’t spying,” Jackie said.
“Of course not,” said Gwen, opening the gate to the pool. “Why are you out running in this heat?”
“I needed to clear my head,” Jackie said.
Bridget was wringing her hair out and hopping on one foot, head tilted sideways, getting the water out of her ear, while Jackie started to wobble and grabbed on to the white picket fence, her face turning gray. “You okay?” Gwen asked just as Jackie leaned over and crumpled on the ground.
Bridget sprang into action, helping get Jackie into the pool house, giving her a ginger ale from the well-stocked fridge, and making her lie down on the couch. “I don’t mean to sound judgmental,” she said, “but you have got to take better care of yourself.”
“I’m sorry,” said Jackie, sitting up.
Bridget, with her hair up in a towel, put on a bathrobe and handed another one to Gwen.
“It’s too hot to be out running,” Bridget said. “You could have passed out from dehydration.”
“Or heat exhaustion,” said Gwen, trying to care as much as Bridget seemed to.
“There’s a perfectly good treadmill in the house,” said Bridget.
“I’m just a little overheated.” Jackie tried to sit up. “I need to get back.”
“You’re not going anywhere until you drink something,” Bridget said. “How about cooling off in the pool?”
Gwen wanted to go back to the house. Bridget might have felt like playing mommy again to this grown girl, but Gwen had more important things to do.
“What’s going on, Jackie?” Bridget asked. “Is my dad being too demanding?”
“It’s fine,” she said, shaking her head as though she were perfectly happy. “The composers are coming next month; they seem a little high-maintenance, but they’ve been nice on the phone. Especially the Greek one.”
“And?”
“And… otherwise, all I’m doing is booking flights and hotels, camels and trains. I think what your dad needs is a travel agent.”
Gwen turned to Bridget. “Camels?”
“I asked him last week,” Bridget said, “and he said he’s planning a little trip with Lottie after the wedding.” She turned to Jackie. “I thought they were going to Athens.”
“They’re starting in Athens, but from there…” Jackie trailed off. “I’d rather he tell you.”
“Come on, Jackie. Where are they going?” Bridget asked.
Jackie looked torn but finally said, “They’re taking an extended trip. A long one, pretty much around the world.”
“How long?” Gwen asked.
“Mr. Stratton says we’re not to put ‘an end date on adventure.’ ”
“I was wondering why Lottie said she needed so much time to prepare to come here,” Bridget said. “She’s probably packing everything she owns.”
“You talked to her?” Gwen asked.
“This morning. She says Hans isn’t happy about the marriage.”
“Of course he’s not,” said Gwen, not that she was too happy about it either, “because he’s a difficult person. People don’t change.” She remembered watching the World Cup final on television with him one summer when he and his parents were visiting New York. Hans was constantly boy-splaining each play, as though she didn’t have eyeballs of her own to rely on.
“I have to go,” said Jackie. “Mr. Stratton needs me to book a
hotel in Beijing.”
“You’re feeling okay now?” Bridget asked as she placed her hand on Jackie’s shoulder in that maternal way of hers. “Eat a banana when you get up to the house. You’re not going to faint or anything?”
Jackie tightened her laces. “I’m better. I’ll take a cold shower.” Jackie smiled and walked away up the path.
“Hey,” said Gwen, “did you hear the one about the octogenarian newlyweds who took a trip around the world? What could possibly go wrong?” But Gwen could tell Bridget wasn’t thinking about their dad. She was staring at the screen of her cell phone, looking at it as if a naked picture of herself had just gone viral.
“What?” Gwen asked. “Everything okay?”
Bridget shook her head. “He wrote me,” she said.
“Who?”
“Gavin.”
She turned the phone so Gwen could see it.
* * *
Bridget, the email said. We need to talk.
16
We need to talk. We need to talk? Why, Bridget wondered, had Gavin felt the need to send such a cryptic message? Bridget hadn’t answered him all week. She let the email sit there in her in-box, tormenting her. She hadn’t spoken to Will all week either; they’d texted instead, keeping to the topic of his arrival that evening so they could talk about Forsyth, now that Bridget had had a chance to process the loss of Caroline.
Hiding in her bathroom, using her hairbrush as a pretend phone, Bridget stood in front of her mirror and made a serious face. “Hello, Gavin,” she said into the hairbrush. “We don’t need to talk. And I’m calling to cancel our so-called ‘reunion.’ ”
What d’you think you’re doing? she might say to him. Call Will back and tell him you’re too good for us and you aren’t coming.
She liked the sound of that because it fit nicely into Will’s low opinion of him.
She put down the brush and picked up her real phone, dialing the number Will had given her for Gavin’s landline in Los Angeles. It rang and rang until a recorded voice, a woman’s, soft and gentle like a yoga instructor’s, invited her to leave a message at the beep. Bridget didn’t.