Table for Seven: A Novel

by Whitney Gaskell

  “I sort of like Brown Bear. You can get a rhythm going with it,” Jaime mused. “ ‘Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?’ ”

  Mark gave her a dark look.

  “Hey, I’m a fan of anything that doesn’t have Elmo in it,” Jaime said.

  “What are you making, anyway?” Mark asked, taking in the vast piles of minced vegetables.

  “Chicken rillettes,” Jaime said.

  “Right. And what exactly is that?”

  “Potted chicken. That sounds weird, I guess. But basically, you braise a chicken, then shred it, and mix it up with butter, herbs, and a vegetable-infused broth, and then you put it in jars to sit for a few days,” Jaime explained.

  “That sounds like a lot of work. The kids would probably be just as happy with hot dogs,” Mark said.

  “This isn’t for the kids. It’s for the dinner party club.”

  “Are we still doing that?”

  “Yes. We just took the summer off, remember? Everyone’s coming over here on Saturday. I decided to shake things up. Instead of serving an entrée, I’m going to do all small plates,” Jaime said.

  She had thought that her small plates idea would be elegant and impressive. However, she was already having second thoughts about it. It was actually easier to do one main dish than lots of little ones. But at least the rillettes could be prepared completely ahead of time. All she’d have to do on Saturday was decant the potted chicken into a pretty bowl and slice up some crusty French bread to serve with it.

  She glanced up at Mark, to see what his reaction to her brilliant idea—minus the extra work—was. He was looking at her with a mixture of guilt and wariness.

  “What?” she asked.

  “This Saturday? As in three days from now?”

  “Yes. Emily doesn’t have a tournament this weekend. I checked the calendar before I scheduled dinner,” Jaime said quickly.

  “No, I know she doesn’t. But she’s going down to take a clinic in Boca this weekend. I was going to go with her,” Mark said.

  “And you were going to tell me this when?” Jaime asked, feeling a flash of the old irritation.

  Things had been going better recently between her and Mark. They’d taken Logan and Ava to the South Carolina coast for two weeks, and for the first time in a long time it had felt like Mark had been really present. They took the kids to the beach every day, where they splashed around in the ocean and hunted for shells, and ate fresh seafood and farm corn for dinner every night. It had been a magical time.

  The only sour note came when Jaime hired a photographer to take a picture of the four of them at the beach. She envisioned Mark and Logan wearing white button-downs and khaki shorts, and she and Ava in matching Lilly Pulitzer dresses, their family looking like something out of a magazine. The perfect family on the perfect vacation.

  “We can use it as our Christmas card photo,” Jaime enthused.

  Mark had stared at her. “But Emily isn’t here. We can’t take a family photo without Emily.”

  Jaime now closed her eyes, remembering the resulting argument. She hadn’t meant to exclude Emily—who had been invited on the trip, but chose instead to go to Spain with Libby. She’d just gotten carried away at the idea of a family portrait of the four of them. But even when she’d backed off the idea of using it as their Christmas card photo—which she’d done immediately, with a heartfelt apology—Mark had still refused to participate. Jaime ended up going alone to the photo shoot with the kids, but the photos hadn’t turned out well. She wasn’t even going to bother having them framed.

  “I was going to tell you as soon as I’d opened up a nice bottle of wine and talked you into having a glass,” Mark admitted. “Is there any way we can postpone the dinner party club?”

  Jaime shook her head. “No way. Everyone’s coming, and I’ve already spent a fortune on food.”

  “Let me call Libby. Maybe she can take Emily,” Mark suggested.

  “Good idea,” Jaime said. She smiled at Mark. “Thanks.”

  He kissed her cheek and then fished out his ever-present phone and hit a button.

  “Hey, it’s me. I need to talk to you about Emily’s schedule this weekend,” Mark said into the phone.

  He wandered off toward the living room, speaking in the calm, level voice he always used when talking to Libby or one of his more difficult law clients. Jaime turned her attention back to her rillettes. When the last of the chopping was done, she set her heavy, cherry-red Le Creuset Dutch oven on a burner and poured in a dollop of olive oil. Once the oil had heated she put a whole five-pound chicken inside, and rotating it every three to four minutes, browned the chicken on all sides. She scattered the chopped vegetables and herbs around the chicken, and after they had softened, added a cup of white wine. Once the alcohol had burned off, she finally added six cups of low-salt chicken broth, brought it to a boil, and then moved the chicken pot to the oven, so the chicken could braise for an hour.

  By the time she was shutting the oven door, Mark had returned to the kitchen, looking grim.

  “Is Libby taking Em?” Jaime asked.

  “Yes, but she’s not happy about it,” Mark said. “She said it’s my weekend to have Em, and if I’m not going to honor our custody agreement, maybe it was time we revised it.”

  “Are you serious?” Jaime asked. Mark nodded. “But you spend all sorts of time with Em. Libby can’t seriously question your commitment to that child.”

  “She’s just steamed because she has to cancel a date she had planned for Saturday,” Mark said. He opened the refrigerator door and got out a bottle of beer.

  “I’m surprised she was willing to do that,” Jaime said. In her experience, Libby rarely if ever inconvenienced herself.

  “She wasn’t at first. I said that of course we wanted Em for the weekend as usual, and that she’s always welcome here, that this is her home. However, I wouldn’t be able to take her down to Boca.” Mark shook his head and twisted the top off his beer. “Libby said she didn’t want Em to miss the clinic—which, I agree, would not be ideal—and so she said she’d take her. She just wasn’t happy about it.”

  Jaime blinked at her husband. It was so rare that anything came before Em’s tennis practice. She couldn’t help wondering if Libby’s reaction played a part.

  “Thanks,” she said, giving him a hug. Mark squeezed her back and then released her.

  “Don’t thank me too quickly,” he said.

  “Uh-oh,” Jaime said. “What’s going on?”

  “Libby wants to revisit the subject of homeschooling Emily.”

  “I thought you’d decided against it?”

  “We did, for this year. But if Em starts playing more national tournaments, we’ll eventually reach a point where homeschooling her will make more sense,” Mark said. He kissed Jaime’s forehead. “Don’t worry. We’ll deal with it when the time comes.”

  “Just do me a favor,” Jaime said.

  “Anything.”

  “Talk to me about it before you make any decisions. Okay?”

  “Of course. I always do,” Mark said, patting her shoulder.

  WILL WAS AT HIS workbench, putting the final touches on his newest Rammer combat bot, which he’d christened Brutus. Iggy had suffered an ignominious defeat at the last combat bot competition down in Boca in July and Will had brought him home in pieces in a cardboard box. Undeterred by the loss, Will had immediately commenced work on Brutus. This time he planned to give him a much heavier shell. He hadn’t had much of a chance to work on it over the summer, but there was a tournament in Miami next month, and he had every intention of winning. Or, at least, of not getting his ass seriously kicked.

  “Hey, Dad,” Rory said. “What are you working on?”

  “Just putting some finishing touches on Brutus. What do you think?” Will presented the robot with a game-show-hostess hand flourish.

  “Very cool,” Rory said. “He’s sort of cute.”

  “Cute? I don’t want him to be cute,” Will e
xclaimed. “I want him to look like a lean, mean, robot-killing machine.”

  Rory giggled. “He looks sort of like R2-D2. Only flatter. Like R2-D2 would look if he got flattened in one of those car smooshers.”

  Will scrutinized the robot. “Maybe he does a little,” he admitted. “Anyway, I thought you were supposed to be helping me with him.”

  “I was going to, but Mom said I had to do my math homework,” Rory said, making a face.

  “I guess it’s all about priorities. What’s more important, Brutus or your math? No, I’m just kidding. Obviously, homework comes first,” Will said hastily. He had seen the gleam of opportunity in Rory’s eyes. “And that’s the story I’m sticking with if you try to tell your mom that I said you could skip your homework.”

  Rory slumped onto the stool next to his, and watched Will work.

  “Did you know Iris has a boyfriend?” she asked after a few minutes. Will could tell that although she was feigning a casual air, Rory was thrilled to pass along this juicy gossip.

  Will set down his screwdriver and looked at his younger daughter. “She does?”

  Rory nodded and grinned. “His name is Xander.”

  Surely Iris was too young for a boyfriend, Will thought. He thought back to when he was thirteen, and remembered that although couples might announce that they were “going out,” they rarely even spoke to each other at that age. At most, they might go to the movies with a group of other thirteen-year-olds.

  “They’re going to a party together on Friday night, but you and Mom aren’t supposed to know,” Rory continued.

  “What? Why not?”

  “Because Mom said Iris isn’t old enough to date,” Rory explained.

  “Oh, right. Good,” Will said, glad that Fran was on top of the situation.

  “Iris is going to tell you she’s sleeping over at Hannah’s house, but really, she’s going to meet Xander at the party,” Rory said.

  Will wondered if the pain in his chest was from anxiety, or if he was actually having a heart attack.

  “How exactly did you come by this information?”

  “I listened at the door when she and Hannah were talking about it. You know, that whole glass to the door thing doesn’t really work. You can hear much better if you just put your ear right up against it. Anyway, I thought you should know. By the way, Xander’s a senior.”

  Will now understood how it was possible to age ten years over the course of a few minutes. He had a feeling he was supposed to tell Rory off for eavesdropping on her sister, but decided this was not behavior he wanted to discourage.

  “Do you know where the party is?”

  “It was supposed to be at some kid’s house—somewhere where the parents were out of town—but then they decided to have it out at the sandbar instead, so they’d be less likely to get busted,” Rory said.

  Will sighed and stood up. The sandbar was a strip of beach located in the middle of the Intracoastal Waterway and accessible only by boat. Clearly, Brutus was going to have to wait. Protecting his thirteen-year-old’s virtue from drunken senior boys partying at the sandbar took priority.

  “Where are you going?” Rory asked.

  “To talk to your mother about locking the two of you up until you reach the age of majority,” Will said wearily.

  “What did I do?”

  “Nothing yet. But you’ll be thirteen someday, too. Go do your math homework.”

  It took Will a few minutes to find Fran. She was standing in their walk-in closet, which was jam-packed with clothes and shoes, along with winter coats, boxes of holiday decorations, rarely used sports equipment, and a mismatched set of luggage.

  “What are you doing?” Will asked.

  “Going through my clothes and throwing out what doesn’t fit anymore.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea? What if you gain the weight back?” Will asked.

  Fran gave him the sort of look that would shrivel the balls of a lesser man.

  “I mean, it’s great that you’ve lost so much weight,” Will said quickly. “You look amazing. But maybe you should put the stuff you can’t wear anymore in storage. You know. Just in case.”

  “Just in case I lose all control and start pigging out on jelly donuts and chili cheese fries?” Fran asked.

  “That’s right,” Will said. Then, seeing that rather than placating Fran, his words seemed to make her angrier, he said, “Look, it’s nothing personal against you. It’s just that a lot of people who lose weight tend to put it back on eventually.”

  “Did you want something? Because as much as I’m enjoying this conversation, I’m a little busy at the moment,” Fran said, grabbing an armful of jeans and khaki pants.

  Will was momentarily diverted. “Why do you have so many pairs of jeans?”

  “Because that’s what my life has become. Wearing scrubs to work and jeans to the grocery store,” Fran said wearily. “I don’t exactly have a lot of invitations to social events that require slinky cocktail dresses.”

  “You could wear a cocktail dress to the grocery store. Maybe it would start a whole new trend,” Will said.

  Fran smiled reluctantly. “Or I could get a BeDazzler and BeDazzle all of my scrubs with rhinestones.”

  Will grinned back at her and gave her shoulder a quick squeeze. They’d been in what felt like a holding pattern lately. Fran didn’t seem unhappy necessarily, but she was still distant and distracted. And quiet. She’d been unusually quiet. Her chatter had been the background noise of his life for so long that the silence unnerved Will.

  “None of these fit anymore,” Fran said, dumping the assorted jeans and pants onto the bed with great satisfaction. “And besides, they’re mom jeans, which I will never wear ever again. From now on, I’m only going to wear sexy, cool jeans. So out they go.”

  “We have to talk,” Will said.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to go crazy buying stuff.”

  “This isn’t about clothes. It’s about Iris. And it’s pretty serious.”

  This got his wife’s attention. She stopped sorting through clothes and looked up at him. “Oh, God. What did she do?”

  “Nothing yet. But Rory just told me that Iris is going to a party on Friday night. At the sandbar. With a boy named Xander,” Will said.

  “No, she’s not. She’s sleeping over at Hannah’s house on Friday.…” Fran began, then stopped. Her eyes narrowed as the pieces fell into place. “You have got to be kidding me. Is she seriously going to try to pull the whole I’m-only-pretending-to-sleep-over-at-a-friend’s-house-while-really-going-out-with-a-guy lie on us? I’m going to kill her. Then I’m going to ground her forever.”

  “Can we ground her for something before she’s actually done it?” Will asked.

  “Of course. Why couldn’t we?”

  “I thought you had to commit a crime before you could be punished for it.”

  “This isn’t the American judicial system. It’s a totalitarian dictatorship,” Fran said, putting her fists on her hips.

  “Wait, who’s the head dictator? You or me?” Will asked.

  “Who do you think?” She raised her voice. “Iris! Get in here!”

  “What?” Iris called back.

  “Right now!” Fran bellowed.

  Iris appeared in the doorway, her arms crossed and her expression disgruntled.

  “What?” Iris asked.

  “Don’t what me, young lady,” Fran said.

  “I don’t even know what that means,” Iris said, rolling her eyes heavenward.

  Will decided this would be a good time to back up his wife.

  “It means you should be more respectful when you speak to your mother,” he told his daughter. Iris sighed and tossed her hair, but remained silent.

  “You said you’re sleeping over at Hannah’s on Friday night?” Fran asked.

  Will, who was watching his daughter closely, thought he saw a flicker of apprehension pass over her face.

  “That’s right,” Iris said
.

  “If I call Hannah’s mother and ask her if you’re sleeping over, she’ll know all about it?”

  Now Iris definitely seemed on guard. “I don’t know. I don’t know if Hannah’s told her yet,” she said.

  “Shouldn’t Hannah ask her mother for permission before inviting friends to spend the night?” Fran asked.

  Iris shrugged. “Hannah’s mom is always cool about it.”

  It was a misstep, Will thought. What Iris meant—without actually coming out and saying it—was that Hannah’s mother was cooler than Fran. This tactic didn’t work with Fran at the best of times, much less when she knew her thirteen-year-old daughter was trying to bamboozle her.

  “Why don’t we have Hannah over here instead,” Fran said smoothly.

  “No, that’s okay,” Iris said quickly, alarm flashing in her eyes.

  “Why not?”

  “Because …” Iris was clearly groping for a credible reason. “I already told Hannah I’d sleep over at her house. It would be weird to change the plans now.”

  “No, it wouldn’t. I’ll tell you what. I’ll call Hannah’s mom now while I’m thinking about it,” Fran said, picking up her cellphone.

  “Mom! No!” Iris said, but Fran waved her off. Will looked on, half-amused at his wife’s feint and half-sick that his daughter was lying to them so brazenly.

  “Kim, hi, it’s Fran. Good, how are you? I was calling to see if it’s all right with you if Hannah sleeps over here on Friday. Oh, really? You’re going to Tallahassee for the weekend? I see. No, another time. Thanks, Kim. Bye.”

  Fran hit the off button on her phone and looked at her daughter with raised eyebrows. “Hannah’s mom said they’re going to Tallahassee for the weekend.”

  “They are?” Iris asked. She shrugged. “I guess Hannah didn’t know that.”

  “That seems unlikely, considering they’re going to be there because Hannah’s choral group is giving a performance,” Fran said. She crossed her arms and looked levelly at her older daughter. “Are you going to tell the truth now, or are we going to keep this game going?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Iris said. She was still trying to pull off her favorite sullen teenager act, but there was an edge of hysteria to her voice now that undermined the effect. “It was just a mix-up. Hannah probably meant next Friday.”