by Sonja Yoerg
Mia leaned toward Steena Beecham. “Sorry if I missed this, but do you have children?”
Mia knew the Beechams had three, since she’d been discussing it with Suzanne earlier. Suzanne sipped her wine, noting that Mia’s edges were serrated this evening; she might not behave herself. Oh well. Her friend wasn’t under her control.
“Yes, three,” Steena said. “Four, six, and eight years old.”
“My, that’s very organized of you,” Mia said.
Steena was already into her next sentence. “Delightful ages, although we’ve never had a spot of trouble from any of them. Not once. Slept through the night by four months—all three!” She smiled and sat back, waiting for the praise due to her.
“You’ll have to share your secret,” Suzanne said.
Steena shook her head in humility.
Mia pounced. “Yes, do tell us how you do it. And once your kids discover hormones, drugs, and the opposite sex, come back and give us an update.” She offered Steena a smile of such honesty and goodwill, the woman wasn’t sure how to react. Mia was a successful lawyer and liked to practice on the unsuspecting. Suzanne found it both unsettling and amusing, but couldn’t blame her friend for being a bit testy around smug parents, considering the difficulties Mia had with her three children. The youngest, thirteen-year-old Meryl, was sassy and boy crazy. Zane, the eldest, had been an obstreperous and intractable child who turned into an obstreperous and intractable adult; he’d dropped out of college and out of their lives, shouting expletives and pointing fingers as he went. Alex, the middle child and Reid’s best friend, was a calm, sweet boy who had attempted suicide on New Year’s Eve. Well, he may have. As Mia put it, Alex was a mess whether the incident was labeled a recreational overdose or the result of existential despair. The therapist would figure it out, and she and Malcolm, who were to blame one way or another, would try not to make anything worse.
Suzanne herded the group into the dining room and served the meal. She always chose dishes that were neither elegant nor fussy, believing people were more relaxed, and therefore happier, when their food didn’t offer yet another challenge. Steena Beecham was hard to steer away from the topic of her children, but Suzanne discovered she enjoyed gardening as Suzanne did, or rather had, years ago, when she had time. Mia found common ground with Chad Beecham in discussing golf, the sport of power. She had a stealthy game equal to her legal one. Suzanne didn’t know where her friend found the energy for so much competition and positioning. Perhaps work—real work—gave her purpose, providing the fuel for Mia’s fire. Suzanne realized that she herself was more like Steena Beecham, dependent for her own growth on the light reflected from her children and their accomplishments. It should be enough; it was enough for many women. Then why did she increasingly feel like a spindly, yellowing houseplant leaning toward a distant window?
Whit caught her eye and nodded almost imperceptibly at his empty plate. Everyone had finished eating.
Suzanne pushed back her chair and placed her pointedly casual napkin beside her plate. “Let’s have coffee and dessert in the living room.”
CHAPTER 9
During dessert Whit watched Mia twiddle her fork with impatience as she chatted with the Beechams about weekend excursions from Charlottesville. He liked Mia, admired her intelligence and spunk, but he wouldn’t want to be married to her. She didn’t seem to take being married with children seriously enough, as if her own family’s problems were a step removed from her. Mia called it living her life, but Whit found it subversive. Still, he couldn’t blame Mia for being restless this evening. The Beechams were slow going once the topics of weather, children, and weekend activities had been exhausted.
He turned to Suzanne. A hint of a smile played on her lips, betraying nothing more than the satisfaction of delivering another competent meal to strangers and friends, and hiding all the boredom she probably felt. Boredom, hell, she was probably fantasizing about reading in bed. But business had its necessary evils and entertaining the Beechams was one of them. He cast about for something to talk about and remembered Suzanne’s story from the other night. Now that was interesting.
“Suzanne, tell everyone about that girl you rescued.”
Mia’s eyebrows shot up. “You rescued someone? A runaway?”
Suzanne would’ve preferred telling Mia in private, but here they were. “Not a runaway exactly.”
“How did I not know this? Never mind. If it was Meryl, I may or may not want her back.”
Steena Beecham looked at the others, judging whether this was meant as a humorous remark. Whit smiled to reassure her.
“Her name is Iris.” Suzanne placed her serving of pear crisp on the table and sat back in her chair. She related how she had encountered Iris and driven her to the hospital. “She’d never been in a car before. She jumped over the seat and cowered in the back.” She went on to describe how terrified Iris had been of everyone and everything. “Imagine living by yourself in the woods for years, then being dropped in the middle of an emergency room.” Her tone was not what Whit had expected. She sounded as if she were talking about someone she knew, not a stranger.
Chad said, “It’s hard to believe she couldn’t find her way out of the woods in all that time.”
“She didn’t want to.”
“Why not?”
“It was all she knew. Plus, her parents taught her to mistrust people.”
Whit said, “How do you know that?”
“The police told me.”
He hadn’t been aware the police had contacted his wife a second time. Why would they? Suzanne’s involvement began and ended with bringing the girl to the hospital, or so he had thought.
Malcolm asked, “Are they preppers? Religious fanatics?”
“I don’t think anyone knows,” Suzanne said. “Her mother is dead and her father disappeared. They still haven’t been able to locate any relatives or anyone who knew the family.” She turned to Whit. “I haven’t had a chance to tell you. I spoke with the police again today.”
He was going to ask if she had been the one to make the call but didn’t want to appear to be interrogating his wife. Suzanne was already stretched thin, and he worried about her.
Steena sipped her coffee. “Everyone has family. And one of the girl’s relatives will be happy to take her in and give her a normal life.”
“I don’t know,” Mia said. “I couldn’t get my own mother to take my kids for the weekend.”
Whit laughed with the others and tried to catch Suzanne’s eye. It really was time to start nudging their guests toward the door. But she hadn’t joined in the shared joke. She was concentrating on her hands folded neatly in her lap. He couldn’t imagine what the problem was. It wasn’t as if anything had happened. It wasn’t as if the girl had anything to do with them.
After their guests left, Whit and Suzanne went upstairs and stuck their heads into Reid’s room to say good night. He was reading, as always. Whit knew he should be thrilled, but he wasn’t. What teenager hung out with a book on a Saturday night? Brynn had a swim meet early the next morning and was undoubtedly asleep.
Whit followed Suzanne into their room. “You seemed preoccupied tonight.”
Suzanne sat on the chaise and unzipped her boots. “I was just thinking about how Steena said someone would be happy to give Iris a normal life.”
“She’s probably right. They’ll find a relative somewhere.”
“But that’s the thing, Whit. I wonder what normal even means.”
He had been unbuttoning his shirt and paused. He had a low tolerance for theory or philosophy or wherever Suzanne was going with this, especially as tired as he was. But Suzanne obviously wanted to talk it through. “You mean Iris might never be normal given how messed up her life has been?”
She frowned, the familiar crease over her left eye deepening. “Not really.” She put her boots to the side. “Well, of course she’s different and lacks all sorts of experience and knowledge compared to, say, our kids.”
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br /> “I would expect she’s pretty clueless.”
She was silent for a long moment. “I’ve been to see her.”
“Really?” First a police call she didn’t tell him about and now visits to Iris. “Why’d you go?”
“She doesn’t have anyone or anything, Whit.”
He smiled at her. “You’re a soft touch.”
“I feel so sorry for her.”
Whit pulled his pajama bottoms out of a dresser drawer. “They’re taking care of her at the hospital, right?”
“She’s still alone.”
“And when she’s better, Social Services will take it from there.” He stripped off his shirt. “Our tax dollars at work, right?”
Suzanne pursed her lips. “Right.” She picked up her boots and headed into the closet.
He shouldn’t have said that, knowing how Suzanne felt the government should always do more. As a self-made man, Whit wasn’t keen on unlimited handouts. He finished changing and climbed into bed.
Suzanne emerged from the closet, her expression showing she wasn’t up for an argument about politics or anything else. “Anyway, like you said, Iris is definitely clueless about a lot of things, but she also has a lot of strength.”
She walked over to her side of the bed wearing one of his T-shirts. It barely covered her rear end. He immediately felt less tired than he had a moment ago.
Suzanne said, “I’m wondering if a normal life is even right for her.”
“She can’t go back to living in the woods, can she?”
“Doesn’t seem likely.” Suzanne pulled the band from her hair and shook it loose.
“No, it doesn’t. I can’t imagine why she’d want to. But all that will be up to her family, once they turn up.”
“Or her foster family.”
“Or her foster family.”
Suzanne pulled back the covers. Whit reached for her, and she slid into his arms, languid and warm. He breathed in the scent of her hair, which always smelled like something he’d like to have for dessert but had never tasted. He yawned again, desire succumbing to fatigue.
He kissed her. “Sweet dreams.”
“Sweet dreams.”
As tired as he was, his mind wouldn’t clear. He couldn’t help but think he’d missed something in the conversation about Iris, something more important than the fate of a strange girl from the woods. Whit was always on the lookout for signs that Suzanne was unhappy, but she wasn’t easy to read. Maybe after all these years he still didn’t know how to look, and he worried he might miss an underground tremor signaling something stronger, potentially devastating. He could trace the feeling back to when he’d fallen in love with Suzanne.
Mia and Malcolm’s wedding reception had been winding down. The newlyweds had left two hours before, and the older guests had soon followed. The cover band had left the stage, the keyboard having been taken over by Malcolm’s brother, who knocked out seventies hits. The small drunken crowd sang along, slurring the lyrics but holding on to the tune. A few couples swayed on the dance floor, energized into unsteady flailing by an up-tempo number. Almost everyone left was someone Whit knew from high school, although he’d seen only a few of them since graduation seven years before.
Whit and Suzanne sat on the floor at the back of the ballroom. They had been talking, dancing, and drinking as part of a larger circle the whole night. Whit had been surprised to learn that Suzanne had been living at home for eighteen months. Given the friends they had in common, it seemed odd they hadn’t run into each other before now.
From his vantage point on the floor, Whit spied a champagne bottle under a nearby table and crawled over to retrieve it.
“Look at that. Half-full.” He moved to fill her glass but she covered it with her hand. He filled his own.
“I see you’re an optimist.”
He smiled at her. He knew he was drunk but still could not get over how pretty Suzanne was. She had been two grades below him, so he didn’t remember much about her from high school except she had seemed aloof, almost icy. Was she softer now, or was he just smashed?
“I am indeed. And I could use some air.” He stood and extended his hand. “Care to stroll the fairways with me?”
“I’ve lost my shoes.” Suzanne lifted her bare foot for his inspection.
He resisted the urge to take it in his hands and kiss her toes. “Does it matter?”
Outside the air was crisp for late May, and a damp mist stretched out before them, illuminated by pale light falling from the high ballroom windows. Whit whistled as they walked onto the fairway, picking up the chorus of “Maybe I’m Amazed” drifting from the ballroom. The fresh air felt great. He felt great with this beautiful girl by his side.
Suzanne rubbed her arms. She was barefoot in the wet grass and wore only a gauzy sleeveless dress. Whit realized he hadn’t been very considerate and stopped, touching her arm.
“I left my jacket inside. Wait here and I’ll run and get it for you.”
“No, that’s okay.”
“I’ll be right back.” He sprinted off, enjoying the feel of working his legs.
Suzanne’s cry—a yelp of pain and surprise—reached him as he set foot on the patio. He whirled around to see her collapse to the ground at the border of where the light fell. He sprinted back. She was clutching at her chest. He knelt at her side and saw her eyes were wide with fear.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” His thoughts swirled. It didn’t look like a seizure. He shouted for help but the music drowned out his cries.
Suzanne’s breath came in gasps, and her features were twisted in agony. Whit scooped her off the grass, holding her to him. Her heartbeat was wild and her body tense. He came to his feet, clutching her firmly, afraid of dropping her or slipping. As he carried her toward the building, her breathing slowed and she relaxed a little.
“It’s all right,” she said, catching her breath. “You can put me down.”
He lowered her but kept his hand on her back. “What happened?”
She looked away. “Please. I just want to go home.”
“Are you sure? Not the hospital?”
She shook her head.
A taxi dropped them at the Royces’ mansion south of town. Suzanne had told Whit she was staying with her parents until she figured out what to do next. Mia had told him Suzanne had been in Africa doing research, but when he’d asked Suzanne about it, she’d changed the subject. He didn’t think anything of it. As for staying with her folks, who wouldn’t want to live in this gorgeous place?
Suzanne had phoned ahead. Tinsley Royce answered the door and waved them inside. She looked Suzanne up and down, frowning. Suzanne was staring past her mother.
“Suzanne.” Tinsley patted her daughter’s arm. “Poor dear.”
“This is Whit Blakemore, Mother. We went to high school together.”
It was Whit’s turn to be examined. Confused about what had happened to Suzanne and also by her mother’s attitude, he fell back on his manners and smiled at her warmly. “Hello, Mrs. Royce. I was really worried about Suzanne.”
She returned his smile and nodded. “She’s had these unfortunate little episodes since returning from Africa. It’s nothing, really.” She gestured toward Suzanne, who was pale and unsteady. “You can see she’s fine now.”
Suzanne spoke in a low voice, her eyes not quite lifted to his. “Whit, thanks for bringing me home. I’ll . . . I’ll . . .”
Whit said, “No problem. As long as you’re all right.” He wanted to stay, do something for her. He felt responsible somehow and also protective of her, which was odd, considering that he remembered her as independent and self-contained.
Tinsley moved behind him and opened the door. “Thank you again, young man.”
He said goodbye and got into the waiting taxi.
The next morning, Whit went for a long run to clear his alcohol-fogged head, then left a message at the Royces’ saying he would stop by with the shoes and purse Suzanne had left at the club. The e
xcuse was transparent, but he didn’t care.
Anson Royce was putting his golf clubs in the trunk of his Jaguar when Whit drove up in his old BMW. He was proud of the car—a celebration of his first solo real estate deal a few months ago. Next to the Jag, it was nothing, but everyone had to start somewhere. Except the Royces. The Blakemores weren’t hard up by any stretch; Whit’s father was an aerospace engineer whose company won fat military contracts, and his mother taught economics and psychology at the high school. But even as a child Whit had wanted good things, expensive things, and had been eager to make a name for himself.