“I’m sure I will be. Eventually.” She smiled over her shoulder and walked down the steps to the street.
She left her shoes pigeon-toed where she had stepped out of them at the door of the bedroom and undressed, flinging her suit and lingerie across the chair in the corner. Naked but for her jewelry, she climbed into bed and turned out the light. The mattress felt lumpy under her back. Her legs were restless, and the bed seemed emptier and colder to her than any bed had in years. She closed her eyes and lay there waiting for sleep to come while her mind wandered to the aloofness and hypocrisy of old “friends.” And husbands. Propping herself onto her pillows, Claire stared blankly into the darkness, kicking the sheets loose from their hospital corners.
When sleep did not come, as was becoming more customary, she switched on the light, washed her face in the yellow dimness of the bathroom mirror, and took off the pearl earrings and the wedding band she couldn’t imagine ditching. The subtle indentation and tan line on her finger would be more painful to glimpse throughout the day than the ring itself. She returned to the bedroom and prayed for just a few good hours of rest. And by some lovely miracle she fell into the security blanket of her dreams of Nicholas.
Padding drowsily down the hall and into his blue-and-yellow nursery, she looks into her infant’s crib with nervous anticipation. Assured that he is alive and breathing, Claire stares at the beautiful sandy-haired boy lying there with the contented smile on his face and the hint of breast milk crusted on his cheek. She sits down in the rocking chair next to the crib. In the filminess of the predawn light, she peers through the slats, watching and listening to each breath he takes.
CHAPTER 29
“Hey,” Claire said as she reached out to relieve her sister’s arms of their Starbucks cargo. “Look at you.” She stood back and took in Jackie’s transformation. “More to the point, who are you?” The unruly brown curls that usually hid her eyes were pulled back into a sleek ponytail. Her freckles were subdued under well-applied makeup; her athletic frame accentuated in a slim skirt and kitten heels. “And when was the last time you wore a skirt?” Claire asked with mock disbelief. “It’s Ralph Lauren, isn’t it?”
“Two years ago. And yes, it’s Ralph.” She twirled through the door. “You gave it to me, remember? I just haven’t had the right occasion for it since our anniversary trip to San Fran with you and the jerk. Ooh, sorry, I mean your husband.”
Claire looked pathetically at her sister. “Don’t, Jax. I don’t want to get sucked into that vortex.”
“Just sayin’ ...”
“That was a fun trip, wasn’t it,” Claire said, lost for a second in memories of the Clift Hotel and Tadiches and toasts to many more years of wedded bliss for all of them.
“I am sorry he’s being such a prick now.” Jackie gave her one of Cora’s vintage “Oh my God can you believe the nerve” harrumphs, followed by a kiss on the cheek.
“Yeah, well ... Anyway, you look très, très chic.”
“I actually got worked up about having lunch with the ladies, and changed three times before I was feeling the vibe. And Steve pinched my ass as I was walking out the door. I think he’d forgotten how well I clean up when I want to.” Jackie looked around the apartment. “I bet I get lucky tonight.”
“You always get lucky.” Claire gave Jackie a pinch with her free hand.
“The place looks nice.”
“Thanks, I’m getting there.” Claire set the tray on the kitchen table. “I told you I was making coffee, why’d you go to Starbucks?”
“Because you told me you were making coffee.”
“Funny.” She put out napkins and placemats, and peeled the wrapper away from a muffin. “I never even had dinner last night.”
“Yeah, so what happened? You weren’t very forthcoming on the phone.”
“Ugh, I’ll give you the abbreviated version. We should probably leave for Gail’s soon.”
Jackie listened as Claire recounted the evening, from the call to Carolyn, to the call from Cora, to her deflating odyssey from drawing room to powder room.
“I like Carolyn,” Jackie said as they closed up the apartment and headed to the elevator. “She was very pleasant to me the two times we were together at your place, but I can’t believe you wandered back into that wasp’s nest thinking there’d be no buzz. It was dumb, Claire. Cosmic dumb.”
Claire pressed the down button, wondering how Cora could still manage to be right, in the middle of being wrong on so many other counts.
The elevator arrived, and Jackie continued her monologue. “The people in that world you lived in obviously don’t give a damn about what you’ve had to manage. Tell me again what, exactly, you were trying to accomplish?”
“I don’t know. I guess I was just hoping that with the time and distance, people would be willing to see me the way they used to—you know, as a human being—and I could try to start my life again. And I needed to not sit around and stew.” They stepped out of the elevator and walked to the Jeep. “But obviously I made another error in judgment.”
“Oh, and there wasn’t some small part of you trying to prove a point to Mother and Michael?”
She turned and looked into Jackie’s big brown don’t-bullshit-me eyes. “Maybe. But at least Gail and Carolyn are willing to give me another shot.”
“Why do you need them to?”
“I need for someone other than you to know I’m not a monster. And I’m tired of living in Siberia. I need friends!”
“They can’t give you absolution, you know.”
“I know, but they’re here for me. They were part of my world, and I want them to understand.” Claire shifted in her seat, trying to make her chafing discomfort disappear.
Jackie shook her head, her ponytail wagging like the pendulum tail of the Felix clock they had in their kitchen when they were kids. “Okay, kiddo. Whatever you say.”
As they made their way down Gail’s cobblestone drive, Jackie’s running commentary about the vast grounds and the evergreen bushes that were fashioned into a maze reminded Claire of the summer they’d cruised the mansions of Piedmont with their mother on weekends—Cora pointing out to them the finer details of moneyed landscape architecture and, best of all, not minding how loud they played the radio with the windows open. While Claire had been more intrigued by the design of the homes themselves, Jackie actually appreciated the garden tour and cultivated a prodigious green thumb by the time school had started in the fall, along with a small crop of pot plants in their bedroom closet.
Claire gazed at her sister’s profile and clung for a moment to that leafy Pat Benatar summer. She parked the car and led Jackie to the entrance of the sculpted hedgerow labyrinth. She started to hum “Love is a Battlefield,” and they walked with their arms linked and Jackie laughing under her breath. The temperature had drifted into the sixties, and any remnants from the frost earlier that week had vanished into the thirsty earth.
“I’m hardly a rube, but wow. Just . . . wow! Gail lives here alone?”
“Oh, God, no.”
Jackie cocked her head as they climbed the steps, sniffing the plump pine twig she’d snipped from a maze bush. “I thought you said she was divorced.”
“She is. Times three. She just has several live-in staff to keep her company.”
“My life is so plebeian.”
“Well, we all have our little trade-offs,” Claire said.
They stepped up to the front door and a uniformed housekeeper showed them in before they had a chance to ring the bell. “Ms. Harrold will be down momentarily. Please make yourselves comfortable in the sunroom.” She led them through the terrazzo marble gallery and into a sunlit room overlooking the backyard terrace and garden. Palm trees arched from celadon fishbowls, and the room’s golden walls gave an illusion of tropical warmth. Floor-to-ceiling windows were draped in cerise satin, and striped pillows in black, white, and crimson dotted nearly every lounge-able piece of furniture.
Claire wandered over to s
everal overstuffed chairs grouped around a leopard-print ottoman, while Jackie continued to soak up the surroundings. “She doesn’t do anything small, this one, does she?”
“Oh, you have no idea,” Gail said, striding into the room in skin-tight black leather pants that evoked visions of a sleek quarter horse. “Hello, ladies. Have a seat.” Gail gathered her long hair into a twist and secured it with a red lacquer comb. “How’re you feeling today, Claire?”
“A little less train-wreck-ish than I did last night. Thank you again for rescuing me.”
Gail kissed her on the forehead. “It was my great pleasure.”
“Do you know my sister, Jackie?”
“Lovely to meet you, Jackie.” Gail picked up a tray of iced tea that had materialized seemingly from nowhere, and handed the drinks to her guests. “Carolyn’s running a few minutes late, so I can tell you that the twenty minutes we spent together in the powder room last night, hon, were the highlight of my evening. It really was not one of her better soirées.” As she spoke, Gail plopped down onto the satin love seat across from Claire and Jackie, and kicked off her velvet flats and tucked her feet under her thighs. “Usually she seats me with some fabulously eligible bachelor, but instead I got Mr. and Mrs. Nigel Boring from London, and of course, Francois the hairdresser. Five minutes into his assessment of my current cut and color, we both realized we’d met about ten years ago at my mother’s house in Montauk, when he was Frank the dog groomer. Needless to say, he was not as charming and entertaining as he might have been.”
“Oh my God,” Jackie said, unable to stop laughing, “I’d love to have seen the look on his face when he was outed.”
“It was fairly priceless. But other than that, no real gossip to report from the front, girls.”
Claire studied the Tabriz rug at her feet. “Did anyone wonder why I left early?”
“Not so much,” Gail replied before deftly turning the focus back to her mother. “Zibby, by the way, sends you her very best, Claire. I spoke to her this morning.”
“That’s sweet. How is my favorite Boston Grande dame?”
“Feisty and wacky as ever. She’s taken to wearing caftans and eating only on paper plates. But still in full jewels.”
“Ah,” Jackie said to Gail, piecing together the puzzle, “so it’s your mother who’s made Claire’s visits with Michael’s parents so entertaining.”
“Yes, and thank God for Zibby.” Claire sighed. “She’s the only person at their club who blows the mustiness off all of that old money on a regular basis.”
As the three women chatted, another housekeeper showed a very pale-faced Carolyn into the sunroom.
“Bit of the cocktail flu?” Gail said under her breath.
Offering apologies for arriving late, Carolyn pecked the air near Claire’s cheek, and then Jackie’s. “It looks like there was a Versace explosion in here. When did you redecorate?”
“Honey, I’m always redecorating.” Gail turned to Jackie. “I’ll give you a little tour of the casa after lunch, if you’d like. And if you think this is over the top, wait till you see my boudoir.”
Jackie’s enthusiastic appraisal of Gail’s home and gardens continued through more pleasantries, and only subsided when Carolyn asked about her children and her teaching job. Claire enjoyed watching her perfectly clad confidante acclimate to the alien surroundings and to her rather alien friends, without judgment. She eyed her sister gratefully. But now she had a job opening for equally nonjudgmental divorce nurses. She surveyed her two candidates, just as Carolyn announced a desperate need for some painkillers to ease a migraine. She also noted Jackie’s poorly concealed shock at their hostess’s quickness to supply a Percodan among a disturbingly varied supply of pharmaceuticals—which she arrayed on the ottoman. Claire huddled deep into the love seat, her mind flashing to Nicky unconscious on the floor.
With fortuitous timing, Lucy arrived with a tray of beluga, smoked salmon, and champagne, alleviating the mounting edginess. “Blinis, anyone?” Gail exclaimed, dipping a mother of pearl caviar spoon into the crème fraîche. Carolyn picked up a flute of the Perrier Jouët, swallowed her Percodan and raised her glass in a toast. “To feeling fabulous—all of us.”
“Didn’t I tell you you’d love it here?” Claire said to her sister with equal amounts of doubt and hope, as they all touched glasses.
Finally, after a lull in the chitchat about farm-raised versus wild salmon and outrageous mothers, Carolyn apologized for the previous evening’s debacle. As she fumbled for the words to express her regret, Gail rescued her with her typical forwardness and turned to Claire.
“Hon,” she said, liberating her enviable hair from the comb, “so what’s the real story with you and Michael? What happened?”
What indeed. Claire smiled the grim smile of a defendant on the witness stand. And knowing that what she had come to this house for would require serious mettle, she downed her champagne and considered where to start and how to make them understand what she was still wrestling with. Jackie raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“I had this friend at the hospital in LA ask me about the happiest times in my marriage,” she started. “And the odd thing was, the question kind of stumped me in that moment. I’d always thought Michael and I had a good marriage. In fact, I never thought we had anything even resembling bad until there was suddenly no marriage at all.” She acknowledged the beauty of their life together while trying to convey that her early sense of feeling connected and vital and exceptional in that life had somehow vanished along the way.
“Oh, sweetie, we all were exceptional,” Carolyn interjected while looking vacantly at her wedding ring. “And then we married men with the need to be even more exceptional, and we disappeared. Welcome to marriage.”
Jackie shot Claire a not so subtle “WTF?” look. But Claire just kept talking, hoping that all of the unexamined feelings that were bubbling up would somehow begin to make sense, at least to her. “I guess I wasn’t prepared for that. And then before I knew it, Nicholas was a teenager and Michael was ready to send him off to Andover. I was so nervous about Nicky’s diabetes and, well, that’s a whole other story. I’m just sort of thinking out loud here, and—”
“That’s exactly what you should be doing, hon,” Gail said, her voice full of froth and encouragement. “Talk therapy is fabulous. And we’re much cheaper than my shrink.”
“Snacks aren’t bad either.” Carolyn refilled Claire’s champagne glass and pushed the caviar and a box of tissues toward her. “We want to help, sweetie. We do.”
Claire took a sip, and bit by bit let flow the gilded emptiness of weeks at a time after Nick had gone and when Michael would be in Asia or off fishing with investors, and she would immerse herself in projects that seemed to need her or take her own jaunts—their once frequent getaways à deux all but a memory in the last couple years. And the way life would sail on as they ran their separate little fiefdoms within their seamlessly decorated world. “I thought we’d avoided the inevitable slow fade because we were busy. But apparently,” she said, looking around the room at her eccentric support group, “it was happening right in front of my closed eyes.”
Carolyn clenched her jaw in what seemed like woeful recognition. Gail looked as if she’d eaten a bad mouthful of caviar. And Jackie, who maintained perfect posture as she clasped Claire’s hand, managed to appear both uptight and regally hopeful. For a second, Claire found herself reflecting on the absurdity of this scene that she never could have written. She also found herself surging with emotion.
“And that’s just it,” she continued, snapping everyone from their suspended animation. “I think my eyes were closed. All those years I assumed that because Michael and I didn’t really argue, and because we enjoyed each other’s company when we were together, and of course because of Nicky, that we’d created this solid, happy family. You keep telling yourself that things are fine, even when they’re not great because something lovely will happen that allows you to erase a month or a y
ear of whatever’s been prickly or not so perfect.”
“Ah, yes,” Gail said meaningfully. “The little white lies we tell ourselves. It’s much nicer that way.”
Claire nodded for a moment, digesting this. “And when that sense of loneliness or invisibility would sneak in, I’d feel like a jerk for having negative thoughts. I mean, you can’t unroll your yoga mat without hitting some other privileged midlifer mourning the loss of her bliss these days, right? It’s such an embarrassing cliché.”
“But if it helps, midlife is the new thirty, hon.”
“I don’t feel old,” Claire struggled. “Looking back, I feel like I was . . . disappearing. Along with whatever intimacy we’d had.” She was as surprised by her choice of description as by its feeling of accuracy.
Jackie turned to her with her authoritative teacher’s look. “You know, Claire, people can’t maintain intimacy if they’re not present or engaged in their spouse’s—”
“Oh, I can totally relate to that, sweetie,” Carolyn cut in. “Robert’s a little light on the ‘tell me your thoughts on the lack of equality for Muslim women’ comments and the ‘you look gorgeous’s these days, too. We become shadows of who we were. Afterthoughts. And I can see how you might have needed some presence or validation from another man,” she added, clearly trying to cut to the chase on the Andrew portion of the story.
Claire let the napkin she’d been twisting in her hands fall to the couch, and walked over to the patio door to marshal her thoughts. The winter sun sparkled on the leaded panes, and she leaned into the door frame thinking about how hard she’d worked to make things so comfortable over the years, and wondering how she’d allowed herself to believe the everything is fine fiction of it all. The women waited as she watched a squirrel nibble at something small and green, rolling it round and around in its paws. Jackie’s words about being present echoed in her head. Michael hadn’t been present, not emotionally present, for over a year—since around the time of Nicky’s birthday, which, as she really thought about it, marked the beginnings of the subtle shifts from normal, pleasant Michael, to edgy and detached Michael—and which seemed to have intensified after the accident. She hadn’t spent much time considering this, or her own lack of presence within their marriage. Probably because the little white lies were much easier to fall asleep to. The squirrel, now watching her with a cocked head, stashed its bounty in his cheek, widened its eyes as if to say Wake up! and scampered off. She exhaled heavily.
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