by Pam Lewis
Here at Naomi’s party it was a peculiar crowd. There were women with little diamond tennis bracelets on, admiring the renovations, turning over the china and looking at the marques. And their husbands in navy blazers and gray slacks, rocking on their heels. The women lit up at seeing Carole and finding out she was somehow related to this sudden, colorful new presence in town. The Weaver-Lears were all there, hanging around the edges of the room and watching, chatting to one another. Morgan had on his plaid Nehru jacket from the Saturnalia dinner, and Rachel was in her usual dark layers and bells. Nobody else was talking to them. Pepper stood by the window, watching Naomi.
Carole should have predicted that Naomi would be more interested in upscale people. The ladies who lunch. The wives of the insurance executives, the doctors, the lawyers in town, and those other shadowy figures—people with summerhouses and ski chalets up here. Not many, but they were out there. She’d have no interest in the patrons of Chacha’s, who were poor and who, excepting the Weaver-Lears, were conspicuously absent.
Naomi pushed Carole and Will into a nest of people like a couple of prize show-dogs. “We went to school together! Imagine! We were like this!” Naomi held up a hand with two fingers wrapped together. “And then Carole just dropped out of sight, and bingo! Here she surfaces in Montpelier, Vermont, of all places. I could hardly believe it! I would never in a million years have expected it. I mean, if you knew her when, well, you’d never have believed it. She was actually chunky!”
One of the wives stepped right up. “Chacha’s is just fabulous,” she told the others. “Really funky.” She gave Carole a warm glance as though she had fond memories of the place, when Carole knew she’d never set foot in it.
Naomi dug her nails into Carole’s arm and dragged her off to meet a little gaggle of doctors from the Barre hospital. The energy in the room had a frantic quality to it. Everybody was talking at once, their voices rising to be heard so they were almost shouting at one another. When Naomi raced off to talk to somebody else, Carole looked around. Will had somehow managed to escape and was over talking to Morgan and Rachel.
She snaked her way through the crowd. When someone tried to engage her in conversation, she just pointed to the corner of the room where she was headed, apologetically, as if someone was waiting there and she had to go. She landed among them finally. They had staked out a spot between the kitchen and the dining area. They were all sharing a plate heaped with hors d’oeuvres. Carole pushed into their midst.
“Try this,” Rachel said, offering her the plate. Carole shook her head. “They get it from someplace in New York. That woman over there.” Carole turned to see who she meant. A stout woman stood at the kitchen counters. In front of her were dozens of white containers in all sizes that she was emptying onto plates. She was dressed in yellow silk pajamas, and her hair was cut in a long shag. She looked up just as they were all looking at her. Her face broke into a smile, and she waved. A few seconds later she pushed through the crowd toward them. “Zoë,” she said with a long, dramatic sigh. “I’m Naomi’s friend from New York. I’m just exhausted. Slave labor. Think I’ll take a break.” She looked around at them. “I’ll bet you’re Carole.”
Carole nodded.
Zoë clapped her hands. “Naomi has done nothing but talk about you for months. I just knew it had to be you. God, you two must have had a ball as kids.”
She leaned into the group conspiratorially. “If you ask me, this is a mistake. Not that you have asked me, but Naomi in this godforsaken place? She’s absolutely undone by the divorce, of course. That bastard. Baxter the bastard. The great white bastard, I call him.” She glanced at Will. “Oh, sorry,” she said. “But he’s a prick to just walk that way. Naomi fell apart. Completely went to pieces. Which is the only way I can even begin to make sense of this move up here. Now Stowe or Sugarbush, I could understand for a few months of the year, but this? But, you know, she kept talking about you, about how close you two were as girls. And she had this thing about coming up here. You’ve been immensely helpful. She talks about you all the time. Introducing her around and all.”
“I haven’t done a thing,” Carole said. “I discouraged her from coming.”
Zoë burst out laughing. “Well, I know that, but I mean once Naomi makes a decision …” She looked around the room. “And just look at all the friends she’s made so far. I mean, she hasn’t even been here a month. Well, maybe that. But hardly at all, and just look. She fits right in, doesn’t she? She’s the kind of person who can fit in anywhere. I’m so jealous.”
“You’ve known her a long time?” Will asked
Zoë nodded. “Oh, yes. Last year. We met at my exercise club. I was going through exactly the same thing. Dumped, if you can believe it, after almost ten years. We’re like sisters,” she said. “We’re soul mates.” She gave Carole a light swat on the knee. “Which is why I’m just so excited to meet you. We can all be soul mates together, right?”
“Me too?” Rachel winked at Carole.
“Of course, yes,” Zoë said.
Rachel pointed to one of the bits of food on the plate. “You know what’s in these?”
“Not a clue,” Zoë said. “She ordered it all from Panky’s, this place on Third. I brought it up with me. Picked it up frozen yesterday. Well, my traveling companion picked it up, and I picked him up. Everybody in the city has them cater their parties. It’s, like, you don’t miss the party if Panky’s is doing the food.”
Naomi pushed herself into their circle. “Did I hear Panky’s? You having fun? I see you’ve met Zoë. My compadre. We’ve been in the trenches together, haven’t we, Zoë baby?”
“Where did you find all these people?” Rachel said. “Such a mishmash.”
Naomi flashed a bright smile. “You’ve got to be social in a new place,” she said. “When I meet people I like, I just hand them an invitation. It’s as simple as that. Of course, now that they’re here, now that I’ve had a chance to talk to them all”—she raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips—“I see I’ve made some mistakes.”
It made them all look out onto the room, wondering who she might mean.
“See that guy over there in those awful pants?” Naomi pointed to Jim Sawyer, a great tree trunk of a man with bristly hair. He had on red slacks and a plaid jacket. Everyone knew his son had died of leukemia just months ago. He gave them a little shy wave when they all turned to look. “Total bore,” Naomi said. “He’s off the list next time.”
“They want to know what’s in these things.” Zoë popped a round doughy-looking thing into her mouth. She chewed reflectively. “I’d say fish or something like that. All I know is, it’s good.”
“I never ask,” Naomi said. “I just said to send their best, and they did. Not like that dreadful little market in town. The Sanford Market. Those guys don’t know shit from shinola, and they’re all so bloody old. Ick.”
Zoë passed the plate to Morgan, who helped himself to a handful of the canapés. “I bet you can eat whatever you want and never get fat,” she said with a sigh, popping another into her mouth.
“Oops, someone new has just arrived.” Naomi withdrew and was gone in an instant.
“She’s such a good hostess, isn’t she?” Zoë said. “Always presiding. Like Leona Helmsley in those ads, you know? Where the queen stands guard.”
“Oh, please,” Carole said.
“But she’s fabulous. Talk about a woman on her own. Now that woman really puts the b in bitch. In a good way.”
Carole wasn’t sure if Zoë was talking about Naomi or Leona Helmsley. She would have asked perversely, but a deep laugh from behind interrupted their conversation.
She turned to look, and there he was. Oh, God. Eddie, beefy in a brown velvet suit with wide lapels, smiling at her with perfect white teeth, leaning in to kiss her cheek, reeking of cologne. She pulled away, but he slid his hand up her back and gripped her shoulder. He extended his other hand first to Morgan and then to Rachel. “Ed Lindbaeck,” he said, leanin
g closer against her. “I knew Carole in New York.”
The room rolled and pitched like a ship, and she felt that tumbling sense of seasickness. She would have rushed for the bathroom, but she was fixed in place as she watched Rachel lean in and shake Eddie’s hand, her attention fully on his face with a peculiar curiosity that was way too big, that had to be recognition. Carole had a vision of that night in the van and Rachel in the dark, with Pepper on her lap saying, I hope he gets killed.
Now Rachel’s face twisted in pain, her mouth opened wide, and she let out a shrill sound that turned heads. Her hand flew up, but not at Eddie. She was bent over, grasping at her hair and her ears, and only then did Carole see that Dylan, who was in his Gerry pack on Rachel’s back, must have pulled Rachel’s hair or her earrings. Rachel swung away from them, with Morgan following to help.
Eddie turned to Will. “We go back, Carole and me,” he said. Further than you, was the implication. “She’s surprised to see me.”
Carole couldn’t catch her breath. He was digging his fingers one by one into her back in some sort of secret code. She shifted to her other foot and tried to step away, but his hand tightened and he drew her closer. He slid his thumb between her arm and her side, pressing the side of her breast. His whispered breath was hot in her ear. “Haven’t we fucked before?”
“Hey, man.” Will took a step toward Eddie. He couldn’t have heard, but he had eyes.
“He’s just—” Carole said to Will, trying to laugh it off. Don’t make a scene, she thought. Not here, not now. Eddie could say anything. In the kitchen, Naomi was watching, her eyes glassy and dangerous. She made her way toward them.
For Carole, everything was happening in slow motion now. She was trying to figure it out. Him and Naomi. It had to be. Nothing had ever come between them, not even Bax. Eddie’s hand slid down her side and rested on her hip. She took a deep breath to steady herself just as Naomi pushed her way in between them. Her smile was huge and her eyes bright and wet. “You guys.” She clapped her hands. “I can’t begin to tell you what a treat this is.” And then to the others who were watching, to Will in particular, “We all knew each other in school.”
“Let’s have a toast.” Eddie filled Naomi’s glass. “Anyone else?” Nobody did. Carole sought out Rachel and found her sitting down with the baby on her lap, doing up her hair. So she hadn’t recognized Eddie. She didn’t know. Eddie held his own glass up and smiled at Naomi, then touched the glass to his lips but didn’t drink, while Naomi took a long swallow. He caught Carole’s eye briefly and winked. The implication was that he was helpless to stop Naomi. Carole turned to make her way across the room for the door. She felt a hand grab her elbow, turned, and saw Naomi looking up at her, the gold turban tipped and catching the light. Naomi dug her fingers deep into Carole’s flesh. “Be happy for me.”
“I don’t believe this, Naomi. How could you bring him up here? It’s bad enough with just you, but him!”
“Don’t be pissed, Carole. Please don’t be!” She gave Carole a big smile and shimmied her head stupidly.
“You’re so drunk, Naomi. You’re disgusting.” Carole tried to pull away but was startled when Naomi held on tight. “Let go of me.”
“No,” Naomi said, so loudly that people near them turned to look. “I’m not drunk. If you think this is drunk, you should stick around. Let’s sit down.”
She pulled Carole to a pair of chairs in the corner. Carole looked back at the party to see Eddie and Will still in the circle with Zoë and the Weaver-Lears. “Say you’re not mad, Carole.” Naomi seemed dead sober all of a sudden. “You were my only friend, you know. The only real friend I ever had. With everybody else it was always just take take take.” She smiled a little. “Even Eddie, but I forgive him for that. It’s not like he’s trying to hide it or anything. But never you. You’ve never asked for a thing from me.”
“Sure I have. I asked you not to come up here.”
Naomi shrugged as if that didn’t count. She went on. It was as though she’d rehearsed this. “You were such a brain at school. You could have hung out with the preppie crowd. With Amanda and them. They’d have taken you in like that.” She tried to snap her fingers but fumbled it. “It was because of me you didn’t. You were a real friend.” Carole didn’t think that was true at all. Naomi kept talking. “Even Elayne and Daddy. I was just an annoyance to them. Elayne actually said that once. And you know what else? Bax made a deal with them. A deal! There I was thinking it was love at first sight on the Madison Avenue bus one day, but no way. Elayne set it up. She told him where I was going to be. And sure enough he comes up to me and starts talking. It was this deal for money. Like a lot of it. He never loved me. Didn’t even like me. That whole Cartier thing I told you was true, but it wasn’t the reason we got the divorce. No, sir. We got divorced because Bax never meant to hang around in the first place.”
She bit her lip. “I came up here to find you. Eddie was against it, if you must know. He only came because I came.”
“He should have stayed away.”
Naomi pulled herself up and tossed her hair. “I hate to say it and all, but, well, Carole, you owe me. I kept my mouth shut about what happened, and I’m always going to keep it shut. Anyway, here I am. How bad can I be? And anyway I don’t know what you have against him anyway. All he ever did was try to help you.”
Eddie suddenly appeared. “What are you girls talking about?” He leaned down to kiss Naomi, smiling at Carole. She remembered the two of them that night, their gray shadows coming together outside the motel. It must have been going on for years with them. He whispered into Carole’s hair. “You be careful.” She remembered with a shiver of disgust how he’d pushed himself inside her. She stood, and immediately Will was there too, an arm around her waist.
“Let’s go,” Will said.
She let him pull her through the room by the hand, and as they went, faces blurred together. By the door, she dug through the pile of coats for her parka and finally found it. She and Will were heading for the car when she heard Naomi clatter down the icy path behind them in her high heels. “Hey,” she cried, lurching and reeling toward them, the white sleeves of her caftan billowing like a ghost. “We’re on for that thing, right?” she called out. “That ski thing?”
Will revved the motor and maneuvered his way through the ragged line of cars parked down the driveway to the road. He drove for several minutes, then pulled over. It was bitter outside, and their breath soon frosted the windows. “What’s going on? That guy was all over you.”
“Who?”
“You know who. That guy from New York. What is he, an old boyfriend or something?”
“Naomi’s,” she said. “You don’t think—”
“He had his hand on your ass.”
“My arm.”
“His hand was on your ass, Cha. You let him keep it there. I’ve seen guys at the bar get clocked if they got too close. Just tell me what’s going on, okay?”
She remembered the oily weight of Eddie’s arm on her shoulder. The way he let his arm slip down her back. Her paralysis as he did it. Sometimes in Chacha’s men would come on to her. Usually they just said things to her, waiting to see if she’d ratchet it up, and when she didn’t, they let it go. But once in a while a guy might try something physical, and she’d let him have it right away. An elbow, a hip. With Eddie she’d been afraid even to move away. If she’d shrugged off his arm, he’d have raised his voice, attracted the attention of everyone there. Bad enough that he told Will he’d known her and Naomi years ago.
“I need you to believe this, Will. It’s nothing. Nothing like that. I knew him briefly in New York. He was Naomi’s boyfriend then, before she married Bax. I let him keep his hand on my shoulder for Naomi’s sake. She likes him. She said she loves him. I didn’t want to make a scene. I’m telling the truth.”
Chapter Sixteen
FEBRUARY 28, 1976
At four o’clock Carole stood on the deck to check the weather. She had on a p
urple bathrobe over sweats, a stocking cap, and Will’s slippers over two pairs of thick socks. She shifted her weight, and the snow crunched underfoot. Ten to fifteen degrees, she figured from the sound. It was a promising kind of night. There was no wind, and the sky was an opaque blue, draining to turquoise. It would be a brilliant, starry night, the visibility perfect. In the weeks since the party, Naomi had called four times. Will had taken the calls, and Naomi’s questions had been about what to bring. She already had the best skis, bindings, and poles, but she wanted his advice on the kind of pack, how to layer, whether to bring a compass. She was buying everything brand new, no doubt. The calls eased things between Will and Carole. The more he talked to Naomi, the more he thought Naomi was a dipstick. Not somebody he would have picked out as Carole’s friend, even from a long time ago. But their unresolved discussion about Eddie still hung in the air between them. Once Carole had asked Will whether Naomi had mentioned anything about Eddie. She’d tried to sound nonchalant, but her voice gave something away. Will had suggested that if she was so damned interested, she should call Naomi herself, and she’d said, as lightly as she was able, “Oh, come on, Will, please,” as if it was all in his imagination. She’d felt an awful mix of guilt and relief when he’d said he was sorry. The truth was, she was stuck. Nothing was safe anymore. She had no idea about Eddie—where he was or what he was doing.
A pair of headlights came over the hill in the distance. The car disappeared for a few moments, then reappeared, more slowly than before. She could see the car turn in the drive. She wasn’t ready yet. She went back into the house.