“I don’t believe that,” Kay said. “Young people are not mature enough to make sensible decisions, what with all those raging hormones. It’s only natural that mistakes are made.”
“I’ve never forgiven myself for what I did to you,” he said. “And I never forgave her, either.”
“The Bible says we’re supposed to forgive those who trespass against us,” Kay said. “You can’t hold hatred in your heart like that; it will poison your whole life.”
“I never cheated on her,” he said. “Our marriage was never good, was barely tolerable, but I didn’t run out on her and Tina, even though I wanted to.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Kay said.
“We were never a real family,” he said. “She didn’t seem to like being a mother and Tina certainly felt that. My daughter was closer to my mother than she was to her own mother.”
“I’m sorry to hear you were so unhappy.”
“You never married.”
“I should have left Rose Hill,” Kay said. “I might have met someone then.”
“You dated that guy from Pendleton for a long time,” he said. “I thought you might marry him.”
“After Shug retired, he wanted to move to Florida,” Kay said. “It basically came down to the facts that I don’t like golf and I can’t leave Rose Hill. I’m like a plant with deep roots; it would probably kill me to transplant me.”
“I’ve never stopped thinking of you,” he said. “All these years, it should have been me and you together.”
“I think things turn out like they should.”
“They can now, you mean.”
“I’m sorry,” Kay said. “That wasn’t what I meant. I’ve accepted what happened. I’ve had a good life.”
“Alone, though.”
“I took care of my parents for many years, and I’ve taken care of the town. I’ve had my foster kids, and now I have Grace,” she said. “That’s enough for me.”
“It’s a shame you’ve had to work,” he said. “If you’d married me, you could have stayed home and taken care of our house and our children.”
“Even if I had married, I would’ve expected my husband would want me to do what made me happy. Many women enjoy caring for children and a home, and I might have been one of them. As it turned out, I had to work. I’m not sorry about that. I’ve enjoyed taking care of this town, and I’m damn good at it. I wouldn’t give that up for any man.”
“Sonny wouldn’t mind,” Matt said with contempt. “He’s what they call a progressive. If it were up to him, we’d have homosexuals running around flaunting themselves in front of decent people and innocent children. No one would stay married; Rose Hill would be like Sodom and Gomorrah.”
“I’m not going to talk about Sonny with you,” Kay said. “But I am disappointed to hear you talk that way. Gay or straight, all people have the potential to be good, bad, or indifferent. Sexual preference is just one aspect of a person’s personality.”
“But they’re depraved.”
“Homosexuals don’t do anything in the bedroom that heterosexual people don’t do, and if you don’t believe me, look it up on the Internet,” Kay said. “Just because you’re squeamish about someone else’s sex life doesn’t give you the right to condemn it. As long as it’s between consenting adults it’s no one’s business but their own.”
“The Bible says homosexuality is an abomination.”
“The Bible says eating shellfish is an abomination,” Kay said, “but I notice you sell a lot of shrimp at the IGA.”
Kay took a deep breath and attempted to calm herself. Of all the things she didn’t expect to do today, debating LGBT rights with her high school sweetheart had to be near the top of the list. It was pointless. Besides the fact that their confirmation bias was like a brick wall between them, arguing about Bible interpretation never swayed anyone.
“Let’s stop this,” she said. “I don’t want to argue with you.”
“You didn’t used to be like this,” he said. “You used to look up to me.”
“I was sixteen years old, for goodness sake,” Kay said. “Over the years I’ve learned to make up my own mind rather than let someone else make it up for me.”
“Don’t marry Sonny.”
“Who says I’m going to marry Sonny?”
“I know he’s going to ask you,” Matt said. “He told our mother that he thought you’d make a wonderful wife.”
“And I would,” she said, “but I don’t have plans to marry anybody right now. My life is complicated enough.”
“Just wait six months,” Matt said. “Enough time so that it won’t look bad if we start to see each other. I never stopped loving you, Kay. Don’t you still love me?”
There was a knock on the door, and Kay was relieved that she didn’t have to answer him.
“I hope I’m not late,” Claire said as she entered the house.
As soon as she saw Matt, Claire stopped and her eyes widened.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can come back later.”
“No,” Kay said. “It’s fine. Matt was just leaving.”
Matt didn’t look as if he planned on leaving, and his frown indicated he wasn’t happy to be interrupted. He stood up, and used the tissue Kay had provided to wipe his eyes and blow his nose.
“I’ll talk to you later,” he said to Kay.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Claire said as he passed her on his way out.
Matt compressed his lips, nodded, and then left.
Kay put her hand to her abdomen and took a deep breath.
“Thank you, Claire, for showing up when you did,” she said.
“What’s going on?”
“He needed to talk,” Kay said, “and as his friend, I’m happy to listen, but he’s got some pretty unrealistic expectations.”
“What did he say?”
Kay shook her head.
“Let’s eat,” she said.
Kay had assembled some delicious-looking chicken salad-filled croissants along with a colorful green lettuce salad. They carried their food, along with two glasses of iced tea, to the front porch. They sat down, and Kay took another deep breath.
“I don’t know if I can eat,” she said. “He’s got me that riled up.”
“This is so good,” Claire said, as soon as she had swallowed her first bite. “If it would help to talk about it, I’d be glad to listen.”
“As far as Matt’s concerned,” Kay said, “we’re still the same people we were in high school.”
“You mean his wife just died and he’s already asked you out?”
“Pretty much,” Kay said.
“Oh, my Lord,” Claire said. “They haven’t even buried her yet.”
“I know,” Kay said. “It looks terrible, doesn’t it? He wants me to promise to wait six months so that a decent period of time can pass before we date.”
“What do you think?”
“Quite frankly, I’m appalled,” Kay said. “It made me sick at my stomach and all I could think was that I wanted him to leave. Then we argued about Sonny and also, I think, about Anthony, although he wasn’t explicitly mentioned. I was so glad to see you. It saved me from having to hurt his feelings.”
“It does seem kind of tacky that he ran right over here the day after they found his wife’s body,” Claire said.
“Grief hits people in different ways,” Kay said. “Maybe this is a temporary insanity.”
“That’s very generous of you,” Claire said. “It sounds more to me like he’s missing a sensitivity gene in his DNA.”
“I’ve spent years telling myself that if it weren’t for Diedre, Matt and I could have been happy together,” Kay said. “Now that it’s a real possibility, I should feel something positive, shouldn’t I?”
“I don’t know,” Claire said. “I’d have trouble getting past the tacky part, myself.”
“That was unfortunate,” Kay said. “He couldn’t have waited a while?”
“Except
his brother would have the jump on him.”
“Sonny may not be interested in me that way.”
“I saw the way he looked at you at dinner,” Claire said. “He’s smitten.”
“I don’t kid myself about things like that,” Kay said. “Look at me.”
She gestured to her body’s generous proportions.
“You’re too hard on yourself, so you think everyone else is, too,” Claire said. “I’m telling you, I know smitten when I see it, and Sonny Delvecchio’s got it bad.”
“He’s always been so sweet to me,” Kay said. “I just never thought of him in that way until this past week. Now I expect him to show up every morning.”
“And he keeps coming back,” Claire said. “See?”
“There’s too much going on right now,” Kay said. “I can’t deal with this, as well.”
“That’s how life is,” Claire said. “You’ve heard about the calm before the storm? Well, smell the ozone, sweetie.”
“People are already spreading less than flattering gossip about me, thanks to Marigold,” Kay said. “This would delight her no end.”
“So tell them both to back off,” Claire said. “You don’t have to decide anything right now.”
“You’re right,” Kay said. “I know you’re right.”
“Don’t let Matt pressure you,” Claire said. “If he’s half the man you’ve imagined him to be, he’ll honor your request.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Kay said. “I do feel better, thank you, Claire.”
Kay took a big bite of her croissant and rolled her eyes over how good it tasted.
“I do love my own cooking,” she said. “Thanks for giving me an excuse to cook and for listening to all my silly problems.”
“Glad to be of service,” Claire said. “Now it’s my turn; let’s do me.”
“Have you heard any more about Eve’s, um, delicate condition?”
“It’s not his,” Claire said, and then told her what she had found out about Eve’s affair.
“What are you going to do?”
“I haven’t completely solidified my plans,” Claire said. “Somehow I’ve got to get her to confess it to him, otherwise she’ll deny it and I’ll just look like a sore loser.”
“He’s got to know she wasn’t celibate while they’ve been apart.”
“But he never bothered to get divorced from her, so maybe this is fulfilling some subconscious wish he had.”
“Until he knows the truth, Ed will stand by her, right or wrong,” Kay said.
“Don’t I know it,” Claire said. “That’s the reason it will probably never work out for us.”
“Why is that?”
Claire paused.
“I had kind of an adventurous life after I left Rose Hill,” Claire said.
“Well, of course you did,” Kay said. “You weren’t living in a convent. I imagine life in Hollywood is pretty wild sometimes.”
“Wild doesn’t even begin to describe it,” Claire said. “Even so, I think Ed has kind of an unrealistically romantic view of women in general, and of me, in particular.”
“Sounds familiar,” Kay said. “You could be describing most men over the age of forty in this town.”
“He had kind of a crush on me in high school.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“I know that was a long time ago and people change, but I meant something to him then, and it’s like I’m finally in a place where I’m ready to reciprocate his feelings.”
“It’s wonderful you found each other again after all this time,” Kay said. “It’s very romantic, very chick lit.”
“Let me ask you this,” Claire said. “Do you think you owe the entire truth about your history to the man you love?”
“That’s not an easy question,” Kay said. “I don’t have much of a history, so I can’t say it has ever come up.”
“I truly believe that if I told Ed everything I did after I left Rose Hill, the people I was involved with and the situations I got into, he would think less of me.”
“The more important question is how do you think of you?”
“I wish I had done some things differently,” Claire said. “But honest to God, I was just doing the best I could with the brains I had at the time.”
“You were so young.”
“And naive,” Claire said. “I thought I could be in that world but not of it, do you know what I mean?”
“I think so,” Kay said. “If you believe that about Ed, he probably isn’t the one for you. But are you absolutely sure?”
Claire shrugged.
“Meanwhile,” she said. “I told Laurie the whole story and he didn’t even blink.”
“I wondered how that was going.”
“He’s coming over for dinner tonight,” Claire said. “I told him Dad probably wouldn’t remember him, but he wants to come.”
“I’ve known Laurie for a long time,” Kay said. “He was so sweet with his first wife, the one who died. They had their problems, like everyone, but they were so devoted to each other.”
“No wonder he went off the deep end after she died.”
“I have faith in Laurie,” Kay said. “It seems like he has the drinking under control, and I think this new job will be good for him. A new start in a new place is sometimes the best medicine for a broken heart.”
“That’s a dangerous stage for a man to be in,” Claire said. “I don’t want to be his transitional woman.”
“He just divorced his transitional woman,” Kay said. “I think you might be right on time.”
When Claire got back to the office, Pip was not waiting outside, but Eldridge Inn owner Gwyneth Eldridge was. Dressed like the wealthy high society lady she considered herself to be, Gwyneth was attired in the current popular style of preppy clothes that looked too small for her already gaunt frame. From her small, tailored handbag to her tassled two-tone loafers, Gwyneth could have passed for one of the visiting Eldridge students’ irritated, self-entitled mothers.
“I suppose it’s too much to ask for you to post when you’ll be back when you leave for lunch,” Gwyneth said in her snide nasal whine, as she looked at her small, tasteful watch. “I’ve been waiting quite a while.”
“What can I do for you, Gwyneth?”
Claire unlocked the door and held it open for her. Gwyneth walked past with an exaggerated lean away from Claire, as if she were terrified of catching river cooties. She then wrinkled up her nose at the interior of the office, looked for a place to sit, and when nothing was deemed clean enough to place her rear upon, she crossed her arms and cocked her hip instead.
“I’m looking for someone to set up and manage a real spa in the basement of the Inn,” she said. “I thought you might be interested in the position.”
“No, but thank you for considering me,” Claire said, as politely as she could.
“You’d rather do this, then,” Gwyneth stated, with a curled lip.
“I’m doing this as a favor to my cousin,” Clair said. “I’ve applied for a position at Eldridge, so I’m waiting to hear from them.”
“As a secretary?”
Her incredulity was insulting, as was her obviously low opinion of secretaries.
“In the drama department,” Claire said. “Teaching theater students how to do hair and makeup.”
“Oh,” Gwyneth said. “I guess that makes sense.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” Claire said.
“I could pay you more,” Gwyneth said.
“I appreciate the offer,” Claire said, “but I’m committed to Eldridge.”
“I need someone immediately,” Gwyneth said. “I’ve got a writer’s group coming in September for a retreat and I told them I had a spa. That temporary tent thing in the basement is not going to cut it with these people. They’re expecting walls.”
Last month Claire had designed and erected a temporary spa space in the Inn’s basement for a weekend seminar Gwyneth was hosting. With only
twenty-four hours of advance notice, Claire had created what she thought looked like an ethereal angel camp, using white sheets and mood lighting to create private individual massage spaces. It was fine for a weekend, but wasn’t meant to be used long term. A scandal had interrupted the seminar, and as if it had somehow been her fault, Gwyneth had never paid Claire for the work.
“I’m sorry,” Claire said. “I’ve committed to do this until Sean comes back and then I’ll start at the college. I don’t have time to do it for you.”
“You could work in the evenings.”
“I’m sorry, Gwyneth, but I can’t do it,” Claire said. “I hope you can find someone.”
“I don’t see why you couldn’t work on it in the evenings and on weekends,” Gwyneth said. “I could pay you quite a bit.”
“I’m turning you down, Gwyneth,” Claire said. “I know that’s not what you want to hear but it’s not about money. I just flat out don’t want to do it.”
“I can’t believe you people,” Gwyneth said, before she left in a huff. “You can’t even pay people to work in this town.”
Claire bit her lip and resisted the urge to follow her out in order to tell her exactly what she thought of rich brats who return to Rose Hill and expect everyone to bow down and lick their loafers.
‘You people,’ Claire thought. ‘What nerve. I wouldn’t work for that woman if I were flat broke and she had the last job in town.’
Claire then had another thought. What if Gwyneth sabotaged her job prospects at Eldridge? She was on the board of trustees, after all. Claire called the human resources department and left another message, asking them to call her. She wanted some reassurance that this position was actually going to happen.
Claire had quite a bit of money saved and invested, both from the sale of her California condo and the large sum she had earned while working for Sloan Merryweather. If she was careful about spending, she could live on the interest, probably for the rest of her life. That is, if she quit ordering expensive shoes that she would probably never wear; that wasn’t going to be easy. Just thinking about not shopping made her want to shop, made her feel deprived and pitiful. There was no harm in looking around for a while, she thought, as she opened the browser on the computer. She didn’t have to buy anything. Besides, she might have missed a new mark-down while she was at lunch.
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