The pitfalls of the job were outweighed not only by the paycheck but also by the fact that it met his lone requirement, which happened to be at odds with his line of work and overall skill set: It required no creativity whatsoever. He could no longer have conjured his imagination even if he’d tried. At five o’clock sharp, he would walk home and sit on the wraparound porch with a beer, slouched down as if he could blend into the painted wood behind him. Winter was coming, but he hardly felt the cold. Usually, he had the whole big house to himself, though occasionally the sound of an acoustic guitar would drift faintly down from the free spirits upstairs if they weren’t working one of their odd-hour, odd-job shifts. He’d watch people walk by—to and from the nearby sports bar, the cafés, the drugstore, the wine cellar—and feel both more and less lonely. They’d stroll past with their dogs or their drinking buddies or their reusable shopping bags or their steaming carriers of takeout, and their laughter looked like a luxury. He wished to be any of them, anyone but him.
Finn went into the spare bedroom, where he’d left his button-down cooling on the ironing board. Even this apartment was much too big for only him—it made his head shake if he let himself think too hard about the fact that this was only a third of the building that Caitlin and George had mortgaged for no reason other than to make their own house look better. He alone had three bedrooms and two baths. But who was he to point fingers at their excess? It was keeping a roof over his head. They’d reluctantly agreed to let him start paying rent, but it was way below what they could surely get for this space, Finn knew. He didn’t have the energy to argue. He was happy to be giving them something so it didn’t feel like a handout, but he knew George’s pity wouldn’t go away anytime soon.
Finn and Caitlin had reached this easy balance, talking but not talking, passing time together without consciously spending the time together. But it was a few months in now, and he’d still barely seen George, who had been closing some kind of big-deal acquisition. It was finally done, and he’d be around more now—not all the time, but definitely more. Hence the dinner invitation. This one had come from George himself, standing in his driveway, volleying with Finn across the lawns about the UC Bearcats’ season. And that had made it harder to decline.
Finn carried the shirt back to his bedroom, where he stepped into his nicest pair of dark jeans and laced up his suede Vans. Though he already knew he was going to feel underdressed, he worried that dressing up any more would make him look like a teenage delinquent summoned to the headmaster’s office for a chat. He grabbed a bouquet of flowers he’d had the presence of mind to pick up, and without bothering to lock the door behind him, headed across the lawn.
* * *
Caitlin was laughing so hard at George’s story that Finn was reminded of the Caitlin he’d been drawn to back when they were in school together. The Caitlin who baked cookies for her friends when they were having bad days and brought them all homemade noodle soup when they got sick—even in the dorms, where there was a communal kitchenette on each floor that no one else ever used—but who also would swear like a sailor and tell the raunchiest jokes of any girl he’d ever met when she got drunk. This Caitlin was sweet and generous and good at everything she did, a class act with a charming irreverent streak, but above all she was fun. It was jarring to him to see her laugh this way and to realize that the woman who’d been sitting subdued next to him on the couch for months was in fact his fun-loving friend just waiting for an occasion to burst back out. And apparently having George back in town and Finn over for a fancy dinner and maybe one too many glasses of her perfectly paired wine was it.
George’s last trip had wrapped with a couple of days in Singapore, and he was explaining that his colleague—not one of his favorite travel companions, a guy with a “thick, straight stick up his ass,” as George had put it—had left his sunglasses in the seatback on the airplane and ended up buying some Dolce and Gabbana knockoffs from a peddler.
“So we get into the buffet line for lunch and he slides the sunglasses up on his head and starts helping himself—some fruit, some salad, some bread—and the jackass is completely oblivious of the fact that he’s got these smeared black circles where the sunglasses touched his skin. Like the old shoe-polish-on-the-binoculars trick. The spray paint on these things wasn’t even dry!”
This was too much for Caitlin, who slapped her knee and sank her forehead onto the tablecloth, where she was soundlessly laughing so hard she was shaking the whole big farmhouse table. Finn laughed too, more at Caitlin than at the story. She let out something between a squeak and a snort, and he laughed harder. George looked pleased with himself, as if he thought he owed it to his wife to entertain her after so many days away. Finn caught his eye, and George smiled at him the way two parents might share a glance over a child they equally adored. Finn shifted in his seat.
Caitlin raised her head and wiped tears from beneath her eyes with her napkin. She lifted the bottle of wine to gauge how much was left. It was their second, and they’d put a pretty good dent in it. “Should we finish this up, or bring out some port with dessert?”
A fog was settling over Finn’s brain just the way he liked it—enough to dull his constant pain, his misplaced jealousy toward his happily married hosts, and his guilt over feeling that way toward people who were surely better friends than he deserved. He raised his glass and Caitlin topped him off.
“What’s dessert?” George asked. Caitlin never skimped on the last course—not that she’d skimped on anything. Every aspect of the dinner was impeccable, as Finn had known it would be. He hadn’t had a better meal outside of a restaurant.
She clapped her hands. “Molten lava cakes! It will just be a bit—it takes some doing.” She waved off their offers to help clear the table and disappeared into the kitchen.
The two men were silent for a moment, as if someone had hit the light switch and they had to let their eyes grow accustomed to the dark. George filled his own glass with the rest of the wine and reached behind him to place the empty bottle on the antique server. The dining room was octagonal, with tall sheer-curtained windows and layers of crown molding leading up to an opulent crystal chandelier. When Finn and Maribel had gone apartment hunting in Asheville, they’d hit a few pubs afterward and spent half their time looking up from their barstool perches, admiring the historic ceilings, the stamped tin tiles, the hand-carved wood and decorative mirrors mounted high behind the bottle-lined bars. He thought of their foursome’s champagne toast that night on the stairs, the promise of more celebrations to come. Maribel would have loved this room, this place, this food, George’s story about his coworker who got his comeuppance. Why had he not brought her around when he had the chance? And how could he make it through without her here, or anywhere, now and for the rest of his life?
“I know we’ve always been friends mostly through Caitlin,” George said, jarring Finn from his thoughts. Finn looked up, and George was looking at him earnestly, like someone in a Yale class photo. “I was hoping to change that, now that you’re right next door, but I swear I’m barely in town enough to stay married to my own wife.”
Finn laughed uneasily. He knew it was supposed to be a joke, but he never knew how to respond to things like that—to any reference to marriage at all, let alone the idea of one on the edge.
“I do try to hit the links when I’m home on weekends, though,” George continued. “That’s kind of my one indulgence that Caitlin doesn’t have much interest in. You still golf at all? There was that time in Sunny Isles, but I was nursing such a hangover that I admit I don’t remember who was and was not in his element.”
“A little.” Finn shrugged. “Not much, actually. I’m not very good.”
“Excellent. I’d like to actually win once in a while.”
Finn laughed.
“No, seriously. These guys at the club—half of them don’t even have jobs anymore. They just invest. And spend their spare time on the driving range, apparently. It’s not a fair fight. How ab
out next Saturday? I usually try to get an early tee time so I can be back by the time Cait’s done with the farmers’ market and her yoga class. You’d be doing me a favor if you came along, honestly.”
“I’ll let you know.”
George nodded, taking him in. “Look,” he said, “something else I wanted to mention. A lot of guys who spend so much time out of town would not appreciate their wife spending time with a single guy next door.”
Finn stiffened and turned his attention to the delicate stem of his wineglass. How had he not seen this coming? Was he so grief stricken that he was blind to the social norms of the world? His mind was already racing ahead to form an apology, but George was still talking.
“I’m not one of those guys,” he went on.
Finn lifted his eyes to George’s, unsure of where he was going with this.
“Caitlin could use some company. I hate leaving her alone so much of the time—my travel schedule is more intense than ever, and even though she keeps pinning her hopes on things slowing down ‘after this deal,’ then ‘after that deal,’ then ‘after the next one,’ it’s not likely. And now that I’m mostly doing business in China, Hong Kong, Japan—even a short trip seems to take twice as long with all the layovers and delays and time zones and whatever else.” George glanced toward the kitchen doorway. Satisfied that Caitlin wasn’t about to reappear, he leaned in closer to Finn and lowered his voice. “She stayed here for me, you know. In Cincinnati, I mean. We’re just far enough away from where she grew up that it’s not like her old friends can meet for a quick happy hour or join the same gym, and you know as well as I do that most of your college gang ended up elsewhere. Her office is mostly these stodgy older women—she hasn’t had a hell of a lot of luck making new friends.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Finn said, himself glancing at the kitchen door she’d bounded cheerfully behind just moments before. How was he learning this about his ever-present friend from her absentee husband?
“Haven’t you ever noticed that women find her a little … well, Caitlin has very few faults—at least on the surface. Other women hate that.”
Finn hadn’t seen her in quite that light before, but he knew the second George said it that it was true. That was how she’d ended up running with him and his crew in college. To them, she’d become one of the guys. But they’d get occasional reminders—other men checking her out as they played pool in a bar, holding doors for her as they walked into the movie theater, even flirting with her at the gas station—that while she might seem like one of the guys, she definitely was not.
George cleared his throat. “Maybe you’d rather be alone these days. I don’t know.” It was the first time since Finn had moved in here that George had even indirectly referenced what had happened with Maribel, and he looked as uncomfortable as Finn felt. “But I just want you to know that if you do like having Caitlin hanging around, I wouldn’t want you to hold off on my account. Honestly, it makes me feel better, having someone look out for her—this neighborhood still has its rough spots. And I don’t want her to decide being married to me is too lonely. I try to make up for the time away when I’m home, but it’s never enough.”
Finn tried not to squirm in his seat. Everything about their life seemed like more than enough to him.
Caitlin breezed back in, carrying the desserts on a silver tray the way absolutely no one did anymore. No wonder Finn had grown fond of those old films she loved. Still, he felt more self-conscious than ever. He didn’t know if he should be grateful for George’s talk, or wary of it.
The desserts were perfect, naturally—decadent without being pretentious. Before Finn knew it, they’d polished them off, along with the rest of the wine.
Caitlin started to get to her feet. “Let me make some decaf,” she offered. “I’m not sure I can handle any more alcohol, but if you guys are still going, we’ve got Baileys or Kahlua to go with it…”
George placed a hand on her arm, pressing her gently back into her seat. “You’ve outdone yourself,” he said. “I’ll do the coffee. I brought some cigars back with me, and I admit I’d like an excuse to sneak a few puffs out back while it brews.” He smiled at Finn. “What do you say? You in?”
Finn held up his hands. “I’m good. But thanks, man. Maybe next time.”
The room fell silent when George left, and neither Caitlin nor Finn rushed to fill it. He fought a stab of guilt that he wasn’t doing a better job of small talk right now. It was just that—
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “You have a funny look on your face.” For a moment, Finn debated not saying anything, but he didn’t have the energy not to. He kept so much else bottled in these days. “Nothing,” he said, trying to sound casual. “George just mentioned something about how much time we’ve been spending together, that’s all.”
Caitlin looked surprised. “Did he say it bothered him?”
“No.” Finn hesitated. “Actually, the opposite—he kind of, I don’t know, gave me his blessing.”
Caitlin sat back in her chair, a satisfied smile on her face. “That’s my George,” she said quietly. She twirled the stem of her empty wineglass. “You know, I’ve always gotten the feeling that no one has ever believed me that you and I didn’t hook up at some point. They’re all like, ‘Oh, come on, it had to have happened at least once!’ It’s like Billy Crystal’s theory in When Harry Met Sally—that people of the opposite sex can’t just be friends. But not George. He’s the only one who has never once hinted at that. I used to wait for it to start bothering him that other people believed it. But it’s amazing the stuff that doesn’t bother George. I think he learned that from his dad, growing up in the public eye—to choose battles carefully.” She was gazing at the spot where George had been sitting, a look of such uncomplicated and complete fondness on her face that Finn’s chest ached for the way Maribel used to look at him with that kind of affection.
Finn thought of what little he knew of George’s father’s political career. “But when a Bryce-Daniels does go to battle, look out,” he said. “Right?”
Caitlin tipped back her chair so she could see into the kitchen, making sure George was still outside. “Well, they’re not exactly master strategists,” she said, her voice low and thick with wine. “But you’ve got to hand it to them that they’re not afraid to sneak-attack.” Her smile was unwavering.
Finn cleared his throat. “What they did for me—”
She waved him away. “It might seem like a big deal to you, but I promise you, it’s small potatoes to them. Just … let’s just agree to never mention it again, okay?”
It was more than okay. It was what he wanted. He’d just needed to hear her say it.
“I do feel bad that I haven’t gotten to know George better,” he said. “Even after being in your wedding. That was my window, and I blew it. It’s just that right after I got back, that’s when I met Maribel…” His voice trailed off, and Caitlin’s eyes softened with the sympathy that she usually did such a good job of masking. Finn had to look away. He didn’t want to end on this note after Caitlin had put so much work into this dinner.
“In conclusion,” he said, hoping to salvage the mood, “George telling me it’s cool to basically step in for him when he’s not around is not one of those mind-fuck games where he says it’s okay but that’s really supposed to be my cue to stop?”
Caitlin laughed. “He is only allowed to mind-fuck me,” she said. “It’s in our vows.”
She leaned forward and tapped a fingertip lightly on the top of Finn’s hand. “He’s glad you’re here,” she said. “We both are. We asked you to come, remember? We knew that at a time like this, inviting you here meant you would become a bigger part of our lives. At least, we hoped so. We wanted to be there for you. Both of us. And selfishly, yeah, I’m glad you’re here for me, too.”
Finn couldn’t help smiling. “Even though I’m kind of a downer these days?”
Caitlin laughed. “I like downers,” she said. “Why do y
ou think I drink so much wine?”
16
AUGUST 2016
Even before she’d had the twins, Caitlin had always noticed, and always loved, how a child could defuse the tension in a room—not necessarily putting adults on their best behavior, but simply stealing the attention from any elephants that might have otherwise taken center stage.
Take Caitlin and her mother-in-law, for example. Beverly was her name, the sort of name that people didn’t have anymore and that Caitlin thought of as synonymous with old money. The two women had never exactly not gotten along, but they’d never been entirely at ease around each other either. George’s mother was exactly the opposite of Caitlin’s own, who was, if anything, overfriendly to a fault, extending her easy schoolteacher’s manner to anyone within reach. Beverly always treated Caitlin with exceeding politeness, as if she were a dinner guest rather than a member of the family—and though everyone else called her Bev, she was always Beverly to Caitlin, and had never beseeched her to call her otherwise. Caitlin couldn’t shake the feeling that Beverly didn’t think that she was good enough for her son, didn’t feel that she was worthy of being treated as family—though Caitlin was aware enough of her own insecurities to question whether that was just her own self-doubt or an unspoken assessment that her mother-in-law was in fact projecting.
After Caitlin had the twins, though, conversation between her and George’s mother became easier, even fun. Leo and Gus were both the source and the focus of all the energy in the room. It would have been difficult for the adults to have a real dialogue even if they’d tried. And they didn’t try. They were equally smitten with the boys and content to let them have the floor, as it were. Together the women would laugh over their antics, and suddenly they had something in common. They had the children. And by definition, that meant they were family—no matter how politely Bev might treat her, right there in front of them were the living, breathing, giggling, squirming, messy little reminders that Caitlin was the mother of her grandchildren.
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