Bella’s life felt more like a Slinky flopping down the stairs.
She grinned at her own joke. At least she still had her sense of humor. You couldn’t live in a family of four Barnaby children, all with a first name that began with the letter B, without developing a sense of humor. And she was happy, and an optimist, glad to be home, full of hope for the future. Her life wasn’t tragic. Just a puzzle.
Bella had spent the last two and a half years teaching third grade in Austin, Texas, until last Christmas, when her mother, while trying to put the angel on top of the tree, fell off the ladder and broke her leg. Bella’s father taught high school English five days a week. Bella’s older sister, Beatrice, was busy in her house an hour away with her three little children. Ben, of course, had his own apartment in Amherst, his students, and lab. Seventeen-year-old Brady was still in high school. So Bella abbreviated her contract, left Austin after the first semester, and flew home to take over her mother’s shop and help around the house.
She was surprised to discover she didn’t miss teaching. She was exhilarated to be back home, which for her was not just the comfortable house she’d grown up in on a lake surrounded by woodland, but the entire region where forests and farmlands stretched like a vast Eden on either side of the wide Connecticut River. This area boasted five of the best colleges in the world, drawing students and faculty from all over the planet.
As a child, she’d hiked with her family up Mount Hadley and Mount Tom, and canoed on the Connecticut River. She’d visited Emily Dickinson’s house several times, and heard Billy Collins speak when he was the country’s poet laureate. She’d contemplated modern sculpture at the art museums, and she’d witnessed a four-point stag, branched with heavy antlers, step over their lawn and down to the lake to drink in the early-morning light.
She loved this area, her family, their house … and that was part of the problem. Perhaps she loved them too much.
Now, as she watched, Aaron stepped out of his Volvo. He waved at Ben as Ben backed the Cherokee out of the drive. Aaron had incredibly muscled arms and thighs, an aftereffect of wrestling in high school and college. She loved the heft of them, the safety she felt in his arms. He had dark, curly hair and wore glasses over his hazel eyes. He was her Superman, looking academic, restraining so much strength and sexuality.
He approached the house, tapped on the front door, and let himself in, as everyone did who knew the Barnabys well.
“Hi, Aaron.”
“Hey, Bella.”
Just the sight of him made her short of breath. He pulled her to him and kissed her thoroughly.
She gently pushed him away. “We should go.”
“Right. I brought some wine. It’s in the car.”
Together they left the house, picked up the bottles of Pinot, and began walking along the narrow road winding around Dragonfly Lake. The lake was tucked in a hollow snuggled up against a gently rising mountain, or what was called a mountain in New England; in Colorado, it would be downsized to hill. It rose to a ridge running north and south, covered with evergreens, birches, and oaks, home to deer, porcupines, foxes, and numerous other creatures, including the clever raccoons that made human lives miserable if they didn’t use the proper tight-locking trash receptacles. Various styles of houses surrounded the lake: A-frames, modernized log cabins, seventies split-levels like the Barnabys’ house, and a few fabulous minimansions like the ones on either side of the Barnabys’.
All the homes looked out onto the lake, which curved in a capricious blue oval around the hill, its banks thick with grasses, forest, and wildflowers. Much of the shore was dotted with boathouses and docks, because the lake was big enough to sail on. Here and there, man-made beaches of golden sand sloped to the water. Everywhere there were trees, and over the lawns and road, the sweet green leaves of spring were casting the first delicate shadows. Tulips opened their petals to the light; pansies spilled from window boxes.
Aaron inhaled a deep breath of air. “Nice day for a cookout.”
Bella nodded. “Mmm. Funny, it usually is. The Hortons have held the first neighborhood summer cookout for years.”
“How many people will be there?”
“Not a real crowd. Lots of these houses are just vacation homes. Like the one to the right of us—”
“That place is just for vacations?” Aaron turned to look back at the house.
“I know. An interior designer from Boston, Eleanor Clark, owns it. She usually comes here in the summer. I heard she loaned it to her niece this year while Eleanor goes around the world with her new boyfriend. She’s an artist—Natalie, not Eleanor—about our age.”
“Have you met Natalie?”
“Not yet. I think she’ll be at the cookout. I hope so. I’d like to meet her.”
“I’d like to see the inside of that house,” Aaron said.
Bella knocked his shoulder with hers. “Ever the architect.”
• • •
Natalie noticed the man when he stepped out of the Jeep parked in front of the Hortons’ house. He was a hunk, with a stern countenance that gave him an air of intelligence. Judgment. Responsibility.
She thought: Now there is a face I would like to paint.
A wide brow—poets would call it “noble”—over romantically down-slanting pale blue eyes. A straight, slender nose, neat ears, a long face with a firm jaw. Wrinkles at the corners of the eyes and across the forehead, not, she figured, from laughing but from thinking. Here in the five-college area, lots of people thought for a living. The man was perhaps thirty. His hair was golden brown, like toast; she would have bet he’d been a towheaded child.
“That’s my son,” Louise Barnaby told Natalie. She was sitting next to Natalie, both of them in rockers on the front porch of the Hortons’ house. Louise still had to baby her leg, although she could walk on it without a cane, and Natalie had brought her a glass of chilled white wine.
Louise was Natalie’s first lake friend. She’d visited when Natalie moved into her aunt Eleanor’s house this week, presenting her with a casserole and a vase of fresh flowers. She’d insisted Natalie come to the cookout with Louise and her husband, Dennis, who was out on the front lawn, stabbing croquet wickets into the ground.
“He’s awfully cute,” Natalie said.
Louise smiled. “I know. The great thing is, he doesn’t realize it.”
Natalie was grateful for Louise’s company. Louise was older, but still chic, her blond hair cut in a sexy shag, her trim body clad in chinos and a blue tee that brought out the azure of her eyes. Louise didn’t look like a fifty-five-year-old who’d given birth to four children. For that matter, Dennis was tall, slender, with lots of floppy gray hair. He still looked pretty fine as well.
It was shallow of Natalie to be so judgmental, she knew, but she’d been afraid when she made the decision to move out here from Manhattan she’d find everyone sporting Birkenstocks, feeding chickens, and discussing compost.
Was she a snob? Really, she could only claim to be, at most, a wannabe snob. She didn’t have the pedigree to be a real one.
Also, she was learning, there were different kinds of snobs. Here, near Amherst, Massachusetts, home of Amherst College, where the old money went, and Hampshire College, where the hip gifted went, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where Bill Cosby and Jack Welch had gone, near Smith College, where poor, brilliant Sylvia Plath had gone, and Mount Holyoke College, where Emily Dickinson and Wendy Wasserstein had gone, the snobbery would be intellectual.
Natalie felt awkward in her black jeans and black silk shirt. This was about as cookoutish as her New York wardrobe got. She’d just moved to Aunt Eleanor’s house. She hadn’t had time to buy different clothes yet.
Just for a moment, Natalie put her hand to her own head. At least her hair was growing out. Two years ago, when she had moved to Manhattan, she’d gone to a hairdresser and had it all chopped off into a severe, chic, scalp-clinging crop. It had been a part of her statement. She could still re
member leaving the salon, head high and suddenly weightless, feeling the fresh air on her bare neck, knowing that now her real life was about to begin. She’d been twenty-eight. She’d struggled to get there. At times in her life, she’d despaired of getting there. For years she’d had to drop her studies to work, often two jobs, to pay for more studies, because her parents could never help her financially. If it hadn’t been for her aunt Eleanor, she would never have made it to Manhattan.
She dropped her hand. As soon as she’d decided to leave Manhattan, she’d begun to grow her hair out. Already dark curls clustered over her ears.
“We’re ready!” Morgan called. “Shall I fasten Petey in his stroller?”
Her husband was in his study, tapping frantically at the computer. A sunny Saturday afternoon, and he was working.
“Josh?” She tried not to sound waspish. “The cookout.”
“Coming.”
Morgan took a deep breath. During the past year, she’d learned to achieve feats of patience she never before dreamed possible. First of all, her adorable boy, just a year old, had taught her a whole new range of deep breathing. Then Josh had taken this job with Bio-Green Industries—and she had wanted him to take it, she had encouraged him to take it—and suddenly her husband was too busy to haul out the trash, give her a hug, or notice their child.
Although they did have their house. Their amazing, slightly overwhelming, new house.
The O’Keefes’ home was on the shores of Dragonfly Lake. It rose in its concrete-and-glass glory, modern, boxy, space-age. They were able to afford it because the couple who built it had to move to Spain and needed a quick sale. And, of course, because Josh’s new job paid so well. They didn’t love the house, but the location was sublime. A beachfront with sand for Petey to play on. A wilderness to hike in. Morgan and Josh enjoyed kayaking, canoeing, swimming, and dreamed of teaching their children all that and more in the clear, pure waters of this lake. Before the move, they’d been living in a condo on the outskirts of Boston, commuting to jobs on crowded expressways, not getting home until late, too tired to enjoy life, and completely uninspired by the views of malls, highways, and office buildings out their condo windows. This place had seemed like a little corner of heaven to them.
Sometimes, though, to Morgan, it was just a bit like the top circle of hell.
Morgan was a scientist, a hazardous materials expert. Until recently she’d worked in the biosafety department at Weathersfield College outside Boston. She was really good at her work. It challenged her, used all her mental and interpersonal skills; it gave her a sense of accomplishment, of keeping things safe in a turbulent world.
Since Josh had joined Bio-Green, Morgan’s life required a whole new set of skills.
First of all, since Ronald Ruoff, CEO of BGI, Bio-Green Industries, was Josh’s new boss, paying Josh a salary he’d never even dreamed of before, it was incumbent upon Morgan to make nice to Josh’s boss and his wife, Eva.
Morgan had made nice. She and Josh had gone out to dinner last week with Ronald and Eva, and Morgan had been as charming as she could be, which frankly was a big fat private pain for Morgan. She didn’t like to do charming, and she really didn’t like to pretend interest in vapid Eva’s frivolous enthusiasms: massages, pedicures, shopping, and whether Kate Middleton was truly suitable for Prince William; Eva’s personal and lengthy opinion was that Kate was beneath him, and she didn’t even get how her statement was funny. Morgan didn’t understand how a woman perhaps only a decade older—Morgan was thirty, Eva somewhere in her forties, already Botoxed and face-lifted—could be so insipid. Especially with a husband like Ronald, who might not be the most debonair dog in the kennel but at least was interested in saving the world. Or, more realistically, in making money while saving the world.
Morgan had hoped—she had fiercely hoped—that she would like Eva, that they would have interests in common, that they would make plans to get together, because even though her toddler, Petey, was the beating center of her heart, Morgan was quietly and sweetly going out of her mind being a stay-at-home mommy. But if she had to spend more time with Eva Ruoff, she’d hang herself. Okay, that was a bit dramatic, she’d never want to leave Petey, or Josh either, even though these days Josh annoyed her no end. Was she going nuts?
Josh came into the living room, where Petey was babbling to himself as he swept his books off the coffee table and Morgan stood lost in her thoughts.
“Thinking about how to decorate?” he asked.
Morgan almost growled. They had to invite the Ruoffs over sometime, and the Ruoffs believed that their home should make a statement.
Josh sighed. “We agreed when I took this job. My part is working at the facility. Your part is networking, socializing, attracting investors.”
“I’m not saying I won’t do it.” Morgan adjusted a dove pillow on their smoke sofa. “I’m just saying I’m not sure I can do it. It’s not my field. Not my passion. Not even my interest. Plus, Petey is pretty much a full-time job.”
“You could put him in day care.”
“Josh, no. We talked about this. We agreed.” Morgan snorted with contempt. “How ridiculous would that be, to put a baby in day care so I can spend time making a statement with the house!”
“You don’t seem to take my job seriously,” Josh muttered.
“What? How did we get to—” They were back on muddy ground, the swampland of their marriage. She didn’t want an argument this evening. They were going to a cookout. They were going to meet people. Calming down, she said pacifically, “I know you’re working hard, Josh. I appreciate it. I do.”
She put her arms around Josh, her husband, her beloved. With his thick, naturally frenzied red hair, sparkling green eyes, and freckled skin, it was difficult for him to appear as brilliant as she knew he was. Thirty-five, yet he looked like a kid. A good-natured, athletic, dreamy boy who fantasized about playing for the Red Sox. “Maybe we’ll make some contacts at the cookout,” she told him.
Josh kissed the top of her head and swept his son up into his arms. “Come on, champ, we’re going to a party.”
Outside, they chose the smaller, easier stroller and strapped Petey in. They went down the driveway, past Morgan’s SUV and Josh’s black Cadillac Escalade, which looked, Morgan thought, like something the CIA would use.
Be good, Morgan warned herself. Look around! It was June, perhaps her favorite month, warm and fresh and full of the promise of summer.
Bella and Aaron strolled along the lake road until they came to the Hortons’ house. Ben was parked in front, unloading the Jeep. Bella’s father was on the lawn, setting up the croquet wickets. Her mother was sitting on the porch in a rocking chair. Beside her sat the new woman from next door, Natalie, very thin and sophisticated, all in black.
Aaron called, “Hang on, Ben, I’ll help you.” He handed his bottles of wine to Bella and joined Ben at the Jeep. Together the men hefted the folding beach chairs out of the back of the Jeep and carried them around the Hortons’ house to the lawn sloping down to the beach.
Bella cuddled the three bottles against her. She noticed the new woman studying Ben. Good luck to you, Bella thought.
Ben was good-looking, with the Barnabys’ blond hair and blue eyes. Half of her high school friends had had crushes on him, even while he’d been a totally clueless geek, his nose always in a book, staying late to work on projects for the science fair.
In college, he’d had a serious long-term girlfriend, another science nerd. Vickie could have been pretty if she’d cared to, but she was almost aggressively fashion-unconscious. Her nice figure had been hidden beneath baggy jeans and loose tee shirts. Usually, they had arcane quotes on them, like “Resistance is not futile. It’s voltage divided by current.” In the winter, she wore hoodie sweatshirts instead of sweaters and often forgot to wear a coat. Ben and Vickie broke up after graduation. He went on to Stanford. She went to Harvard. Now she was doing postdoctoral work in London. They remained science buddies who emailed now a
nd then.
When Ben was working on his doctorate in California, he dated other women; Bella knew because she flew out a couple of times to visit him. These women were a new breed—ambitious, intensely intellectual, and not interested in long-term affairs. They were Bella’s introduction to the less starry-eyed side of sexuality, and while she placed no value judgment on what Ben had with them, it made her vaguely sad. But then Bella was a hopeless romantic.
When Ben returned three years ago as an assistant professor at U. Mass.–Amherst, he was a grown-up, a serious adult. He rented an apartment in Amherst but came home often for meals or to sail. It was only a fifteen-minute drive. Today he looked familiar, her normal brother, clad in khaki shorts and an old tee shirt.
Bella went up the steps to the front porch. “Hey, Mom.”
“Join us, honey.” Louise gestured toward the wicker sofa. “Natalie, this is my daughter Bella.”
“Hi, Natalie.” Bella smiled at the woman sitting next to her mother, even as she cringed just a little inside. Natalie looked so sophisticated with her cropped black curls and no jewelry. She looked like the smart girl in high school, the one who always rolled her eyes at Bella. Bella was smart, but she was petite, only five two, with blue eyes, blond hair, and what older people always praised as a “sweet” face.
Natalie grinned shyly. “Hi, Bella. I think you and I might have met once or twice when we were kids. When Slade and I came to the lake for a week in the summer.”
Bella nodded, although what she remembered most about next door was Eleanor Clark. She was glamorous, a wealthy interior designer from Boston’s most chichi area. During July and August, her driveway was lined with convertibles and sports cars and even a Jaguar, with license plates from as far away as California. When Bella was younger and Bella’s older sister, Beatrice, wasn’t married yet, they used to hide in the attic with their parents’ field glasses, spying on all the golden people languidly lounging on Eleanor’s back deck in their very abbreviated bathing suits. It was better than HBO.
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