Later, after the kids are in bed and Cole has his feet up in the family room watching a Thursday-night college football game, I retreat to my office with a second glass of wine, intending to check email and maybe distract myself by working on my questions for my meeting with Susannah tomorrow.
But instead, just a minute or two after scanning my email inbox, I find myself typing an old, familiar name into Google. Tilly Robertson.
* * *
I was fourteen when I started as a day student at the Oak Hill School, the exclusive private boarding school two towns over from mine. I’d won a full scholarship, given annually to two kids in our county who showed “significant academic achievement and tremendous promise.” I remember the words exactly because they hung over our kitchen table. When Dad handed me the acceptance letter that night over dinner, the envelope was already torn open. He confessed he couldn’t help himself. He’d picked it up off the dashboard of his mail truck and read it several times over the course of his route that day. Mom jumped up from her chair and promptly took down the bronze-gold frame that held a picture of a wildflower bouquet I’d ripped from Good Housekeeping many years earlier. She stuck the letter inside, hanging it between the pictures of Ted Williams and JFK that were displayed over our table as if they were members of our family.
The one good thing about Oak Hill, aside from the fact that the education I got there helped get me into Dartmouth, was the uniforms. I loved the uniforms, and not because there was anything special about them. They were plain navy-blue sweaters, oxford shirts, and khaki skirts, but they gave the impression that we were all on an even playing field. My classmates were the children of senators and bankers, ambassadors and CEOs. They came from the Upper East Side and Beacon Hill, Greenwich and Darien, the Main Line. I knew this because they told me.
The uniforms helped me blend in, at least a little bit, at first. Everyone knew that I was local and didn’t board, but I could at least pretend it didn’t matter. The crest on my shirt felt, in a weird way, like proof of my belonging.
And then came Tilly Robertson.
It was my freshman year. Early November. I was sitting at the end of one of the long wooden tables in our beautiful oak-paneled dining hall, the portrait of the school’s founder looking down on me. I opened my brown paper bag, pulled out my ham sandwich, and took a bite.
“Oh my God!” Tilly screamed like somebody had just dumped a bucket of water over her head. She was the heir to the Isadore Robertson cosmetics company fortune. Dad had slipped one of their lipsticks into Mom’s stocking one year, and she’d hemmed and hawed over keeping it. Eighteen dollars for a lipstick?! She ultimately kept it but never actually used it. I know because I snuck into the bathroom sometimes when she was at work, dug it out of the plastic cosmetics case she kept under the sink, and tried it on. It was called Sugarspun.
“Oh my God!” Tilly repeated. She of the long, shiny hair, coltish limbs, and acid tongue. “That is so fucking disgusting.”
“What?” I managed, swallowing the glob of ham and mayonnaise and American cheese that had caught in my throat.
Her eyes were on my sandwich. At first I assumed she must be talking about the ham itself—maybe ham was wrong. Or maybe it was the zit that had bloomed on my chin overnight that I had tried for twenty minutes that morning to cover up but had done a shitty job because I couldn’t resist popping it first, so it was weird and crusting and oozy.
“Are you actually eating that?” she said. The entire room was silent, people smirking, some laughing. I was burning up, a knot twisting inside me from my neck to my toes.
I dropped it onto the table as soon as I saw the offending edge, the crust frosted with green mold, which I obviously hadn’t noticed when I made the sandwich under the dim glow of the light above our kitchen sink the night before. My mouth hadn’t touched that part of the bread (thank God), but even so, and all these years later, looking at Tilly’s picture on my computer screen, I can taste it. Acrid, sour, nauseating.
I shift in my seat and take another sip of wine. Tilly is the creative director of Isadore Robertson now. Her husband runs a hedge fund. She has three beautiful children. They live in Manhattan. And she made me an outcast, an other. I take another sip of my wine. My face feels as hot as it did when it happened, almost thirty years ago.
I click away from her picture and type a web address into my browser. I don’t have to dig deep to know that everything I’ve done since Oak Hill—the degree from Dartmouth, the fancy job, the homecoming-king husband—I’ve done to prove to the world, and myself, that I am more than those kids thought I could ever be. I would never admit it to anyone, but one of the worst aspects of my career falling apart in such a public way was the knowledge that those Oak Hill girls would probably see it. And say, I always knew she was a loser.
The page loads. Eva’s post for today is about side tables. She just got a new one for their living room. It is acrylic—“Our room needed a MODERN edge,” she has typed. She does a lot of all-caps and italics to emphasize her points. “And when I saw this one, I knew it would pair PERFECTLY with the rest of our decor.” The table is $1,900 (of course she mentions this), from Restoration Hardware. It looks to me like nothing special.
I scroll down the page to where Eva has a short bio, along with a family picture. Brittany is an adorable girl, with freckles across her nose and the kind of natural highlights that could make a hair colorist a star. Please be kind to Livvie, I think, squinting at her smile. Please be good to my girl.
Eleven
My phone rings as I’m walking out the door to go to Esperanza for my second meeting with Susannah.
“Hey. It’s Cindy,” she says, smacking her gum. She talks to me like we’ve known each other for years, a quality that I like an awful lot.
“I was just heading over there,” I say. “Is something wrong?”
“Nah. I’m glad I caught you, though. Her Majesty’s sweet tooth is acting up. Can you meet at William’s instead? I’ll drop her off and do her grocery shopping while y’all chat.”
“Sure,” I say, though the truth is I’m disappointed. Since Susannah cut our house tour short last time, I was looking forward to seeing the rest of the estate.
When I get to the coffee shop, William is standing in his usual spot at the espresso machine. I scan the tables in the back. Susannah has not yet arrived. In fact, the place is empty.
“Well, if it isn’t my favorite new regular,” he says, wiping his hands on the cloth hanging in a neat rectangle from his waistband. “Do you want your usual?”
“Yes, please,” I say, scanning the bakery case, which is loaded with his inventive pastries. A scone catches my eye: APRICOT AND PISTACHIO WITH VANILLA CRÈME DRIZZLE, the card reads. There are cupcakes and tarts, cookies of all shapes and sizes, and rows of beautiful, artfully made candies. The first time I came in here and started chatting with William, I couldn’t believe it when he said he makes everything in the shop. He has help, of course—a young guy who William says he knows is just killing time until something better comes along, and a PhD student from UVA who comes in on the weekends—but his hands are in everything. I eye the sample plate on top of the glass display case—a dainty china platter of tiny, sticky squares—and take one for myself, popping it into my mouth like I don’t want to be caught.
He turns from the espresso machine and hands me my latte in a paper cup. “What do you think of those?” he says, nodding toward the sample plate.
“Delicious,” I say. “What is it?”
“It’s a classic cheesecake,” he says. “But I did a toffee-studded shortbread crust and drizzled it with caramel, some sea salt. What do you think? Too passé? Are we over caramel–sea salt as a combination? I mean, I feel like if there’s a Starbucks drink with the same flavors, it’s a sign I should stop.”
“No!” I laugh, closing my eyes as I finish the bite. “No. We’re not over it.”
“Hey,” he says. “The torte you were telling me about the other day . . . Where did
you say it came from? I wanted to look it up the other night but couldn’t find it.”
“Dorie Greenspan,” I say, sneaking another sample off the plate, rationalizing to myself that I didn’t have breakfast. “Chocolate amaretti. You have to make it.”
“Done,” he says.
Of all the people I’ve met in Greyhill so far, William feels the most familiar. When I come into the shop, our comfortable chitchat feels like relief. So many of my social interactions in town involve explaining who I am, or where I’m from, or how I met Cole, or how our family is settling in. With William, I never feel like I’m being sized up, even when he’s asking me questions about the parties I used to throw at the White House. He has no ulterior motive—he just wants to know what kind of food I served, how I set the tables, whether it’s true that the president has an aversion to yellow foods (yes, with the exception of potato chips). In fact, he treats me as if I still have the job—or at least as if I still have some expertise—and getting to exercise that part of myself, a part I love and recognize, makes me feel so good that it practically brings tears to my eyes. It’s like I’m carrying a secret, treasured thing in my pocket—a precious-to-me seashell, a sparkling piece of rock—and William is the only one who gets to see it.
“So what are you up to today?”
“Actually,” I say, raising the coffee cup in my hand, “I should have told you before you gave me the paper cup. I’m meeting someone here.”
“Oh?” he says.
“Yes,” I say. “And I think I want a treat.” I scan the display case. “One of the scones,” I say, tapping my finger against the case. “Oh!” I put my hand out to stop him. I’ve noticed a tray of classic peanut-butter cookies—the kind with the fork-tine crisscross—in the display case. “Let me take two of those to go, too,” I say, bending and pointing at them. They’re Livvie’s favorite.
“So who’s your date?”
“Date?”
“Who are you meeting here?” He hands me the bag of cookies and I tuck them into my tote.
“Oh,” I say, clearing my throat. “Susannah Lane.”
“Mmmmm,” he says, in a way that appears to mean something.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing,” he says. “Just that my grandmother would roll over in her grave if she knew I was serving a Greyhill in here.”
“What?” I say, my eyes going to the photo next to the cash register of his grandmother, Estelle, who founded the bakery. “Why?”
“Do you know how she and Teddy got married?” he asks, turning back to his coffee machine. I watch him dump a batch of used grounds into the canister he keeps on the counter, and remember how he told me a few weeks ago that he uses them for his garden.
“They eloped at city hall in New York,” I say, remembering the photo I saw online of Susannah in a simple white minidress with elbow-length sleeves, a single gardenia tucked behind her ear.
“Yes, but they were going to get married here,” he says. “At Esperanza. And then Susannah changed her mind at the last minute because she didn’t want to come back. My grandmother told me all about it. She worked for them for a while, before she opened the bakery.”
“What did she do? Cook, I assume?”
“Yes.” He nods. “Now, I don’t want to say anything ugly—Susannah has been pleasant enough the few times she’s come in here—but the Greyhills, from what I know, were awful people. So stingy, despite all their money, and they treated their help like trash.”
“Ugh,” I say, thinking of the way Susannah spoke of her mother when we first met and how she wanted to get rid of all her parents’ old furniture, calling it an exorcism. “That’s too bad.”
“Oh, yeah. They employed plenty of people up at Esperanza—Susannah’s parents threw a ton of parties up there, for every little occasion—and everyone said it was the worst place to work.” He glances at the door and leans across the counter to me. “They were drunks, both of them. Bad ones.”
“How have I not heard this?”
“It’s just common knowledge, m’dear. People around here know about the Greyhills the same way they know not to speed on the stretch of Twenty-Nine between here and Culpeper. You just know.”
“Hmm,” I say. “Let me ask you something, William, since you and I are the only ones in here. Why do you think Susannah stayed away from here for so long? Could it be because of her relationship with her family?”
“Oh, who knows,” he says. “Probably a little bit of that, and a little bit because of Henrietta.”
“Henrietta Martin,” I say. “Yes. That must have been difficult, losing her best friend.”
He laughs. “Oh, Bess.”
“What?” I say.
“Sometimes I forget how new you are here.”
“What do you mean?” I say, a little miffed by his tone. “What am I missing?”
“Something you ought to know before you start writing about her.”
“So you know about the article, then?” I say, certain I haven’t told him about it.
“Of course I do, Bess,” he says. “Carol was in here yesterday with Eva. They told me all about it. Washingtonian magazine?”
“No,” I say, feeling prickles on my skin at the mention of Eva’s name and the fact that she was talking about me. “The Washington Post Sunday mag. So what is it that I need to know?”
“Just that there are lots of people in and around Greyhill who’ve always thought that Susannah might have had something to do with how Henrietta died.”
“What?” I say, feeling a flutter in my stomach. “No! She was her best friend.”
“Well, they were quite different. Susannah was the mayor’s daughter, Henrietta came from a broken home. Her mother—” He glances toward the door. “She killed herself when Henrietta was just an infant. And then, after Henrietta died, her father spent years trying to convince people around town that it was some sort of foul play.”
“And nothing happened?”
“Well, nobody was going to listen to him,” he says, like this should be obvious.
“Why?”
“Well, his wife had died, then his daughter . . . Tragic, right? I think people wanted to keep him at arm’s length, like he had some kind of disease. And also, he was just some mechanic, lived out of town, toward Madison.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” I ask, not liking this side of William.
“Oh, nothing,” he says. “Anyway, I’m just telling you what people say. Doesn’t mean there’s any truth to it.”
The bell chimes over the door.
“Any truth to what?” Susannah herself says, stepping inside. My heart lurches. Has she heard us? Through the storefront window, I see Cindy standing by her car. She waves to me and I wave back, plastering a smile on my face.
“Any truth to the rumor that Bess and Cole are going to turn the Greyhill Inn into a dance club. Lots of drugs and hookers. Very provocative, very permissive,” William says, laughing at his own joke.
“God, I wish you would,” Susannah says. “Breathe some life into this dusty place.”
She hobbles toward me with the cane. “Good morning, Bess,” she says, removing the purple fedora that matches her coat and handing it to me. As I take it, I hear William laugh to himself. Underneath her coat, she’s wearing a lilac silk shirt, lavender pants. Feeling purple, apparently, I muse, scanning her outfit and thinking that she almost looks like a member of the Red Hat Society, albeit a couture version.
“Let’s find a quiet place to sit,” she says, walking toward the back of the shop. “William, do you have Earl Grey?”
“I do.”
“Bring me one of those and a cookie of some sort. Please.”
“I will. Any particular flavor?”
“Something like a gingersnap. No chocolate. Teddy only ever ate chocolate desserts, and I swear, if I never see another one, that will be fine with me.”
Once we’re seated at a table in the far corner, I take my notebook from m
y bag.
“Oh no,” Susannah says, scowling at it. “We don’t have to jump right into homework, do we?” William sets a china cup of tea and a cookie in front of her and she nods at it, then reaches up to pat his arm. “Thank you, dear.”
I put down my pencil. “No, of course not.”
“So what did you and Cole do last evening?” she says, resting her chin in her hand. “Let me live vicariously through you two.”
“I hate to disappoint you.” I laugh, remembering how I’d gone up to bed shortly after my web search, leaving Cole to finish watching his game. “We didn’t do anything. School night for the kids.” I think of Livvie, who will be heading to lunch before too long, and feel a tug in my chest, worrying for her. She barely touched her toast this morning, and she hardly said a word when I dropped her off at school.
“Of course, the children,” Susannah says, dropping a sugar cube, and then another, into her tea.
“I would imagine that you and Teddy had a lot of exciting nights out together?” I say.
She laughs in a way that surprises me. “Yes, lots of them.” She rolls her eyes. “I had to make my own fun, honestly. Teddy was too busy making money.”
I glance over at William, who is back behind the counter and busy humming to himself, though I have a feeling he’s listening to our every word.
“How did you and Teddy meet, anyway?” I ask. “I’m trying to remember what I read, but I can’t seem to recall . . .”
“Now that’s a story,” she says, pushing her plate toward me. “Have some.” She turns in her seat. “William!” she shouts.
“Yes, ma’am?” he says, walking down the length of the counter.
“This gingersnap is to die for!” She pushes the plate toward me again.
“Oh, that’s okay,” I say, gesturing to my scone. “I have plenty here.”
“Oh, come on. I can’t stand a woman who doesn’t like to eat.”
“In that case . . .” I lean over and break off a bite.
“So,” she says. “To answer your question . . . Teddy.”
“Yes.”
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