No Time To Blink

by Dina Silver

  I looked up at him. “I’m in the book. Your sister, Serine, also knows my family quite well.”

  He nodded and understood. “I can’t wait to tell her I met the beautiful Catherine Clarke twice in one day.”

  I watched as the car drove off, and then Laura came up and dragged me inside by the elbow.

  That was the day everything changed. Every course my life had been primed to take had vanished in that moment. I was supposed to marry one of my own: a Catholic Ivy League graduate—the son of a club member with a twelve handicap and a summer home in Provincetown. Any version of Sander Crawley would suffice. Certainly not a Lebanese man ten years my senior who had a home in Beirut and wore cologne to the beach.

  Chapter Three

  CATHERINE

  Greenwich, 1970

  A week later, Gabriel called to ask me out on a date, and as the evening approached, my anticipation grew. My sister Colleen lent me her bright yellow minidress, which had a belt that sat low on the hips. The color was a little much with my blonde hair, but I thought he’d get a kick out of me dressing like sunlight.

  At 7:00 p.m., I walked into my father’s office, gave him a kiss on the top of the head, and walked out. He was nose-deep in a vodka gimlet and the evening paper, and as far as he cared, any one of his five daughters could have breezed in and said goodbye.

  At 7:15 p.m., the doorbell rang, causing the dogs to bark and run through the foyer with boundless excitement and curiosity. When I opened the door, Gabriel was standing there with a bouquet of yellow tulips. “For you,” he said and allowed our beagle trio to perform due diligence with their noses. One they were satisfied, they all bolted outside onto the driveway.

  “These are my absolute favorite, thank you,” I said, taking the tulips.

  “Your cousin Laura told me.”

  I took the flowers from him just as Mother walked up behind me with a cigarette teetering on her bottom lip and a martini in her hand. She was silent at first.

  “Mother, this is Gabriel, who I told you about. Tom Sheppard’s friend.”

  He took a step forward onto the slate flooring in our entryway and went to shake her hand, but she did not offer it to him, just gave a nod. I took his hand instead and handed her the flowers. “Please put these in water for me.”

  She forced a smile as I headed out the door and into the warm evening air.

  “Lovely to see you again, Ann Marie,” he said to Mom, nearly knocking me off my platform sandals by using her first name.

  Gabriel had the Corvette again that evening. “I apologize for the mess,” he said, referring to a pile of laundry in the tiny back seat.

  “Please don’t bother. I adore the scent of damp beach towels.”

  He drove a short distance to Steamboat Road, a popular little street that jutted out like a thumb into Greenwich Harbor, and pulled up in front of Manero’s Steakhouse.

  “Have you been here before?”

  I almost had to laugh. “Are you kidding? Nick Manero has been pinching my cheeks for decades. Hopefully, he’ll give me a reprieve since I’m on a date this time.”

  “Hopefully not,” Gabriel said.

  The restaurant was buzzing with activity, and we were greeted by a hostess and seated immediately. The place was located across the road from the water, and the interior was made up of wood-paneled walls with bright red vinyl chairs at each table and sawdust on the floor. Waiters flew around with crisp white dress shirts and long black aprons tied in the back as they served up hundreds of filet mignon dinners each week—including an appetizer, Gorgonzola salad, garlic bread, fried onions, dessert, and coffee, all for $12.95. Locals and visitors alike flocked to Manero’s for the filet dinner, and we were no exception. I’d been going there with my family for many years, but that night was the first time I remember enjoying myself so much.

  Gabriel ordered us shrimp cocktails and manhattans to start.

  “Sorry about my mother,” I said. “She’s a tough nut to crack.”

  “I’m used to it.”

  “She’s wary of everyone,” I added.

  “Everyone who doesn’t look like a Downing.”

  His comment caught me off guard, but I placed my napkin in my lap and maintained my composure. “Well, I see you’ve done all your research on me, but I’m a Clarke, not a Downing.”

  “The Downings are your family, too,” he said as the drinks arrived.

  “If you’re so taken with them, then what are you doing wasting time with me?” I took a sip and stared at him over the rim of the glass. “I have no shortage of Downing cousins I could introduce you to.”

  He laughed. “Oh, I am quite taken with you. That’s why I bothered to do my research.”

  My father, Albert Clarke, had two sisters, Hazel and Harriet.

  Hazel had married a man named Patrick Fitzgibbon Downing, a.k.a. “Fitz,” who was a Connecticut senator and son of a well-known businessman. My father’s other sister, Harriet, had married Fitz’s brother, David. The Downing family had lived in the Belle Haven neighborhood for generations. Between them, Hazel and Harriet had nine children—my cousins—who received a great deal more attention than my four sisters and me because of their prominent last name.

  “Laura, who you met today, for example. She’s a Downing, as you know.” I typically preferred to surround myself with people who were unequivocally unimpressed with my lineage, but they were increasingly harder and harder to find. I was mildly disenchanted when Gabriel admitted to knowing my parents because it meant he’d have preconceived notions about how I was raised and what my expectations were.

  “I hear your uncle Fitz is thinking about running for president in a few years.”

  “So I’ve heard,” I said and changed the subject. “How long will you be staying in Greenwich?”

  “Just through the end of the summer. Only about two more months, and then I will be transferred.”

  “To where?”

  Gabriel lit a cigarette, exhaled smoke into the room, and shrugged. “I’m not certain yet, but it looks like Chicago, most likely.”

  “What is it that you do?”

  He took a sip of his cocktail and leaned in. His eyes narrowed a bit before he began to speak. He was handsome, for sure, and there was a fascinating contrast between the darkness in his eyes and the lightness in his smile. But there was something precarious about him that captivated me most of all. The deep, loud tone of his voice and the way he threw his hands in the air as he was telling a story. The way he held his shoulders back and his chin up, and the way he smiled at me and no one else. And the way he came into my life as a bit of a mystery. I knew very little about his past and what had led him to the beach that day at Tod’s Point, but I couldn’t wait to uncover everything there was to know.

  “I work as a consultant for a pharmaceutical company based in Beirut. I come to the States when new drugs are introduced in my category, every couple of years or so. Once the physicians and hospitals are acclimated, and the training teams in place, I head back to Lebanon.”

  “So, you’re only in the States for a short time?”

  “I expect to be in Chicago for at least two years, maybe longer.”

  “I see.” I looked away.

  The waiter brought our appetizers, and I lifted my head to peer out the open windows. It was my favorite time of the day, when the faint chatter of seagulls accompanied the setting sun.

  After dinner, we drove to Tod’s Point, where we’d met a week earlier. We sat talking in the car for a while until the sun was fully retired. Then he grabbed a towel from the back seat, and we went for a walk on the sand. He was a little too boisterous and crass at times, and his manners were somewhat lacking, but he captivated me with stories about growing up in a much different place. He mentioned a home in the mountains of Lebanon, a younger brother who struggled with learning disabilities, and a father who had left them at an early age. From what I could tell, he didn’t see his mother or brother much, but he and Serine, who had moved
to America as a college student and never looked back, supported them both financially.

  His figure was lean yet protective, with wide shoulders and strong arms. His legs were muscular and scarred, not riddled with tan lines from tennis socks. I could barely contain my smile as I sat with him, fretting over saying the wrong things or sounding horribly boring by talking about my relatives and Greenwich all evening. He’d traveled the world, spoke three languages, had two degrees, and all I’d ever accomplished was being born into the right family.

  When we finally picked a place to sit, he took the towel that had been draped around his neck and laid it down. Once we were both off our feet, he didn’t hesitate to kiss me. His approach was bold yet tender, and I lost myself completely with him. My limbs loosened, my lips parted, and I used every inch of my body to prove to him that we were a match. That I was his equal. That he should adore me and treasure me while he had the chance because he would miss me when he left, and he may never have a third chance to meet Catherine Clarke in one lifetime.

  The flame from Gabriel’s lighter illuminated his face as he lit a cigarette and then exhaled the first drag. He blew smoke from his lungs and ran a hand through his thick hair. It was already an hour past my curfew, but what twenty-one-year-old college graduate should have a curfew, anyway? I couldn’t tell him it was time for me to go home. I simply wouldn’t. He could sleep on the beach all night if he wanted. He wouldn’t have to go to church the next morning and serve cheese sandwiches to the parishioners afterward. He could walk up and down Greenwich Avenue the next morning and sleep on a park bench and drink manhattans all along the one-mile stretch if he chose, because he had that freedom. Freedom to talk three octaves above everyone else in the restaurant and be indifferent to their stares, freedom to live where and how he wanted, and freedom to do as he pleased and not simply what was expected of him. Freedoms that I longed for.

  “What about you, Catherine?” He looked directly at me when I spoke and focused on my lips as I answered him. “What will you do with yourself once the summer is over?”

  I crossed my ankles and brushed some sand off my lap. “I may decide to go to graduate school.”

  “More school means you don’t have a plan.”

  I tilted my head and sighed, enjoying the sound of the waves breaking against the rocks for a moment. “My plan is to be a reporter for a magazine or a newspaper. I have an English major, but I was thinking that another degree in journalism . . .”

  “Another degree won’t help you. You need experience. School cannot replace real-world experiences. While you’ll be wasting time with more classes and football games, your more ambitious colleagues will be starting their careers and leaving you behind.”

  I huffed a little at him chastising me, although he was probably right. “I asked my father about talking to the editor of the Greenwich Times, and he said to send him some test articles.”

  Gabriel shook his head. “A real professional who is committed to her trade doesn’t send her father in first. You should go to the editor yourself,” he scolded, waving his hands as he spoke. “Is he hiring you or your father?”

  I was silent for a minute and then kissed him square on the lips. “You’re right. I’ve been guilty of wasting these weeks since graduation.”

  He dragged his hands through the ends of my hair as I pulled away.

  “Thank you for being so blunt with me,” I whispered, elated that he hadn’t scoffed at my choice. “Mother thinks it’s a useless career, reporting about other people’s business, although that’s precisely what she does at the club all afternoon.”

  He lowered his gaze. “Promise me you’ll go in and talk with the editor in person.” He paused. “If that’s what you really want.”

  I crossed my heart with my finger. “I promise.”

  Gabriel and I held hands and kissed our way back to his car. Looking back, it might seem as though things were moving fast, but when I was knee-deep in it, time stood still for me. I’d never felt so grounded and comfortable with someone before. He made me believe I could be a writer if I wanted. He made me believe there was more to life than the prestigious Belle Haven bubble I existed in, and he made me fearful of a future without him.

  When I came home later that evening, the yellow tulips had been tossed onto my bedroom floor.

  Chapter Four

  ANN MARIE

  Chicago, 2008

  As I come to life after a restless night’s sleep, my therapist’s voice rings in my head along with my son’s cries through the baby monitor. “Every morning, write down five things you’re grateful for,” she would say. Hurriedly, I sit on the edge of my bed and grab the pink spiral-bound notebook she forced on me a month ago. Unlike my mother, I loathe writing in journals or anything else for that matter. I open to yesterday’s page.

  1) My health

  2) My boys

  3) Our home

  4) My mom

  5) That revenge is possible

  I grab a pen and try to write quickly before Luke wakes Jimmy and Ryan, and I have three cranky kids on my hands.

  1) My health

  2) My boys

  3) Our home

  4) My mom

  5) That revenge is possible

  Luke gets quiet as soon as I enter his room. The lights are dim, and he’s standing clutching the bars of the crib, his hair a sweaty mop of sticky golden locks. The room smells of lavender and poop.

  “Hi, sweet boy,” I whisper, and lift him out, kissing his cheeks. “Momma’s here.” He buries his face in my shoulder as I carry him to the changing table. I lay him down and reach for a clean diaper as he eagerly begins chewing his foot. Once he’s in a fresh pair of footie pajamas, I carry him downstairs to the kitchen, latching the child gate behind me at the top of the stairs. Our home is nestled on a cul-de-sac in Wilmette, a suburb about fifteen miles north of downtown Chicago. When I was pregnant with Ryan, we had an apartment in the city, and we’d drive up every Sunday for months, going to open houses and looking for the perfect home. I cried tears of joy when we found this one, a yellow Cape Cod with a cedar shake roof and a covered wraparound porch, two weeks before my water broke.

  Todd knows how much I love this house, and that only makes him more enthusiastic to sell it. I spent months picking out paint colors and cabinet pulls and carpet weaves. I gave birth to two more beautiful boys and had countless holiday parties and birthday parties over the years in this house, only to find Todd naked and underneath his equally nude coworker on the five-hundred-thread-count sateen sheets I’d ordered for the guest room. Even worse, I’d decorated that room especially for my mother.

  My mom lives in Connecticut and doesn’t visit too often, but when she does, my heart is full and my home feels complete. Like the frayed strands that make up the fabric of who I am get snipped and tailored back to perfection. The summer I left for college, it was hard for me to leave her. She and I have always been very close, and after I graduated from Purdue University in Indiana, I had a choice. Go back to Greenwich, move back in with my mom, and hope to find a job in Manhattan. Or follow Todd and my heart back to Chicago, where most of my new Midwestern college friends were headed. But by that time I was smitten with Todd, so it wasn’t a difficult decision.

  We’d met at a fraternity party my sophomore year. He was tall and good-looking, with wispy sandy-blond hair, and he was ambitious as all hell. Todd was an only child, and if there was something he wanted, he couldn’t conceive of not getting it. His teeth were white and his eyes were green, and he had me charmed out of my clothes and into his bed the first night we met—a detail I’d left out when gushing to my mother about him.

  She supported my decision and me, as she always has. That’s why it’s important for me to have a comfortable place for her in my home. She loves the color yellow, so I have two lemon-colored swivel chairs upholstered in linen tweed, under the window in the guest bedroom. On the opposite corner is a desk that belonged to my grandmother so Mom can sit and rea
d or write before bed. The sheets have since been burned, but everything else is as she likes it.

  It’s never been a drama-free relationship between us; we have our disagreements like any mother and daughter, but she’s my biggest supporter and my biggest critic rolled into one, and I can’t imagine not having her as a sounding board.

  My chest tightens when I think about discussing the divorce with her. The hardest phone call I ever had to make was telling her about Todd, and how horribly cliché the demise of my marriage is turning out to be. She burst into tears when she found out he’d been cheating on me with so many different women. I think she’d rather I have a third eye in the center of my forehead than have a man disrespect me that way.

  As I’m thinking about her, I realize she hasn’t returned my phone call from two days ago.

  “Moooooooom!” Jimmy screams from the top of the stairs, just as I’m getting Luke’s bottle. “I can’t find my gym shoes!”

  “I’ll be right there.” I look around for a spot to put Luke. Where on earth has the high chair gone?

  “Mom!” I can hear Ryan now. “Jimmy woke me!”

  I shift Luke onto my other hip and hand him his bottle. “Oh, Ryan, you have to get up anyway. Could you please help Jimmy find his shoes?”

  “No! He woke me.”

  “Please, honey,” I beg, and locate the high chair by the bay window in the family room. “How on earth?” I mumble to myself. After rolling it back to the kitchen, putting Luke in the seat, and placing the chair smack-dab in front of the television, I grab a coffee mug from the cabinet and feel a tug on my sweatpants.

  “I’m starving,” Jimmy says, shoulders slumped and clearly defeated by morning hunger pains.

  I place the empty mug on the counter. “Do you want some eggs?”

  He shakes his head no.

  “I can make them scrambled with cheddar cheese?”

  “No.”

  “How about cereal?”

  “I don’t want cereal.”

  I take a breath and look at the clock on the microwave. Six thirty-five a.m. “Have some cereal.”