Lizzie sat back, surprised and pleased. Her coat fell open. Joelle’s eyes widened, but she didn’t say anything.
“I think we’re done here,” said Diana, getting to her feet. Joelle stood up, too.
“I am sorry,” she said again. “And if it’s any consolation, I knew that what we had was temporary. Your dad loves your mom. I think I was just …” And here her mouth curved into a charming smile. “You know. The female version of a sports car or something.”
“Or something,” Diana repeated, and Lizzie could tell she was trying for that hard, mocking, whipcrack tone, but not quite getting there … that she was amused in spite of herself.
“I wish …” Joelle’s voice trailed off. When it was clear that she wasn’t going to finish her thought, Lizzie took her hand and squeezed it.
“I hope you’ll be okay,” she said, and found that it was true. Whatever ill will, whatever anger she’d harbored toward the other woman, it was gone. She was just a girl who’d made a mistake, and Lizzie herself had made so many of them that she was in no position to judge. Joelle nodded gratefully. She pulled on her hat, picked up her briefcase from where she’d set it beside her chair, gave Lizzie and Diana a brief, shamefaced wave, and then hurried out the door.
Diana watched her go, then pulled on her sunglasses. Lizzie trotted to keep up with her as she stalked down the sidewalk, heading toward the car. “I think,” she said a little breathlessly, “that it went okay. Don’t you?”
“As well as could be expected,” said Diana, handing her ticket to the attendant.
“I think,” Lizzie ventured, “that maybe we could have been her friends. Not now,” she added hastily, as her sister’s face darkened, “but, you know, under different circumstances. In a different lifetime.” She stole a glance at her sister, then blurted, “You know, you’re kind of scary.”
For the first time that morning, Diana smiled. “Serves her right.”
“Oh, come on.” The attendant brought the car around, and Lizzie slid into the passenger’s seat. “She wasn’t so bad.”
“Maybe not.” Diana flicked on her turn signal, looked right, then left, then right again, and pulled out onto the street that would lead them home.
SYLVIE
So here she was, right back where she’d started, in a car hurtling down a turnpike, heading toward a rest stop, where there would be news. Only this time, the rest stop was in Connecticut, and Sylvie was behind the wheel, captain of her own fate, master of her destiny. This time, she wasn’t alone—Tim Simmons was at her side, with an overnight bag in his lap. This time it was February instead of August, with a sleety sky and the promise of flurries in the forecast for the afternoon, and six inches of snow overnight. And this time, the news might not be bad.
“You want me to drive?” Tim asked.
“I’m fine,” Sylvie said. She was dropping Tim off in New Haven—Ollie’s a capella group was doing a concert at Yale. Ollie had a car, and would drive with his dad back up to Fairview for the weekend.
Sylvie zipped along the highway with her thoughts not on the man in the passenger’s seat but on the man she was going to see. After a few weeks’ worth of awkwardness, she and Tim had decided, in a short and excruciating conversation, to be friends. “You’re not done with him yet,” Tim had said, and Sylvie had acknowledged, a little ruefully, that it was true. He’d broken her heart, he’d shamed her, but still, she wasn’t through with Richard Woodruff.
She steered around a curve, her heart in her throat and her hands tight on the wheel, past the exit to the mall where she and Richard would stop on their way up to Connecticut when the girls were little. There was a miniature train in the middle of the mall that cost a quarter to ride. She had pictures of Lizzie and Diana on that train every single summer from the time they were old enough to sit by themselves in the little wooden cars to the time when they were six or seven, and almost too big to fit. They’d stop at the mall every summer, even after the girls had outgrown the train, to use the bathroom and have lunch. They’d walk past the train on their way to the food court. Richard would buy an Orange Julius, and the girls would look at the train and say, “Remember when we were little?”
When she’d decided she was ready to see Richard, to talk with him face-to-face, the mall was the first place she’d thought of, before realizing that it would be too painful to sit across from her husband somewhere that they’d once been a family, never mind the spot that had occasioned one of her marriage’s oldest jokes. “I’m taking you to court,” Richard would announce when the girls were little, holding Diana’s hand, lifting Lizzie in his arms. “Food court!” Diana would roll her eyes to show the world how lame her parents were, but Lizzie would laugh. “Food court!” she’d chortle, waving her fists in the air.
“We could meet at a rest stop,” Sylvie said.
“A rest stop?” Clearly, this was not what Richard was expecting … but, after a minute on his laptop, with which he’d grown at least minimally proficient in her absence, he located a spot on the Merritt Parkway halfway between New York and Fairview, and Sylvie said she’d be there at noon.
A picnic basket sat in the backseat. The day before, she’d flipped through her file of recipes and called Ceil to talk about beef stew. Dredge the meat in flour, Ceil instructed. Season with salt and pepper, brown in oil, remove from pan. Brown onions and garlic, scrape up the browned bits with a little beef broth. Add more broth. Bring to a boil. Add carrots and potatoes, crushed tomatoes and tomato paste, a bay leaf, a glug of red wine (“How much is a glug?” she asked, and Ceil said, “For me, it’s whatever’s in the bottle that I’m not planning on drinking”). Slide the stew into a slow oven (by now, Sylvie knew what that was), and let it cook. “You can’t ruin it,” Ceil promised, leaving Sylvie to think about all the things that could be ruined, and whether her marriage was among them.
That morning Sylvie had reheated the stew, scooped a generous portion into an insulated Thermos, and added a loaf of crusty bread, cut-up radishes, butter, and salt. There was a plastic cooler in the pantry—the very one, she thought, that Uncle John would use to ferry his beer to the beach every afternoon. She filled it with ice, and a bottle of pumpkin lager, and a bottle of iced tea. She poured another Thermos full of coffee, wrapped up a handful of the magic bars she’d baked, and headed down the highway to meet her … husband? Estranged husband? Soon-to-be-ex-husband? To meet Richard, she thought. That was enough for now.
“Up here,” said Tim, pointing toward the exit. Sylvie slowed the car and followed her GPS through the tangle of unfamiliar streets until they found the corner where Ollie, bundled in a fleece coat, was waiting and waving. Sylvie slipped him a package of magic bars.
“You sure you’ll be all right?” he asked, hugging her a little longer than technically friends should have hugged. “Not nervous or anything?”
“Of course I’m nervous,” she said, which was true. Her knees felt like water, her skin was clammy. “But I think I’ll be fine.”
“Call me if you need me,” he said, and pulled out his own phone to show her. “I’m right here.”
She nodded, hugged him again, then got behind the wheel again and started driving.
By eleven, she was at the rest stop, an hour early. Ever since her days of waiting for Richard’s trains or Richard’s planes, she always kept a book in her purse. She could pour herself some coffee, nibble the heel of the bread, keep the heater on, and read until Richard arrived. But Richard was there waiting for her, standing outside a car she didn’t recognize, with sunglasses over his eyes and a baseball cap shadowing his face.
She sat for a minute, looking at him. He’d dressed for the weather in stiff blue jeans that looked as if they’d just come out of a box, and a plaid shirt, just as new-looking as the pants, and lace-up rubber duck boots with a fluff of fur peeking out of the top. Sylvie smiled, thinking of how his feet must have sweated during his drive up, because she knew, with the certainty only thirty-plus years of marriage could
bring, that there were rag wool socks under those boots. Even though he’d grown up in Harrisburg and seen his share of hard winters, New England snowstorms terrified him, and he’d outfitted himself as if he’d be making the trip by covered wagon, as if blizzards were in the forecast instead of a paltry few inches, as if bears might come charging down the embankments and start attacking his BMW. She bet that there was a bag of snacks on the passenger’s seat—string cheese and beef jerky, nonperishables that would have survived intact if a bomb dropped, or if he’d been making the Middle Passage in the hold of a slave ship, as opposed to a two-and-a-half-hour drive in a luxury sedan on paved roads, with convenience stores and gas stations never more than a few miles away.
She put her book back in her purse and opened the car door. Her voice was calm and her hands were steady. “Hello, Richard,” she called.
He spun around as if she’d goosed him, his new boots tangling briefly on the pavement so that he almost tripped, and Sylvie was reminded so vividly of their first meeting, when he’d fallen through the ice, that tears sprang to her eyes. Oh, Richard, she thought, feeling her heart brimming with a complicated mess of emotions: fury, still, and scalding shame, but underneath it, an intractable affection. And love. Still, love. “Jesus, Syl!” her husband cried. “You scared me!”
She smiled, and collected their lunch. It was chilly out, with thin sunshine peeking through a scrim of clouds, but no snow was falling yet, and the fresh air felt good after the drive. She’d worn a sweater, and a down coat and a scarf, and the way Richard was dressed he could have sat outside through an ice storm. “Picnic table?” she asked. There was a thin strip of grass between the parking lot and the woods, and in one of the parking spots, an old man was trying to coax his bulldog back into his car. (“Come on, Brutus!” he wheedled, as Sylvie and Richard walked past. “I’ve got chopped liver!”) Of the six picnic tables, only one was occupied. A mother balanced a snowsuited baby on her lap and ate a half-sandwich one-handed while her husband squirted sanitizer into the outstretched palms of two little boys.
Sylvie set out their lunch, scooping stew into the bowls she’d brought while Richard opened the lager and poured them each half a glass. She wondered if he’d offer a toast. But Richard just spread his napkin on his lap. “You cooked this?” he asked, taking an appreciative sniff as Sylvie passed him the bowl. “I can’t get over it. You, cooking.”
“I’ve changed,” she said, and passed him his bowl. She didn’t think she would be hungry—she’d had an image of herself nibbling at a salted radish while they talked, but the stew did smell good, and she hadn’t had much breakfast.
For a few minutes the two of them ate in silence. In the parking lot, the old man gave up his attempts at persuasion and, with a grunt, bent and hoisted his dog into the passenger’s seat. (“You’re killing me with this, Brutus,” he said, before getting into his own seat and driving away.) At the neighboring table, one of the little boys whined that he hated peanut butter, they always had peanut butter, and he wanted ham and cheese and why wasn’t there any of that, and his father said, “Because life sucks, then you die,” and the mother said, “Really, Jamie? That’s really how we talk to the five-year-old?” The father subsided for a moment, then said, in a stage whisper loud enough for Sylvie and Richard to hear, “I like ham and cheese better, too.”
Richard tore off a hunk of bread and buttered it. “I’m glad you called. I wanted to tell you something.”
She stared at him, waiting, as he chewed and swallowed and finally said, “I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve decided …” He paused, tore off another chunk of bread, and said, “I think I’m just going to quit. Hang it up before the next election. Start a foundation, or join someone else’s. Do some good.” He smiled at her—that old charming grin, the smile that said, I’m going places, and you can come with me. “What do you think about that?”
Sylvie knew what she wanted to say to him: that she missed him, that she wanted them to try, that she wanted to be part of a family again—but she couldn’t say it yet. Not until she was sure that it was what he wanted, too.
Since Thanksgiving, Richard had called her every night, and they had long conversations, not just about politics but about everything—a piece of music he’d heard, an art exhibit she’d read about, trips they’d taken, trips they’d like to take. The conversation would move to their daughters. “Can you believe Lizzie?” Richard would ask. “She’s big as a house.” “Richard,” Sylvie chided, but she, too, could hardly believe how Lizzie had blossomed. The last time she’d been in Philadelphia, Lizzie, in maternity cargo pants, was sorting through a bag of baby clothes she’d found at a secondhand store. She and Jeff had told Sylvie they were taking classes in something called the Bradley birth method. “No drugs,” Lizzie had explained, and Diana, who’d been making lunch in the kitchen, had rolled her eyes and whispered to Sylvie, “Bet you she’s begging for an epidural before he parks the car.”
Lizzie had gotten a part-time job assisting a wedding photographer and was starting to make a name for herself for her offbeat, black-and-white candid shots that caught the couples at unexpected moments—a bride licking frosting off her fingertip as the groom paid the caterers, a tiny flower girl asleep in her grandfather’s arms. Gary had moved a few blocks away and saw Milo almost every night. Diana had gone back to work at the hospital. She’d cut her ER shifts down to two a week, and was helping to run a program for mothers who’d been born with their babies addicted to drugs. “I thought you didn’t believe in addiction,” Sylvie had said, and Diana had given her a sad smile and said, “I’ve changed my mind.”
She told Richard stories about her visits with the girls, and he told her about what happened when he saw them, and about life in D.C., and back in New York. In all their conversations, he’d never asked about Tim, and Sylvie had never offered any information.
Across the picnic table, Richard wiped off his spoon with his napkin and set it on the table. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot.” He then reached out his hand, brushing his fingers against her cheek. His voice deepened. “You look beautiful,” he said.
She waved away the compliment, feeling shy. She looked different, that was all: she’d let her hair grow longer, and stopped dying the gray and straightening the curls. She’d put on a few pounds, but not as many as she’d expected—all the cooking seemed to have been balanced out by all the walking on the beach and to the grocery store. Her cheeks were rosy—normally she covered the flush with foundation, but she hadn’t worn makeup since she’d arrived in Fairview, and hadn’t wanted to start that morning. She wondered what he was really seeing. She felt different, but that didn’t mean she looked that way … and had Richard really been seeing her at all over the past years?
Richard took her hands. “Do you want to try again? Is that why you wanted to see me?” he asked. When she didn’t answer immediately, he said, “Or are you …” He broke off and gave a rueful chuckle. “I don’t even know how to have this conversation with my wife. Is it serious? You and that other guy? Is that what it is? You wanted to give me the bad news in person?”
“We’re friends,” she said. “That’s all.”
Richard squeezed her hands. “I don’t want to lose you.”
She scooted herself backward on the picnic bench, taking her hands back and folding them in her lap. “Maybe,” she said, “you should have thought about that before you—”
“I know,” he said, before she could finish. “My God, Sylvie, don’t you think I know that?” The mother and the father and the little boys at the next table had turned to stare. Richard lowered his voice. “Don’t you think,” he said in a hoarse whisper, “that I would take it back if I could?”
She thought about it. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know why you did it in the first place, so I don’t know whether you regret it. I’m sure you regret the consequences, but as to the act itself …”
“Stop talking like a lawyer,” he said, but he didn
’t say it angrily. He sounded tired, more than anything else. “And as it happens, I do regret it. The act itself.”
“You do?” she asked lightly. “She looked pretty cute in those pictures.”
“Without going into details,” Richard said, “I can tell you that Benjamin Franklin had it right with regards to the charms of the older woman.”
“So why, then?” All the lightness and high good humor was out of her voice. Why, then? Would he even have an answer?
He exhaled, running his hands over his head, a gesture she’d seen him perform thousands of times, when he was irritated, or tired, or stalling for time. “I think I was flattered, more than anything else. Flattered that a young girl like that would be interested.” He looked down, sighing. “Tell you the truth, she reminded me of you a little bit. And that made me feel young.”
“So was it worth it?” she asked.
Closing his eyes, Richard said, “Of course not. I lost you, I lost the girls’ respect, I lost my reputation, I lost everything I’d worked to build since I was twelve years old and decided I wanted to be president.”
“You were eleven,” she reminded him. She was trembling again, shocked at how simple it was to slip into her old role as the institutional memory of their marriage, the one who kept track of the anecdotes and in-jokes and the vacation photographs, the curator of the family history.
“Well, I was twelve when I figured out that wasn’t going to happen. And if I’d known being in office was going to be this much work …” He looked down, giving Sylvie the chance to see new threads of gray in his hair, and that his bald spot, the one that he despaired of, had gotten bigger. Politicians worked until they dropped, running for office, even for president, into their eighties and holding those offices until they were dragged off the public stage (occasionally after they’d collapsed on top of them), but in the world of regular people, there were plenty of men who’d retired at Richard’s age.
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