She hates the fact that she has to rely on Brynn. Of course Brynn doesn’t mind, and Ashley squealed with delight when Fiona told her she was spending the night there. She loves to play with Brynn’s boys.
Still…
Fee has done her best to avoid Brynn these last few weeks. Ever since the lunch they shared with Cassie and Tildy.
She has no interest in living in the past…And Brynn, she’s starting to realize, is a part of the past.
Fiona is moving on.
Moving on, and up. She wants to forget where she’s come from—all of it.
James Bingham can help her accomplish that.
Brynn cannot.
But Brynn can help me with Ashley tonight. Right now, that’s what I need.
“Uh-oh.”
“What is it, Ashley?” she asks, slowing before the Saddlers’ driveway.
“I forgot my toothbrush.”
“How could you forget? I reminded you right before we left.”
“I know, but I just forgot.”
“You’re not going to get far in this world if you don’t learn to be more organized, Ashley.” Fiona sighs. “I’ll have to tell Brynn to take you out to the drugstore or something and get you one.”
“Can’t we just go back for mine?”
Fiona shakes her head. “No time.”
“But I don’t want to make Brynn go out.”
“She won’t mind.”
“What if she does?”
“She doesn’t.” What else has she got to do?
“But—”
“Trust me, Ashley. Okay?”
“Okay,” Ashley tells her mother. But she doesn’t.
Trust her, that is.
Sometimes, she thinks Mom just makes stuff up to make things easier for herself. Daddy says it’s what she does.
Actually, Daddy mostly thinks Mom makes stuff up just to make things harder for him. Which might be true, because Mom hates Daddy.
“Here we are,” she says briskly as she pulls into the Saddlers’ driveway. She tilts the rearview mirror slightly, toward her face, and checks her teeth for lipstick as she says, “Have fun tonight, Ash.”
“Aren’t you coming inside?”
“No time, sweetie. I’ll watch you from here and make sure you get in okay. Oh, look, Brynn is already there waiting for you, see?”
Ashley turns her head. Yes, there’s Brynn, waving from the doorway, with Jeremy on her hip. She’s smiling and saying something to him and pointing at the car.
Mom leans across the seat and gives Ashley a quick, tight hug. “Have a good time, okay? And don’t forget to pick up after yourself, and help around the house. And make sure Brynn drops you at school on time in the morning. Tell her she can bring your overnight bag by the office afterward so you don’t have to carry it around. I won’t have time to come back here and pick it up.”
Ashley says nothing to that. She’d rather carry her stuff to school than make Brynn go out of her way to drop it at Mom’s office.
She opens the car door and disentangles her legs from the straps of her backpack and her green floral Vera Bradley duffel, both on the floor.
Mom taught her long ago that whenever she’s going someplace with a bag, she should keep it on the mat below her feet, with the straps looped around her ankle. That way, she’ll never forget it.
“If you just toss it in the backseat, Ashley, you’ll leave it behind. Out of sight, out of mind.”
Ashley swings her legs around and climbs out of the car, lugging her bags. “Bye, Mom.”
“Bye, honey.” She shifts gears and calls out the window, “Thanks again, Brynn.” She’s already in REVERSE, backing away.
Ashley hoists the heavy duffel onto her shoulder. Aunt Deirdre gave it to her last Christmas. She had it sent from some store. She never comes back to Cedar Crest for Christmas—or ever, for that matter.
Mom visited Aunt Deirdre on St. John last fall while Ashley was up at the cabin with Daddy. She herself hasn’t seen Aunt Deirdre since she and her mother met her in Miami for a weekend almost two years ago. That was a business trip for Mom; Ashley spent most of her time at the pool getting to know her aunt.
Mom and Aunt Deirdre aren’t identical, but rather, “mirror image” twins. As far as Ashley can tell, that pretty much just means Mom is left-handed and Aunt Deirdre is right, yet really, they’re opposites in every way.
By the time that South Beach weekend drew to a close, she fervently wished Aunt Deirdre lived closer—and that her mother was more like her twin.
Now, walking up the sidewalk toward Brynn’s welcoming smile, she thinks the same thing about her: why can’t Mom be more like Brynn, who always has time? Time for her own kids, and time for Ashley.
Brynn remembers little details, too—things like Ashley’s fondness for strawberries, and her newest best friend’s name: Meg.
Mom forgets sometimes and thinks her name is Michelle.
Daddy keeps her friends straight, though, and he always makes sure he has strawberries in the fridge for her weekends with him. Sometimes Ashley wishes she could go live with him full time—which she once overheard her mom telling him would only happen “over my dead body,” in a tone that gave Ashley chills.
Anyway, if she lived with her father she wouldn’t even have her own room. Daddy just has a studio apartment with a bed in one corner, plus a pullout couch where he sleeps whenever Ashley spends the night.
She doesn’t like to make him give up his bed, but Mom told Daddy she isn’t allowed to visit if she has to sleep on his couch. She said it’s bad for Ashley’s back, even though Ashley’s back has always been perfectly fine.
Hearing a horn honk, Ashley turns to see her mother driving away—much faster, she bets, than the posted 15-mile-an-hour Tamarack Lane speed limit.
“Ashley! We’re so excited that you’re here.”
“Hi, Brynn.”
“I swear, you grow another inch every time I see you!” Brynn gives her a quick hug as Jeremy grabs hold of her dark hair and gives it a tug.
“Oh, Jeremy, no, don’t hurt Ashley! Let go!”
“It’s okay.” Ashley hides a wince behind a smile as Jeremy pulls again, hard. “He’s just a little guy, aren’t you, Jeremy? You don’t know any better.”
“He loves long hair,” Brynn says, gently untangling her son’s fingers. “That’s why I’ve always got mine in a ponytail.”
“I like to wear mine in a ponytail, too.” But she rarely does. Mom says she needs hair around her face—“a softer look suits you better,” is how she puts it.
What she means, Ashley figured out, is that Ashley isn’t pretty enough to go around with all her hair pulled back—she looks much better when she can hide behind it.
So she does. She wears it loose and has developed a habit of tilting her head when she’s talking to people, so that a shadowy screen of hair falls partially across her face. It gets in her way a lot, especially when she’s eating or chewing gum.
But maybe someday, when she’s prettier, she can pull her hair back to keep it out of the way, like Brynn does.
“Um, where should I put my bag?” Ashley asks, just inside the door. Today, Brynn’s house smells like chocolate and potpourri, and the floor is cluttered, as always, with Lego and Matchbox cars.
“You can just throw it anywhere for now,” Brynn tells her, “and come into the kitchen. The boys and I were about to have brownies and milk. Then we’ll go out for pizza in a little while.”
“Brownies, then pizza?”
“Sure, why not? I just made them, and they taste the best when they’re gooey and hot.”
“I know, but…dessert before dinner?”
“Oh, this isn’t dessert. It’s a late-afternoon snack, really. Pizza will be dinner, and then the boys and I were thinking that we might have to stop at that new Cold Stone Creamery for dessert. What do you think?”
I think you’re the best mom ever.
The thought catches Ashley off guard, and she a
lmost cringes guiltily.
It isn’t that she doesn’t love her own mom. She does. More—she can’t help but think sometimes—than her mom loves her.
“Do you want some milk?” Brynn asks her in the cheerful blue and yellow kitchen, where the fridge is covered in crayon drawings and the air is heavy with a melted cocoa scent.
“Sure.”
“Chocolate or white?”
“White,” Ashley decides reluctantly. Mom is always warning her that too much chocolate isn’t good for her skin or her teeth. Which reminds her…
“Um, Brynn? I forgot my toothbrush. Do you think we could stop off somewhere on the way out for pizza and I could buy one? I have some leftover lunch money in my bag, so—”
“Save your lunch money, sweetie. I have a couple of new toothbrushes in the medicine cabinet. I bought a bunch of extras last month so that we’ll have them when we need them. I like to be organized.”
That’s funny, because Mom says Brynn is the least organized person she ever knew.
Ashley is starting to notice that Mom is wrong about some things—especially when she criticizes other people.
But she would never dare to point that out. Mom definitely doesn’t like to be criticized herself.
“Yay! Ashley’s here!” Caleb darts into the kitchen and throws his arms around her waist. “Hi! Did you hear I’m in kindergarten now?”
“I heard. Congratulations.”
“How old are you, Ashley?”
“Third grade.”
“Wow. My friend Tyler has a big sister in third grade,” Caleb says solemnly, and turns to his mother. “Can Ashley come and live with us? I want a big sister, too. Then I can be the little brother, and Jeremy can be the pet snail, and you can be the Mommy, and—”
“Except that Ashley already has a mommy,” Brynn informs him as she pours milk into plastic cups.
“She does? Who?”
“Auntie Fee.”
“Auntie Fee is a mommy?” Caleb asks in disbelief.
“Of course. What did you think?”
“I thought she was a lady.”
Brynn laughs at that, but Ashley doesn’t.
“What about the daddy? Can Daddy be Ashley’s daddy? She doesn’t have one…does she?”
“Sure I do.” Ashley manages to smile.
“Who? Do I know him?”
“I bet you don’t, because he doesn’t live here,” Ashley tells Caleb.
Brynn is so busy cutting brownies that she can’t look up. Either that, or she’s pretending to be busy cutting brownies so she won’t have to look up.
“He doesn’t live here? Why not?”
“Because my mom and dad have a divorce. So they don’t live together.”
“When are you and Daddy going to get a divorce?” Caleb asks fearfully, turning to Brynn.
“Oh, honey, don’t worry about that. We aren’t.”
Ashley watches with envy as she holds him close in a reassuring hug, remembering that her father once did the same thing, made the same promise to her.
The next day, Mom kicked him out of the house.
But she can’t imagine Brynn doing something like that.
What about Garth, though? He’s different from Brynn; different from her own dad, too. He acts nice and everything, but there’s something kind of creepy about him.
Mostly because he’s got all those books about dead people. She knows, because once when she was here, she found a whole stack of them and snuck a peek at some of the creepy pictures until she got spooked.
Maybe, Ashley thinks hopefully, if Garth kicks Brynn out, she can marry Daddy and become Ashley’s stepmother, and the boys will be her stepbrothers…
And what about Mom? she wonders belatedly. Where does she fit into any of that?
She doesn’t, and Ashley is swept by a bad feeling.
“Brynn?” she asks in a small voice. “Do you think my mom is going to be okay?”
Still stroking Caleb’s hair, Brynn looks up, startled. “What do you mean?”
“What if something bad happens to her?”
“You mean tonight, while she’s in Boston?”
Ashley nods, though she’s not at all sure that’s what she means. Her mother’s “over my dead body” is ringing in her ears for some reason, and she can’t help but picture the grotesque corpse pictures she saw in Garth’s books that time.
“Of course she’ll be okay,” Brynn says with a smile. “She’ll go on her date, and then she’ll come home, and tomorrow you’ll—”
“Date? I thought it was a meeting.”
“A meeting? Oh! Right. It is! It is a meeting, Ashley. Your mom is at a meeting. In Boston. You’re absolutely right.”
Brynn is good at a lot of things, Ashley notes, but lying isn’t one of them.
It’s long past midnight when the uniformed driver opens the back door.
A giddy, giggling Tildy, wearing an iridescent white dress with a swirling skirt, steps out of the double-parked limousine on Commonwealth Avenue.
“Are you all right, Miss Harrington?” the driver asks as she sways a bit when her feet hit the sidewalk in front of her town house.
“I’m fine! It’s just these stilettos. They’re hard to walk in, but I love stilettos! Don’t you?”
“Absolutely.”
Hmm, she notices that he seems to be awfully blurry for someone responsible for driving a car. “Hey, are you all right to get home from here?”
“Absolutely,” he says again. “But I’m not so sure about you, Miss Harrington. Come on, I’ll walk you up to the door.”
“Oh, no, no, I’m fine.”
“I promised your father that I would see you safely home.”
Oh, right…He’s Daddy’s new driver, Ed. Is it Ed?
Must be. That name rings a bell.
Oh, well, whatever…
“I had sssssuch a great time tonight,” she tells him. “Did you have a great time?”
“I had a very nice time,” he assures her.
“Wait! You weren’t at the party, Ed! You were waiting outside, weren’t you? You shoulda come in! You coulda come in! Everyone shoulda come in. There was champagne, and there were mojitos, and Tapas, and…wait, was there a chocolate fountain? There was ssss’posed to be a chocolate fountain, but I don’t remember if it was there…”
“I’m sure it was. Let me walk you up to your door, Miss Harrington.” The driver firmly takes her arm and propels her up the brick steps. “Do you have your keys?”
She jangles them in his face and giggles.
“Good, okay, I’ll open the door for you.”
“You will? Well, you’re a gentleman…What was your name? Ed? Dave?”
He just shakes his head.
Tildy grasps the black wrought iron railing to steady herself and wonders what his name is, then wonders whether she should have had that last mojito.
Of course she should have. She’s the birthday girl! And it was a great party.
But it would have been even more fun if…
Darn! The tail end of that thought has flitted right out of her head.
Hmm…
What was the reason she didn’t have as much fun tonight as she expected?
Did something happen at the party?
Hey, don’t forget to tell what’s-his-name the code so the alarm won’t go off, she reminds herself briefly as Daddy’s new driver sorts through the keys on her Tiffany key ring.
Then she resumes wracking her champagne and rum-soaked brain about the party again. Hmm…She can’t seem to come up with anything negative about it.
All she remembers is a wonderful night: dancing, friends, family, food, plenty of toasts in her honor…
Daddy was so proud. He waltzed with her, and he told her how beautiful she is and how much he loves her, and he said…
Wait, what did he say?
Oh. Right. He said he’s looking forward to her wedding someday; that it will be an even bigger extravaganza than tonight’s birt
hday party.
“Someday,” she told him agreeably.
“With all these eligible men under one roof,” Daddy swept a hand around the ballroom, “there must be someone close to being worthy of my baby girl.”
“There is someone, Daddy—”
Right! That’s it. That’s why the party wasn’t as much fun as she expected.
Because he didn’t show up.
She thought he might, after all.
He said all along that he wouldn’t. So why did she think he might?
Oh! Because of the roses. And the card that said he’d see her tonight.
She really thought he’d be there. But he wasn’t.
Well, maybe the roses weren’t from him.
Maybe they were from…
“What do you think?” she asks Ed, or Dave, who is fitting the key into the lock.
“Pardon me, Miss Harrington?”
“Who sent me the roses? Were they from you?” She laughs, hard and shrill, at the thought that he might have a crush on her.
And…
Oh, wait, this is good: what if it was mutual? What if she was to march right up to Daddy and report that she’s finally found the man she wants to marry, and it’s his new chauffeur?
God, I’m killing myself, Tildy thinks, doubled over in glee.
Oblivious that he’s the source of her hysterical laughter, Ed/Dave clears his throat as he opens the door. “Here we are, home sweet home.”
She straightens, sniffles, wipes her eyes. “Thank you, Dave.” She attempts a curtsy but almost pitches headfirst down the steps.
“It’s Albert,” he says, after steadying her arm.
“Excuse me?”
“My name is Albert, Miss Harrington.”
“Oh! Well then, who is Ed?”
“I have no idea.”
“And you’re not Dave, either?”
“I’m Albert.” He tips his cap before turning and heading down the steps with a polite, “Good night.”
“Good night…Albert.” She shakes her head, closing and locking the door after him.
She feels dizzy. And a little nauseated.
A lot nauseated, all of a sudden.
No, she probably shouldn’t have had that last mojito. How many did she have altogether? One before the champagne toast, and at least one after…and that final one…
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