“Claire,” she yelled out to her.
“Mallory? What are you doing here?”
Mallory jumped off the last step to the beach and waited for Claire to come closer. Pearl was throwing pebbles in the water, watching them skate across the surface.
“Claire, thank God you’re here. I can’t believe how fate works.”
Claire looked at Mallory. Her hair was a wreck, long strings of it getting caught in her eyes as the other clump of it tried its best to stay harnessed in the ponytail holder. Her eyes had dark circles under them and her smeared eyeliner looked as if she were ready for a football match.
“Jason’s cheating on me, Claire.” She grabbed her friend’s shoulder and pulled her close. She began sobbing on her shoulder.
Claire held on to her and turned her head to check on Pearl. She looked back at the two and picked up another handful of pebbles.
“Calm down. What do you mean? Why aren’t you in Florida? You said you were going to his parents’ house.”
Mallory hiccupped small spurts of air in between blowing her nose in a tissue she had wadded in her hand. “He canceled. Said he had a work deadline, or something like that.”
Claire pulled her back to her shoulder and began stroking her hair. “That doesn’t sound so farfetched. What makes you think he’s lying?”
Mallory lifted her head. “Because I talked to one of his associates when I visited him last week and casually mentioned how it sucked we were unable to go to Florida because of work.” She blew her nose before continuing. “He looked at me with this stupid I-don’t-have-a-clue-what-you’re-talking-about look, then tried to cover, saying maybe Jason was working on a new contract or something.”
“And you don’t believe him? Mallory, this doesn’t make sense.”
Mallory’s countenance changed from mush to determination. Her sniffles gave way to a venomous, stoic look. “Of course I don’t believe him. Men cover for men.”
“So he’s here with you now? Don’t tell me you’re here alone?”
“No, I hijacked Colin and Emily’s vacation. The kids were too excited about going somewhere and there was no way I could sit in my room and bawl my eyes out any longer. And I wasn’t about to go to Florida and explain something I didn’t understand myself to his parents. They would’ve known something was wrong.”
Claire lost sight and sound of everything else Mallory had to say after hearing Colin was there. Was she kidding? Was this some kind of perverse joke? He couldn’t be there, especially not with Emily. Especially not with Alex. She couldn’t do this. Not now, not ever.
“Claire, are you all right? You look like you’re about to lose your lunch.” Mallory touched her arm.
Claire gave her a deranged look: wide, staring eyes, looking off into the universe in search of other life-forms. “Yes, why? I’m fine.”
“Um, you looked like you checked out there for a moment. I said I came with Colin because I couldn’t face Jason’s parents. My kids were so excited about Florida—to keep them trapped in New York would have been grounds for mutiny. I had to go somewhere with them. Emily thought it would be a good idea to have someone along to play with Mirabel.”
“So Colin is here with Emily and his daughter?” Claire seemed to be stuck with that needle on the record.
“Yes. Are you sure you’re okay? They’re at the store getting things to prepare for dinner. They’ll be back shortly. I needed some time to myself.”
Her body felt as though it had floated away. Out with the tide. All that was left were her eyeballs, staring at the diamonds sparkling on the water’s surface. She didn’t see how it was humanly possible to withstand a week under the same roof as Colin. No, there was simply no way. To walk past the floor where they made love that night. To possibly be forced to sleep in the same bed as Alex, as she did with Colin all those years ago. To look at the walls she stared at while she laid in the crux of Colin’s arm.
A light bulb went off in her head. Slowly her body floated back into connection with her eyeballs. Alex wouldn’t approve of it. He hated Colin, especially knowing how much he hurt Claire. Especially since they both knew Pearl was his. What if someone saw a resemblance? Luckily she got most of Claire’s genes, although there were times Pearl’s mannerisms were the spitting image of her father. Yes! She found the loophole to leave. She’d go and tell Alex and they’d be gone before the dust settled.
“Mallory, I’ve got to go up and check on Alex and his family. But trust me, I do want to talk to you more about Jason and your suspicions. And for the record, I can’t see him having an affair. He adores you too much.”
Mallory fumbled in her other pocket for a tissue to catch her runny nose. “Okay, I’ll be up in a second. I’m going to collect myself. Alex’s dad thinks I’m some kind of psychotic psychopath.”
Claire called to Pearl before heading for the house. When she reached the top of the knoll, she saw another car in the driveway. Three little children were running toward her and Pearl. The one little girl she could’ve picked out of any lineup as Colin’s. She had her daddy’s piercing blue eyes. Their arms were flailing and they were all throwing off their shoes in mid-air, yelling rotten egg to the last one who touched the water. Pearl’s eyes lit with excitement. Her smile stretched wide and she began clasping her hands together as if she’d just been picked the winner to something.
“Mom, can I go please? Can I? I want to play with Carson and Bailey.”
Pearl was familiar with Mallory’s children. They made sure to check in with each other every couple of months and let the children play in Central Park. They’d talk endlessly about Mallory’s position as head of the PTA and how all the crazy moms wanted this and that and tons of things the school was never going to approve, like bring a celebrity to school day. One of the mothers was the cousin to a friend who worked in a store that Katie Holmes shopped in.
And of course, Claire would tell Mallory all about the new things she was getting to do at work. They had started sending Claire on lecture tours to explain a new procedure in early detection of gene splicing. Mallory seemed to be completely engrossed in the field of genetics and all it could explain about why things happened later in life to a person.
“Okay, but take off your shoes. I don’t want them to get wet and nasty.”
Claire took a deep breath before opening the back screen door of the house. She tried not to think about the last time she’d grabbed the door handle and how when she went inside it was to make love to Colin on the floor of the living room. A part of her wanted to see the house burn so maybe she could escape her dogmatic memories. Smoke and ashes might be a viable solution. Much better than broken dishes.
She stepped through the kitchen to look for Alex. Colin came from the pantry holding a grocery bag that he’d just emptied the contents on the shelves. Her heart screeched to a halt. A loud EKG beep flatlined in her ears. An invisible sucker punch took her breath away. She never thought she’d have to see him again, especially after he’d come to New York to plead with her to leave Alex. She’d even perversely thought about the day Mallory might die—this being the last reason she’d ever see him. She settled on sending flowers and attending the gravesite in her private time. Nope, this moment was never planned.
“Claire.”
He stood holding the bag. It hung in the air like the tension that was clearly standing in the way of either one of them being able to say a word.
“Colin, I—”
“Oh, Claire, where’s Pearl? I have something in my case I wanted to give her.” Evie walked in on the unwanted reunion.
Claire unstuck her eyes from Colin and turned to her mother-in-law and answered robotically. “Pearl is on the beach with the other children.”
Evie looked back and forth from her to Colin. “All right then. I’ll wait and give it to her later.”
Claire turned to Evie. “Where’s Alex?”
“He’s carrying the bags upstairs to your r
oom.”
Her room? No. No, that wouldn’t be right. She needed to leave right now. No, no, no. Without saying a word, mostly because she didn’t have one, she walked in the direction of the stairs and left Colin holding the empty grocery bag. She passed Emily on the way up. She smiled at Claire. Hmmm, she probably was in the dark about this whole crisis, as was Evie and everyone else who wasn’t Alex, herself, and Colin.
She walked into the room where she heard the most noise coming from. It was the one she’d stayed in that summer she fell in love with Colin for the first time—his room.
“Alex, what are you doing?”
He looked up from closing the dresser drawer. This was not good. She could tell by his crooked jaw and flared nostrils.
“I’m unpacking, Claire.” He threw the suitcase onto the floor in the corner. The mirror shook.
“I see that. Stop it, now. We’re not staying here. Not if everyone else is. There’s simply not enough room.”
“Claire, my mom all but begged on her hands and knees for us to stay. Mallory told her she’d go to the guesthouse and stay. You know Mom is looking forward to this time with Pearl. And if I can bite the bullet and paint a freaking smile on my face around that smug S.O.B. downstairs, then the least you can do is join me in sacrificing a week out of our summer to help Mom.”
“I thought we were staying two weeks.”
“Well, not if work needs me or you to return to New York. I’m a good son, but I’m no saint.”
It was something small, but it still meant she’d have to stay at least five or so nights under the same roof as Colin. She had no idea how not to get caught up in the feelings they still shared for each other. Four years was four years, but she saw that even six years meant nothing to either of them before.
Chapter Twenty
Shellfish Anyone?
Everyone was on their best behavior at the dinner table that first night. Although Claire and Alex petitioned relentlessly on getting dinner downtown, his mother insisted they all have dinner together in the dining room. Emily and Colin had worked on preparing a seafood melody of lobsters, fried oysters, and clams. Mallory was in charge of watching the children and setting the table. For the most part, she’d settled down after she called Jason and he sounded as though he wasn’t in bed with his brown-haired secretary. The one Mallory could’ve sworn was always checking him out when she’d go visit him at work.
She placed Alexander at the head of one side of the table and Colin at the other. She sat close to Colin and Emily, and Alex and Claire filled in the other chairs. The children sat at the same small table they all sat at when they were younger. It was adjacent to the windows looking out toward the water. Colin had engraved his initials on the bottom side of it when he was twelve. Claire figured she could spend the whole evening staring straight ahead at Evie and Mallory and not get caught once gazing in the direction of Colin. Look not, feel not.
“Alexander, would you pass me the coleslaw?” Evie asked her husband.
He reached past the dinner rolls and handed them to her.
“Oh, it seems Claire didn’t get a lobster. Alex, get your wife a lobster. There’s one down on that platter by you.” She pointed to the last crustacean on the oversized white platter, sitting in front of Emily.
Emily picked up the plate to hand it to him. Colin rested his hand on hers, forcing her to stop. “Claire doesn’t eat shellfish.”
Alex, with arm still extended, darted a look to Colin that could’ve killed. It could’ve been anything he’d said that would’ve elicited a pounding from Alex, but something about his wife called for death.
“Go ahead and hand it here, Emily. Claire likes lobster.”
Colin’s brow furrowed. “No she doesn’t.”
By now everyone had stopped chewing except for the children, and began looking at the two men, intrigued by the shellfish discussion. Did Claire like shellfish, or didn’t she?
She patted her lips with her napkin, trying to swallow the piece of roll she’d just taken a bite of. Thoughts were racing through her mind. What was she going to do about this?
“Thank you,” she said. “Please go ahead and pass it down.”
“Claire, since when do you like lobster?” Colin placed his hand on his hip. He needed validation on the shellfish topic. He knew Claire better than this yahoo. He wasn’t even sure at this point that Alex even knew when her birthday was. Maybe he arbitrarily picked a day and decided to celebrate it.
She swallowed before she answered. “I guess it wasn’t too long ago. It seemed every event we attend in New York, they’re serving lobster rolls. It was either take one and eat it or appear to society you’re a lobster snob, I guess.”
Alex looked pleased with himself, smiling and stabbing an oyster to put into his mouth.
“It’s just that you used to get on us, telling about how dirty oysters were, and clams were nothing more than one huge muscle. You never used to touch lobster and you’d even said shrimp were the cockroaches of the sea. Although you would eat them when Frieda fried them up crispy.”
Take that, Alex. Colin felt he’d known Claire way before he did. He could even tell you about the time she’d come home from laying in the sun on the public beach and she and Mallory were hit on by some local boys. Of course, that’s when his mother said they couldn’t go back, but the point was, he knew Claire longer and better than Alex.
“What can I say, I’ve changed some of my tastes. Alex and Pearl love seafood. I’m trying to swim with the current and not against it.”
She looked down at her plate and not at him when she tried to explain her mysterious new taste buds. She winced a bit while she cracked open its shell. Alex turned to her and asked whether she needed help.
“No, thank you. I’ve got it.”
She managed to pull the red creature apart and dip the meat in butter, seemingly enjoying it. Although he watched her carefully and guarded as to where no one would be suspicious. He knew Claire hated shellfish.
“What’s so funny down there? Have you finished your oysters, Bailey?” Mallory asked her daughter.
“Not yet, Mom.” The little brown-eyed girl answered her mother. Her wet hair from the shower was drying and the frizz of her curls looked like a cotton ball on her little head.
“What has your attention, then?”
“Pearl has a toy.”
Pearl’s eyes shot up from the floor and she’d sucked in both her lips until the redness faded to white. Her hands stayed hidden beneath the pale-blue table linen.
“Pearl, what do you have?” Claire looked to see whether it was something she’d be in trouble for.
“Something I found. I’ll put it away and eat.” She shoved something into her pants pocket and took another bite of her cabbage salad.
“It’s a plane and she won’t share,” Carson blurted out.
Pearl elbowed him and little evil eyes took front and center between her scrunched-up nose. “Big mouth.”
“Pearl,” Alex scolded. “Don’t call people names.”
“Well, he’d better keep his mouth shut then.” She glared at the little boy next to her.
“She stole it and now she won’t let us hold it and see it.” Carson folded his arms and stared back at her with anger.
“You stole it? From who? What is it, Pearl? Let me see it now.”
She didn’t answer right away. She took her time, like earlier when her mother paused before answering about the shellfish. Obviously, she needed to formulate a good answer.
“Well, I found it in the closet, up in the room.” She twisted her lips, still not bringing forth the contraband she had hidden on her lap.
“Well, what is it, for goodness’ sakes?” Evie asked, impatiently.
She brought her hand up to rest on the tablecloth. In her tight-fisted grip, she unhinged her fingers and showed them all a tiny toy plane. It looked old, some of its blue paint worn off the sides and the little front pro
peller missing one of its blades.
“Oh my gosh. Bring that here. I think that’s mine.” Colin held out his hand until she made it to him with the plane.
She stood next to him, holding the model aircraft. He took it and examined it with a smile. A look of nostalgia rested on his face. It was from when he was a little boy. In fact, there were others in the pack with it that his mother bought him in New York. He was unable to find this one by the time it was ready to go that one summer. He’d thought it was cut up by the mower a long time ago. He always used the back walk as the airstrip for his cargo planes to take off and land on.
“Do you know, I had five other ones like this? The others were different colors, though. I thought I’d lost this blue one.”
Pearl’s eyes grew large. About as large as her mouth. “Where are they? Do they all have wings and tiny doors where you can get in and fly them?”
Claire’s fork dropped on her plate. The sharp ringing made everyone look. She quickly scooped it back in her hand. Alex watched his little girl with intense eyes, standing there so close to Colin. As if he was the spider that’d eat her alive if she’d stepped a half inch closer to him.
“Yes, they all did. One was even a helicopter. That one unfortunately got dropped too many times so I had to put it away in a drawer. But I didn’t care. I liked the plane the best.”
She put her small fingers on the propeller. “May I have this?”
“Pearl, don’t ask for things that belong to someone else.” Claire spoke up loudly.
Colin’s attention drew to Claire as he answered the little girl. “I don’t mind at all if you have this. I have no use for it now.”
Claire sighed. “What do you say, Pearl?”
“Thank you, Mr. Prescott.”
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