Alice leaped from her right foot to the left, until realizing she’d lost the beat of the music.
“Be your own best friend,” Zeke counseled Alice during her roughest years in New York—advice she ignored, choosing instead to make reckless decisions as she traveled around the boroughs.
Now twirling in time to a Kenyan rhythm, she opened her heart to the spirit of being two people: herself and her personal best friend.
Nothing came.
Alice imagined Libby. Her baby all grown up, twisted into ropes of confusion, allotting her energy to molding her man into the right person and then postponing decisions until reaching a peak perfection relationship.
What would she tell her child?
“Stop waiting for him to give you permission to save your own life. Concentrate on what you want to do, instead of what you don’t want him to do.” That’s what Alice would say.
• • •
Back at the Cobb, Alice rushed into her office and locked the door. The first thing she did was think of how her mother would handle this dreaded chore. Finally, she took a calming breath and dialed the People reporter.
“Hello, Karen?” Alice spoke in the briskest of tones. “Quick question. I just got off the phone with my lawyer, and he says I need to change a few things in the interview I sent. I’ll be emailing an updated version in a few minutes. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yes. Great.”
Peace arrived for the first time in days. Turned out the word lawyer worked well, and the article had been only a “maybe” for this week, vying for space with the solving of a decades-old kidnapping in Oklahoma. Perhaps it would run in next week’s issue. Or not. Send new answers to the interview, the reporter instructed. No problem.
Apparently Alice wasn’t the center of everyone’s world.
After reading through her messages, she triaged her work life, home life, and future. She stood and stretched. Then she picked up the phone.
“Clancy? Can we call a truce? Just long enough to actually talk to each other. Without either of us being hateful.”
He answered in seconds. “Call your parents and see if they’ll watch Libby tonight. I’ll make the dinner reservation.”
• • •
Without their daughter in tow, Bella Luna restaurant, where they usually ate as a family, became more romantic. The same place Alice adored for the casual plates—hand painted by multitudes of Boston children—tonight she appreciated for the oversized, sparkling stars hanging in the dim light.
More, she cherished that Clancy had brought her here—a place filled with color and energy. She knew that if her husband had focused on his taste, they’d have been dining on white linens.
By their second glass of wine, barely sopped up by their matching Silver Moon salads with grilled chicken, the two of them slipped into the digging-at-wounds portion of the evening.
“How would you describe me to a stranger?” Alice asked.
“How? I’m not sure I know who you are anymore.” Clancy broke a roll in half and spread the butter thick. “Capturing your essence right now? That’s too hard.”
“Who did you think I was up until now?” Alice worked at neutrality.
“I thought you were meant to be a happy woman,” he said.
“You met me at the worst possible time in my life. Happy is what you considered my descriptor?”
He fumbled with his silverware. “Your unhappiness seemed a product of that guy, Patrick, not your life or your past. I saw that you had wonderful parents, you were well educated, beautiful, and brainy. Yes, when we met, you were anxious, angry, a bit lost—as well you should have been after what he put you through, but also energetic and curious. Devoted to your new job. Your basic nature seemed optimistic and hopeful.”
“We went through big changes so quickly,” Alice said. “We barely knew each other when we got married. I know we’ve had this conversation many times, but we have yet to figure out the meaning.”
“I don’t know how to analyze it,” Clancy replied. “I thought I knew who you were, and now I must readjust my outlook. Not entirely. But some.”
“Who was the woman you thought you knew?”
Clancy held up the bottle of wine. “Another?”
For a second, Alice counted the calories—and then pushed away the numbers. “Yes, please.”
He poured them each a half glass. “I thought you were on my team. I hope that’s still true.”
“What did being on your team mean?”
“That we believed in the same things.”
“Like what?”
“Fighting for the underdog,” he said. “Making a better world for our daughter. Taking care of family.”
“How about, I don’t know, being soul mates?”
“I feel like we’re family. Is that what being a soul mate means? I’m always proud to be seen with you. Lord knows that you lighten me up.”
“And Lord knows you need that.” Alice tried to imagine Clancy with someone even more serious than her. “Perhaps I needed your grounding.”
“We were attracted to each other. That was always magnificent.”
“Until it wasn’t.”
“You never stopped enticing me. I know you think you did, but I just wanted you to care about yourself more. Honestly, of course, I wanted you to look . . . healthier. But look!” Clancy waved his hand in a semicircle around her. “You changed that. For you as well as me, I hope.”
“But how I did it was insane. What about that? What about punishing those evil people? Isn’t that part of fighting for the underdog?”
Clancy straightened in his chair. “I never asked you to take that crazy step. If you’d asked me, I’d have done anything to keep you from going.”
“But you didn’t like who I was here.”
“So you ran away and trusted those frauds? How did I become your enemy?” He paused. “We’re going in circles again. What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to explain,” she asked. “Do you know what you did to me?”
Clancy breathed a bit of fire and seemed to count to ten.
“Okay,” Alice said. “Let me say that another way. Do you know how you shattered my view of myself?” She tried to wipe away the escaping tears without him noticing.
“I never wanted to make you sad,” Clancy said. “I am so sorry for that. There I was, thinking I was being honest. Helping you.”
“Editing me like one of your films? Though honestly, I had become pretty big.”
“And I became a snotty oaf.” He raised his glass. “Using truth as my excuse.”
She clinked. “Arrogant.”
He clinked back. “Self-important.”
“Mighty self-important,” she agreed. “But still mighty. Perhaps I should have respected more how I crashed into your realm.”
“Perhaps. But certainly, I knew better than to waltz in carrying dresses for you to wear.” He laughed. “I didn’t tell you this, but Zeke gave me quite a lecture after you left. The Tadashi dress had its very own chapter in the book of Zeke.”
“I didn’t tell my parents about that!”
Clancy and Alice looked at each other, laughed, and at the same moment said, “Libby.”
They reached for each other’s hands across the table. Alice felt a moment of hope so tentative that she didn’t dare rest a bit of expectation on it.
• • •
Alice rearranged the trays on her coffee table once more, this time putting the cascading slices of banana bread her mother provided—whole grain, of course—to the left of the pot of cinnamon tea. Members of the now-forming Cobb’s Smart Is Beautiful Committee would arrive in twenty minutes. Alice had spent three weeks readying for this meeting.
“Why?” Clancy walked in from putting Libby to sleep.
“Why what?” Alice fanned the napkins into a different arrangement.
“Why are you switching the bread and tea?”
“It just didn’t seem right the other way.”
“Doesn’
t look too good this way, either.” Clancy took the tray to the kitchen. She followed, annoyed but curious.
Clancy squatted in front of the fridge, staring, steady as always, and then rose, balancing on nothing but his rising legs, holding a dish of clementine oranges.
“Watch and learn.” Clancy winked and arranged the fruit in a bowl made of red lacquered spokes that twisted open to create a circle from a bundle of the wood.
Alice shook off her initial annoyance and then nodded, trying not to laugh as he fussed over the placement of each orange. Step one in looking at life from new angles, rendering unto Caesar that which was Caesar’s. She and Clancy might have different tastes, but his artistic sense surpassed hers. She could give in to that actuality.
For so long, Alice resented the hard edges of their home, so that time and again she dismissed the talents Clancy applied to their lives. After years of comparing her parents’ cozy surroundings with her inlaws’ perfectly polished home, Alice finally recognized another truth: their home looked lovelier than that of either set of parents. He took Libby to every art museum in Massachusetts—pointing out painting techniques that even Alice had never heard of before—as well as to classical concerts that put Alice to sleep.
A family had room for more than one outlook.
Clancy put the white mugs back in the cabinet and laid out glossy black ones. “These.”
Alice saluted, picked them up by the handles, and brought them to the coffee table. Then she stepped back and nodded. “What can I say? When you’re right, you’re right.”
He touched her waist with a tentative hand. When she leaned into him, he kissed the curve of her neck. “Good luck.”
Alice placed agendas on the table, excited and nervous about tonight’s discussion. Much of her energy had been poured into this project, even as she and Clancy walked their tentative path. They tried to live their marriage instead of putting it on trial daily. Alice started plunking marbles into a glass jar at work. Purple for days with Clancy that were awful, pale yellow for neutral, and orange—bright as Jennifer’s glasses—for happy. She planned to give it four months and see which color dominated.
An idea she stole from some long-ago novel, a plan vetted by Sharon Jane.
• • •
The women arrived within five minutes of the invited time. Once the small talk ended, and noticeable inroads had been made into the snacks, Alice marked the official part of the meeting by leaning forward, crossing her legs, and clasping her hands. She smiled so hard that Harper’s dimples might be rivaled. The woman herself had been filed as a memory of Alice gone amuck. “Time to work.”
She gave each woman a one-sheet rundown of the project to be discussed.
“Good job. I always tell my students, if you can’t describe it on one page, you’re building something too twisted.” Jennifer F., known in the world outside Waisted as Jennifer Fitzgerald, taught business dynamics, among other courses, in her role as a professor at the Boston University Questrom School of Business.
Daphne and Alice pulled out eyeglasses—Marissa, Daphne’s sister, already wore a snazzy purple pair, and Jennifer, of course, still looked at the world through her bright-orange frames.
Papers rustled as they lifted Alice’s synopsis of the program she planned to bring to the Cobb. Susan Jane winked at Alice from across the coffee table.
SMART IS BEAUTIFUL CLUB
What: Girls (6–9, 10–14, and 16–18) will spend two hours a week in their Smart Is Beautiful Club, exploring arts, literature, and sports in an atmosphere merging the pursuit of excellence with exciting activities. College seniors representing the cultures of Greater Boston will lead the clubs alongside (and supervised by) staff.
At the Smart Is Beautiful club . . .
• We will think differently about beauty and explore all the forms it can take.
• We will teach that wisdom is stunning.
• We will help our girls (and boys) believe that the kind of beauty to which so many young women aspire is only skin deep, and know that if young women believed this, they would be profoundly happier with their lives.
• Lipstick fades and nail polish chips, but the nourishment gained by literature, art, and science lasts forever. The best way we can prepare girls for fulfilling lives is by giving them the power to know and understand that Smart Is Beautiful.
Through Smart Is Beautiful, we will share our history of:
• How we learned the hard way. We had mothers and bosses and boyfriends who paid attention to our facade while overlooking our talents and capabilities.
• Why we bought endless tubes of lipstick and mascara, only to learn that real happiness eluded us until we believed that we “could.” Could create. Could innovate. Could use our brains and make something. Until we did achieve.
• How we learned to understand that beauty without brains is an empty promise.
Activities will include:
• Meeting with successful female designers, writers, actors, comedians, entrepreneurs, educators, and more in hands-on workshops.
• Book clubs led by local female authors.
• Clinics led by local female athletes.
• Visits by female politicians.
• Ongoing support groups, think tanks, and mentorship programs, culminating in a quarterly presentation decided upon by the group.
“Is the intent clear?” Before they could share ideas, thoughts, and, no doubt, speak over one another, she handed them a second sheet. “Here are the more granular details and plans.”
“I already love everything about it,” Daphne said.
“Genius.” Marissa shook the papers. “I can see it.”
“What if we bring in local groups like WriteBoston and City Year?” Sharon Jane ran her finger up and down the page as though seeking tactile inspiration.
“We need more political fervor, feminism, and racial awareness,” Jennifer said.
“One step at a time,” Alice said. “I just wrote this up a few days ago.”
“Jennifer’s right,” Marissa said. “If we don’t ground the program in current realities, we’re only offering another version of arts and sports, right?”
“Of course Alice is putting that in.” Daphne grabbed the end slice of the banana bread. “Give her a chance to—”
Sharon Jane interrupted. “But if it doesn’t infuse the program from the get-go . . .”
Nothing made Alice happier than the sound of intelligent women getting all up in one another’s faces with smart. She loved it.
Perhaps she was Bebe’s daughter after all.
CHAPTER 32
* * *
DAPHNE
Cymbals clashed as Stravinsky coursed through the room. Daphne chopped the onions rough and hard, throwing the coarse pieces into a sizzling pan, followed by smashed garlic, mushroom, carrots, and celery. Most of her meals began with this combination—although too often of late, that combo seemed to be Daphne’s entire meal.
Tonight she was cooking a feast, something she’d planned upon returning from Alice’s the previous night. The invitation she sent to her family resembled a summons more than a kindness.
As the vegetables married, she added sliced chicken breasts, poaching them until tender, and at the right moment poured in high-quality marsala—stopping midway to pour some in her wineglass. As the mix bubbled, she spooned out about a half cup of the liquid to make a roux with flour, and magic chemistry turned it silken. Cooking was ephemeral, disappearing into memory. Not unlike the enchantment she created with makeup.
But oh, the pleasure.
Most people didn’t understand cosmetology, viewing it as nothing but artifice, whereas she considered it an art, like music that wafted away even as it played or films that wove dreams for two hours, transporting you for that time. Geniuses flourished in her field—Pat McGrath, the late Kevyn Aucoin—as in any business.
Constance had received the purest of conjuring in the chair. With creams and potions, Daphne show
ed a troubled seventeen-year-old what it felt like to be enchanted by herself, even if only for a moment. Daphne taught her the art of illusion and gave her the tools so she could love herself.
Her last words to Constance held wisdom that Daphne must finally apply to herself:
“Work with what you have and then add a bit to that. But never create from hatred. Self-loathing is the surest way to misery.”
The surest way to misery.
Daphne had worked on changing herself using the point of view of self-hatred for far too long.
• • •
Daphne carried in platters and baskets of food, chosen and arranged to please all senses. Taste, smell, sight, and even touch. Break apart the crusty rolls, and you revealed a puff of steam ready to melt butter. Irresistible.
“What’s this?” Sunny reared back as though Daphne carried a hydrogen bomb.
Lili took the handle of the wine cradle and filled Sunny’s glass. “Looks like Daphne is gifting us with presents for the palate.”
Her sister-in-law dimpled in her butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth way. Lili intimidated Sunny. She held moral authority over Sunny simply by being black. Or maybe it was because her mother bowed down to the most exceptional beauty in the room every time. Whatever the reason, Daphne’s gratitude grew with each month of her sister’s marriage.
Sunny’s daughters all managed to pick partners who provided a screen against their mother. Lili did it with her surety and dimples. Bianca’s husband, Michael, intense as a surgeon, sardonic everywhere outside the operating room, did it with his humor. Sam did it with goodness.
Her sisters wondered if Sam’s virtuousness went over the top. “Can there be enough zest without a touch of bad boy?” Bianca had mused aloud one night after too many sisterly martinis.
“Sam overflows with great qualities, and he’s never my sad song.” That had been her answer.
When you accumulated enough wisdom, you learned the right lesson about love. Bad boys remained, in fact, bad. Bad for your heart, bad for your children, bad for the world.
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