Chapter 2
Keeley, feeling exuberant from her run in Central Park, bounded out of the elevator that opened into the foyer of her apartment with Ben and stopped to smell the roses - literally. Huge English tea roses, heady with scent, filled a silver bowl that sat on the cherry-wood table she and Ben had selected in an antiques shop in Paris last May. The table sat in the center of the foyer, highlighted by a stream of sunlight from the overhead skylight, and the pink flowers seemed to glow hotly in the light.
“Ahhh, now that’s a rose!” Keeley said, closing her eyes and breathing in deeply again, the rich sweetness of it something she could practically taste. She took one last whiff and picked up the folded cotton towel she had left for herself on the table, using it to blot her moist face and neck.
There was nothing like a run to cleanse her of bad feelings, especially on a gorgeous late September day in New York when the heavy moist air of the summer has left for good and is replaced by a crisp freshness that made living in the city almost bearable again. She felt good finally, her daughter’s betrayal still stinging, but pushed to the corner this morning. She would leave it there and just enjoy this happy alive feeling, her “blue-sky” as she liked to call it.
Looking around the huge foyer of the apartment, once again she was struck by her bizarre situation and felt the same mix of jingly-jangly happiness and disbelief she’d felt the first time she’d seen it. What was she doing here? How had this happened to her?
Ben, of course. Big Ben, her savior, her biggest fan – except for the Barefooters. Well, the Barefooters loved her, but they didn’t worship her. Ben worshipped her and Keeley reveled in it. She had to be worshipped. Her daughter had worshipped her once-
Keeley shook her head. “No, I will not think about that person today!” she said, and reached for the mail that Maria, their housekeeper, had brought in with her that morning and put in the tray they kept on the foyer table for mail. Next to it was a smaller tray for Ben’s change, which he hated to keep in his pockets, and keys. A place for everything and everything in its place: that was Ben.
Keeley had never been organized and found it impossible to follow his lead. She always forgot to use the tray, throwing her keys and purses down without thought in her rush to the next thing, and then spending frantic minutes tearing around the apartment searching for them later, always running late.
“Why don’t you use the tray, and that shelf I put in the hall closet for your purses?” Ben would ask, checking his watch again and trying to keep any strain out of his voice that would only make her panic more. Keeley thought of that shelf for her purses and smiled. That was Ben for you, always trying to help.
“Junk, junk, Ben, junk. Hello, a letter,” Keeley murmured, going through the mail. Then she saw the return address. Hannah.
Not again. What did she want now?
Keeley felt her blue-sky deflating. “Damn it!” She used the letter opener that was also kept in the mail tray and stabbed at the envelope, ripping it open. “What, Hannah? What do you want?”
September 28, 2010
Dear Mom,
I don’t know what to do. All I do is make a mess. The question has become: what am I doing getting married? Won’t I just make a mess of that, too?
I’m putting my marriage to Daniel on hold until I can figure out if what’s wrong with me is repairable, or if it runs to the core of who I am. Do I even know how to love? You always knew how, even if you made mistakes, you knew the essence of it.
Right now I’m certain that Daniel doesn’t know me at all, and when he does, he’ll leave.
Please wish me well – your good thoughts always seem to make things better. I’d sign this letter “love”, but what do I know?
Hannah
Keeley read the letter through again. “Shit! Shit! Shitty shit!”
Her daughter’s novel, still unread, sat on her bedside table. Keeley had never been a reader or a writer, though she had fantasies of writing a memoir: bestselling, of course. Now Keeley couldn’t bring herself to read Hannah’s book, ever since that jagged-toothed bitch at the Fairfield Tribune wrote that awful point-and-sneer review and made it impossible to even look at it. “Alcoholic” was overstating it – she simply adored her wine and margaritas like many people did. “Abuse and neglect” was another thing altogether. No one had been more loved and coddled than her daughter, the Barefooter’s own baby girl. If only Keeley had enjoyed such a blessed and cushy childhood.
And now Hannah, lower lip stuck out, was throwing everything away, turning her nose up at God’s generosity. True love, the rarest and most sought-after version known as “romantic”, had alighted in her lucky daughter’s life, and she didn’t appreciate it.
Keeley had met Daniel this summer at Captain’s, seen him with Hannah. She had seen the softest happiest Hannah she’d witnessed in years, thick fortress walls that seemed a part of her reserved daughter washed away. She had seen his patience with her daughter, his relentless love for her, the kind Hannah needed. All of the Barefooters had fallen for Daniel, especially when he climbed into the clam bed with Pam and willingly learned how to clam with his toes, wiggling them around in the slimy mud bottom. When he loaded Pam’s bucket within minutes, Pam had lifted the loaded bucket up high in the air and yelled out, grinning, “We’ve got a winner here, folks!”
Reading through the letter again she found the line and said it out loud. “‘Do I even know how to love?’" Then she laughed a bitter barking laugh. “Do any of us know how?”
Letter in hand, Keeley strode through the living room to the nearest phone in the library. Although fancy leather-bound books lined the walls and there were several comfortable wing chairs with standing lamps next to them perfect for an afternoon reading session, neither Keeley nor Ben were readers. There was, however, a beautiful antique bar cart that was fully stocked next to a wet bar in one corner of the room, as well as a chaise lounge with a pile of the fluffy gossip magazines Keeley adored on the table next to it, so the room was well-used anyway.
Keeley picked up the phone and pressed the first of three programmed speed dial numbers that connected her to her life-long lifelines.
Three hours later, when she pulled into the gravel driveway at Pam’s beach house in Westport, she saw that the others were already there, their cars filling the driveway. She honked her code - three short, one long - from Captain’s, killed the engine of Ben’s Jaguar, and leapt out of the car, grabbing the letter and her purse before striding up the crushed-shell path to the front door. Pam flung the door open before Keeley was halfway there.
“Key, baby, you didn’t need to honk. We knew you were here from the sound of the shredding gravel going on out here. ‘You go way too fast, someday soon you’re going to crash,’” she sang with her deep voice, resurrecting one of their favorite 80’s songs.
Pam enfolded Keeley in her arms that had always been strong and muscular from swimming and had grown beefier over the years from her love of carbs and cheese and chocolate chip cookies.
Keeley breathed in the salty-sweet smell of her friend, her ultimate security blanket. “I know, I know. I couldn’t wait to get here. ”
Pam tightened her hug. “It’s going to be okay. Everything’s going to be fine,” she said, her voice gentle.
Keeley didn’t respond; just let Pam’s words caress her.
Pam released her and said, “Come on, we’re out on the deck. Want a Mean Green?”
“Do you need to ask?”
“Let’s get you set up and then we’ll take a look at that letter.”
Pam led the way into her huge bright kitchen, custom-made to her homey sunlit sensibilities. When she and Jacob had moved into the charming little beachfront house, she had torn down all of the walls that separated the many tiny rooms, making room for one large kitchen-slash-den and installing skylights, huge windows, and sliding glass doors to bring in the sunshine she craved. The result was a brilliantly lit space decorated in shades of sand and grass and driftwood, everything functional and sensual to the touch.
Keeley felt herself relax; she loved being at Pam’s. It was a refuge: that house and her friend. Amy and Zooey always welcomed her in their homes as well, but it was different when there were husbands and multiple children involved. The loud clatter of three young boys and at least one dog at Amy’s was far from restful. Zooey’s latest husband, Neil, was so obviously resentful and petulant when she or any of the Barefooters visited, it wasn’t any fun. But at Pam’s there no husband and only one older child, sweet-n-skinny eleven-year-old Jacob, who, if he wasn’t playing baseball after school, was usually ensconced in his room with his Xbox, the sound of video-game explosions and gunfire muffled by his bedroom door. At Pam’s there was also always something good to eat and drink, lots of laughs, big hugs, and every comfort she could ask for.
A pitcher of Mean Greens and some salt-rimmed glasses sat on the kitchen’s island. Mean Greens were the Barefooter’s specialty – a powerful margarita made of top-shelf tequila, Grand Marnier, fresh lime juice, a dusting of lime zest, a splash of homemade lemonade for sweetness, and two secret ingredients that would go to the grave with the four women. Pam poured Keeley a glass, handed it to her, and they went together to the wall of sliding glass doors that opened onto the deck.
Pam slid the door open for Keeley, letting her step onto the large back deck where Zooey sat on a chair with her legs crossed next to Amy, who was sitting cross-legged on the chaise next to her and pointing at the ground while describing something to her. The sea breeze blew Keeley’s hair back and carried with it the sweet and funky scent-cocktail of sea wrack, salt water, and sun-heated creosote from the deck. Home, that’s what it was: this scent, this soft moist breeze, these women, were home. God, she missed them so much - even after less than a month.
“There she is!” Zo said, a grin spreading across her face as she unfolded her long frame from the chair and walked over to hug Keeley, her thin arms wrapping around her. “Now we can put a stop to the madness about that stupid review.”
“What madness? It’s-mmph?” Keeley said, her mouth being blocked by Zo’s bony and perfumed Calvin Klein-clad shoulder. Of the four, Zo with her height, her slim figure, and her money, easily won the best-dressed award. An inveterate shopper as well as globe trotter, she took the stores by storm in every city she visited and her look was effortless European chic. It was a look Keeley was never able to pull off: a tall Audrey Hepburn.
“It’s about time we talked. Let’s get this thing straightened out, already,” Amy said, standing at Keeley’s elbow. She wrapped her tiny arms around Keeley as soon as she was released from Zo’s embrace, and said, “Hey, you.” Amy, doll-like in every way from her diminutive height, curly blond hair, and cornflower blue eyes, was ironically the toughest of the four, the fighter who was the last to go down. The fact that the top of her head barely reached her friends’ chins never seemed to bother her, even when they were competing at sports on Captain’s Island every summer.
Pam waved them toward the chairs set up in a circle around a small glass-topped cocktail table on the other side of the deck. On the table was a bowl of tortilla chips and another containing her famous homemade guacamole. “Chickies, grab your Means and let’s talk. Where’s that letter, Keeley?”
They sat down, sipped their drinks, and passed around the letter, each of them reading while the others chatted. They had all stopped their plans dead when they heard about their baby’s latest letter. The three of them had always been there for Keeley and Hannah. It was their pact, made long ago.
Pam had canceled her meetings for that day, all of them worth postponing in light of the emergency. Amy’s husband was able to work from home and keep an eye on their youngest, Sam, and the two older boys when they got home from school. Zo had the worst of it, her flight to Paris was scheduled for that afternoon where she’d been booked with a high-profile and in-demand designer who was going to make her a custom gown for a ball in Vienna in February. The airline had the nerve to charge her a change fee, even though she flew with them all the time and was a member of their Platinum Club, and of course, the designer wouldn’t be able to fit Zo in again until early January, which was cutting it too close for Zo’s tastes.
“Ah, it’s silly anyway. I’m not a ball gown type of girl anyway – too stiff and fancy. I just love the idea of it. Very Sound of Music. Amy, you’re hogging it,” Zo said, putting her hand out and wiggling her fingers at Amy, who had been re-reading the letter for the last five minutes.
“’What’s wrong with me is repairable’?” Amy said, handing over the letter grudgingly. “What the hell does that mean?”
Pam leaned in. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong. She’s in her twenties! God, my twenties were hell! And they’re even worse these days. Have you seen how these kids dance? Like they’re having sex!”
Keeley cringed a little. Her Hannah, dancing like that? It was impossible to imagine. She was always such a quiet little thing. Her thoughtful mouse-girl, her dreamer.
Amy sat back and crossed her arms. “Hannah’s not like that, though.”
“She may be different on some levels,” Pam countered. “But she’s still a kid in her twenties.”
Keeley shook her head. “An engaged kid that’s about to throw it all away,” she said and took a long appreciative gulp of her Mean Green. She put down the drink on the table; if she kept it in her hand, she’d finish it in a minute. “Daniel’s crazy about her and she’s a little puddle of sweet gooshy happiness around him. Doesn’t she know that love like that never happens? Or happens once if you’re lucky?”
“Twice to you,” Zo said, not looking up from the letter.
Keeley listened to Zo’s tone. No, it didn’t mean anything this time, no accusation. Just a statement of fact. “Yes, Michael, of course…, but, well…, I do love Ben, but it’s…” Keeley said and sighed. “What are we going to do? I’m so angry I can’t talk to her right now. Can you believe she had the balls to ask us for our friendship on a platter – no, wait, an operating table! To dissect for the whole world! Isn’t that precious?”
Zo tore her eyes away from the letter to look at Keeley. “But you’re going to talk to her soon. Right?” It wasn’t a question.
Keeley saw Amy and Pam exchange glances before both looking studiously away, Pam brushing imaginary lint off of her shirt and Amy turning her head to look off at the beach while sipping her drink.
“Right?” Zo prompted.
Keeley looked away, her eyes turning to the beach and the waves curling on the shore. So peaceful here. She just wanted to rest. She was so tired of everything.