Back In the Game

by Holly Chamberlin

  Which is fine, really, because I love hanging out with Alex all day and Matt does have to work long hours at the office. Sometimes he doesn’t even get home until almost midnight. It’s a little strange that I haven’t seen any big change in his paycheck these past two years, and you would think that for all the extra hours he’s been putting in, they would have given him a raise or a promotion or something.

  But I don’t complain about his not being home. Honestly, I prefer to be alone with Alex, just us two, and even though the pediatrician says I should probably put Alex in some sort of day care thing so he can learn how to socialize and stuff, I’m going to keep him home for as long as possible. I’d keep him home forever and ever if I could, but at some point the law says he has to go to school.

  Anyway, what I do complain about is when Matt is here and I have to take a number to talk to him! He’ll look right at me and I think he’s listening and then he’ll say, “What?” And I’ll say, “Weren’t you listening?” And he’ll laugh and say, “No,” or maybe, “I was thinking about something. You need to get my attention before you just start yammering at me.”

  Yammering? I don’t even know what that means!

  Sometimes I’m tempted to just give up and stop trying to get his attention. Because let’s face it, even when he does listen—or says he’s listening—he forgets what I’ve said like three minutes later. So, why bother?

  But I haven’t given up yet, though now it sounds like I’m nagging all the time when I’m just trying to be heard!

  I put the last bite of cake in my mouth. I remembered that Nell and Oscar and Jess had gone up to Ogunquit to spend the weekend with Richard and Bob. They hadn’t asked me to come, but I understood. The whole Jess and Matt thing probably made them uncomfortable and some people don’t like having a baby around and . . .

  “What are you doing?”

  I looked up and there was Matt, standing in the doorway to the kitchen, a scowl on his handsome, boy-next-door face.

  I put the fork down on the empty plate.

  “Was that my cake?” he demanded.

  I couldn’t talk with my mouth full, so I just nodded.

  “That was my dessert,” he said. “You had your half last night. You know I was saving that.”

  I swallowed. I didn’t feel bad, not at all. But I said, “Sorry.”

  Matt continued to glare at me.

  “What?” I said.

  “You’re fat, Laura. You eat too much. You should go on a diet. It’s not healthy.”

  And then he walked out of the room.

  You know what? I wasn’t even mad. Really. I felt—nothing. I remember just sitting there at the kitchen table with the empty plate and smeared fork and feeling nothing.

  I sat there for a long time.

  I heard the front door open and slam shut.

  I heard a delivery truck pull up and my neighbor, Mrs. White, laughing.

  I heard the beating of my own heart.

  And then Alex cried out from his room.

  Chapter 69

  Grace

  But at my back I always hear/Time’s winged chariot hurrying near;/And yonder all before us lie/Deserts of vast eternity.

  —Andrew Marvel, 1621–1678, from “To His Coy Mistress”

  “Thanks, Evan.”

  I reached up to take the glass of Prosecco from Evan’s hand. I let my fingers linger on his for a moment.

  “To us,” he said, raising his glass.

  “To us. And to vacation. I’m so happy we were able to get out of the city this weekend.”

  Evan and I had been invited to Ogunquit with Nell, Oscar, and Jess, to spend a long weekend at Richard and Bob’s new three-season home. As tempting as the offer was, we decided to sneak off on our own for a few days to Nantucket. Evan has a friend who owns a small but charming house there. He and his wife were traveling to see family and offered us the use of their home.

  Now, enjoying the twilight from the house’s front porch, I was very glad we’d made the choice we had.

  As if reading my mind, Evan asked, “No regrets about not joining the others?”

  “No regrets. Besides, there’ll be other gatherings.”

  “I wonder why Richard and Bob didn’t invite Laura and Matt,” Evan said. “You did tell me they weren’t invited, right?”

  I nodded. The mention of Laura always makes me sad.

  I last saw Laura about a month earlier. I was walking along Newbury Street on my way to the gallery when a woman up ahead caught my eye. She was standing just to the left of the entrance to a high-end clothing store, holding a bundle in her arms and staring into the middle distance.

  My first impression was one of sadness. I felt that I should look away but I couldn’t. I slowed my pace just a bit as I approached, wondering for a moment if the woman was homeless—her hair was long and unkempt, she was overweight in the way life on the streets can make some people, and maybe, I thought, that bundle in her arms contained her only possessions.

  Just as I was within a few yards of the woman, a young teenager on a skateboard came out of nowhere from behind me and passed within a foot or two of the woman. This served to startle her; she jerked and stepped back against the glass window of the store.

  And in that moment I recognized her as Laura.

  I felt sick to my stomach with grief.

  I came to a dead halt on the sidewalk and watched as she whispered down to the bundle. And I realized that her son, Alex, too old to be carried like an infant, was wrapped in that blue blanket.

  Her only, her most important possession, indeed.

  I knew I had to go up to Laura, preferably before she became aware of my staring at her. And just as I was unlocking my knees to take a step, Laura turned and almost ran down the street.

  I could have called out to her, but I didn’t. I just watched her go.

  When I got to the gallery, I went immediately into Evan’s office and called Nell. I told her what I’d seen. With a sigh, Nell promised to check in with her sister. Laura had experienced several setbacks since the crippling depression she’d experienced after Alex’s birth and Alice’s death. So far, she’d recovered from each one, but what I’d seen that day on Newbury Street scared me.

  Since then I’ve sent Laura a few e-mails and a card for her birthday, but I haven’t heard anything back. I just hope that Nell, as far as I know Laura’s only living family member, is taking her sister’s predicament seriously. In my opinion, Nell too often dismisses Laura as a fool or a dimwit, almost a cartoon of a person, and fails to see that Laura is not a figure of fun but a real woman with valid thoughts and feelings.

  “I think,” I said finally to Evan, “I think that Laura is happiest when she’s with Alex.”

  Evan frowned. “But couldn’t she have brought him with her?”

  I reached for Evan’s hand. “Evan, I guess Richard and Bob had their reasons.”

  My answer seemed to satisfy Evan, at least for the moment. He picked up a magazine and resumed reading the article he’d started earlier.

  Several months ago the magazine had carried an article about Simon.

  As I predicted back at the opening of his first show at the Auster Gallery, Simon is doing just fine. About a year ago he married a woman named Cassandra Cole. Cassandra is sixty-five if she’s a day, fabulously wealthy, and deeply eccentric. Let’s face it, she bought Simon and he allowed himself to be bought and obviously, he’s enjoying his new life. Recently, Evan and I ran into Simon and his new bride at an opening. Simon was clean shaven. He’d put on a few pounds and looked healthier than I’d ever seen him look. And he was dressed in designer clothes from leather blazer to Italian loafers.

  Simon’s work has garnered a lot of attention since he joined forces with Cassandra. Her connections are paying off nicely and I’m glad. Simon is a good artist, maybe even a great artist, and deserves to be seen and known.

  I looked at Evan. His profile in the fading light brought a smile to my face. He hasn’t
revealed himself to be Simon’s complete opposite, a control freak, someone who tries to live my life for me. Instead he’s proved to be a real partner, supportive but not intrusive, especially when it comes to my painting.

  All on my own, without any help from Evan, I managed to get a small show in a South End gallery. It’s a group show but four of my paintings are going to be hung and if I’m lucky, at least one will be sold. But the money’s not the point—though money is a good thing—the painting is the point. Some of my students are all excited to have their parents bring them into “the city” to see their teacher’s work. I’m very happy about that.

  I’m happy about a lot of things these days.

  Evan and I have been living together for a year. Last month he proposed with a simple platinum band in which is set an utterly clear diamond; he had it custom made for me.

  Of course, I said yes and we’re planning to tie the knot next spring. I know I’m probably too old to make a big fuss about a wedding, but given the fact that my first wedding was such a washout, I’m going to make this one really special. I won’t wear a white dress, but I will have lots of flowers and a big, beautiful cake, and there’ll be music and I’ll walk down the aisle. Jess is my maid of honor and Evan’s nephew is his best man. A professional photographer will take pictures and I’ll put the best ones in a leather-bound album. Simon and Cassandra will be invited to the wedding. Why not? He’s no threat to me now—and I’m no threat to me, either.

  I’ll invite Nell and Oscar, of course, as well as Richard and Bob. And I’ll also invite Laura and Matt. I hope they can be there; at least, I hope that Laura is in good enough shape to be there.

  I miss her.

  “Interested in dinner?” Evan asked, bringing me back to the moment.

  A summer night on Nantucket with the man I loved.

  “I’m starved,” I said. “Will you start the grill?”

  Please turn the page for a very special

  Q&A with Holly Chamberlin!

  You wrote this book a few years ago. What was it like rereading it after time had passed?

  As happens whenever I return to a book I wrote a while ago, I am hugely surprised by the contents. It’s almost as if I had nothing at all to do with the creation of the story. Events seem entirely new and characters almost completely unknown. Thankfully, to date the surprises have been mostly pleasant!

  Divorce is not a happy topic about which to write. Did writing about four divorced women take an emotional toll?

  Oh, yes. It’s impossible not to be emotionally affected by the story I am trying to tell. I do remember wanting a happy ending for each character, though at some point I made a decision that for one, Laura, a happy ending probably wasn’t realistic. I’m not sure how popular that decision is with readers, but one can’t please every reader every time.

  The book was written before texting and social media became what they are today. How would things be different if Back in the Game were set today rather than in 2006?

  Well, online dating would be a no-brainer for a character (even Nell) seeking to meet someone special. Unhappy characters (Jess) would be able to torture themselves by obsessively checking Facebook for news of their exes instead of just waiting impatiently for an e-mail reply. And nowadays everyone (except me) seems to be texting, so the characters would have far less privacy than they currently do. No more slipping away to Ogunquit for a day or two without the office or a hopeful romantic partner (like Nick) or an annoying ex (like Simon) keeping tabs!

  Did you draw on the lives of anyone close to you for the stories of Nell, Laura, Grace, and Jess?

  I make it a policy never to draw on the lives of those I know and love for a book. That said, I do know of—at some distance—two women whose husbands revealed their homosexuality years into their marriages. But aside from that fact, Nell has little if anything in common with those women. Okay, and when I was single, I did get involved with one or two impossible types like Simon, but I never married them! Of course some of my friends and family members have gone through a divorce, but their private stories are safe with me.

  Once again you’ve written a book in which the theme of forgiveness looms large.

  Yes, forgiveness is a topic I can’t seem to get enough of. On the one hand, the act of forgiveness is enormously complicated. On the other hand, it’s terribly simple. Forgiving another person for a hurt done against oneself or against a loved one is, in my experience, often a lot easier to accomplish than forgiving oneself. You could think about the topic of forgiveness for hours on end and still find new bits to contemplate.

  The Trina character is certainly over the top. Have you ever met anyone like her?

  I’m afraid I don’t move in the sort of social circles Trina moves in. And I’m glad about that! No, she’s an invention, though I’d bet there are plenty of flesh-and-blood versions of her marrying their way through the rich and famous. And I think many of us have come across a person at some point in our lives who simultaneously attracts and repulses us. They help make life interesting!

  Speaking of repulsion, when you were single did you ever encounter dates from hell like the ones Laura and Nell and Jess encounter in the book?

  I certainly had my share of odd or awkward experiences with men, but I’m happy to say that no one brought out handcuffs at dinner or blatantly ignored me in favor of better-looking women at the bar. It was bad at times, but it could have been far worse.

  The chapter heads are amusing, if dark.

  I tried to make the chapter heads, both flippant and cynical, present a stark contrast to the content of the chapters themselves. Divorce is not amusing, and marriage is not to be taken lightly. The four main characters know these important truths. None set out to make a joke of a marriage or of a divorce, not even Laura.

  Nell, an otherwise good person, is at times downright nasty to her younger sister. And Laura, who can be supremely annoying but who is basically a decent person, tolerates this bad behavior. They often seem more adversaries than friends.

  From what I’ve observed, relationships between same-sex siblings can be wildly complex, swinging from loving-kindness to active meanness. I don’t have a sister; I have a brother with whom I am very compatible. I suppose the fact that the sister-sister relationship is one from which I am excluded makes the dynamic particularly interesting to me. That said, I’m certainly not claiming that all sister-sister relationships have an adversarial element.

  Would you write at length about divorce again?

  Not if I can help it!

  A READING GROUP GUIDE

  BACK IN THE GAME

  Holly Chamberlin

  ABOUT THIS GUIDE

  The suggested questions are included

  to enhance your group’s reading of

  Holly Chamberlin’s Back in the Game.

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1. Overall, the brief entries at the start of each chapter express a cynical attitude toward both marriage and divorce, an attitude that contrasts, sometimes sharply, with the experiences of the four main characters. How do these entries affect your reading experience?

  2. Early in the book, Grace, who admits to following her mother’s behavioral examples, says that she doesn’t blame her mother for “making [her] into anything [she] wasn’t already by accident of birth.” Talk about “nature vs. nurture” in the case of mothers and daughters.

  3. Nell feels some degree of guilt or responsibility for her ex-husband’s years of secrecy. She says to her friends: “How could I not have known? I was so wrapped up in my own life, I never really saw the person on the other side of the bed. And yet, I loved Richard; I thought I was being his true partner.” Do you think Nell is to some extent responsible for Richard’s decision not to come out of the closet? Or do you think that all the blame lies with Richard? Do you have sympathy for Richard? Discuss.

  4. Jess still can’t understand why she married Matt in the first place. From your own observations, how common do you
find “unconscious” marriages? From your own observations, what are the most common reasons people give for marrying a particular person? How does a factor such as age affect the decision to marry a particular person at a particular time?

  5. The women worry that Laura is trying to replace her dead parents—i.e., a hole in her heart—with a baby. Laura denies this and also claims she doesn’t need or want to be “saved from anything”—i.e., the loneliness and confusion her parents’ sudden deaths occasioned. Duncan accuses Laura of throwing away someone who loved her—him—for someone who didn’t even exist: a hypothetical child. Discuss Laura’s situation. Is her decision to divorce Duncan in some way valid?

  6. Grace realizes that she has forgotten a lot about herself after all her years catering to Simon. Jess tells us that she began to feel alienated not only from Matt but also from herself in the marriage. She experienced, she says, a death of her spirit. Talk about the phenomena of “losing oneself” in a relationship. Is this always a bad thing? If not, when is it not? And when is it clearly destructive?

  7. Jess admits that her guilt over cheating on her ex-husband feels like a physical thing “chewing up her insides.” She says she is embarrassed to look at herself in a mirror. Do you think her guilt is out of proportion to her misdeed? Is there ever an acceptable reason for infidelity? Is there ever an understandable reason?

  8. Nell, a mother of two teenagers, says, “There is no real me apart from my kids. Not entirely.” Do you agree with and/or understand what she is saying?