by Nancy Thayer
11
• • • • •
Overnight a heavy snow had fallen, unusual for the island, and the girls were eager to get outside and make snowmen. Carley padded around the kitchen in yoga pants and a flannel shirt, yawning, checking the calendar for the week and supervising the girls’ breakfast. It seemed to her that Cisco was only pretending to eat.
“Mom, Delphine’s coming over after school to practice, okay?”
Carley turned on a winning smile. “It’s okay as long as I see you eat three bites of toast.”
“I’m not a baby!”
“I didn’t say you were.”
Cisco tore off a bite and swallowed almost without chewing. “There.”
“That’s one bite.”
“Mom! Stop it!”
“Studies have shown that children are healthier when they’ve had a substantial breakfast, and one bite of toast is not a substantial breakfast. Two. More. Bites.”
Cisco glared and sniffed disdainfully. But she ate two bites, and drank her entire glass of orange juice.
All during the school year, every Tuesday afternoon and Saturday morning, Maud dropped Percy and Spenser off at Carley’s house while she went to her yoga class. Maud needed the classes desperately, she said—typing and drawing tied her muscles into knots. It was a friendly arrangement.
Today it was raining, so Margaret and the boys were in the attic when Maud arrived. Even though it was cold out, Maud wore, as usual, a tank top, yoga pants, and fleece-lined clogs. Maud was looking sexier than ever—she’d had her Dutch-boy bob expensively cut and shaped.
“Tea?” Carley offered.
“I’d love some.”
Carley put the kettle on and then, on the spur of the moment, asked Maud, “What’s up with you?”
“What do you mean?” Maud widened her eyes innocently. Carley narrowed her eyes. “What do I mean?” Maud turned red.
“Maud!”
“I’ll just shut the door.” Maud closed the door to the back stairs.
“Maud, the children are in the attic, they can’t hear you.”
“I need to be absolutely sure.” Maud sat at the table and crossed her arms defensively over her chest. “If I tell you, Carley, you’ve got to promise not to tell anyone else.”
Suspiciously, Carley narrowed her eyes. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. It looks like you’ve already guessed.” Maud trembled with nerves. “I need to talk to someone, Carley. But you have to swear to keep it secret. Swear on your children’s lives.”
“Maud! What’s wrong with you? I’d never do that.”
“All right, all right. Listen. Just swear you won’t tell anyone else.”
Carley hesitated. “Okay.”
“Oh, Carley—” Maud lifted her huge blue eyes to Carley, and they were shining. “I’m in love.”
“You’re in love?” Carley echoed. She felt sick at her stomach.
“With Toby Hutchinson.”
Carley sat down hard in her chair.
“Do you hate me?” Maud clutched Carley’s hands.
Carley pulled her hands away. “Maud, of course I don’t hate you,” though for a moment she thought maybe she did. She had not misinterpreted what she saw, Toby’s mouth on Maud’s neck. “But dear God, what about Vanessa?”
“Carley! I wouldn’t even have told you if I’d thought you were going to get all self-righteous on me. I haven’t told anyone, I need to talk to someone about this. Can’t you be on my side?”
“That’s a complicated question, Maud.” The teakettle whistled. Carley took a moment to catch her breath as she poured water into the pot and set out the teacups and saucers.
Maud jumped up and grasped Carley’s shoulders. “Oh, Carley! Oh, Carley, we tried to stop ourselves. We tried to resist one another, but we couldn’t. I’ve always liked Toby. He’s the boys’ pediatrician.”
“Yes, he’s our pediatrician, too.” Carley edged out of Maud’s grasp, picking up the teapot, setting things on the table.
Maud sat down again and took a deep breath. “Okay, so you’re aware that he’s wise and kind and gentle. I’ve always been fond of him for that. The boys adore him. He’s always seemed to give us extra time, he hasn’t minded if I’ve asked silly questions, and he takes us in right away whenever we have an emergency. I suspected he had a little crush on me. And at the autism benefit gala at the new yacht club last summer, Toby asked me to dance, and it was a slow dance … Stop it, Carley! Don’t look at me that way. You’ve talked about lusting after other men sometimes!”
“That’s true. But, well—have you slept with him?”
Maud turned bright red. Carley had her answer.
“Oh, Maud!” Carley’s heart twisted with worry for Vanessa.
Maud leaned forward, eager, earnest. “Carley, it was paradise! It was ecstasy! It was the same for him.”
Maud’s passion astonished Carley. “But Maud, I mean, come on, that’s more than a flirtation, that’s taking it into infidelity, adultery—”
“Stop being so judgmental!” Maud sat back down and burst into tears.
“I’m not judging you, Maud. But, come on, Vanessa—”
“Mommy!” The back stairs door flew open and Margaret flew into the room, followed by Percy and Spenser. “We’re hungry!” She stopped, and her dark eyes grew wide.
“It’s all right, Margaret. Maud has something in her eye.” As she talked, Carley hurriedly stuffed a box of cookies, a thermos of apple juice, and three paper cups into a small paper bag. “Here’s a picnic, you can eat it in the attic, but not the second floor, okay?” It would mean crumbs in the attic, but Carley wanted the children as far away as possible.
Actually, she wanted everyone far away, just for a minute, so she could think.
Maud and Toby Hutchinson? Sexually passionate? Maud had discovered paradise with Toby Hutchinson?
Paradise. What was that like?
The children hurtled back up the stairs. Carley shut the door.
“Don’t you want me to be happy?” Maud asked, almost begging.
“Of course I do. But … what about Vanessa? My gosh, Las Tres Enchiladas!”
“I can’t even think about her, Carley. When Toby and I are together, it’s as if we’re on a different plane, in a different reality. It’s all so new and fresh. It’s so intense. In a way, it doesn’t even seem like adultery—no one else knows, we’re not hurting anyone, and it’s only happening in our own little world, the world inhabited by just the two of us.”
“Where do you meet?” Carley had asked the right question. Maud beamed, eager to talk.
“At first, the time I think of as ‘our’ first real time, I mean when I knew we were in love, it was just in the Stop & Shop parking lot. He asked me how Spenser’s been, I’ve been worried that he’s hyperactive, and we talked about that for such a long time. I finally said, ‘Oh, excuse me, you’re busy, I mustn’t keep you,’ and he said, ‘I wish you would keep me,’ and wow!” Maud’s face was crimson. “For a while I couldn’t even speak, I just stared at him—”
“Stop.” Carley held up her hand. Suddenly the truth hit her hard. “Have you been ‘seeing’ Toby this whole time when you’re supposed to be at yoga?”
Maud dropped her eyes. “Well, at first I was going to yoga. And sometimes I’m at yoga …”
“Oh, Maud.” Carley collapsed in a chair. She’d helped Maud sleep with Vanessa’s husband! “This is a disaster.”
“No!” Maud protested. “If you’re worried that this will somehow hurt my children, listen, don’t be. I’m much nicer to the kids than I’ve been for months! I like my life more, I have more energy, more creativity, more patience—”
“But in the long run,” Carley interrupted. “You can’t—”
“I don’t care about the long run, I don’t care about the future! This is my own thing, and I want it, Carley! I’m a damned good mother. I work hard. This isn’t hurting an
yone, and it’s making me happier than I’ve ever been in my life.”
“But it’s hurting Vanessa,” Carley insisted.
“No, it’s not,” Maud retorted. “She doesn’t know. She’ll never know. Besides, she told me sometimes when she and Toby are at it, she gets so bored she wishes she could prop up a book next to her.”
“Yes, but that’s marriage,” Carley insisted.
“Still, Toby has feelings, too. He has needs.”
Carley almost exploded. “Yes, well, what about Vanessa’s needs?” She was angry enough to hit something. She shoved back her chair and paced the kitchen. “Maud, I can’t do it anymore, I won’t do it. I won’t have your boys here while you’re at ‘yoga class.’ ”
“But sometimes I am at yoga class,” Maud protested sweetly, tilting her head.
“I don’t care. I won’t do it. Oh, Maud!” Carley wanted to throw all the china against the wall. “Maud, how can you do this?”
Maud sat very still. After a long moment of silence, she said, “I’ve never felt this way before, Carley. I loved John, in a sort of friendly way. I never felt this—this undeniable desire. Absolute longing. Followed by absolute bliss. Carley, come on. I’m a good person. I’m a good mother, a good wife. I’m not wicked, I’m not evil. We didn’t choose for this to happen.” Clasping her hands together, she pleaded, “Please don’t hate me.”
“I don’t hate you, Maud.” Carley sank back down into a chair. She was torn in two, and thinking furiously. Perhaps this was just sex, just something they both needed, and it wouldn’t last long, so fiery, so hot, it would burn itself out like a supernova. “But I can’t keep the boys for you, Maud. I can’t collude with you.”
Maud snorted. “Collude. You make it sound like a crime.”
Carley let her silence speak.
“You can’t tell Vanessa.”
“No. I won’t.”
“I guess you want me to go.”
“Yes.” Carley looked at the clock. “It’s time for me to start dinner, anyway.”
12
• • • • •
It wasn’t fair of Maud, Carley thought, for her to share her secret with Carley. It made Carley somehow seem to approve of the affair. Carley fretted about this, turning the problem around and around in her mind like a Rubik’s Cube, as she cleaned and made up the bedroom and bathroom off the laundry room.
Reverend Salter’s nephew was just her height, slender but muscular, with spiky brown hair, dreamy blue eyes, and a gorgeous smile.
Best of all, he was happy, and when he arrived in January, in his low-slung, faded jeans, his Aéropostale tee and hoodie, his braid necklace and his tattooed forearm, he brought fresh air into the Winsted household. Cisco and Margaret fell in love with him immediately. Carley’s friends developed mad crushes on him, too, and when they came over to visit, they wore sexy little shirts and more makeup than they usually wore.
They didn’t often get a chance to flirt with Kevin, though. He was almost always out at the historical association, doing research, or running or biking or ice skating, and, after only a matter of days on the island, he developed a wide group of friends, male and female, and spent all his free time with them.
She suspected he spent quite a few nights with one woman or another, but he never brought a woman back to his room, even though Carley hadn’t said anything about having an overnight guest. She hadn’t even thought about that sort of thing when she rented him the room.
Kevin used the bedroom at the side of the house, off the laundry room. It had its own bathroom and a good double bed and an almost private entrance leading from the side door through the mudroom. When she first offered the room to Kevin, over the telephone, she’d said that breakfast would be included with the room, just juice, coffee, muffins, cereal. He could fix it himself, she said, because she would be dealing with getting her daughters off to school. After she got acquainted with Kevin, she altered the arrangement: he was welcome to join them on Saturday and Sunday mornings, when she and the girls usually had what Margaret called a “fancy breakfast” of pancakes or French toast, eggs Benedict or cheesy soufflés, omelets stuffed with goat cheese and bacon. Kevin began to join them, occasionally. When he did, Margaret giggled through the entire meal while Cisco stared, smitten, at her plate.
He was twenty-seven. Carley was thirty-two. Yet she felt so much older than Kevin that she could be in his presence without feeling any kind of sexual attraction for him, even though she could appreciate how completely gorgeous he was. She felt relaxed and easy with him, as if he were her kid brother.
Most of all, she was very glad for the money he paid every month. It was enough to pay for Cisco’s ballet lessons, with a nice chunk left over. Carley hadn’t made any money herself since she waitressed back when she met Gus, and she liked the way it felt. She knew very well that she wasn’t actually making the money herself—it was the house that made the money.
It was the house that made the money.
Suddenly, she thought, with a leap of her heart, maybe she and this grand old house could make even more money!
Carley wandered through the rooms, letting her imagination take her wherever it could. It was fun having Kevin around. She liked people. She liked cooking. She liked it when people stopped her on the street to ask where to go, which were the best shops and restaurants.
Maybe she could run a small B&B!
The thought glowed in her mind like the sun blazing out after a storm.
Margaret came down with a cold that sent her sniffling and whining to bed. Carley spent the weekend nursing her little girl, bringing her ginger ale and Popsicles to help her fever, filling and refilling the humidifier, reading to her, cuddling her. When Margaret fell asleep at night, Carley didn’t have the energy to think about her plans. She took a long hot shower and crawled into bed with her own book, one Maud had passed on, with lots of unrealistic romance.
Monday she kept Margaret home to be certain she was better, and by Monday afternoon her daughter was well, and bored, almost bouncing off the walls. Carley was delighted to send her back to school Tuesday morning. She started making lists. Thinking about who could give her advice. She’d call her parents and her sister. Maud worked and made money, so she’d know some things, about taxes and so on, but her work was more solitary. Who else?
She thought of Lexi Laney. Lexi ran her own clothing store on the island, Moon Shell Beach, which was wildly successful. Lexi didn’t actually run with Carley’s crowd—Lexi was single, with no children, but she was close to Carley’s age and whenever they met at parties, Carley had always liked talking to her. It just might work, asking Lexi about running a business. She picked up the phone.
13
• • • • •
“One thing’s certain,” Lexi said as she stood in Carley’s kitchen looking at the cluttered desk piled with mail, the girls’ schoolwork, and Carley’s appointment book, “you can’t run a business from here. Especially not a B&B.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not professional, for one thing. You want your guests to come up here for muffins and coffee and see that mess? You must have some place in this huge house for an office.”
Carley chewed her fingernail. “Well … there’s Gus’s office.” Lexi followed Carley down the hall and into the room. “This is perfect! You’ve got a desk and a computer here already. Clear off Gus’s stuff and set up your office.”
Carley gulped. Lexi intimidated Carley. Lexi was at least six feet tall, slender as a willow reed, with long white-blond hair and huge blue eyes. She was perfection itself. Today she wore black pants and a white tee shirt. She looked like a million dollars. Carley had always thought there was something a little hard about Lexi. She’d heard how, years ago when she was nineteen, Lexi had married a much older and very wealthy man, then divorced him after ten years and returned to the island. In that time, Lexi had acquired a kind of gloss, an attitude.
Carley screwed up her courage and confessed:
“It doesn’t feel right.”
“Well, honey, he’s not going to be using them anymore.”
“Still … it might make my daughters sad.”
“So you want to keep this as a shrine?”
“Well …”
“Fine.” Lexi turned on her heel and walked out to the hall. “This is a big house. You have lots of rooms. Of course the placement of the office is perfect. It’s near the kitchen and at the back of the hall, but it’s your decision. We can turn any room into an office. You just need a desk, a computer, and some file cabinets.”
“My computer’s in the kitchen.”
“Nope, can’t use that. That’s the household computer. You’ll want to move it, though—into the den with the television. Your girls use it, right? You email your friends? That’s what that computer’s for. You need a computer dedicated to your business. For tax reasons as well as for organizational reasons.”
“Lexi … listen, I’m having trouble thinking clearly. I do need to get organized. Do you think we could just sit in the kitchen for a while and you could tell me stuff and I could write down a list?”
“Sure, Carley. That will work.”
Once settled in the kitchen with Diet Cokes, Carley picked up a pen and pad of paper. “Go.”
“All right. Just off the top of my head. Signage.”
“What?”
“You need to have some kind of sign to show people they’ve come to the right place. Signage is strictly controlled by the Historic District Commission. You may not even be able to have a sign up here in this residential area. Better have one of your lawyer relatives organize that for you. At a quick glance, I’m seeing lots of nice stuff that you won’t want broken. Put it away. Especially anything that might be valuable or look valuable.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Not kidding. You’d be surprised how many people just slip a little souvenir into their pockets. They think, since they’re paying such high prices to stay, eat, and shop on the island, that they deserve it.”
