by Nancy Thayer
“You’ve got killer legs,” Jane agreed.
“And the color makes it not so virgin-bride-ish, and the ruched skirt adds a bit of fabulous, don’t you think?”
“You’ll look amazing,” Felicity agreed.
“Now let me show you what I’m thinking for you two.”
She clicked the remote. Felicity of course burbled over the pastels with Little Bo Peep wide-skirted shapes. Jane preferred the sleek form-fitting black, but both her mother and Felicity refused to consider that. They all liked the strapless dresses that echoed Alison’s but were shorter, the hem falling a few inches above the knee—Alison’s daughters had killer legs, too. Felicity chose pale pink, Jane, a darker rose. Because Alison’s jewelry would be the diamond earrings and necklace David had given her, Felicity demanded at least a little bling for her and Jane. So they added a sparkling ornament at the waist. They would all wear their hair up and glittery earrings.
“What’s David going to wear?” Jane asked.
“A tuxedo with a cummerbund that matches my dress. Ethan and Poppy will be his attendants, and David knows the details of what I’m wearing—although he hasn’t seen the dress, of course.”
“What about Poppy? What is she wearing?”
Alison took a moment to gather her thoughts. “I’ve emailed Poppy about the gowns. I sent her the video file showing her the dresses I’ve just shown you. She hasn’t responded.”
“That’s rude,” Felicity said.
“I don’t know, Felicity, maybe she hasn’t had time. She’s working and she has two children and a husband, so she must be wildly busy.”
“Have David tell Poppy to get on the stick,” Jane said.
“No, honey. I want to work out some kind of relationship with Poppy. She’s coming down next weekend, and I can talk with her then. And Anya is good to go on any alterations on any gown Poppy might choose.” Alison stood up. “Now. Red grapes and movie time!”
They ate dessert while watching Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway in Bride Wars. They tidied the kitchen together, talking about weddings and gowns with seven layers of tulle until Alison said, “Time for bed, girls. We’ve got a big day tomorrow.”
The sisters shared a smile. How many times had their mother spoken those exact words to them? They kissed their mother’s cheek and dutifully went up the stairs.
four
Jane brushed and flossed her teeth and brushed her hair and washed and creamed her face and rubbed lotion into her hands. She’d already changed into the tank top and boxer shorts she slept in. In her room, the bed with its sumptuous Frette linens waited, the bedside table piled with magazines, books, and a crystal carafe of water and a glass, in case she woke in the night and was thirsty. From the antique dresser, a light, sweet perfume drifted from a vase of fresh flowers.
It was all so…sensual. Too sensual. It was so unsettling. This evening had been strange.
Probably, Jane decided, flicking off the bathroom light and crossing the room to her bed, she’d simply had too much to drink. Felicity certainly had. She’d confessed she seldom drank so much, as if that wasn’t obvious. She’d almost stumbled up the stairs to her bedroom. Jane followed, waiting to catch her if she fell, but Felicity made it to her bed, where she did fall, wham, like an axed tree, onto her bed. Immediately she was asleep and snoring. Jane took a mohair throw from the back of an armchair and laid it over her sister.
Now Jane slid into her own bed, and she was completely awake. She usually mentally composed a list of duties to be performed the next day and somewhere along the way she fell into sleep. But tonight she couldn’t wrench her mind into its reliable categorizing. Frivolous thoughts flashed through her brain—if she didn’t have her hair cut for the next three months, it could be twisted up and held with a dazzling clip—she was glad her mother was at last having a romantic wedding—should she get a tan, would that look good against the deep rose dress? And why was she so agitated about this anyway?
She gave up, turned on the bedside lamp, and reached for one of the books on the bedside table. Oh dear, it was a bodice ripper. A bare-chested man held a curvaceous woman wearing a dress much like some of the bridesmaids gowns they’d seen. They were on a beach or in a boat, whatever, blue water rippled in the background beneath a sky blazing with light. The man’s black hair was as long as the woman’s blond locks, and he had abs like no real man Jane had ever seen. She touched her finger to the man’s chest, as if she could feel—
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” she said and tossed the book facedown on the bed. Had she lost her mind?
Whatever, she wouldn’t get to sleep this way. Throwing back the covers, she slid her feet into flip-flops and crept out of her room and down the stairs. She’d racewalk down the beach. That would tire her out.
The moon wasn’t quite full but large enough and close enough to cast the world into shades of silver. No wind blew, so the waves quietly slid up to the shore and away, making sighing sounds. Jane was slightly cool in only her tank top, but she knew as she walked that she’d warm up, so she pattered down the steps and through the wild roses to the beach.
The frothy white curls of the waves made her think of some of the wedding gowns she’d seen on the slide show. As if all brides wanted to look like a princess on their wedding day. Ridiculous, really.
Jane had never bought into that whole fantasy. First of all, she was well aware that no matter how gorgeous the wedding, at least half of all marriages ended in divorce. There was no ceremony for divorce and women certainly didn’t look like princesses by the time Prince Charming had morphed back into a frog. She didn’t see any sense in spending thousands of dollars on one event when that money could be used toward an apartment in the city.
For their own wedding, Jane and Scott had decided to put some money toward a trip and go low on expenses for the actual marriage ceremony. After all, Jane’s stepfather had died, unexpectedly of a heart attack, in January. The three women were still mourning. It hadn’t seemed right to throw a festive ceremony in that same year. Jane and Scott had just finished law school and passed the New York bar. They chose to be married by a justice of the peace on a bright April morning in a conference room at the Logan airport Hilton in Boston. That made it easy for her mother, sister, and friends from the Boston area to attend. Her best friend, Lisa, and Scott’s best friend, Brendon, came from San Francisco and D.C. to be witnesses. They all enjoyed a privately catered lunch after the ceremony. Jane and Scott flew out that afternoon, to L.A., where they picked up their rental Jeep and drove to Death Valley.
Jane’s friends had shrieked when she’d told them she was honeymooning in Death Valley.
“Those words don’t belong in the same sentence!” Lisa had said.
“Scott and I love hiking,” Jane reminded them in a serene and reasonable tone of voice. “Death Valley is a hiker’s paradise, with endless canyons and hills made of minerals so they’re streaked turquoise and rose. We’ll see coyotes and ravens and salt plains and snowcapped mountains. Plus,” she added, knowing this would win her friends over, “we’ll be staying at The Oasis at Death Valley. Google it. It’s luxurious, a green oasis in the middle of the desert. We’ll hike all day or swim in the pool or play golf or horseback ride, and if we’re exhausted at the end of the day, we’ll get massages.”
“Still,” Marcy said, “it doesn’t sound very romantic.”
Jane had shrugged. “Scott and I have lived together for two years. I’ve seen him clip his nose hairs. He’s put up with me when I’m PMSing. We don’t need fantasy. We want to hike.”
“Still weird,” Lisa had concluded.
Jane had enjoyed the honeymoon immensely. Every day she felt stronger from hiking, and in spite of sunscreen, she got a fantastic tan, and she never thought about work—how could she, when she was in such an unworldly landscape? Maybe she and Scott hadn’t made love as much as they should
have, but again, they’d been together for two years, so the bloom was off the rose, and besides, they hiked or rode horseback every day and were completely bushed at night. And now that she remembered it, Scott—typical male—had refused to wear sunscreen, and gotten a painful sunburn on his arms and legs. For several days he couldn’t stand to have Jane touch him.
And look, their marriage had lasted. They were filling in all the right boxes in their plans. Once they’d bought an apartment in the city, then they would travel in more exotic places. Bali. Tokyo. She wanted to see the opal caves in Australia.
But recently, suddenly, unexpectedly, Jane had started wishing for something more than all the opal caves in the world.
She wanted to have a baby.
Maybe more than one.
A few months ago, she’d been astonished to find this craving unfolding within herself, like a dormant plant opening so wide it took up all the room in her heart and could not be ignored. She wanted a child. Or two. She caught herself pausing at the windows of baby-clothing stores, smiling at young mothers carrying their babies on their chests. She wanted the tiny white onesie embroidered with a duck, the wraparound garment that held a baby close to her heart—she wanted to carry a baby in her body and to give birth even if it did make her scream in pain.
She had forced herself to wait for months before discussing this with Scott. She didn’t want to talk about something so huge, so life-changing, without giving it serious thought. She had never been moody. She’d never been fickle in her decisions or her actions, and she understood how women’s hormones could cause temporary insanity. She’d forced herself to study glossy sites about hiking trips in the four corners of the world, and nothing had called to her, but the moment a mother came down the street pushing a stroller, Jane’s eyes were pulled irresistibly to the sight of the baby—and when she saw the child, her heart melted.
Finally, she’d brought up the idea to Scott, after first marshaling her arguing points as if preparing for a court case, because she knew her husband well. He hated change. She’d expected a battle. It hadn’t been a battle so much as a kind of tantrum on Jane’s part and a quiet, adamant, sustained lack of interest from Scott. Scott simply remained politely unwilling to engage in an argument, certain that Jane would wear herself down and subside in exhaustion.
And for a while, she did subside. She allowed Scott to remind her of the pleasures of their chosen life, not just by getting tickets to the best seats at the biggest plays and concerts but also by spending a day with her touring the charter school in the Bronx and talking with the real children whom they were supporting with their financial donations. She waged her own silent war by accepting every invitation from friends with children—rosy-cheeked, giggling tots who made an appearance before being gently taken to bed by the babysitter or nanny.
Her efforts had been in vain. Scott was firmly planted in his decision; she could not coax or seduce or cajole him even to consider her desire.
Now she pushed the thought away and listened to the waves splash against the sand as she returned to David’s house. She still wasn’t tired, so she decided to enjoy a beer and sit on the deck for a while.
“Hey.”
“Oh!” Jane jumped at the sound of Ethan’s voice. He was sitting on a lounger, beer bottle in hand, looking toward the ocean.
“Nice night for a walk,” Ethan said. He wore a T-shirt and board shorts and his feet were bare.
“Or for stargazing,” Jane answered, intending to slip past him into the house.
“Join me,” Ethan invited. He held up another cold beer.
“Wait. How did you do that? Produce a beer out of thin air?”
Ethan laughed. “I’m lazy but I’m smart. I brought a cooler out with ice and a few beers in it.”
“Oh. Well, thanks.” Jane accepted the beer—their hands touched lightly—and stretched out on the lounger next to him. “Ah. This is brilliant. But what, you were planning to sit out here drinking beer all night?”
“I’ve certainly done it before,” Ethan said. “But no, I came out with the beer because I saw you walk down to the beach.”
Jane worked hard to keep from choking on her sip of beer. She cleared her throat. “So you couldn’t sleep, either?”
“That, and also I thought it would be nice to get to know you.”
His words made her go hot all over. She was glad it was too dark for him to see her blush. Mom and David! Jane thought, rather desperately trying to catalog his words in a nonpersonal file. Ethan is family, kind of. “Oh, right. After all, we’re going to be kind of stepsiblings.”
Ethan laughed. He had a nice, low, soft laugh. “Maybe not stepsiblings at our age. I think there’s probably a sell-by date on that.”
“All right, then, we can be friends.” Jane liked attaching a nice neutral term to her relationship, not that she had a relationship, with Ethan.
Ethan laughed. “Let’s shake on it.”
He turned sideways on the lounger and extended his hand. Jane had no choice but to do the same. His hand was warm, calloused, larger than hers.
She lifted her eyes to meet his and they remained holding hands. It was too dark to see much, but she felt something in his gaze that stopped her breathing.
She pulled her hand away. She inhaled deeply as she resettled in her lounger.
After a moment, Ethan faced the ocean. He took a long drink of his beer. “Okay, friend,” he said. “Tell me about yourself.”
“I’m a lawyer,” Jane said. “My husband, Scott, is, too. We rent an apartment in Manhattan and we’re saving to buy. We usually take a couple of vacations a year, hiking. We like to hike.”
“Wow,” Ethan said softly. “That’s a lot of we’s.”
A spot of anger kicked her in the chest. “Okay, why don’t you tell me about yourself the way you think it should be done.”
“I didn’t mean to criticize,” Ethan told her. “That just sounded like you were filling out a questionnaire. I do know you’re a lawyer. Dad told me. So that might explain why you’re guarded.”
I’m not guarded! Jane thought. She tightened her lips to keep from saying the words out loud. That would be just too childish. “No, really,” she said, putting a little silk in her voice, “tell me about you.” And I’ll be able to tell if you’re lying, because I googled you, she thought.
Ethan gazed out at the ocean. “I’m fortunate. My family’s wealthy—I’m sure you know that. My life is disjointed, all over the place, literally. I have a farm in Vermont, and I’m there most of the time, but I’m divorced, with a daughter, Canny. She’s nine, she lives with me, she’s the center of my world. What else? I like adventure, but I’m also kind of a coward, not a good combination. I like surfing in Australia and hang gliding in Norway and ballooning out in Arizona. I own a red Lamborghini that can hit over two hundred miles an hour, not that I’ve ever gone that fast. I have a Harley, too.”
Jane laughed. “Ah, you’re the rebel in your family, the bad boy.”
“But I’m not bad!” Ethan protested. “All summer and fall, I host a group of inner-city kids from the Bronx. A new group every week. I teach them to ride horses, to dig potatoes, to make bread. Plus, I help the family business by growing flowers, new varieties, for experimental new products.”
“You make bread?”
“I do. Have you ever made bread?”
Jane laughed. “I hardly have time to make my bed.” Bed? I had to say bed? “I mean,” she rushed on, “we have a wonderful bakery right on our block. We’re both so busy we don’t really have time to cook.”
“Making bread is an experience everyone should have once. It connects you with what’s real. Simple, basic ingredients, the kneading and shaping, the magic of how it rises, and then you take it warm from the oven, crusty outside, you break it open and it’s soft and yielding as the butter melts into it�
��”
Jane felt like she was having sex. “You make it sound so…physical.” She meant sexual, but no way would she say that.
“It is physical. Spiritual, too.”
“I’ll have to try it sometime.”
“How about tomorrow? I could give you a lesson in making bread.”
Tomorrow, Jane thought. The sun would be shining tomorrow. They’d be in a brightly lit kitchen full of practical objects instead of reclining in the moonlit sea salt air.
“Okay.” She tipped back her beer bottle and chugged the rest down. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” She stood, still caught in some kind of spell. “I’ll rinse the bottle and put it in recycling,” she said, sounding like her normal self again. For a moment, she thought her body wouldn’t obey her and move away into the house. Then a strange shiver went through her, and she was okay.
“Good night,” she called as she stepped into the kitchen.
“Sweet dreams,” Ethan told her.
five
Felicity opened her eyes. It was eight-thirty. Sun flooded the room.
“Oh, no!” She sat up straight, her heart racing.
Then she remembered, in a wash of pleasure, that she was here on Nantucket, with her mother and sister, and without Noah and the children. Her heart twinged when she thought of her darling babies tumbling around on her bed while she tried to squeeze in a few more moments of simply lying down. But that particular sadness didn’t last long. She reminded herself that Noah was there to take care of the children, his children, and that would be a marvelous treat for the little ones, to have a full day of special time with Daddy.
She sank back into the pillows. She sort of wanted to go back to sleep. Sleep was so precious to her these days, it was like entering a very exclusive spa. But the sun was so bright, and a delicious silence filled the room. She allowed her eyes to drift from the blue and white chair by the closet to the mirror bordered with seashells over the dresser to the mermaids singing on the Claire Murray rug lying on the shining, polished pine floorboards. It was luxurious.
