by Donna Ball
“Me either,” admitted Bridget.
“Not one of my fantasies,” Cici said.
Lindsay poured more wine. “But what an adventure it would be, huh?”
They turned their attention to the pictures scrolling by on the computer screen.
“I love the light from those windows.”
“Imagine waking up to that view every morning.”
“That little porch off the dining room is just enchanting. With the stone floor and the sunlight coming through the trees like that, it feels like a secret garden.”
“Remember how quiet it was out there? You couldn’t even hear traffic.”
“I don’t know if I could get used to that.”
“Boy, I could,” Cici said.
The other two grinned and agreed, “I could, too.”
Cici said, “Bridge, what does the Internet map say is the nearest town?”
She typed. “Blue Valley, Virginia, population 1,236. And it’s thirty-five miles away.”
“Let me rephrase that. Where’s the nearest town with a Publix grocery, a Barnes & Noble, and a Home Depot?”
Bridget clicked some keys. “There isn’t one.”
Lindsay rolled her eyes. “Well, for that we could go to rural Alaska, or the Australian Outback, or some eight-hundred-year-old village on a cliff in Tuscany.”
“Or,” Bridget said softly, “we could stay right here, where we’ve already found a place we love.”
The silence that fell over them was filled with wonder, and thick with possibilities. They looked at each other. They looked at the pictures on the computer screen. Cici said, “Oh my God. We’re really considering this.”
“It would mean leaving everything we know,” Lindsay said. “Our jobs, our friends, our homes . . .”
“You hate your jobs,” Bridget said, trying to subdue the rising excitement in her voice, “and working part-time at the library is not exactly the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done. And do you think our friends won’t be beating a path to our door when they hear about this incredible place? Think of the house parties we can have!”
Cici said, “But consolidating three households, selling furniture, deciding what to take and what to leave . . . it’s mind-boggling.”
They thought about that for a moment, then Bridget declared somberly, “You’re right, it would never work. For one thing, we could never agree on a China pattern. And we’re likely to come to blows over the living room drapes.”
A grin spread over Lindsay’s face, and Cici’s, and Bridget’s. Then Lindsay grabbed the laptop with its scrolling pictures, hugged it to her chest, and cried fervently, “Oh my God, I love this house!”
Cici fell on her, embracing both her and the laptop. “Me, too!”
“I love it more!” exclaimed Bridget as she flung herself into the melee.
They separated after a breathless moment, and sat there with fingers entwined, letting the enormity of the moment sink in.
“Okay,” Cici said at last. “This is serious.”
“Totally.”
“Absolutely.”
“It’s a huge risk.”
“Imagine that!” Lindsay grinned. “Taking a risk at our age!”
“If we’re going to do this, we’re going to have to be committed. We’ve got to promise each other we’ll give it at least a year.”
Bridget said, “It is like starting over. Like getting a bonus life. We can do this, I know we can.”
Cici raised her right hand and insisted, “One year.”
Bridget repeated solemnly, raising her hand, “A year.”
And Lindsay followed suit. “A year.”
They clasped hands in midair, eyes shining, the excitement in the air as thick as honey.
“Okay then,” Cici said. She pulled her legs into a semi-lotus position, took up her legal pad, and picked up her glass of wine. “Let’s make a plan.”
And so they did.
4
Auld Lang Syne
December
The annual Huntington Lane Christmas Party, jointly hosted by Cici, Lindsay, and Bridget in Cici’s home, was an event without parallel. Friends, neighbors, colleagues, and their families shopped all year for the perfect outfits, the just-right shoes, the unprecedented hostess gifts. The ladies themselves held their first organizational meeting in September, and from Labor Day onward the clock was counting down toward what was to be, each and every year, the party that would leave all previous parties in the dust.
A graceful draped rope of tiny blue lights lined both sides of Cici’s driveway from the street to the house. A miniature Christmas tree, decorated in twinkling blue and white lights, adorned the fish pond that was the centerpiece of her front lawn, while overhead, every branch of every deciduous tree was wrapped in tiny white lights and hung with oversize, interior-lit, blue glass ornaments. The front porch was swagged with greenery and studded with white lights and pink poinsettia leaves, and the double entry doors show-cased twin wreaths in which glittery white lights and blue satin ribbon were woven in and out of bouquets of white roses.
The foyer was dominated by a fourteen foot, snow-white Christmas tree done completely in crystal ornaments and blue lights. Every doorway was swagged in fake-snow-frosted greenery that was interwoven with blue satin ribbon and tiny white lights. To the right of the tree was a bar, draped with white satin and decorated with sprays of white roses and a half dozen blue candles, where a bartender made certain every guest was immediately greeted with a cup of creamy Southern Comfort eggnog. Hidden stereo speakers provided traditional Christmas music as a background to the “oohs” and “ahhs” and the happy greetings of guests who only saw one another once a year.
In the study, Cici’s office furniture had been pushed against the wall and covered by floor-to-ceiling drapes of theatrical scrim, which were backlit by red and green up-lights and draped with swags of evergreen tied with elaborate red bows and clusters of sparkly ornaments. In the center of the room was a twelve foot evergreen decorated in gold balls and red and green lights. Surrounding it, Cici had built a circular serving table that was draped in gold lamé and lit by dozens of gold candles on mirrors. Behind the table another bartender prepared pomegranate margaritas while guests plucked shrimp from the Christmas-tree-shaped tower decorated with red pepper ornaments, and filled their gold-colored hors d’oeuvres plates with everything from homemade cheese straws to olives wrapped in prosciutto.
The dining room buffet was an L-shaped spectacle of white satin, silver ornaments, and red glass. Rows upon rows of glittering white lights were tucked into nests of greenery and draped through folds of satin, while red glass ball ornaments reflected the sparkle and clusters of red roses accented each serving dish. The beef Wellington was a work of art with its crispy pastry crust and savory spinach filling, complemented by an asparagus casserole for which Bridget would never reveal the recipe. The flaky rolls had been three days in the making. Mushrooms had been stuffed and frozen a week in advance. Crispy crab cakes on a heated platter surrounded a silver bowl of remoulade sauce. New potatoes had been tossed with a hot tomato vinaigrette mere moments before serving, and were kept warm with a chafing dish. Vegetarian selections included a broccoli quiche, tomato tarts with black olives, and a six-layer cheese, red pepper, and pesto torte. The dessert buffet featured a Christmas tree decorated with sugared fruit and surrounded by a colorful wreath of decorated cookies—all lovingly handmade of course—bowls of truffles and dipping chocolate, three different layer cakes, and the pièce de resistance—individual custard cups, trimmed in silver paper and filled with peppermint cream.
Bridget presided over the dining room like a proud mother at a virtuoso’s concert—thrilled and excited at its success, but always a little nervous as well. When Cici stood beside her she squeezed her arm happily. “Everyone’s having a good time, aren’t they? Can you believe we pulled this off on top of everything else? Did you try the crab cakes? They’re not getting soggy, are they?”
>
“Oh my God, you outdid yourself. I tried everything and it is all out of this world. They’re going to have to cut me out of this dress. Can you believe we pulled this off on top of everything else?”
Lindsay edged up to them through the crowd at the buffet table, a dessert plate in her hand. “Did you taste the tomato tarts?” she inquired, popping a sugarcoated grape into her mouth. “And I don’t even like tomatoes! Bridget you are a genius. God, I love our parties, don’t you?” She sighed and looked around happily. “Can you believe we pulled this off again this year on top of everything else?”
The “everything else” had, of course, been selling three houses, holding two giant yard sales and an eBay auction, traveling back and forth to Virginia four times, drawing up contracts, sorting and packing and trying to prepare, both physically and emotionally, for a move that would change everything about their lives. In the midst of it all, Christmas had come, and with it, their last chance to say good-bye.
Bridget’s house had sold first, and everything she owned was currently packed away in cartons awaiting her temporary move to a furnished apartment on January first. Lindsay’s contract called for her to complete the school year, which, with saved vacation and sick time, meant that the earliest she would be able to leave was the last week of March. The buyers of her house had children in school and did not want to make the move until the end of the school year, either, so it would all work out. Cici’s buyers would only wait thirty days to take possession, so she would be joining Bridget in the apartment by the middle of January. No one wanted to move to the country in the dead of winter, and even if they had, they wouldn’t have gone without Lindsay. The adventure had begun together, and it would continue together.
They had made an offer on Blackwell Farm, and it had been accepted. The closing documents had arrived only that morning, and since their real estate attorney happened to be a guest at the party—as well as a dear friend to all of them—they had decided to have a ceremonial signing tonight, at the last gathering they would ever host in this house.
“The decorations are the best ever, Linds,” Bridget said.
Lindsay licked the peppermint cream off of a chocolate truffle. “Couldn’t have done it without Cici.”
Bridget grinned. “And her house.”
Cici slipped an arm around each of their waists. “This is the best Christmas party yet.”
Bridget’s expression grew wistful. “And we’ve given a few of them.”
They stood together for a moment against the background of festive lights and holiday glitter in a vignette that could have made a Christmas card: Bridget in misty green chiffon shot through with silver threads, Lindsay in sparkly sapphire blue, and Cici in a strapless black taffeta that flared out into a swing skirt accented by a timeless ivory cummerbund. Their hairstyles were curled and upswept, their manicures flawless, their makeup dramatic, their jewelry elegant. And on their faces were perfectly matched smiles of tender remembrance.
Across the room Cici spotted her daughter Lori, the cascade of her coppery hair spilling over the spaghetti-strapped shimmering metallic slip dress that barely covered her slender hips and perky A-cup breasts. She was standing in a group of people laughing and talking, but whether she was conversing with them or the cell phone earpiece cleverly hidden by her hair no one could tell—not even the people who were talking to her. Cici couldn’t help smiling even though she had spent most of Lori’s two weeks home alternately wanting to strangle her and trying to find her. So many Christmas trees in this house. So many Barbies and skateboards and iPods and piles of shiny wrapping paper scattered across the floor.
Lori had conceded to come home for Christmas, ostensibly to say good-bye to the house in which she had grown up, but mostly because Cici had threatened to donate to Goodwill any items from Lori’s room that were not claimed by December 31. That afternoon she had come upon one of the boxes Lori had packed, and the battered stuffed bunny lying atop one of them—battle-weary veteran of an entire childhood of tea parties, sleepovers, temper tantrums, and broken hearts—had made her eyes flood with tears. She was leaving more than a house behind. She was leaving a lifetime. And so were they all.
As though reading her thoughts, Lindsay said softly, “Good times.”
“So many of them,” agreed Bridget, and her voice sounded a little shaky.
Cici was surprised to find her own throat thick with emotion as she said, determinedly, “But better ones ahead.”
The women released a collective breath, and Cici saw in their eyes an expression that had become familiar over the past months, that she had seen over and over again in the mirror—a kind of sparkling excitement and dazed amazement that was usually reserved for people half their ages; people who had lives filled with adventure and accomplishment and discovery ahead of them and who couldn’t believe their good fortune. They were doing this. It was crazy, it was unreal, it was outrageous, and they were actually doing it.
“Girls, you are the best! And I hate you every one, I really do.” Their friend Paul, whose syndicated “In Style” column was a must-read in metro newspapers up and down the Eastern Seaboard, rested one arm on Bridget’s shoulder and another on Lindsay’s as, careful not to spill his glass of chardonnay, he air-kissed them each down the line. “You’re going to make a bleepin’ fortune on that broken-down pile of bricks and all you have to do is move to the middle of East Nowhere, abandon every shred of modern civilization, and live like savages for a couple of years. I’m so jealous I could slap you. Would that I had your courage! And will you tell me what we’re supposed to do for Christmas from now on? Bridget, the crab cakes were divine, and the beef Wellington simply melted. Melted, I tell you, right on the tongue. How can we live without you?”
Bridget laughed. “Well, you can’t, which is why you’re going to have to come visit.”
“Oh promise you’ll invite me! I’m sure I must have something to wear to the country.”
“And speaking of which . . .” Paul’s partner Derrick slipped up behind Lindsay and kissed her on the back of the neck. “That dress is you, my dear. You’ve never looked more lovely. It breaks my heart to think of your talent and extraordinary beauty languishing in that misbegotten cultural desert.”
“And what about my beauty?” demanded Cici.
“And my talent?” insisted Bridget.
Lindsay sighed elaborately and caressed his cheek. “Why are all the good men gay?”
“Not all of them,” corrected Derrick, smiling across her shoulder at Paul. “Just most of them.”
“What I want to know,” insisted their neighbor Rosalee, joining them, “is what in the world you think you’re going to do with yourselves out there in the wilderness? Cici, this is the best party ever, and it just makes me want to weep when I think it’s the last one ever. How can you do this to us? Oh, give me a hug!”
“The house I can understand.” Jena, a broker at Cici’s firm, joined the conversation and the embraces. “Prices are sky-rocketing all along the I-81 corridor and getting the place at below appraisal was just brilliant. But three women living together? Are you crazy? You’ll be pulling each other’s hair out and chasing each other around the kitchen with serving spoons before a month is out.”
Derrick said, “I don’t know. Paul and I have lived together for ten years and we never chased each other with serving spoons.”
“Well, there was that one time,” corrected Paul, leaning back into his embrace.
Lindsay laughed. “Believe me, that house is so big we won’t even be able to find each other half the time. Did you see the pictures?”
And so it went, the compliments and the good-byes, the disbelief and the regrets and the eager urging for details. Promises to keep in touch. Curious inquiries about the new families moving into the neighborhood. Sentences that began with “Do you remember when . . .” It was not, of course, as though they would never see each other again. Each of their friends demanded an invitation as soon as the guest ro
oms were ready and groaned with envy as they described the house, the porch, the meadow, the view. It wasn’t an ending, they all tearfully insisted, it was a beginning.
Still, it was hard to say good-bye.
Cici slipped away from the crowd and approached Lori, who was happily chatting to a display of Christmas cards that framed a doorway. Snatching the earpiece from her daughter’s ear, she said, “She’ll call you back” and dropped the device into the capacious pocket of her skirt. Lori whirled. “Moth–er!” This was followed by an eye roll. “Very mature.”
Cici kissed her bangs and dropped an arm around her shoulder. “Merry Christmas to you, too, darling. Are you having a good time?”
Again a slight upward shift of the eyes. Cici wished she could remember when young girls outgrew that manner-ism. Age twenty-one? Could she hold out until then? “The crowd’s a little old for me, Mom.”
“You’ve known most of them all your life. It won’t hurt you to be nice for one evening.”
“True.” She shrugged. “It’s just hard being nice every single minute.” Then she grinned. “Tell Aunt Bridget the quiche was awesome. Of course it would have tasted even better with a margarita.”
“Don’t they teach math at UCLA?”
“Of course.”
“Then maybe you can help me figure out exactly how many months it is you have left until you are of legal drinking age?”
“Mom, you are so quaint.”
“Thank you, sweetheart. Long one of my goals.” She tidied the strands of shiny copper hair her initial embrace had disarranged, and her smile softened as she did so. “You look pretty tonight.”
“So do you,” Lori replied generously.
“So. How does it feel, saying good-bye to the house you grew up in? Are you going to miss the old place?”
Lori thought about this. “A little, I guess. But everything changes. And it’s not as though I hadn’t already moved out.”
Cici nodded sagely. “Very sensible. So you’re not mad at me for selling?”
