Together Alone

by Barbara Delinsky

EMILY ARRIVED AT CELESTE’S ON SUNDAY MORNING with her arms filled.

  “What did you bring?” Celeste cried in dismay when she opened the door.

  “I’m making brunch.”

  “Not for me. I’m dieting. I need a thin body to go with my face.” She turned her head for Emily. “What do you think?”

  Emily studied her face, one side to the other. She had liked the old Celeste. This one was still a little strange. “The swelling is definitely down.”

  “Emily.”

  Emily smiled. “It’s an adorable nose.”

  Celeste turned so that Emily could see behind her jaw. “The stitches came out yesterday. See how thin the scars are. They’ll fade to nothing. Same with the black eyes. Actually, the green eyes. Yellow’s next.” She rubbed her hands together. “Everything is going according to plan. By the time I’m looking human, I’ll be getting responses from my ad. The deadline’s tomorrow. I want you to help me with the wording.”

  Emily was more inclined to try to talk her out of placing it, and was about to say so, when Kay pulled into the driveway.

  Celeste grinned. “Ahh, good. Three heads are better than two.”

  Leaving her at the door, Emily went back to the kitchen. She was making brunch whether Celeste ate it or not. It was an exercise that Emily needed to perform.

  The two joined her moments later, Kay with an agenda of her own. “Emily, has Jill talked with Dawn?”

  Emily removed fresh bagels from the bag. “Not for several days. She keeps getting the machine.”

  “Same with Marilee. What’s she doing, Celeste?”

  “Beats me,” Celeste said.

  “Hasn’t she called?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  Emily set a melon on the counter. “And?”

  “She says she’s fine. When I ask what’s happening, she says she’s really busy and that everything’s great. When I ask for details, she gives me the details of something totally irrelevant.”

  “Wily child,” Kay remarked.

  “She says I’m too controlling. Am I too controlling?”

  Emily busied herself slicing the melon. She had never thought of Celeste as controlling. Fixated on grades, perhaps. But only because she wanted Dawn to succeed.

  “Am I?” Celeste prodded when Kay, too, remained still.

  “No more so than us,” Kay said with tact. “But you have more to control. Dawn’s wild streak is wilder than Marilee’s or Jill’s.”

  “Well, Dawn will be fine. Trust me. If she doesn’t study, she’ll flunk out, and if she does that, she’s back home with me.” Celeste made a sound. “Don’t know who that would punish most, her or me.” She cleared her throat. “Moving on to important things.” She opened a folder. “How does this sound. ‘Sexy blond DWF—’”

  “You aren’t blond,” Kay said.

  “I will be. ‘Sexy blond DWF—’”

  “Not ‘sexy.’ It’s too flagrant. You have to be more subtle. Think of the kind of man you’ll attract leading off with that word.”

  “Precisely,” Celeste admitted. “I don’t want a eunuch. I want a red-blooded American male. Besides, if I’m subtle, my ad will just fade away. Trust me, bold is the way to go.”

  “Use ‘intelligent.’ It’s more classy.”

  Celeste sighed. “Okay. Intelligent. ‘Intelligent blond DWF.’” She made a face. “Doesn’t have the same ring.”

  “Maybe you ought to tell more about yourself,” Emily suggested in a half-hearted attempt to join in. “You could say you’re slim and witty—”

  “Let me finish. ‘Intelligent blond DWF whose second life is just starting is looking for tall knight in shining armor to share Montrachet, Harley, and Tanglewood.’”

  “Harley?” Kay cried. “Celeste, you’ll get bikers. You’ll get leather and tattoos and group sex.”

  “I will not. I’ll get someone like me who thinks young.”

  Emily began cutting the cantaloupe. “You haven’t mentioned your age.”

  “Should I?”

  “Yes.”

  “You certainly can’t hide it.”

  “Kay,” Celeste protested.

  “What she means,” Emily said, turning around, “is that unless you decide to hide Dawn, whoever you date will know you’re older than thirty. You wouldn’t have had her when you were twelve.”

  “I could have. I might have been a child bride.”

  “That’s John’s latest line of worry,” Kay said. “He asked how I’d feel if Marilee got pregnant. Like I haven’t taught her the facts of life. Like I haven’t drummed safe sex into her.”

  “How would you feel?” Emily asked. She much preferred talking about the girls to talking about shopping for men, though either was preferable to thinking about Doug.

  Kay considered the question. “I wouldn’t be thrilled. I like to think she’s saving herself.”

  “Realistically.”

  “Realistically? John would have the old shotgun out. Not that I think he’ll need it. Marilee wants an advanced degree. She knows she can’t get it if she does anything irresponsible. How about you? What if Jill had a baby this young? How would you feel?”

  Emily didn’t have to give it much thought. “Worried. I think eighteen, nineteen, whatever, is too young.”

  “You were married at eighteen.”

  Oh, yes, she had been indeed, and look where she was now. “Maybe it was wrong.”

  “Wrong?” Celeste asked. “How?”

  Emily wrapped her arms around her middle. “We were very young. We’ve grown up into different people.”

  “Different from each other?” Kay asked.

  Very different. Irrevocably different. Emily had pretended it wasn’t so for weeks, months, maybe longer—but it was too obvious to be ignored anymore. She ached when she thought of Doug, ached from the realization that her marriage wasn’t right and never would be.

  She wanted her closest friends to tell her she was wrong. “Jill was our link. With her gone, there isn’t much else.”

  “There must be.”

  “You’re just feeling blue about Jill.”

  “No,” Emily insisted. “I’ve made allowances for that.”

  Celeste threw a hand in the air. “Well, damn it, you and Doug might have something if he was ever around!”

  “I don’t think he wants to be.”

  “Why do you say that?” Kay asked.

  Emily smiled sadly. “I can fool myself all I want—I can let myself be fooled by what Doug says—but he doesn’t have to travel as much as he does. He has an office at home equipped with state-of-the-art electronics. He could cut the travel time in half and still pull down the same income.”

  She paused, waiting. She looked from Kay to Celeste. “No one’s arguing.”

  “Have you told him this?” Celeste asked.

  “No. I haven’t admitted it to myself until now.”

  “Will you tell him?” Kay asked.

  “I guess. At some point. Unless things suddenly take a turn for the better.” When neither Kay nor Celeste said that they would, she made a pained sound. “It’s a lousy situation.”

  “What do you want to happen?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I think you should confront him,” Celeste declared, and that was fine and dandy. Celeste was already divorced. She wouldn’t be threatened by a confrontation. She had nothing to lose.

  Emily did. “I don’t know as I’m ready to face the consequences,” she admitted. “I’m barely able to think of them. Anyway, that’s why I don’t want Jill to get married so young. I want her to be older and wiser. Same with any potential husband.”

  “Doug was older than you were.”

  “Not old enough. We were kids then. We’ve grown into different people.”

  “I feel so badly.”

  “Is there anything we can do?”

  She shook her head and managed a smile. “One of these weekends, Doug will be home for more than a day. We need time together.
That’s all. One good talk could clear the air. I’m not throwing in the towel yet.” She cleared her throat, ready to change the subject, since she hadn’t heard any miracle cure for her woes. “In any case, I want more for Jill. Your turn, Celeste. How would you feel if Dawn had a baby so young?”

  Celeste didn’t answer.

  Emily could tell from the look on her face—from Kay’s, too—that they were reluctant to leave the subject of Emily’s marriage. “There’s not much more to say,” she told them softly. “I don’t know what’s happening, I just don’t, and it hurts to dwell on it. I need you guys to cheer me up. So answer me, Celeste. How would you feel?”

  Celeste was another minute in putting the issue of Doug aside, and then she was subdued. “I’d hate it. I’m too young to be a grandmother.”

  Kay pointed out, “At forty-three, you’re young enough to really enjoy a grandchild.”

  Celeste shook her head. “Not yet.”

  “Have you told Dawn that?”

  “In no uncertain terms. I’ve also told her—God only knows how many times—that she has the brains to do great things in life, assuming she doesn’t mess up. She says she may not want to do great things in life.”

  “What does she want to do?”

  “She doesn’t say.”

  “Doesn’t she want a career?”

  “Who knows.”

  “Haven’t you asked?”

  “Dozens of times.”

  “Aren’t you curious?”

  “Kay, enough,” Celeste complained. “I can’t answer your questions. Good God, you’re starting to sound like John.”

  Kay looked from Celeste to Emily. “Want to hear the latest? He suggested we fly down to Washington next weekend. To sightsee.” When Celeste barked out a laugh, she added, “He said we could stay at a nice place and make a romantic weekend of it.”

  Emily felt a pang. She had been planning romantic weekends for Doug and her not so long ago. At the time, Kay had expressed envy. Now the tables were turned. “And you thought he wasn’t a romantic,” she chided, but she was distracted, wondering whether Doug was enjoying London, whether he was sightseeing, whether his client was pleased with his work and what that would mean for her marriage.

  “John isn’t a romantic,” Kay was saying. “Nor is he interested in sightseeing. Monuments and museums bore him to tears, and then there’s his back, which acts up whenever he has to do something he doesn’t like. No, he doesn’t want to sightsee.”

  “He wants to visit Marilee,” Celeste suggested.

  “Spy on Marilee,” Kay corrected. “He must be bored with work. Or going through a midlife crisis ten years late. In any case, Marilee told him she was worried about Dawn—knowing, I’m sure, that he would get on Dawn’s case—and he’s been grilling me ever since, so if I sound like him, indulge me. No doubt he’ll meet me at the door wanting to know what you know.”

  Celeste sighed. “Dawn is eighteen years old. She says I’m controlling. Well, I’m done being controlling. She’s on her own, all of ten minutes away.”

  Emily wished Jill were that close. Then again, maybe it was just as well that she wasn’t. Emily needed time before she saw Jill to figure out what was going on with Doug.

  “You aren’t nervous at all?” Kay asked Celeste.

  “Of course, I’m nervous, but she’s at a top school, with top kids, and she’s no longer a minor. She’s free to make her own mistakes.”

  “But if you can help her avoid—”

  “How?” Celeste cried. “I can’t be there. I can’t.”

  In that instant Emily realized that Celeste wasn’t as ho-hum about Dawn as she acted. It was reassuring.

  “So,” Celeste said in the same, frustrated voice. “Is the ad okay?”

  Kay scowled at her, then snatched up the paper. “Take out the Harley part. It may discourage a great guy who drives a Porsche.”

  It was a brilliant tactic, Emily thought.

  Celeste crossed out the Harley part.

  “Better still,” added Kay, “make it generic. Say fine wine, adventure, and song. And give your age.”

  “Okay,” Celeste said in a mollifying way. “‘Sexy blond DWF—’”

  “I thought you changed ‘sexy’ to ‘intelligent.’”

  “Not if I’m cutting out ‘Harley.’ It’ll be too tame. ‘Sexy blond DWF, 40—’”

  “You’re forty-three.”

  “Why don’t I say forty-ish?”

  “Because then they’ll think you’re forty-nine.”

  “No, they won’t.”

  Kay skimmed the personals Celeste had clipped from the paper. “Most of them list their ages. Here’s one who doesn’t. She says she’s looking for a doctor between the ages of thirty-five and forty-five. How old would you guess she is?”

  “Forty-five,” Emily said.

  Celeste didn’t answer.

  “Why not thirty-five or younger?” Kay asked Emily.

  “She would have listed her age if she were younger.”

  “Bingo. Without specifics, people assume the worst.”

  Celeste threw up a hand. “Okay, okay. I’ll list my age, but it goes against my grain. My age shouldn’t matter. I may be forty-three in body, but I’m twenty-five in spirit.”

  “Yes, well, that may be true,” Kay conceded, “but men don’t look at things that way. It’s the in-body figure they’re most concerned with.”

  Emily thought of the weeks it had been since Doug had reached for her with anything remotely akin to passion. She had chosen to blame it on exhaustion, but many an exhausted guy wanted sex, and then there were the mornings when he wasn’t exhausted at all. It was like he had outgrown her physically, too.

  She didn’t understand how that could be. She had turned him on once. Wasn’t chemistry a constant? She hadn’t gained weight. She wasn’t lined or gray or stooped. Okay, so everything hung a bit lower than it had twenty-two years ago, but she was still attractive.

  Wasn’t she?

  “Emily.”

  She looked up to find Kay and Celeste standing before her.

  Kay touched her arm. “You look tortured. Maybe you should spend a few days here with Celeste.”

  “I’d love it,” Celeste coaxed. “I have room.”

  But Emily wanted to be back in her house, in case Jill called, in case Doug called. Like the plates beneath the earth’s crust at the time of a quake, the underpinnings of her life were shifting. All she could do was to take shelter under the most stable structure she knew, and wait it out.

  She drove home after brunch, with the best of intentions. Having spent all of Saturday with Brian and Julia, she was determined to leave them alone today. Julia needed to bond with Brian. Brian needed to grow more comfortable with Julia. They needed to make the new apartment theirs without Emily’s intrusive presence.

  She had no sooner entered the kitchen, though, when she spotted Myra coming around the garage from the direction of the apartment. Curious, even a bit concerned, she went outside.

  Myra instantly veered her way. “I’ve just had the nicest visit with Detective Stasek and his daughter. What a lovely man he is. I’m afraid I caught him before he’d had a chance to shave, though. I hope I didn’t embarrass him. Did you know that he grew up in Chicago? Imagine, Grannick having someone so worldly on our own police force. I brought daylilies from the garden, and when Detective Stasek didn’t have a vase, I went and got one of mine.”

  “That was sweet, Myra.”

  “It’s the least I can do. I still can’t believe that he’s living right here on our street. The police department has been needing someone new. Chief Davies has been here too long.”

  Emily defended John. “He does a wonderful job.”

  “He’s too old. He doesn’t see things. No, we need a fresh eye. Detective Stasek will be good for us.” She frowned. “Funny, you’d have thought his wife would have had a vase or two. Most women do.”

  “I’m sure she had some, but he left most of their
things behind.”

  Myra nodded. “Because of the memories. I can understand that. But it’s good to preserve them, sometimes. That’s why I tend the ground around my willow. Willows can be messy things, growing so large, what with all that pond water to drink and that moist earth to spread their roots in. Did you know that the upper portion of my willow nearly exactly duplicates what’s underground? Nearly, mind you. Not exactly.”

  Emily let her ramble. Myra was a bit weird when it came to her willow, but she was a kind woman. It couldn’t have been easy for her, living with Frank, who had been mean to the core. Emily had heard him roar many a night.

  She had never suffered anything like that with Doug. He rarely raised his voice, certainly never raised a hand. She was lucky, in that sense.

  Maybe she was being too sensitive. Maybe it was the Jill-leaving blues, after all. Maybe she was being selfish, expecting him to be around all the time. Maybe she expected too much, period.

  “You know,” Myra was saying, “I remember what you said about the detective not wearing a uniform, being a detective and all, and since that’s the case, I’m going to have him over for tea with Frank. Do you think he would clean himself up if I invited him? Frank doesn’t like beards. He says he wants to see a man’s face when he’s talking to him. He wants to know what he’s up against. When he doesn’t know, he gets angry.”

  Emily put a hand on her arm. “Myra, Frank is dead.”

  “Yes, but I think we should be cautious, anyway. Frank’s anger is a frightening thing.” She set off for her house.

  Emily was watching her cross the cul-de-sac when Brian came quietly around the side of the garage. Indeed, he was unshaven and disheveled, nearly as much as the first time she’d seen him, but he didn’t look at all desperate now—or disreputable, despite Myra’s worry. Emily actually thought he looked wonderfully male, with bedroom eyes and a warm, welcome grin.

  “Myra brought flowers,” he said, letting the grin grow crooked and fun.

  Suddenly, Emily wasn’t brooding about Doug or longing for Jill. She felt oddly anesthetized. “So she told me. I hope she wasn’t a bother.”

  “Nah. She’s sweet, if eccentric. She wanted to tell me that the LeJeunes have rats. She’s worried they’ll spread to her place, or worse, the pond. She asked me how she would know if they did, and if maybe I would come over and take a look. She worries about her willow.”