“We’re going to be on the road a lot,” Joe said. “He just needs a place to crash at night. If I get elected I’ll have a salary for staff and then he can afford an apartment, but for now . . .”
“I know, I know,” Gigi said. She tilted back her head and let it rest against his chest as Joe’s touch became lighter and his fingers came around to her front, grazing the tops of her breasts. Her breaths grew more shallow.
“Joe,” she said.
“Mmm?”
“Is this what you expected?” she asked. “The campaign, I mean?”
His hands paused. “Some of the time,” he said. “I don’t know . . .”
“What?” she prompted.
“The other night I was door-to-door canvassing and this guy invited me in and I got stuck talking to him for half an hour,” Joe said. “I couldn’t figure out how to get the hell out of his house. And he was nuts. He kept telling me everything that was wrong with the government, and he made no sense, and whenever I tried to respond, he just talked over me. I finally started edging toward the door and escaped, but the whole time I’m thinking, I’m missing a night with my family for this shit? But I had to be polite. If I’d met that guy at a cocktail party a year ago, I would’ve blown him off after two seconds. But I can’t do that anymore. I have to be more careful about offending people.”
Gigi nodded. “You know what I think it’s like?” she said. “Having a baby.”
“My congressional campaign is our third child?” Joe asked.
“The expectations get too idealized,” Gigi explained. “It’s like when you’re pregnant for the first time. You pick out the cute outfits and you make a birth plan and you imagine this snuggly infant sleeping on your chest. You don’t think about the fourteen diaper changes a day and the sleep deprivation and all that other crap.”
“Yeah,” Joe said. “Exactly. I kept thinking about being in the Capitol and casting an important vote. I didn’t expect to spend hours talking to people who think Obama is an illegal immigrant. The other day I had to explain the concept of global warming to someone, who told me she hasn’t voted in fifteen years and doesn’t plan to anytime soon.”
“If you ever decide it’s too much—if you ever want to quit—” Gigi began.
“I don’t,” Joe said. He hesitated. “Not yet.”
“Okay,” Gigi said. She sighed. “Julia will be fine with it. But do you really think Melanie’s going to accept Zach moving in?”
“Sure,” Joe said. “She’ll squawk a little but she’ll be fine.”
But Joe didn’t know how bad things could get with Melanie. Melanie still adored her father. She reserved her worst rages for Gigi, for the moments when they were alone. Sometimes Joe would go into Melanie’s room to say good night and Gigi would hear the murmur of Melanie’s voice behind her closed door and she’d feel a spear of jealousy through her heart: What are you telling him that you can’t tell me?
Joe’s fingertips resumed making slow, electric circles beneath her collarbone. Gigi tilted back her head to look at him, this man she still loved so passionately. Sometimes you crashed into people, propelled by a surge of chemistry, and sometimes you drifted into them. Her relationship with Joe had been a long, slow slide that began in friendship and turned into like, and then lust, and finally love. She adored him, but more than that, she believed in him. He supported raising the minimum wage—one of Gigi’s pet causes—and he believed in a woman’s right to choose, another one of her priorities. Maybe the voters saw a man giving a winning smile with bright new teeth, and speaking in the sound bites that were catnip to reporters, but she knew the real Joe. Her Joe. He was the man she was voting for.
She wondered what the voters would say if they knew that Joe had smoked pot in college. That Gigi still smoked pot sometimes, leaning her head out the bathroom window while the water ran into the tub and her scented candles burned.
She glanced at the clock over the stove. It showed they still had almost an hour before the girls would get home from school.
“Follow me,” she said, beckoning with her index finger.
She grabbed a spoon and the pint of ice cream, then beckoned for Joe to come upstairs, into the bathroom. She began running the water for the tub, then unbuckled his belt and tugged his slacks down over his slim hips. As Joe pulled his shirt over his head, Gigi lit her scented candle and reached for the Ziploc bag hidden behind an old electric toothbrush in the lowest drawer of her vanity.
She wiggled the bag in the air. Joe needed this; he was so stressed. After a joint and a soak in the tub and some sex, she’d convince him to take a long nap.
“For old times’ sake?” she asked. “I can open a window to let the smell out. Pot and ice cream always was our favorite combination.”
Joe smiled and slid into the tub.
Let the campaign photographer get a glimpse of this, Gigi thought as she put the joint between her lips.
• • •
Newport Cove Listserv Digest
*Accountant
Can anyone recommend a good accountant? —Barry Newman, Forsythia Lane
*Re: Accountant
I highly recommend Randall Barrett as an accountant (he’s the father of Cole, who’s in my son David’s 2nd grade class). Randall has been doing our taxes for years. You couldn’t ask for a nicer guy! —Linda Hawthorne, Tulip Way
*Re: Accountant
TurboTax is also a helpful device, or so I’ve heard. —Tally White, Iris Lane
• • •
Susan’s company, Your Other Daughter, was born when a sixty-seven-year-old woman tripped over a library cart.
An hour later, Susan was on the phone with her old college roommate, Bobbi, whose mother had broken her right hip and wrist in the fall. A librarian had called an ambulance, and Bobbi’s mother had been taken to a hospital just twenty minutes away from Susan’s home. Cole was two months old at the time, and Susan was still on maternity leave from her law firm.
“I hate to ask this,” Bobbi had said, her voice tight and frantic. She was in the back of a taxi, racing toward the airport. “But she’s going into surgery before I can get there, and she’s absolutely terrified of hospitals—”
“I’m on my way,” Susan had said, already reaching for her car keys and Cole’s diaper bag. Bobbi’s mother had been warm and welcoming when she’d visited Bobbi at Duke; she’d invited Susan to join them for brunch, and had chatted with her whenever Susan answered the phone.
Bobbi had made it just in time to see her mother open her eyes in the recovery room after her doctors had placed three pins in her hip and encased her right arm in a cast. Susan had stepped away to give them some privacy, and when Bobbi had emerged into the hallway fifteen minutes later, she’d wrapped her arms around Susan. “Thank you,” Bobbi had whispered.
They’d sat down together on a bench and Susan had handed her old roommate a fresh cup of coffee from a vending machine.
“Precisely what I needed,” Bobbi said, taking off the lid and breathing in the steam. “You’re a lifesaver.”
While Bobbi drank her coffee and Cole dozed in his car seat at her feet, Susan had tried to help her friend formulate a plan. She knew how difficult it was to think clearly in a crisis, when anxiety and stress twisted through your mind.
“The doctor told me she’s going to be in a cast for eight weeks,” Bobbi had said, massaging her forehead with her free hand. “She’ll need help bathing, and she’ll need physical therapy. I can’t stay that long . . . My job, the kids . . .”
Bobbi worked as a civil rights attorney in New York City, and she and her partner had twin sons who were toddlers. “And she can’t come stay with us,” Bobbi continued. “We’ve got too many stairs and our place is so crammed she wouldn’t be comfortable. The guilt is killing me, Susan. How can I stick my mom in a rehab hospital?”
“Some of
them are quite good,” Susan had said. She’d reached out to touch Bobbi’s arm, knowing her friend was close to tears. “And you can call her every day.”
Bobbi had shaken her head. “She took care of me for eighteen years. After my dad left, she didn’t even date until I’d moved away to go to college. This is the first time she’s really needed me. She just looked so . . . so fragile in that hospital gown . . . She’s getting old, Susan. How did she get old so quickly?”
Susan had rubbed Bobbi’s back while tears had rolled down Bobbi’s cheeks. The solution was simple: It was a relatively quick drive for her. She still had another two months of maternity leave, and Randall had a flexible schedule since he owned his business and set his own hours. She looked at her friend’s anguished face and made a quick decision.
“So let me be there for you,” Susan had said. “I’ll visit her every other day. You can come for a weekend every two weeks or so. I’ll bring her treats and talk to her doctors and make sure she’s okay.”
Bobbi had lifted her head. “You would do that?” she’d whispered.
And Susan had smiled and squeezed her friend’s hand. “Of course I would.”
It was a favor for a dear friend, not the inspiration for a business plan. But one afternoon after delivering a new book on tape and a slice of fresh apple pie to Bobbi’s mother, Susan had stepped into the elevator to find a woman brushing away tears. Susan had given her a sympathetic smile, and suddenly, they were sharing a bench outside the rehab hospital, with Susan rubbing the woman’s back just as she had Bobbi’s. The woman’s story had poured out—people had always seemed to want to confide in Susan; Kellie swore it was because Susan had the kindest eyes she’d ever seen—and her dilemma was remarkably similar to Bobbi’s. She lived five hours away, had a family of her own, and could only come to visit her ailing father every other weekend.
“Would you—?” the woman had begun, then she’d stopped and gathered herself. “If you’re willing, I’d like to hire you,” she said.
Susan had blinked. “Hire me?”
“To be another daughter to my father, too,” the woman had said. “Just for a few months. Please. I’ll pay you whatever you think is fair.”
Well, Susan had thought, I’m coming here anyway . . .
Soon the nurses began recommending Susan. It made their jobs easier when they had happier patients who weren’t ringing their bells every ten minutes. Within a few months, Susan had so many clients that she needed to hire an assistant, and she’d given her notice at the law firm.
She delivered homemade mac and cheese and hot pot pies and milkshakes from Ben & Jerry’s. She brought in e-readers and chenille bathrobes and decks of cards and needlepoint sets. She carried her laptop into the hospitals and rehab centers every time she made rounds, letting patients Skype with their far-flung families. Sometimes she brought Cole with her on visits. Seeing his little face seemed to cheer up some of her patients. During her second year of work, Susan added therapy pets. She had a volunteer who brought in a sweet golden retriever and cuddly guinea pig for patients who seemed in danger of falling into a depression.
Most of her work was short-term, focusing on patients with repairable injuries, but soon Susan expanded to include permanent clients. She had a steady roster of people who were determined to stay in their homes. Hiring Susan was often a compromise that appeased worried sons and daughters who lived too far away to look in on their parents regularly. So Susan made sure the food in refrigerators was fresh, and that front walks were promptly shoveled in the winter. She called families whenever she noticed something worrisome—a ninety-year-old man who’d begun to repeat himself; an eighty-five-year-old woman who’d started to shout, which could indicate hearing loss; an ammonia smell in the home of another couple, which could mean incontinence and required a doctor’s checkup. She hired a third employee, then a fourth.
Within a year, she was out-earning Randall. Within two, she was making triple his salary.
Was that when their problems had begun?
He’d seemed proud of her, at least in the beginning. She’d commandeered the guest room in their old house for her office, installing a top-of-the-line computer, printer, and fax machine. She’d gotten a second cell phone devoted solely to her business.
Susan had always loved to cook, but the dinners she’d once enjoyed making—slow-cooked ribs and savory three-bean chili and turkey Bolognese—gave way to simpler meals. Sometimes Randall would come home after work, wander into the kitchen, and sigh when he discovered another foil-wrapped plate of a prepared meal Susan had picked up at Whole Foods.
If you want ribs so badly, cook them yourself, she’d think, pushing away a stab of guilt.
If his shoulders had slumped a little when she’d told him she needed to work some Saturdays, if he’d eaten more takeout, if there had been more nights than not when he’d stayed downstairs alone watching television while she’d caught up on paperwork in her office—well, that hardly justified what Randall had done. Plenty of men would love the fact that their wives were successful! She was pumping up their 401(k) plan, saving for Cole to go to college, paying off their cars.
Randall’s fortieth birthday, though . . . she did feel guilty about what had happened that night.
* * *
Chapter Twelve
* * *
A PIECE OF CAKE was the perfect spot for a casual meeting. It was warm and cozy, with little round tables forming a half circle around the bakery’s floor. Vanilla and melting butter perfumed the air.
The two women wearing white aprons and working behind the counter were busy kneading dough and transferring loaves of French bread from heavy metal trays to the display racks; they took no notice of Kellie after she said she was waiting for someone and would order after he arrived.
Kellie was early, so she chose a seat by the window and watched people pass by. One guy staring at the screen of his iPhone walked directly into a parking meter, winced and rubbed his chest, then quickly looked around to see if anyone had noticed. No one had; most of them were on their phones, too. A pretty girl sauntered by, her sheaf of red hair swaying as she walked. For a moment Kellie thought the girl was staring back at her, then she realized the girl was admiring her own reflection in the glass.
Kellie had once looked that good, two children and fifteen years ago. Her hair was shorter now and not quite as bouncy (sadly, the same could be said for her boobs), but she’d lost eight pounds since starting work and her waistline had recently emerged after a long hibernation. She’d felt charged up lately; invigorated. In her knee-high boots and blue wraparound dress, she felt pretty for the first time in a long time. No—an even more exhilarating sensation. She felt young again.
Miller was coming down the street.
Kellie sat up straighter, gripped with indecision about whether to smile at him or pretend she was engrossed in something fascinating in the display case and hadn’t noticed his arrival. She opted for the smile; she was a terrible actress (something put to the test in the weeks after every Halloween, when her children accused her of dipping into their candy stashes and she tried to deny it).
Miller’s long strides brought him to the doorway of the bakery quickly, and just before he pulled the door open he caught her eye and smiled back. She dropped her head, feeling her cheeks grow warm, and reached for the yellow legal pad and pen she’d slipped into her shoulder bag. If she took notes, this meeting would reek of professionalism.
“Hi,” he said as he sat down across from her. He must’ve been meeting with clients today; he always wore a suit on those occasions. On days when he just came in to the office to make calls and catch up on paperwork, he wore jeans and a button-down shirt.
“Thanks so much for meeting with me,” she said. She cleared her throat and sat up straighter. “This house . . . well, I emailed you the photos. I need all the help I can get.”
Miller w
inked. “You need more than that; you need a miracle.”
“Can I get you a coffee or something?” Kellie offered.
Miller shook his head. “I’m okay, but you go ahead if you want something.”
“No, no,” Kellie said. So this would be a short, brisk meeting. She’d better get right to it. “So, I thought about having the lighthouse torn down, but that’ll be expensive, and then there’ll be this gaping space in the yard. I could fill it in with more pebbles, but that seems ridiculous.” She gave a little laugh. “Who wants a yard filled with rocks?”
Miller leaned back in his chair, resting his right ankle on his left knee so that his legs formed a triangle.
“The land is valuable,” he said. “It’s a tear-down.”
“That’s what I thought at first, too, but my clients are the kids of the couple who lived there,” Kellie said. “Their father just died, and they inherited the house, and they don’t want to see it destroyed.”
“So they say now,” Miller said. “But they’re in mourning. They’re attaching a lot of emotions to the house.”
“So you think I should give it a little time to let them come around to the idea of it being a tear-down?” Kellie said.
“Here’s what you do,” Miller said. He put both feet on the ground and leaned forward, putting his arm on the table between them. His hands were large and well shaped, with a few dark hairs on the spaces between his knuckles, Kellie noticed, before yanking her gaze away. “Don’t do a thing to fix up the place. Talk to the kids who own it, tell them you understand their feelings. Then hold an open house next weekend. See what happens. My bet is you won’t get a single bidder.”
“That’s a safe bet,” Kellie said.
The Perfect Neighbors Page 7
