“You’re not still feeling guilty about missing the party, are you?”
“Yes,” Amy admitted. “And I should feel guilty, for a lot of things. For one I should never have accused you of not believing in me. I know you believe in me, and I know you always have, even at times when I didn’t believe in myself.”
Her mother merely smiled. “Vera’s coming over for dinner, by the way. In fact, she’s bringing it.”
“Cool,” Amy said. She needed to be around women whom she could truly respect, women like her mother and Vera and Hayley. Women who didn’t feel the need to undermine everyone around them in order to feel good about themselves.
Women who didn’t find it difficult to be nice.
Chapter 117
Vera had made peppers stuffed with lamb, rice, and Middle Eastern spices. Leda noted that Amy ate as if she hadn’t had a meal in weeks. There was some truth in that.
“I was thinking I’d attend the FAF’s annual show next spring,” Leda said, helping herself to another pepper. “It would be wonderful to meet other craftspeople from around the country. I could learn so much, and I’ve never been to Dallas before. I’ve never really been anywhere.”
“I think that’s a fine idea,” Vera said. “Creativity needs both solitude and community.”
“What about that open studio event?” Amy asked. “The one your friend Missy told you about?”
“I’ve already contacted Harry Carlyle. He’s the director of the gallery at YCC and the one organizing the event. I’m signed up and ready to open my doors!”
“I can’t wait to see what comes next for you, Mom.” Amy reached for the dish of pita bread and the bowl of hummus.
“Also,” Leda went on excitedly, “I was thinking I’d like to offer a free course for kids at Strawberry Lane come fall. What with arts education funding being cut so drastically, I feel I have to do something. Kids need to learn visual thinking and creative problem solving.”
Vera nodded. “Life without art is stupid. The sooner kids learn that, the better.”
“I’ve never seen you so inspired, Mom,” Amy said with a smile. “It’s cool.”
Vera turned to Amy. “How’s your boss these days?” she asked.
“She’s the same,” Amy said shortly. “I don’t really want to talk about her.”
The glamour is gone, Leda thought. The glitter had worn off.
“Did your mom tell you I’m planning to open a second restaurant?” Vera asked Amy. “This one will be year-round. I’m starting with just dinners five or six days a week, and I’ll see from there.”
“That’s awesome, Vera. You should definitely put these stuffed peppers on the menu. And the hummus.”
Leda took a sip of her wine and watched as Vera and Amy engaged in animated conversation about menu options and décor. She couldn’t help but feel that the old Amy was back—at least a wiser and more tempered version of the old Amy. She hoped this Amy would be able to survive the remaining few weeks of summer with the Priors. So much could happen in a few short weeks....
“Remember that cake Mrs. Franklin used to make, like a bazillion years ago?” Amy was saying animatedly. “The one with the funny name? Anyway, wouldn’t it be great if somebody—and I’m not saying who—if somebody would give Mrs. Franklin the chance to sell her cakes and stuff to a restaurant? She could be the pastry chef. I mean, if she wanted to. She was awfully talented once upon a time.”
“The key phrase there is ‘once upon a time,’” Leda pointed out. “It’s a lovely idea, Amy, but possibly not the most practical.”
Vera nodded. “I’m all for lending a helping hand when it makes sense,” she added, “but why don’t we take things one step at a time.”
Amy shrugged. “Of course. But we can keep the idea in the back of our heads, can’t we?”
Leda laughed.
“Yes,” Vera said. “We can.”
Chapter 118
True to his promise, Ethan did not reach out to Hayley. She wasn’t surprised to learn that Ethan was a man of his word. She was, however, miserable but was trying her very best not to let her low spirits affect her work for the Whitbys.
At the moment, Hayley and Marisa were in the kitchen while the girls were napping. Marisa was seated at the counter, mending Lily’s favorite plush rabbit. Hayley was unloading the dishwasher, a mindless-enough task and one that allowed her to hide her face from her employer. She knew there were dark circles under her eyes and there was little chance of her raising a smile.
“Ethan texted to say he won’t be coming to Maine this weekend,” Marisa suddenly announced. “I’ll be sorry not to see him, as will the girls.”
Hayley put two coffee mugs in a cupboard. “The girls really love him,” she said, neutrally. “And he’s so good with them.”
“Will you be sorry not to see him, Hayley?”
Hayley startled. She didn’t turn to face Marisa. “What?” she said. “No. I mean . . .”
“It’s all right, Hayley. I’m not blind.”
Slowly, Hayley turned around and faced Marisa. “There’s nothing between us,” she said quietly. Not now. Not since I told him the truth about me, she added silently.
Marisa smiled kindly and put down her sewing. “Really? A busy young man coming all the way to Maine from Connecticut almost every weekend. No, there was more to Ethan’s visits than just family obligation.”
“I’m sorry,” Hayley said, fighting a terrible feeling of distress. “I feel so embarrassed. I never meant to . . .”
“You don’t have anything to be embarrassed about,” Marisa assured her. “You didn’t allow Ethan’s attentions or your feelings for him to prevent you from doing your job thoroughly. You do feel about him the way he feels about you?”
Hayley nodded. “But there can’t be anything between us,” she said.
“Why not?” Marisa asked.
“I can’t . . . There just can’t be.”
Marisa sighed. “I know I’m prejudiced because I’m married to his father, but I can honestly say that Ethan is a fine person, even extraordinary in ways. Don’t underestimate him, Hayley. Look, I suspect I know what’s behind your reluctance. You think that given your upbringing you won’t be right for him.”
Hayley felt shocked and slightly sick. “How did you know?” she asked. “Did he say something to you about my family?”
“No,” Marisa told her. “Other people talked. I might be a temporary resident, but I heard things, none of which tarnished my opinion of you in the least. I hold you in high regard, Hayley, as does Jon.”
Hayley simply couldn’t prevent the tears that came to her eyes. She remembered how isolated she had felt only a few days earlier. Here was a completely unexpected ally.
“I know what some people probably think of me when they see I married a wealthy older man,” Marisa went on. “But I try not to let their prejudice bother me. What’s important is my love for Jon and his for me. We’re true friends, and in the end that’s what survives all the fuss and bother of courtship. A devoted friendship. And I suspect that’s something you could have with Ethan if you allow it.”
“Thank you,” Hayley murmured, wiping her eyes with her fingertips. “I’m sorry you had to get all mixed up in this. . . .”
“No apology necessary. Look at the time! I’m going to be late for class. I’ll finish repairing Mr. Floppy later.”
When Marisa had gone, Hayley sank onto one of the stools at the counter. She could hardly believe what had just occurred. How incredibly lucky she had been this summer to work for such wonderful people. She would miss the twins come September. She would miss them all; the Whitbys had shown her a better way to be a family. She would forever appreciate all they had done for her.
And though it was kind of Marisa to express her support of her stepson’s interest in Hayley, it was also naïve. There would be no love and devoted friendship between Hayley Franklin and Ethan Whitby.
There simply would not.
Chapt
er 119
Cressida was standing at the kitchen counter, juicing yet another bunch of cucumbers. Amy, with nothing to do, sat on the stool farthest from her employer, studiously staring at the wall. Amy knew that since the night of her mother’s party she hadn’t been projecting her usual enthusiastic self at work, but Cressida hadn’t seemed to notice the change in her demeanor. Most times Cressida saw only what she wanted to see. Herself.
“Aimee,” Cressida suddenly instructed. “Go and get my reading glasses. They’re on my desk unless my idiot husband moved them.”
Dutifully, Amy went up to the office. The reading glasses weren’t immediately visible. In fact, the desk was unusually cluttered. Amy moved aside a file folder and an open magazine, and there under the magazine were the glasses, right next to . . . right next to a small plastic bag of white powder. Amy’s heart began to pound painfully in her ears. She stepped back from the desk. This can’t be real, she thought. And maybe it wasn’t. The white powdery stuff could be anything. It could be . . . But nothing reasonable came to mind. Why would someone keep sugar or talcum powder or dishwasher soap in a ziplock baggie on top of her desk?
Cocaine. The questions crowded Amy’s mind at once. How could Cressida be so careless as to use drugs with children around? Did Will know about his wife’s habit? Did she allow drug dealers into the house?
Rapidly Amy reviewed all of the times she had been made uncomfortable by her employer’s behaviors. The strange, often inane tasks she had set Amy. Keeping Amy from her mother’s victory celebration. Insisting Amy spend 90 percent of the workday with her and not with the children. Her wildly shifting moods. Her bursts of temper. The dilated pupils and runny nose.
Amy took a deep breath and returned to the kitchen, where she handed Cressida the reading glasses she had been sent to find.
Cressida looked at her quizzically. “Are you all right?”
Amy nodded. “Fine,” she said.
“Well, I hope you’re not getting sick. I can’t stand being around sick people.”
I am sick, Amy thought. Just not in the way you imagine. I’m sick of this relationship.
There had never been a longer afternoon than that afternoon alone with Cressida Prior in the big white house overlooking the Atlantic. As Amy fetched bottled vitamin water and performed mindless tasks, she prayed that Cressida wouldn’t ask her to spend the night again. She couldn’t do it—she wouldn’t—but it would be difficult to refuse Cressida face-to-face before she had had time to prepare her thoughts and to craft those thoughts into words that would brook no argument. Mercifully by four o’clock Cressida was in a listless mood and told Amy with a lazy wave of her hand that she was free to go. “Will can feed the kids,” she murmured as she sank into a deck chair by the pool. And who will feed Cressida, Amy wondered as she grabbed her bag and left the house. When Amy was gone, who would take her place as paid companion or conspirator or servant, whatever you could call the strange position Amy had held this summer?
As Amy drove home to Hawthorne Lane she found herself checking the rearview mirror more than was necessary, half wondering if Cressida had changed her mind about letting Amy go and was following her with the intention of coercing her back for the night. Only when Amy was pulling up outside the home she shared with her mother did she breathe a sigh of immense relief. Only when Amy had closed and locked the front door behind her did she realize there were tears in her eyes.
Chapter 120
“Look what came in the mail today,” Leda announced. “The new issue of Needle and Thread.”
“Wow, this is so cool,” Amy cried, jumping up from the kitchen table and reaching out for the magazine. “You’re in print!” Amy read aloud the opening paragraph of her mother’s piece. “I didn’t know you were such a good writer, Mom,” she said when she had reached the final line.
“I didn’t, either,” Leda admitted. “I’m not saying it was easy or that I’m going to take up a new creative career, but I would like to write more about the role of craft in our lives.”
“We need to buy a few copies of this magazine for the archives. And I’ll put a link to the article on your website. With the interview in that journal and your winning the competition and now this, you’ll be a household name before long!”
Leda laughed. “Only in the crafting community, but that would certainly be an honor. Look at the time. I’d better get dinner started. Any requests?”
“Whatever you want, Mom,” Amy said. “And put me to work.”
Leda did. While Amy chopped garlic and shredded parmesan, Leda washed the fresh basil she had bought earlier. There was little more delicious than pesto sauce with big chunks of ripe tomatoes over pasta.
“I haven’t heard you talk much about the move to Boston,” Leda remarked. And as far as she knew Amy hadn’t seen her future roommates since her graduation party, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t been speaking with them. “We really need to be making plans. We still haven’t booked a U-Haul or decided what furniture you want to take with you.”
“I’ll take care of things, Mom,” Amy said hurriedly. “It’s not your responsibility.”
“But I want to help,” Leda said, smiling at her daughter. “I could pack your winter clothes if you like.”
Amy smiled distractedly. “Really, Mom,” she said. “I’m on it.”
Leda shrugged. “If you’re sure.” And as Leda poured olive oil on top of the basil, garlic, cheese, and pine nuts already piled in the Cuisinart she wondered if Amy was having doubts about the move. She wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case, not after the craziness Amy had experienced this summer. Well, if her daughter wanted to stay in Yorktide that was fine. There would have to be changes, of course—Amy would have to pull a lot more weight around the house than she was at the moment—but that was all right. Life was all about change. And Leda had a pretty good feeling that Amy was learning that lesson rapidly.
Chapter 121
Hayley sat slumped on the battered old couch in the apartment’s tiny living room. Her head hurt. Her heart hurt. She wished she could talk to Amy about what had happened with Ethan. She missed her friend.
Only weeks ago, Hayley had believed that personal happiness was overrated. But she hadn’t understood what happiness meant. She knew now that being with Ethan would make her happy in ways that counted, in ways that had nothing to do with money or education or social position. Being with Ethan would make her happy in an essential way. Happy in love.
Except that she couldn’t be with Ethan. In spite of what Marisa thought, Hayley knew she would be poison to him.
“Hayley? Are you all right?”
Hayley looked up to see her mother standing at the entrance to the living room.
“Poor Hayley,” Nora Franklin said, coming toward her. “You work so hard.” Nora sat next to Hayley on the couch and put her arm around her shoulders.
It was such an unexpected and rare event that for a moment Hayley didn’t know how to react. The truth was that her mother’s touch felt not comforting but alien, unwanted. With a jerk of her shoulder she dislodged her mother’s arm and got to her feet.
“I’m fine,” she blurted.
The look of shock and dismay on her mother’s face caused Hayley an almost physical pain. “I’m sorry, Mom,” she said hastily. “I’m sorry. It’s just that . . . I have a headache. I’ll go and lie down for a while.”
Hayley hurried from the room, ashamed that she had caused her mother such distress. But she simply hadn’t been able to help it. She was the one to offer support to her mother. She was her mother’s caretaker. Not the other way around. It had never been the other way around.
Chapter 122
Amy thought she had never eaten a more delicious meal than the simple one she had helped her mother prepare that evening. She had eaten until she was satisfactorily full. She had almost forgotten what it was like to enjoy a meal without a critical voice in her ear, scolding and disapproving.
Now Amy was in her be
droom, dressed for sleep but not quite ready to drift off. Earlier she had evaded her mother’s questions about Boston because she had come to the conclusion that moving away was definitely not the right thing to do. She remembered her mother’s good advice, to choose the family for whom she would be working as carefully as they chose her, and with hindsight she deeply regretted that she had dismissed the words of wisdom. If she had taken her mother’s advice she might not have fallen prey to an unscrupulous and seductive employer. That the seduction was not of a sexual nature made no difference; what Cressida had done to her was almost if not equally as powerful as if she had enticed Amy into becoming her lover.
It had occurred to Amy only days before that Cressida might have hired her because she was underqualified—and hiring her privately, for whatever reason, had also definitely been to Cressida’s advantage. Cressida might have taken one look at Amy’s résumé and immediately seen a person she could manipulate. Suddenly Amy recalled Hayley telling her that Cressida Prior had a reputation among her colleagues as a narcissist. Amy thought she knew what a narcissist was but she wasn’t entirely sure, so she went to her desk and opened her laptop.
A little bit of online research yielded the information that people with narcissistic personality disorder—if indeed that was what Cressida suffered from—were prone to periods of depression. NPD, Amy read, was also associated with anorexia. That might explain Cressida’s extreme diets and her conviction that she looked fantastic when in fact she looked sickly. Or it might not. The problem with trying to make a diagnosis based on Internet research alone was the fact that unless you were a medical professional you could very well make a misdiagnosis. Amy remembered the time Vera had convinced herself that she was suffering from a dread form of psoriasis when it turned out that she just had an allergy to a new detergent.
Still, it couldn’t hurt to read a bit more. People suffering from NPD also often battled with substance abuse, and the substance most often abused was cocaine. While Amy had no proof that the white powdery stuff she had discovered on Cressida’s desk was cocaine, the odds seemed pretty high that it was. She recalled the day that Cressida had offered her the nebulous job in Atlanta and suspected that Cressida must have been high. What else might explain such an impetuous offer?
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