“That doesn’t mean you and Chuck don’t have difficulties of your own to face,” Bess pointed out.
“Of course,” Dean agreed. “But since when is anyone guaranteed a trouble-free life? Everyone has a cargo of woes, even those who look to be coasting along without a care. That’s one of the reasons envy is so utterly stupid. We should be thankful that we have only the troubles we have and not the hidden tragedies of others.”
Bess smiled. “My mom and dad used to remind us of that every time there was news of some celebrity in trouble. She might be dripping in diamonds, they’d say, or he might own a yacht the size of Cleveland, but Sally Starlet or Harry Handsome—I’m not making this up, Dean—is a human being just like we are, weak, flawed, subject to death and taxes just like the rest of us.”
Dean raised an eyebrow. “Your parents never heard of tax evasion?”
“If they did they preferred not to know. Their point was that money didn’t buy happiness.”
“Maybe not, but it makes being unhappy a whole lot easier to bear.” Dean shook his head. “But that’s not what we should be talking about. Not that money isn’t important; you’d have to be really simple-minded to deny that. Conflict over finances can tear a marriage apart as easily as conflict over infidelity can.”
“Nathan and I haven’t talked about how my moving to Stockholm with him is going to affect our joint income,” Bess admitted. “I’ve been supporting myself since I was a teen. I’m not sure how comfortable I am being dependent on someone else, even just for a while.”
“Look, Bess,” Dean said, “relationships are about constant negotiation. What works one year might not work the next year. You have to be very honest with each other and learn how to balance your own happiness with the happiness of the union. But it’s worth the effort, if you’re with the right person. The question is: Is Nathan the right person? And if he is, he’s the one you should be talking about this with, not me.”
Bess nodded and climbed to her feet. “You’re right,” she said. “Thanks, Dean. I’ll see you later.”
Dean was right, Bess thought as she made her way back to Driftwood House. Nathan was the right person for her, she believed that wholeheartedly, and she needed to find the maturity and the courage to be a good life partner. It might be the most difficult task she ever had to undertake, but she believed—she did—that in the end it would prove to be the most worthwhile by far.
Suddenly, Bess thought of her sisters and had a sort of epiphany. Too often she had dismissed their marriages as merely unions of convenience between unambitious small-town people who were afraid of going through life alone. But what right had she to judge people about whom she really knew so little? None at all. Maybe Ann and Mae knew what marriage was truly all about. Love. Laughter. Sacrifice. Care. Maybe it was time she looked up to her younger sisters as examples of real maturity.
Bess climbed the stairs to the back porch. She felt she had learned more about life in the past two weeks than she had in the forty some odd years that had come before. She felt as if she had been enrolled in a crash course on love, its fragility as well as its strength, the false façades in which people tended to disguise it, as well as the grittier but far more beautiful reality underneath.
All this reflecting was well and good, Bess thought as she made her way to the kitchen, but there was another meal to prepare and laundry to do and details of a wedding to finalize. And Bess did love to get things done.
Chapter 65
Marta stood at the window of the room she shared with Mike. She could have been facing a blank wall for all she was aware of the view. She had been thinking nonstop of the conversation at dinner the previous night. The remarks about her intelligence; Bess’s question about her wanting to teach; Mike’s choice of the past tense:
“Marta could have been anything.” If she had had the courage. If she had had the determination. If she had had “what it took,” whatever that nebulous quality consisted of.
In the past weeks, Mike’s praise of her abilities had come to feel oddly like insults. How could he so admire and respect her and yet have no clue that she felt miserable and angry? Did he truly wear blinders when it came to observing his wife? What would he think if he knew that Marta deemed herself a failure?
Marta turned from the window. She decided to call her mother. She wasn’t quite sure why. She had spoken to her only the day before. Did a child ever stop needing a parent, she wondered? Or maybe she just wanted to kill time. That couldn’t be right. Marta never wasted a moment.
“Is Troy around?” she asked when she had exchanged a greeting with her mother.
“He’s out with your father and Leo went with them. Sam is working; she took on an extra shift. It seems there’s a handbag she absolutely has to have.”
“Oh,” Marta said. She felt a stab of loneliness. She missed her children.
“I ran into Olivine Kaye again yesterday,” her mother went on. “She really is amazing. Remember I told you she opened a classic English-style tea shop?”
“How could I forget?” Marta asked dully.
“And that she was planning to expand? Well, she got the space she was hoping for and the larger shop should be open by the new year.”
Marta realized she was staring at the closet door. She blinked and looked away. “That’s great for her,” she said.
“What’s going on, Marta?” Mrs. Kennedy asked shrewdly.
“Nothing,” Marta said.
“You can lie if you like, but something’s bothering you. Don’t tell me you’ve found out some deep, dark secret about Bess’s fiancé and are about to ruin her wedding for her own good?”
Marta laughed in spite of herself. “Nothing like that, Mom. Nathan’s a gem. Bess couldn’t be happier.” Except for when I’m being a jerk to her, Marta added silently.
“Then is it Allison? Are you worried about how she’s coping with this divorce?”
“I was,” Marta admitted. “But not so much now. I think she’s going to be okay.”
It’s me I’m worried about, Marta wanted to say. But she didn’t. She couldn’t.
“Is everything okay with you and Mike?” her mother asked. A dog with a bone. Marta had gotten the habit of persistence from her mother. How difficult would it be to answer honestly, to admit to her mother that she was unhappy and that it was largely her own doing?
Too difficult.
“Everything is fine, Mom, I told you,” she said. “Maybe I’m just ready to come home. I miss the kids. I miss my own home.” That was true enough.
“Well, if that’s all, I perfectly understand. There is no place like home and a mother is never quite right when she’s away from her children. At least, when they’re young.”
Never quite right when she’s away from her children.
“Yes,” she told her mother. “You’re right about that.”
“Did I tell you that your father is thinking of taking up tennis?”
Marta smiled. “He doesn’t have enough hobbies already?”
“It doesn’t bother me that he keeps so busy. It allows me more time on my own and with my girlfriends. Better than having him underfoot all the time. So many of my friends are saddled with these sad post-retirement husbands.”
And what about the women who had retired from careers, she wondered? But Marta knew her mother’s friends. None of them had worked full-time jobs outside of the home. Neither had her mother.
Neither had she.
The call ended soon after that. Suddenly, Marta had an urge to review the speech she had written for Bess’s wedding. She pulled a file folder from one of her travel bags; the speech was tucked inside. In less than thirty seconds, Marta had balled up the paper and tossed it in the direction of the wastepaper can. The entire speech was wrong, full of clichéd sentiment, archly humorous, a show-offy piece less about the bride than it was about the intellect of the writer.
Why couldn’t she say what she really wanted to say, which was that she wished for Bes
s a marriage filled with warmth and comfort and easy intimacy? A marriage like the one she shared with Mike.
The one she had shared.
The one she wanted back.
Chapter 66
Allison rejoined the others in the living area; she had gone to her room after dinner to get a sweater against the slight chill. Nathan and Dean were the only two missing. Nathan was in the den attending to a work matter. Dean, claiming an incipient migraine, had gone early to bed.
“What did everyone do today?” Chuck asked, his legs dangling over the arm of his chair.
“Not much of anything,” Allison admitted. “It was wonderful. And my new feline friend hung out with me for a while.”
“You’ve never had a pet, have you?” Bess asked.
“No, I’ve never even been particularly interested in animals, but there’s something about this cat that compels me.”
“Definitely a crazy cat lady in the making,” Chuck said with a smile.
“There are far worse things to be!”
“What about you, Mike?” Chuck asked. “What did you get up to today?”
“I did have to take one call from the office but otherwise, I vegged,” Mike said. “An hour or so snoozing on the beach, a leisurely stroll through town, an ice-cream cone to tide me over until dinner.”
“Marta?” Chuck asked.
“Talked to my mother,” she said flatly. There was an unopened book on her lap; Allison couldn’t see the title.
“Are the kids surviving without you?” she asked.
Marta smiled weakly. “I seem to be surplus to requirements at the moment.”
“And, Bess?” Chuck asked. “You’re always a busy bee.”
Bess was sitting on the area rug, her legs curled up under her. “True, but there’s not much left to do regarding the wedding.”
“Of course, there isn’t,” Mike said. “Planning events is what you do for a living!”
Suddenly, Chuck sat up properly in his seat. “I knew there was something I wanted to tell you guys,” he said. “Remember Professor Kelly, the head of the classics department? Well, I got a text earlier from the alumni association. There’s going to be a memorial in September for the old gent.”
“Didn’t he pass away last fall?” Allison asked.
“At the ripe old age of ninety-five,” Chuck confirmed. “The college has set up a scholarship in his name to benefit one of those very rare things these days—a classics major.”
Mike laughed. “Kelly was a real character! Do you remember that walking stick he carried, the one with the silver head in the shape of a particularly hideous gargoyle? Boy, did he wave that thing around when he’d catch a student misbehaving!”
“He never threatened a female student, though,” Bess recalled. “He was a real old-fashioned gentleman.”
“A bit of a Victorian if you ask me,” Chuck said wryly. “He might not threaten a female with bodily harm, but he would give her a look of such severe disappointment she’d feel shame enough for an entire repentant church congregation.”
Mike shuddered. “That sounds far worse than a knock on the head!”
“And he taught up until the very end of his life,” Allison said. “Though I heard that in the last few years his lectures were far from coherent and that some students—or their parents, more like—demanded their money back.”
“Poor guy,” Bess murmured.
Marta made a dismissive sound. “I’d have done the same. If I’m paying good money for a service, I expect to receive the full service.”
“Sadly,” Chuck said, “I can’t make the memorial. My fall is totally booked.”
“I respected the man well enough,” Allison said, “but I have no interest in attending the memorial.”
“I doubt I’ll be able to spare the time, either,” Bess noted.
“As for me,” Mike said, “I never even had a class with the guy. There’s no reason for me to be there.”
“Marta?” Chuck asked.
Marta tossed the book that was on her lap onto a side table. It landed with a slap. “The kids all have back-to-school events that require the participation of good old mom,” she said. “Not that I’ll get any thanks from any of them. No one ever tells you how utterly thankless a job motherhood is going to be. Good thing, too. No one in her right mind would have kids if she knew the truth behind the myths.”
Allison saw Mike look questioningly at Marta. It had been a particularly bitter thing to say, and callous to boot, given what had happened to Allison two years earlier.
“What a shame one of us can’t be there to represent the group,” Bess said mournfully.
A harsh laugh escaped Marta’s throat. “What does ‘one of us’ mean at this point in time?” she demanded. “Who is this ‘us’ you’re always referring to?”
Bess looked puzzled, but before she could reply Chuck was going on. “Speaking of the old alma mater,” he said smoothly, “a few weeks back I ran into Jon Wheeler. Remember him? The guy who graduated with a perfect 4.0 Anyway, he asked if I was still in touch with Chris. I didn’t want to speak out of turn so I said yes, on occasion, and left it at that.”
“I remember Jon,” Bess said excitedly. “He always wore this ratty old scarf, even in the summer. At first I thought it was an affectation, then someone told me it was the last thing his grandmother had given him before she died. I felt so bad I’d misjudged him.” Bess smiled. “Did he ask about the rest of us?”
“No, he didn’t,” Chuck admitted. “In fact, when I mentioned your name, Bess, and the fact that I was attending your wedding this summer, he drew a blank. I’m sure he meant no offense by it. It has been over twenty years.”
Bess frowned. “I find it odd he didn’t remember me, not that I’m so special, but as a group we were pretty awesome. We were such a—”
“Such a what?” Marta asked harshly, cutting Bess off. “We’re not a country, Bess. We’re not required to send a deputation to important events like memorial services or ribbon cuttings. You’ve always thought of us as something we’re not and never were, something larger and more significant than just an ordinary group of ordinary people. When are you going to grow up and face the truth? All of us—we mean nothing in the scheme of things.”
Allison was shocked. She had never witnessed Marta acting so badly.
Mike shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Marta, I don’t think—”
“I’m sure most people we came across in college don’t even remember we existed,” Marta went on, ignoring her husband, “let alone recall our names. Why should they? What makes ‘us’ special? We were just a bunch of kids thrown together on a college campus. We were—we are—just like any random group of coworkers who become friendly over time, or travelers on a bus tour who are forced to make small talk and get along in close quarters. Nothing more.”
Allison glanced at Chuck. He looked as uncomfortable as she felt.
Mike frowned. “That’s not fair, Marta. We became friends. Real friends. And after graduation we remained friends. It’s why we’re here right now, twenty years on.”
“And we did have a reputation for always being together,” Allison pointed out. “Where there was one of us there was likely to be another.”
“Mike and Allison are right,” Chuck said forcefully. “And I’m with Bess. I think we are a special group of people. Why can’t we be?”
Allison felt herself holding her breath in anticipation of Marta’s response. Bess looked downright fearful.
Suddenly, Marta stood and headed briskly toward the stairs. “I’m going to bed,” she announced. “I have a headache.”
“There’s aspirin and ibuprofen in the bathroom cabinet,” Bess said to Marta’s back.
Marta ignored Bess and continued on her way, her shoulders set.
“What the heck is up with her?” Chuck asked Mike when Marta was out of sight.
Mike looked supremely uncomfortable. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “She’s been . . . I just
don’t know.” Mike rose from his seat. “Maybe I should go up to her.”
Brave man, Allison thought. If she were Mike she would let Marta calm down a bit first. But she wasn’t Mike and Mike knew Marta best. Or did he?
“I think I’ll turn in, too,” Allison said. “See you in the morning. Thank you, Bess, for another lovely day.”
Bess smiled vaguely.
On her way out of the room, Allison glanced at the book Marta had been holding. It was a collection of nineteenth-century nature poetry. No clue there as to what was bugging Marta. And, Allison thought as she climbed the stairs to her bedroom, she would put money on the fact that Mike wasn’t lying when he said he didn’t know what was bothering his wife.
She closed the door to her charming room and went to the window that faced the back of the house. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw the big gray cat sitting in the exact middle of the yard, staring at the house as if he was watching over her. “Good night, my Little Gray Ghost,” she whispered.
Chapter 67
Bess straightened the sugar dispenser and the milk pitcher so that they stood perfectly side by side. She reorganized the bowl of oranges, larger ones on the bottom. She double-checked to be sure that both the Cheerios and the Kashi boxes were sufficiently full. And she waited for someone else to show up.
The night before she had tried to explain to Nathan what had happened while he had been in the den and how it had made her feel, but she had given up. It had been too difficult to put into words. And Nathan had seemed distracted. Of course. He was waiting for her answer to his bombshell of a question.
Later, lying in bed, unable to sleep, Bess had endlessly reviewed the confrontation. Marta had a right to her opinions and a right to express them when and how she wanted to express them. Didn’t she? If she confronted Marta about her tirade (if that wasn’t too strong a word for it), asked for an apology for Marta’s rudeness, Marta might refuse and the result would be disastrous. Bess would lose her maid of honor and her dear friend, and for what?
A Wedding on the Beach Page 27
