“Unfortunately, the downside is that we didn’t have time to take advantage of all that while we were there,” Cole says.
“Oh, I’m sure,” Eva says. “Especially with Bess’s job.”
“No, it wasn’t that,” Cole says. Finally! Look at him, acting like a husband! “I mean, Bess was very busy, of course. But it was really just the pace of everything.”
“Things are soooo much easier here,” Mindy drones, her eyes all googly. “I don’t know how or why anyone could live in a place like that. Just the traffic alone! And the crime!”
“Oh, sure!” I say, knowing she won’t catch my mocking tone. “See other places? Why would you want to?” Cole raises his eyebrow at me. I smile back, then reach across the bar and take a sip of the drink the bartender just set down in front of him.
“You just missed Whitney and Jeff,” Cole says.
“Oh,” Eva says, widening her eyes at Mindy, who starts to laugh. “That’s too bad.” They both start giggling.
“What?” I say.
“Whitney’s just . . . ,” Mindy starts.
“She’s a lot,” Eva says, and then looks at Mindy, her eyes widening, realizing her joke. She puts her arms out in front of her, as if she’s cradling a massive belly.
They both burst into hysterics.
“She is huge, isn’t she!” Mindy says, nudging me.
“I didn’t even mean it that way!” Eva says, her hand on her chest as she laughs.
Wow. My mind reels back to Tilly Robertson and company back in high school, who used to make horrible jokes about me, mostly about the disgusting things they were going to leave in the mailboxes on my dad’s route. Bags of dog shit. Rancid food (“We know it’s your favorite, Bess”). Used pads and tampons.
“Well,” Mindy says, barely lowering her voice. “Whitney ought to be careful. With her body type, she’s the kind who can go from curvy to fat in the span of a few pounds.”
“Oh, Mindy!” Eva says, laughing like Mindy’s starring in her own HBO comedy special. This bullshit infuriates me. Grown women making fun of a friend’s size.
“Aren’t you all close?” I say.
They both look at me, perplexed, like I’ve just asked them to recite the Pythagorean theorem.
“Of course we’re friends!” Eva says, admonishing me. “Why would you think otherwise?”
“It’s pretty brutal to talk like that about someone who’s—”
Mindy cuts me off. “Come on, Bess, we’re just having some fun. She does look like she’s having twins.”
“Bess, you had twins!” Eva says, snapping her fingers like it just occurred to her. She flashes the smile again, but this time her eyes dart to my shoulders and then my chest, and down to my toes and back up again.
I’m sure I’m not imagining it. I look down at myself, as if I might have spilled something on my shirt, and then back up at Eva.
“What?” I say, so she knows that I know what she’s doing.
She ignores me. “God, twins,” she says, turning to Cole. “That must have been something!”
“We were busy!” he says. When he reaches across to pat my leg, I want to twist his arm off his body and chuck it into the fireplace across the room. Why doesn’t he see how awful these people are? Why is he being so fucking friendly to these monsters?
“But, God, even before that, when you first found out Bess was pregnant! Wasn’t that the surprise of your life! I remember . . .”
My ears start ringing as I realize what the insinuating expression on her face means.
“How did you tell him, Bess?”
“Excuse me?” Surely she’s not going here. Cole’s face, when I look at him, is rigid with alarm. I narrow my eyes at him, trying to discern . . .
He looks at me, just for a split second, and then looks away, the guilt as evident as if he could scrawl it on his forehead.
“I just remember when you came home to tell your parents.” Eva puts her hand on Cole’s shoulder and throws her head back at this apparently hilarious memory. “You were so nervous, you didn’t even touch your key lime pie at William’s! And you know that’s his favorite pie,” she says, bending a wrist toward me as if I need to be filled in on the likes and dislikes of the man I am married to.
Angry pressure starts pulsing behind my ears. I look at Cole, hot prickles coursing over my body. He told Eva I was pregnant before he told his parents? I didn’t even know they were in touch at that point.
“He was terrified!” She keeps laughing. “Remember—” She elbows him. “Neither of us could agree on whether your mother would ever speak to you again!”
“Neither of you could agree?” I say to Cole, my heart hammering like I’ve just sprinted across a finish line.
“What are you guys talking about?” Mindy says. “She was about to become a grandmother! Why would Mrs. Warner never—”
Cole finally mans up and looks me in the eye. I can see his tongue poking the inside of his cheek, the way his lower jaw shifts. He knows how badly he’s fucked up.
“Oh, Mindy,” Eva laughs. “I’m sure Diane was thrilled once she got used to the idea, but I don’t think she ever planned for Cole to become a father in the way he did.”
“The way he—?” Mindy says.
I cut her off, putting my hand out. “Eva, you’re out of line.”
She just smiles at me and continues. “Mindy, they weren’t married,” she says, looking at me the whole time. “They’d hardly even been dating. Right, Cole?”
Mindy claps her hands to her mouth. “Nooo!” she squeals, looking back and forth from me to Cole. “So, what, were you pregnant when you got married?” She puts her hand on my arm like we’re friends and I jerk it away.
“I can’t believe you don’t remember this, Mindy!” Eva says. “We all talked about it!”
“We had actually been dating for a while when it happened,” Cole says, reaching across and grabbing my hand out of my lap. I let it sit like something limp and lifeless in his grasp. “We just got started earlier than we planned. Best thing that ever happened to me.”
Nice try, I think.
Eva laughs. “That’s not what you said at the time!” She looks at me. “You really scared the shit out of him, Bess! You really, really got him!”
“Jesus, Eva!” Cole finally—finally—spits out. The woman sitting behind Cole jolts at his voice. “It’s not like Bess was the only one responsible. Believe me, nobody was more surprised than her. It isn’t any of your business, for the record, but it also isn’t a big deal. The twins are almost thirteen.” He squeezes my hand a little harder. This time, I squeeze back. Just a little. “And, you know . . .” He laughs, a lame attempt to lighten the mood. “We’re living happily ever after.”
“That’s right,” I say, a clip in my voice. I want to throttle him, but I can’t, not in front of these two. I don’t want them to ever for a minute think they can get to me.
I also remember when Cole drove down to Greyhill to share the news with his parents. My own parents had met Cole just a couple of times, and adored him, but even so, when I’d called them that week to tell them I was pregnant, convincing my mother to relay it to my dad so I wouldn’t have to, there was some yelling (“With all the education, all the scholarships, you somehow forgot about birth control?” she had screamed) and some tears, mostly on my part. But by the next day, things had settled. My dad called, and when I picked up, the first question out of his mouth was whether he should go by Grandpa or Gramps.
I had no idea what to expect from Bradley, but I was terrified about Diane. She had made it obvious from the start that I wasn’t what she had pictured for her son, and now that I’d gone and done this . . . When Cole went to tell them, I spent most of the weekend in bed, alternately worrying and throwing up from the severe nausea that characterized most of my pregnancy. When he got back to DC, he came straight over. He said it went well, or as well as we could have expected. “My dad’s really excited.” I didn’t know it at the time
, but over the course of the weekend, Bradley had given Cole his grandmother’s ring. Diane called me a few weeks later, treating the whole thing like it was a business matter. She wanted to make sure I was taking proper care of myself, that I was seeing a good doctor . . . essentially, that I was a sufficient incubator for her grandchildren.
Eva clears her throat. “Speaking of the kids,” she says, putting her hand on her hip. “Brittany told me that she and Livvie sat together at lunch today.”
“Oh, really?” Cole says. “Well, that’s sweet.”
Adorable, I think, fuming. Just what I want for Livvie.
“Actually . . . ,” Mindy starts, and I catch the flicker of recognition on Eva’s face, like this is exactly what she wanted to happen.
“What?” I say.
“I guess she was kind of rude.”
“Livvie?” Cole says, giving me a wary look.
“I guess she made a joke about something that Brittany had done incorrectly in math,” Mindy says. She wrinkles her nose. “She was being . . . kind of a mean girl.”
“My daughter?” I say, my mouth dropping open.
“Brittany struggles in math,” Eva says, with a somberness that would suggest she’s revealing that her Brittany has terminal cancer.
“Livvie would never do that,” I say, angry heat rising up my back and neck. “Trust me, that’s just not who she is.”
Eva raises her eyebrows and tips her head to one side.
“Well . . .” She shifts her weight. “I hate to say it, but that’s not all. Brittany said she completely froze out some of the other girls, that she just wasn’t being very . . . inclusive.”
“I don’t know, Eva, that doesn’t sound like Liv,” Cole says. “And you know kids, how they say things . . .”
“I’m just saying maybe you should talk to her,” Eva says, looking solely at me. “I know she’s a darling girl. Maybe she’s just having a little trouble adjusting. With the move and all?” She smiles, her watery eyes glinting in the dim light. “I know she’s befriended that Lauren . . .”
“Who?” Mindy asks, hiccupping as she says it.
“You know,” Eva says, starting to laugh. “The one with the walk? I think her mom works at Bully’s.”
Mindy raises her eyebrows. “Oh, right!” She snorts. “I know exactly who you’re talking about!”
* * *
We haven’t even pulled out of the parking lot before I start screaming.
“I can’t believe you told her before you told your parents!”
“I ran into her, Bess, and I was terrified,” he says, his voice so low and measured that he sounds like a hostage negotiator trying to reason with a crazy person, which only pisses me off more because that means the crazy person is me. “She was the first person I saw on my way into town and I confided in her. I shouldn’t have, I knew that in the moment, which is why I never told you. I never thought it would matter, in the grand scheme of things. It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters!” I scream, my balled fists hitting my lap. “Did you see how she acted just now? Did you see how she held it over my head?”
“She didn’t—”
“How can you defend her?” I shout. “How can you keep letting it go and expect me to be friends with a woman like that? With people like that?”
“Eva isn’t any particular way, Bess. She’s . . .” He shakes his head. “And I’m not defending her.”
“This is what you don’t get!” I say. “And it’s baffling to me! It’s like you’re clinging to some weird, utopian vision of this place, Cole! How do you not see what I see?”
“Bess, come on!” He pulls over to the side of the road, turning on his hazards just outside the business district at the end of Maple. “Why is it so bad?” he says, his voice rising to meet my volume. “What is the problem? Why is it so hard for you to just play along? To not care so much?”
“Because of the way these people are, Cole! Superficial! Stuck-up! Materialistic! I shouldn’t have to ‘play along’ at anything!”
“Do you hear yourself?” he says. “You sound every bit as judgmental as you say we are!”
“We?” I say. “So it’s me against all the rest of you now?”
“No.” He gasps and closes his eyes for a moment. “Come on, Bess! To be honest . . .”
“What?”
“I think you’re projecting a little bit.”
“Projecting?” I say. “What? About how I grew up? Comparing?”
“Well . . .” He shrugs.
“That’s beside the point!” I say, though I know it’s a little true. “And if I am, it’s because I don’t want what happened to me to happen to our kids. And to Livvie! I mean, did you hear that bullshit tonight?”
“I know,” he says, reaching his hand out for mine. I flick it away.
“So Eva’s lying about our daughter now, too!” I shout. “And that’s okay with you? I should just let it go? Play along?”
“No, Bess,” he says. “Of course not. It’s just . . .”
“What?”
“You just have to be careful about the way you approach things around here,” he says. “People talk.”
“Oh, I know,” I say. “Believe me, I know.” I laugh. “And I’m starting to understand why Susannah Lane hightailed it out of here all those years ago.”
“Well, that’s great.”
I sigh, my shoulders dropping, and put my hands over my face for a moment, trying to settle myself down. “Don’t you see how hard I’m trying?” I say, tipping my head back onto the headrest. “I’m making an effort, you know. But sometimes I feel like this is a square peg, round hole kind of situation. Maybe it’s just not right for me here.”
Before he has a chance to answer, a shadow falls across the car’s dash and I jump, yelping as the knock comes on the passenger window beside me.
Cole rolls down the window. It’s Martha Brown, our Realtor. Wonderful.
“Everything okay, you two?”
“Fine,” we say in unison, both of our voices a bit more charged than to be believable.
“Okay,” she says, taking a tentative step back. “If you’re sure.”
“Good night, Ms. Brown.” Cole rolls the window back up. “Do you see what I mean?” he says, gesturing as we watch her walk off. “Eyes and ears everywhere.”
“Yeah,” I say, though I really don’t want to. “Believe me, I see.”
Sixteen
The next day, Cindy barely greets me before she turns and screams into the dark foyer behind her.
“Susannah!” she yells, her voice echoing into the cavernous house.
The sun is out, but despite my heaviest winter coat I’m shivering on the front landing. It’s colder than it should be for this time of year, though when I spoke to my mother this morning, she laughed at me for whining about the weather in Virginia. She said she’d already had to use the ice scraper on her windshield this week.
“You really don’t have to yell for her—” I start, looking down at my feet. I’m standing on top of a massive, scrolling G that decorates a doormat the size of a twin bed. But Cindy keeps on, the power of her voice a stark contrast to her diminutive size, like Tinker Bell wielding a bullhorn. Under the arch of the imposing doorway, she looks like a child, a little elfin thing in the home of a giant.
A gust of cold wind blows, and Cindy hurries me in. “Come on, come on,” she says, trying to shield herself with her arm, and I stifle a laugh as I watch the wind push her hair off her forehead in one softball-sized hair-sprayed clump.
“You like my shirt?” Cindy asks, pinching it at the front and then letting it go. She’s caught me staring again. It’s bright aqua, with LEADER OF THE PACK written in a feathery modern font across the front.
“I do,” I say, thinking that I’m sure I saw it in the girls’ section at the Old Navy in Charlottesville when I took Livvie shopping before school started in August. “It’s cute.”
“Just want ol’ Miss to know whe
re she stands!” she says, laughing. “Susannah!” she screams up the stairs, both hands cupped around her mouth. “Bess is here!”
“It’s okay,” I say, stepping onto the scuffed marble floor. “I’m not in any rush.”
Let me just hide out here for the rest of the day, I think. I’ve been in a horrendous mood all weekend, and dinner last night didn’t help. Bradley and Diane came over, the last thing I wanted after the way my night with Cole ended on Friday, but Diane would have been even more unbearable if I’d tried to cancel, wanting to know the reason for the change of plans and almost certainly taking it personally.
The problem is your son, I could have said, though I know that’s not really true. It’s not his fault, but I’m realizing how resentful I am of how easy the transition here has been for him. It’s like we’ve moved to a remote country on the far side of the world, and he’s the only one who speaks the language.
It didn’t help that when we sat down to eat, Diane managed to both criticize the sauce I’d made for the pork roast (“Bess, we can never accuse you of being stingy with the sugar, can we?”) and recount how she’d run into Eva at the grocery store that week (“So chic, that girl. So elegant!”). The one bright spot was Bradley, who ate like he hadn’t in days, exclaiming that we ought to put the dish I’d made on the menu at the inn.
My eyes land on a portrait on the wall that I didn’t notice the last time I was here, just past the entry to the front sitting room.
“That’s Susannah and her sister,” Cindy tells me. The portrait is all soft colors—peaches and pinks, muted soft greens—and the girls are in pastel dresses. Baby blue for Susannah, yellow for her sister.
“It’s beautiful,” I say, studying the picture. A portion of it, mostly the left side, has faded, presumably from the sunlight streaming onto it from a window across the hall. Susannah and her sister look to be about Livvie and Max’s age, just on the cusp of their teenage years. They clearly sat for the portrait, and I try to imagine what that must have been like, given that the twins can barely hold still for the few seconds it takes for me to attempt to snap a photo of them with my phone. Susannah’s hair is pulled back at the top, a white ribbon tied at her crown. Margaret’s waves are tied loosely to the side, cascading down one shoulder. Pinkish-red paint, a color that reminds me of the stain that a cherry Popsicle leaves on your tongue, blooms off the apples of the girls’ cheeks. A strange contrast, I think, to the solemn expressions on their faces. I notice the gold crosses hanging from both girls’ necks.
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