Even as a child Carol Ascher had instinctively known that appearances were important. As an adult, her wardrobe was highly curated; she favored a small handful of well-established designers. Her jewelry collection was comprised of basics from some of the big houses—Bulgari, Van Cleef & Arpels, Tiffany & Co.—as well as unique creations by several contemporary independent designers. She owned a Hermès bag that had cost more than she guessed her sister, Bonnie, had spent on bags, shoes, and coats in her lifetime. She owned a vintage Cartier diamond ring that had cost almost as much as the four years of Nicola’s college tuition.
Like most responsible parents, Carol intended to leave the bulk of her estate to her child. But given the kind of woman Nicola had become since moving in with her aunt and uncle ten years earlier, Carol highly doubted that she would get any pleasure from the Hermès bag, the Cartier ring, or the Chanel suits. The paintings and sculptures she might admire. But maybe not. In many ways, Nicola Ascher had become a stranger to her mother.
With that in mind, Carol had begun to consider that it might be worth leaving a few of the precious or particularly meaningful items originally intended for Nicola to someone who would truly enjoy them. It was at this point that she met an impediment. She had no godchild. She was not close to the children of her acquaintances or colleagues. As for the other members of her family, well, with the possible exception of her seventy-year-old cousin, Judith, there was no one who appreciated good design and craftsmanship like she did.
Carol was bothered when she realized this. It was human nature to want to leave a legacy, to pass along a skill, a passion, a treasured object to a person you cared about. There was, of course, her former junior partner, now owner of Ascher Interior Design. But the truth was that Carol and Ana had never been close outside of the office. Carol had wanted it that way.
From the living room, Carol passed into the library. It was her favorite room in the apartment, light and airy in spite of the thousands of books, the carefully selected objets d’art, and the grand piano that had once belonged to one of the most prestigious of Old New York families. This morning, however, only one item was of interest to Carol. She picked up a card that sat on the three-legged, marble-topped table by one of the windows. The card was a note from a client and her husband, expressing gratitude for Carol’s having made a generous donation to the research foundation seeking a cure for the childhood illness that had recently taken their seven-year-old son.
The boy’s death had hit Carol hard. Very hard, even though she had met little Jonathan only once. Jonathan had been a charmer. Bright, socially adept, physically beautiful. His death—untimely, unfair, ghastly—had brought home to Carol with the force of a thunderclap the fact of her relative isolation in the world. Forget about who would cherish her possessions after her death. The more important question was: Who would mourn her?
Because this vital question had been haunting her for weeks, Carol had finally decided it was time to make peace with her family. That might be easier said than done. Carol had not heard from Nicola since a phone call Christmas morning. Nicola’s tone had been markedly cold. And there had been a sharp decline in Bonnie’s correspondence since Ken’s death the previous September. Carol had not been able to attend the funeral; she had been in India on business. Maybe she should have visited her sister upon her return to the States.
But she hadn’t.
Well, Carol thought, returning the card of thanks to the marble-topped table, she was going home now. To Yorktide. Better late than never.
Still, she had yet to put her apartment on the market, though she knew Realtors would eagerly line up for the chance to sell the home of famous interior designer Carol Ascher, a perfectly appointed, nine-room apartment with views of Central Park.
The reason for her procrastination was both simple and not so simple. Nicola’s bedroom. Everything in the room was exactly as it had been the day Nicola had gone to live with her aunt in Maine. To dismantle the room would be in some way dismantling the most precious part of Carol’s past. Nicola’s childhood.
Carol straightened her already-straight shoulders and briskly banished the mood of melancholy that was suddenly threatening to overwhelm her. She would sell the apartment as soon as possible. A person was more important than four walls and a jumbled assortment of dolls, board games, and sparkly headbands.
Nothing would stand in the way of her homecoming, Carol thought as she strode from the library to her home office, not even her family’s possible—probable?—refusal to see her if they were given advance warning. To that end, Carol had decided to show up in Yorktide unannounced, where Ferndean House, the family homestead, awaited. Carol still had a key. And the house was currently empty; for some unfathomable reason, Bonnie hadn’t booked summer renters yet. But that was perfect; the sooner Carol could get started with major renovations on the old place the better. For all she knew parts of the building were structurally unsound, in spite of her brother-in-law’s assurance that Ferndean continued to pass inspections.
Carol sat at her desk and opened her laptop. She was fully aware that taking your enemy by surprise might be considered a power play.
Enemy? Carol frowned. That was the wrong word. Adversary? That was a bit harsh, too. Well, whatever the term, Carol expected some resistance to the idea of her occupying Ferndean House. Bonnie could be contrary where Carol was concerned, but that didn’t really worry her. Once Bonnie heard her sister’s more than generous offer for her share of the Victorian wreck that had been left to the Ascher girls, she would happily sign on the dotted line.
Successful, wealthy, universally admired businessperson that she was, Carol Ascher was sure of it.
Chapter 3
Gilbert Way was one of the least attractive streets in Yorktide. It was on the very outskirts of the town, a generally forgotten area occupied by the poorest of the community. Nicola Ascher’s apartment was on the third floor of what had once been a rooming house. The original wooden building had been re-covered with vinyl siding. The small front porch felt loosely attached to the structure. Her apartment, one of seven in the building, was reached by two sets of steep, narrow wooden stairs that smelled suspiciously of mold. The landing outside her apartment was grim. The floors were badly in need of refinishing; her neighbor was in the habit of piling all of his shoes and boots in a heap next to his door; and every so often there was a vague smell of rotting food emanating, it seemed, from the walls themselves.
All of the tenants at number 35 were young and either just starting out in their careers or not much concerned with a career at all. Most were living alone. The guy in the apartment just above Nicola’s liked to throw weeknight parties that involved insanely loud techno-pop. After a third incident, Nicola had approached him and asked that the next time he gave a party he be aware that some of his neighbors had to get up early for work. That had done the trick. For a while.
Nicola would not easily forget the first time her aunt and uncle had seen the apartment on Gilbert Way. They had not been happy about their beloved niece living in such a rough and tumble place. When Ken died the previous September, Bonnie had suggested that Nicola move back into the cottage. Though grateful, and sympathetic of her aunt’s sudden loneliness, Nicola had declined. She needed to maintain a degree of independence. She was, after all, twenty-five years old.
She had done her best to make the apartment attractive, but she was no interior designer like her mother. She had been happy enough to decorate the tiny apartment with hand-me-downs, a few posters she had had since college, and a selection of framed photos of her family. There was a photo of her aunt Bonnie and her uncle Ken taken at last year’s Fourth of July party at Ferndean House. There was a portrait of her cousin Julie, Julie’s husband, Scott, and their daughter, Sophie, taken at the mall one Christmas season when Sophie was a toddler. There was a photo of her aunt’s cousin Judith taken at Nicola’s high school graduation. There were no photos of her mother.
Nicola walked from the tiny ki
tchen area to the tiny living area, glancing as she did at the antique silvered mirror that hung on the wall. The mirror had been a great flea market find. The image reflected back at Nicola wasn’t clear, but it didn’t need to be. Nicola knew well enough what she looked like. Her eyes were not her mother’s famously steely gray ones. Presumably she had inherited her brown eyes from her nameless and faceless father. Her hair was light brown; she often cut it herself. Given the nature of her job as a social worker at Pine Hill Residence for the Elderly—and her own preference—she regularly wore clothes that were serviceable rather than attractive. When she thought about the last year she had lived in New York—which she rarely did—she was always surprised to recall her near obsession with the latest fad in clothing and bags and shoes. She knew now that her interest hadn’t really been in those popular items but in the popular kids who were the first to wear them. What a waste of time and money! Then again, she had only been a child.
Like her mother—and presumably her father, that unknown sperm donor—Nicola was tall and slim. She wasn’t what her aunt Bonnie would call a man magnet, but she did attract a fair amount of male attention, most of which she deflected almost unconsciously. Rarely was her interest aroused and when it was, it didn’t last for long. In fact, Nicola had been in only one long-term romantic relationship. She wasn’t a virgin. But she wasn’t experienced, either. She had never dreamed about marrying. Falling in love—maybe. That was probably inevitable. Like death and taxes, things you just couldn’t escape, but hopefully more pleasant than either.
Nicola Ascher got along well with just about everybody. There were members of her circle of coworkers, former classmates, and neighbors with whom she was friendly, even, at times, briefly confidential. But as for an intimate friend, there was no one. And that was okay. Nicola genuinely liked people. It was one of the reasons she had gone into social work. She just didn’t need one particular person to be at her side—literally or virtually—at all times.
In short, she wasn’t unhappy. Still, for the past few months she had felt that there was something else she could be doing, another way in which she could be helping others and leading a productive life. The answer, Nicola thought, might be the Peace Corps. And she had decided she would like to be stationed in Ukraine. She couldn’t explain her preference other than the fact that she felt instinctually drawn to the culture and history of Eastern Europe. The more she read, the more interested she became.
Her aunt Bonnie had frowned at this. “It could be terribly dangerous,” she said.
“The Peace Corps educates you about the region you’re being posted to,” Nicola had told her. “There can be risks, but people need help.”
“But you’re needed here,” Bonnie had pointed out, her distress evident. “You do such important work at Pine Hill. And . . . and I need you. We all do, Julie and Sophie, too, especially now that Ken is gone and Scott . . . Well, with the troubles in the marriage.”
“I’m aware of how my absence might affect my family,” Nicola had replied carefully. “But I can’t feel guilty for wanting to move on and do something for the greater good. You’ll be fine, Aunt Bonnie. I know you will. Besides, I’ll be back in two years and we’ll be in touch as often as possible, I promise.”
Assuming, of course, that Nicola went through with the notion. In truth, while the idea of service attracted her, sometimes she wondered if her motives for wanting to help others were entirely pure. Everyone knew that when you helped another person you often felt good about yourself as a result. That was selfish, but not the bad kind of selfish. But what if she was so insistent on being of service to others as a sort of rebuke to her mother, that supremely self-centered woman who had abandoned her own child in her moment of crisis? Could Nicola have some sort of saint complex, the need to prove to the world that she was better, more self-sacrificing than the average person? Was she ever smug about her intention of joining the Peace Corps?
No. She didn’t think that she was. She hoped that she wasn’t. And if she did ever act obnoxiously, who would tell her the truth? She hoped that someone would, though her aunt Bonnie did tend to coddle her, and Julie never said a critical word to anyone, no matter how justified. Judith. Judith would call her on bad behavior, Nicola thought. It was something she managed to do with the people she cared about without alienating them in the process.
Nicola’s cell phone chirped; it was the tone she had chosen for Bonnie.
“Hi,” she said. “What’s up?”
“Your mother has come home.”
“Who?” Nicola replied senselessly. “Wait. What do you mean? Yorktide isn’t my mother’s home.”
“Tell that to her.” Her aunt’s voice cracked as if she was struggling not to cry. “She’s moved into Ferndean House. Nicola, you have to help me. I don’t know what to do.”
Chapter 4
The Millers’ house on Thames Road was small, not much larger than the cottage in which Julie had grown up, but it had always suited her just fine. She and Scott had managed to buy it only a few years into their marriage. They had scrimped and saved to come up with a decent down payment. Julie would never forget the day they closed on the house. Next to her wedding and the birth of her daughter, it was the most momentous occasion of her life.
Now, almost eighteen years later, on this early summer afternoon, Julie Miller found herself wandering from the living room to the kitchen, from upstairs to downstairs, noting her surroundings with something akin to surprise. It was almost as if she was in a stranger’s home. Or, as if Julie was the stranger in her own home. She felt disoriented.
Julie Miller, the forty-two-year old daughter of Bonnie and Ken Elgort, was about five feet three inches tall. She had dark brown hair, which she wore in a bob. If she could, she would live in jeans, sweatshirts, and sneakers, but for work she made the concession of dressing like the responsible adult she was paid to be. Still, managing a group of five-year-olds for several hours a day required low heels, fabrics that could be sponged clean or tossed in the washing machine, and absolutely no dangling jewelry. Aside from a watch, the only other bit of jewelry Julie regularly wore was her wedding ring, a plain gold band.
Julie was not pretty; her personality, her intelligence, and her good heart were her strong points. Early in her relationship with Scott she had wondered what he could possibly see in her, the ugly duckling to his swan. But she had gotten past that insecurity, convinced by his words and actions that he was in love with her precisely because she was who she was.
These days Julie wasn’t convinced of anything other than that her life was a mess.
The summer months stretched out painfully empty before her. True, there was the three-session workshop headed by the principal of Yorktide’s grammar school, to which she had committed ages ago. Still, time seemed Julie’s enemy. In past summers, she had taken part-time jobs, waiting tables at one of the big family-style restaurants along Route 1 or working as a sales assistant at a seasonal shop in Ogunquit, but this year she had made no effort to look for employment. It was irresponsible. But Julie felt stuck.
Julie was stuck.
And she was lonely. She and Aggie, her best friend, were not in a good place at the moment. They had known each other since kindergarten and had gone through grammar, middle, and high school together. Aggie had attended a college in New Hampshire while Julie had earned her degree at the University of Maine, but they had remained close. Julie had been Aggie’s maid of honor and Aggie had been hers. When Aggie’s first child was born prematurely, Julie had stationed herself at the hospital both day and night until little Colleen was ready to go home.
But then something nasty and vile had come between them. Julie’s husband, Scott, had cheated on her, not with Aggie, but Aggie had known about the infidelity—at least she had heard rumors—and had failed to tell Julie. That act of betrayal had destroyed a relationship that had been born close to forty years before.
No job. No best friend. And certainly no summer getaways. Shoul
d Scott, for some unfathomable reason, suggest a camping trip in Acadia National Park or even a weekend in Booth Bay, Julie would have no choice but to refuse. The entire town of Yorktide would be waiting eagerly to witness the results of the vacation. Had the couple reconciled, or was Julie Miller still refusing to forgive and forget her husband’s transgression?
At least fifteen-year-old Sophie had an exciting summer to look forward to, Julie thought, as she continued her slow ramble through the house. Sophie had gotten a job as a counselor at a local day camp. It paid very little, but it kept her busy three days of the week. How good she was with the children, Julie didn’t know; probably not very. Sophie had never shown any great interest in children. The real draw of the job for Sophie was the opportunity to hang out with other teens, several of whom lived in neighboring towns. Julie had heard her daughter mention a few names she didn’t recognize as Sophie’s classmates, all of whom Sophie had known since first grade. There was a Tom, or maybe it was Tim. He was a few years older than Sophie. And some girl named Stacy. Maybe another boy; Julie couldn’t recall and when she remembered to ask Sophie about her fellow counselors, Sophie was typically uncommunicative. “They’re fine.” “They’re okay.”
All Our Summers Page 2
