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“I’m sure there’s an interesting story about how a man from Malvern, England, came to be a high-school principal in Little Hills, Missouri, but—” she glanced around “—I see a line forming to talk to you, so I’ll just…invent my own version of the facts.”
“Or you could call me,” he said, surprising himself. “And we could exchange life stories over dinner.”
“Thank you,” she said. “But I think I’ll stick with my invented version.”
“Pity,” he said. And then as he was about to let her go, he said, “I’ve noticed that your brother-in-law calls you Edith. Is it Edith, or Edie?” he asked.
“Edie,” she said. “Only my family calls me Edith…and I tolerate that very poorly.” A moment passed. “I’ve noticed that my brother-in-law calls you Pete. Is it Peter, or Pete?”
“Peter.” He grimaced slightly. “I suppose it sounds terribly formal, doesn’t it?”
“It sounds fine,” she said.
ZOWEE, Edie thought as she walked back across the campus to Maude’s car. Zowee. Zowee. Zowee. In the car, she pulled off her jacket, tossed it in the back seat, kicked off her heels, which had elevated her exactly to the level of Peter Darling’s gray-green eyes, threw them in the back, too, and sat grinning idiotically at the cracked, green vinyl–covered dashboard. Zowee. Shaking her head, she pulled down the driving mirror to look at her face: flushed scarlet. The car, she noted belatedly, was a furnace. She rolled down the driver’s window, still seeing Peter Darling’s face. Zowee. If every female in that school wasn’t having indecent dreams about him, she’d…eat her press pass.
THE OLD BLACK DIAL PHONE in the hallway was ringing when Edie let herself into Maude’s house some thirty minutes later. Her mother, Edie thought as she picked up the heavy receiver, should at least have a portable that she could carry around the house, but Maude wasn’t about to go easy into the digital age. The old one suited her just fine, thank you very much. Edie dragged the phone to the stairs and sat on the bottom step, listening to Vivian describe the pot roast she’d just put in the oven for dinner that night. Edie should bring Maude over at about six, Viv said.
Edie leaned back against the stairs and stifled a groan. Family gatherings ranked low on her list of ways to spend a pleasant evening. Viv would outdo herself with the food, then complain of being exhausted. Ray would be smarmy and insinuating. She’d lost touch completely with her nephews. And Maude would spend the whole time telling everyone that she didn’t know what she’d done to deserve the way her youngest daughter was always snapping at her.
Home sweet home. Thank God it was only for a month. Looking on the bright side, Viv would probably continue her rant about Peter Darling. Funny how much more interesting that prospect was, now that she’d met him.
“Mom doesn’t feed herself properly,” Viv was saying now. “And I’m sure you’ve probably forgotten all you never learned about cooking. I’ll do the roast and then I’ll wrap up what’s left and you can take it back to Mom’s. That way, you’ll both have something decent to eat.”
From the stairs, where she remained after hanging up the phone, Edie could see Maude at her chair by the window. “She spends hours there,” Viv had complained on the ride from the airport. “Just staring out at the street. That’s why she needs to get out of that house and into a place where she can be with other people her own age.”
Elbows on her knees, Edie sat for a while watching her mother from the dim and musty hallway. Maude, at her lace-curtained window post, in a fusty room crammed with knickknacks, crocheted mats, knitted cushions, cuckoo clocks and all the detritus accumulated over a lifetime, seemed so organic to the house that Edie found herself wondering whether uprooting her might cause Maude to just wither and die sooner than she might if she were left to live out her life at home.
But when she mentioned the thought to Vivian that night, her sister looked impatient.
“Edie, trust me, I spend a lot more time with Mom than you do. She needs to get rid of that house.”
Edie, sprawled on the massive off-white leather couch in Viv and Ray’s cavernous family room, channel surfing on their massive TV because Vivian had laughed incredulously at her offer to help out, conceded that Viv was probably right. Still, she would sound Maude out anyway, just to be certain in her own mind. “Are you sure I can’t do anything to help?” she called to Viv, who hadn’t left the kitchen for the past hour.
Vivian laughed. “Thanks, but no thanks, Eed. I can manage better without your help. Trust me. Just relax.”
So she tried. She channel surfed some more, but found herself critiquing the correspondent’s performance on every new station. It was hard to forget her vocation, even when she wasn’t working. Finally, she let her thoughts drift. She thought for a bit about her sister in the kitchen, whom she normally thought very little about. Coming home always brought the old memories flooding back. Viv. Poor Viv, the pretty but asthmatic child. She could still hear Maude scolding, “Oh Edith, don’t be so selfish. Let Viv have the doll.” Or the candy, or the book or whatever else it was that Viv might want. “You’re such a lucky girl, you have your health. Look at poor Viv.” And Edie would look at Viv and feel not sympathy but envy because Viv had Maude’s attention and she didn’t.
All that old, bitter stuff that she hardly ever thought about now. But, deep inside, she still felt it, that same need for her mother’s approval and acceptance. Love me. Need me. Ben, she reflected, had failed badly in that regard. Don’t look for commitment from me, he’d said. Pretty much the last significant thing he’d said, as a matter of fact. If other events that night hadn’t overshadowed everything else, those words would have plunged her into a dark void of gloom. Instead, she’d developed a sort of emotional amnesia. Ben would escape or be released; she knew that much for sure. After that, who knew? Her thumb on the button of the remote, she gazed at the flickering images. A perfume ad with heartbreakingly beautiful people locked in dreamy embraces. Happy women folding diapers, mopping floors, sending happy kids off to school.
“So you really like the house?” Viv called from the kitchen. “We love it, but sometimes I get freaked at how much we had to go into debt… Want a glass of wine?”
“Maybe later.” Edie called back. Viv and Ray had bought the house two months ago. It was a sprawling mock Tudor that sat amidst similar houses on the edge of what Edie remembered had once been bean fields. It had struck her, as she’d trailed Viv around earlier, dutifully oohing and aahing, that everything about the house—from the sweeping driveway and mirrored guest bathroom with its elaborate gold-plated fixtures, to the cream-and-gold master bedroom—seemed new, immense and designed to impress. Fleetingly, she’d wondered what assistant principals made these days, but it wasn’t a question to ask. “What’s not to like about the house?” she answered rhetorically as televised images flickered hypnotically across her line of vision.
“We like to entertain,” Viv, still in the kitchen, was saying now. “It’s something Ray and I both enjoy.”
“Well, you’ve got a great place to do it in.” A cartoon bird gave way to an anchorwoman’s face and Edie’s thumb paused on the remote. “…and the search continues,” the announcer said, “for American freelance journalist Ben Morris, captured last month on assignment in Iraq. Morris and three other journalists came under fire when the jeep they were riding in was ambushed by gunmen…”
CHAPTER TWO
EDIE STARED transfixed, but the announcer’s dry recap of that nightmarish ride told her nothing she hadn’t relived endlessly ever since. “Hold on to your hat, Eed,” Ben had said. “We’re going to outrun them.” She remembered the way his teeth had gleamed in the dark night. The roar as he’d gunned the jeep, the terrifying careen up the dark mountainside with no headlights on. He loves this, she remembered thinking. It’s his essence. I’m an idiot to even think about commitment… And then the jeep had flipped.
“Carrot sticks, cauliflower and a no-fat dip.” Vivian set a tray on the chrome-and-glass coffee table and flopped down on the couch beside Edie. “I’m not real sure about the carrot sticks, they have a bunch of carbs and I’m on this low-carb diet. Doesn’t it seem weird to think of carrots as a no-no? I mean, carrots and cottage cheese used to be what you’d eat when you were trying to drop a few pounds, but supposedly now they’re off limits. Too high carb. If you want some wine, let me know. It’s not on the diet…beaucoup carbs, although gin’s okay. Want some gin?”
Edie blinked, staring at Viv as though she’d been roused from a dream that still seemed real. Viv smiled. Kitchen warmth had flushed her face and her shoulder-length hair, hardly faded from the strawberry blond it had been in high school, fell into a smooth bob. “Vivian’s the pretty one,” Maude would say. “But you’re smart, Edie.”
Edie rubbed her eyes. “Sorry. I’m miles away. Where’s Mom? I thought she was out in the kitchen with you.”
“Ray ran her down to the IGA to get denture cleaner. I didn’t want to tell you, but she’d worked herself up into quite a tizzy about it and—”
“I took her to the IGA this morning,” Edie said. “We got denture cleaner. I remember taking it off the shelf.”
Viv reached over to pat Edie’s knee. “It was the wrong kind, sweetie,” she said maternally. “Don’t blame yourself. How would you know that? I’ve got beer too. Beer, wine, gin, you name it. I’m not drinking, though. If I don’t get this extra weight off I’m going to kill myself. What do you think about these jeans?” She jumped up, turned to present a rear view. “Do they make my hips look kind of wide? Tell me, I won’t be mad, honestly.”
“You look fine, Viv.” Edie said, her mind still on Maude’s shopping trip. “So why didn’t Mom say something?”
Viv sat down again. “She’s scared of you, sweetie,” she said softly as though there was a chance Maude might overhear. “She says you snap at her. You know, I might cheat a little and have some wine. Want some?”
“I’m fine.” Edie shook her head. “No, I’m not. I’m furious. God, it kills me. I tried to be so patient with her. I was patient. For me, anyway. And I didn’t snap at her in the first place. Maybe I overreacted slightly when she told me for the fourth time that she needed toilet paper, but—”
“Hey, Eed.” Viv reached for a carrot stick. “Can we not talk about Mom for a minute? You’re going to be here for a while, we’ll have plenty of time to discuss her. Trust me. Come on, eat something.”
Edie took a carrot stick. “Will the boys be here for dinner?”
“Absolutely,” Viv said. “They’re always talking about their glamorous Aunt Edie.”
Edie gave her sister a skeptical look.
“Really. One of them—I think it was Eric—was asking something about you just the other day,” Viv said. “Frankly though, Edie, you haven’t exactly been a big part of their lives.” She dunked her carrot stick in dip, twirling it for a second. “Back to Mom, though. She’s a novelty to you, but—”
“She’s my mother, Viv. And trust me, I don’t find her much of a novelty.”
“Well, you know what I mean. In a couple of weeks, you’ll be flying off to Boogawongabooboo, or wherever, but I’ll be right here listening to Mom tell me about the little sore up her nose. Eat something, Edie.” She reached for a cauliflower floret. “You’re making me feel like a pig. How come you stay skinny when everyone else balloons up as soon as they hit thirty?”
“Clean living,” Edie said.
“Yeah, sure.” Vivian eyed her for a moment. “Frankly though, and please don’t take this wrong, I think having a little fat actually makes a woman look younger. Personally, I wouldn’t want to be too skinny. It gives you this drawn, dried-up look.”
Edie smiled politely. “You think so?”
“Ray thinks so too. Scrawny chickens, he calls them.” She reached for a napkin and dabbed at a spot of dip on the glass coffee table. “I mean in general, of course.”
“Of course,” Edie said. “What little sore?”
“Little sore?” Vivian looked momentarily confused. “Oh, Mom’s little sore. She’s always got one up her nose. I swear to God, the minute I sit down to breakfast, the phone rings and it’s Mom going on about how the little sore bleeds every time she blows her nose. I can’t even look at strawberry jam these days.”
Edie laughed. Despite everything, she wanted, suddenly, to embrace her sister. The perfunctory little hug at the airport had been disappointing. On some level, she realized now, she’d been looking to Viv for the same thing she sought in Maude. Love me, need me. Tell me not to leave again. Ironic, this need, when she would battle to the death anyone who tried to wrest away her shield of independence and self-sufficiency. Odd, too, that the need only seemed to trouble her when she returned home.
“You know what?” Vivian said. “I am going to have some wine. How often does my little sister honor us with her presence? Be right back.”
When she returned a moment later, she had two glasses and a bottle of wine. Blush, Edie observed with a surreptitious glance at the label. Snob, she scolded herself. Ben had once used a UN transport plane to ship two cases of Italian wine to Sarajevo. “Nearly broke my back carrying it to the car,” he’d said as he’d poured her a glass. “But it beats the hell out of the local plonk.”
Edie watched Viv fill two balloon-shaped glasses with pale pink wine. “So,” she said. “Shall we make a toast?”
Vivian hooted. “Shall we make a toast? Shall? Jeez, Edie, when did you start using words like shall? You sound like Peter Darling. That’s one of the things Ray hates about him, one of many things. Apart from the fact he’s younger than Ray and gorgeous.” She downed half her wine and refilled the glass. “Talk like everyone else, for God’s sake. This is Little Hills not Buckingham Palace.” She paused for a moment. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get started, it’s just that I hear enough about Peter Darling from Ray.” She touched her glass to Edie’s. “To my little sister with her hoity-toity voice being home again. Joking, Eed.” She patted Edie’s knee. “Don’t look at me like that. It’s great to have you here. Really.”
“It’s great to be here,” Edie said, averting her eyes.
Vivian glanced over her shoulder and moved fractionally closer. “I’m in a quandary, Edie. A real quandary. Remember Beth Herman?”
Edie thought. “Beth Herman from high school?”
Viv nodded. “She works at Luther now. Peter Darling hired her to run this new teen mother program—which Ray says is a complete waste of money. All it does is encourage kids to have sex, but anyway, she’s in love with him.”
“Ray?”
Viv smacked Edie’s knee. “Peter Darling, doofus. I mean, she’s gaga over him and she keeps coming to me for advice. I’m happy for her, of course—I mean, Beth’s such a sweet girl, she deserves to find someone—but I’m torn. I hear Ray going on about what an idiot the guy is and Beth telling me how he’s so wonderful and I don’t know whether I should be encouraging her or what.”
“Hmm.” Edie took a carrot stick and tried to think of something to say. “Well, he seems very nice,” she said neutrally. “Interesting. Attractive.”
“Attractive.” Viv hooted. “Did you see him? He’s gorgeous. I mean, drop-dead gorgeous. He’s like a cross between Ralph Fiennes, Daniel Day-Lewis and…who was that poet I had to study in high school? Myron, or something?”
“Byron?”
“Yeah, I guess. I don’t know what Byron looks like, but that’s what Beth says. I tell you…” She sighed loudly. “If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Any idea what I should do?”
“Well, Viv, it’s not really your problem, is it? Peter and Beth are adults.” A thought occurred to her. “Is it mutual?”
“Who knows? Beth isn’t sure, but she’s so sweet and nice and they’re both in education. How could it not be? And she’d be a wonderful mother to his little girls. I mean, how many women would want to take on four kids?”
“Certainly not me,” Edie said. Although, having met Peter Darling, she felt quite sure he’d have no shortage of candidates. “Sounds like a nightmare.”
“Well, you’ve never had the maternal streak.” Viv poured more wine. “Anyway, enough of that. I’m worried about Ray. Here he’s been knocking himself out for years, nothing he wouldn’t do for those kids. And everyone just knew he was a shoe-in for principal once Frank Brown retired, but then what happens? The school board brings in this Peter Darling, who’s probably five years younger than Ray—which, trust me, doesn’t help things—and so damn pie-in-the-sky you wouldn’t believe it.”
Edie stifled a yawn. Except for the Beth Herman element, they’d been over essentially the same ground on the ride home from the airport. She hadn’t been particularly interested then and, despite the new principal’s considerable appeal, time hadn’t increased her thirst to know more. What she wanted to do was collect Maude, drive back to her mother’s house and then sink into oblivion. Selfish, selfish, Maude’s voice scolded deep in her brain. You’ve always been selfish, Edith. She drank some wine and tried not to grimace at the flowery sweet taste.
“What exactly do you mean by pie-in-the sky?” she asked in a tone that made her think she should have a pen in one hand and a notebook on her knee.
“Oh…” Viv reached for the wine again. “You know what? The hell with this rabbit food, I need salt and fat.” She jumped up again and returned a moment later. “Actually, it’s some sort of artificial fat,” she said as she dumped a bag of chips into a yellow bowl. “Don’t ask me how, but they say your body doesn’t recognize it, so it passes right through you. God, that sounds gross, huh? Come on—don’t make me feel like a pig. Try one. Have some more wine.” She reached to refill Edie’s glass, and then the front door slammed.
“Shh.” Viv flashed Edie a warning look and drained the last of her wine. “Here’s Ray. Don’t mention Peter Darling’s name or the whole evening will be ruined.”
“Hey, Edith,” Ray said with a glance at the wine bottle. “Been leading my wife astray? Nothing changes, huh?”
“Now, Ray, be nice.” Vivian gathered up the wine and glasses. “Poor Edie’s been with Mom all day, she needed a little drinky. She was just telling me about her job. God, you’d better be glad you’ve got me. Listen, babe, you stay and talk to Edie while I go into the living room and make Mom pretty. Her hair needs a trim,” she said to Edie, “And, naturally, she won’t let anyone but me work on it.” She winked at Edie. “Now, be good, you two. I’ll be back in a jiff to finish dinner.”
“Let me give you a hand.” Edie extracted herself from the billowing contours of the couch. “What can I do?”
Ray hooted. “You mean you’ve learned to cook, Edith? What you going to feed us, stewed yak or something?”
“Ray.” Viv who had disappeared into the kitchen, reappeared in the doorway, grinning widely as she shook her head at her husband. “I told you to be nice. Ignore him, sweetie,” she told Edie. “He’s just showing off. Could you maybe make a salad?”
“I’ll give it a try,” Edie said, biting back a sarcastic response. In the kitchen, she eyed the wineglasses Viv had set in the sink. Her own was still full. Perhaps she’d just hold her breath and gulp it down; anesthesia against the rest of the evening. And then Ray was behind her, his arms around her waist. She removed his hands and turned to look at him. “Lettuce,” she said, increasing the distance between them. “You wouldn’t know if Viv has any tomatoes, I guess.” She pulled open the refrigerator’s stainless-steel door. Cold air hit her face. “Lettuce, lettuce, lettuce,” she said. “Bottom drawer. Crisper. God, I’ve never seen a refrigerator this big. You could chill a…yak. Okay, lettuce.”
“So how long has it been since I saw you last?” Ray asked. “Five years?”
“Six.” She pulled out the lettuce and closed the door. Ray leaned against the sink, arms folded across his chest. She’d taken his measure, too; he had lines around his eyes now, the thick blond hair had faded and thinned, and the smile that had made her knees weak in high school struck her as goofy now. Her face colored, anyway. “When I came back for the high-school reunion, you and Viv were on vacation. Before that it was Mom’s heart attack. That was the last time.”
He nodded. “Sorry I couldn’t be at the airport to meet you. School board meeting. New principal’s big on everyone attending. What do you think of him? Kind of out of place with Luther kids, isn’t he?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She took the lettuce to the sink and began separating leaves. “He seemed fine to me. What do you see as the problem?”
“Aagh.” Ray shrugged. “Don’t even get me started. He won’t last long, that’s all I know. I could have had the job if I’d wanted it. School board practically begged me, but I wasn’t interested—too much work. I’ve got a family. The boys. More important things in life than chaining yourself to a desk.” He laughed. “’Course, I’m probably telling that to the wrong person, right, Eed?”
Edie felt the knot in her shoulders ratchet up another notch. Salad. Could she possibly do a Caesar? She’d once spent half a day putting together a Caesar salad for Ben. Finding the necessary ingredients in a shattered Belgrade marketplace had been a challenge, but he’d confessed to a nostalgic yearning for the kind of Caesar salad he’d enjoyed at a certain Los Angeles restaurant. He’d been unimpressed, less by the salad than by what the effort said about her priorities. “Don’t go getting domestic on me, Edie,” he’d warned. “It’s not what I need or want.”
She took a couple of eggs from the fridge and set them in a pan of water to simmer. Back at the fridge, she dug around for anything resembling Parmesan. She could feel Ray’s eyes on her back.
“So what time will the boys be here?” She thought again about the nephews she’d watched grow, mostly through pictures sent by Vivian, from cute, wide-eyed babies to strapping, athletic teenagers and felt a stab of remorse. “I will get to see them, right?”
“Oh sure,” Ray said vaguely. “Hey, Eed, remember that day after school when we were goofing around in your mom’s kitchen and I squeezed Thousand Island dressing into your mouth?”
Edie watched his face for a moment. “Not a day goes by that I don’t relive that experience, Ray. It haunts my dreams.”
Ray’s forehead creased. “You being sarcastic?”
“Bingo.”
“You ever try not being sarcastic for more than five minutes?”
“Once. I was bored.”
Ray shook his head. Clearly, there was no hope for her. He took a beer from the fridge, popped the top, and stood with his back against the granite countertop watching her move around the kitchen.
“You were pretty hot back then,” he said.
“Thank you, Ray. So were you. Back then.”
“You ever think about the way things might have turned out if we’d stayed together?”
“No, Ray.” She looked directly at him. “I don’t. I’m happy with my life. And it looks like you’re doing well too. This house, by the way,” she said with a sweeping gesture at the kitchen, “is amazing.”
“You like it? Viv give you the grand tour?”
“She did.” Behind the jars of mayonnaise and bottles of ketchup and mustard, Edie found a green tub of grated Romano cheese. “It’s huge. You guys must get lost going from one room to another.” She set the cheese down on the center island. Out in the living room, she could see the top of Maude’s white head. Her mother had all but disappeared amidst the massive pillowy cushions of the couch. The coffee table on which Maude’s feet rested was several feet of mirrored glass atop a low chrome cylinder. “Very elegant,” Edie said. “Impressive.”
Ray gave her a look that seemed to calculate her sincerity. “But it isn’t what you’d buy, right?”
“What does that matter? It’s your house.”
