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“Certainly,” she said. “Of course, some people find it too emotional an experience—”
She let her voice trail off as she shook the newel post again then jotted something down in her notebook.
“No entrance hall,” she murmured as she jotted some more.
There had once been a tiny entrance hall and an enclosed staircase. The one big change Roger and I had made in the early years was to tear down the wall so that the narrow staircase was now open to the living room. Which meant that there was really no entrance hall, but I’d always thought it was worth it because it had opened up the living room so much.
“Small, isn’t it?” Sondra commented as she moved to the center of the room and inspected the ceiling. “This should really be replastered,” she said. “And I would strongly suggest changing your window treatments.”
I’d made the simple tieback muslin curtains that hung in the front windows myself. I’d always thought them charming. Sondra’s tone had reduced them to rags. I didn’t want to know what she thought of the rest of my decorating. She was probably inwardly sneering at my blue-and-white check camelback sofa and my chintz wingback chair, the cushion worn down to fit my tush like a baseball in a glove.
“You’re lucky wide-plank floors are back in style, but this one needs refinishing—or you could just carpet over it. It would probably make the room warmer.”
The dining room didn’t fare much better than the living room, but it was the kitchen that really took a beating.
“You’d be wise to have a new floor put in and the built-in booth in the breakfast nook should be torn out to open the room up.”
She wanted me to get rid of the booth where Gordy had eaten Froot Loops and fish sticks? Where he’d helped me decorate Christmas cookies and did his homework while I cooked dinner? I was debating whether to cry or to kick her out on her tight rear end when something she said caught my attention.
“Excuse me—what was that you just said?” I asked.
“I was just saying that you’ll have to get right on this list of improvements. It’ll be a miracle if we’re ready to show by the end of October. Once we hit November, things slow down until well after the holidays.”
“You mean the house could just be sitting here, empty, all through the holidays?”
She gave me another frosty smile. “Well, we don’t like to think so. I mean, our sales staff is excellent. But, this house hasn’t got much more than location going for it. I suggest we get it on the market as soon as possible. But, even with the best of properties,” she added in a tone that made it clear that this was not one of them, “people just don’t like to relocate during the holidays.” She sighed. “Now let’s take a look at the upstairs.”
I followed her up but I hardly heard anything else she said as she inspected the larger bedroom in the front and the two smaller ones in the back and I only vaguely heard her outrage when she discovered the one small bathroom with the claw-footed tub. I was too busy forming a plan.
Once she was gone, leaving a list of problems behind, I called Roger’s office. His secretary tried to put me off but I told her to tell him it was regarding the sale of the house. She put me on hold but it wasn’t long before Roger picked up.
I didn’t waste any words. “Roger, I think we need to talk. Could you drop by after work today?”
“If you spoke to your lawyer, Lauren, you know I’m well within my rights—”
“Roger,” I said pleasantly, “please. I know the house is going on the market. Sondra was here this morning and we went through the entire house together,” I said, making it sound like we’d bonded while discussing cracks in the ceiling. “She made a list of liabilities that I think we need to discuss.”
“Liabilities?”
I smiled. I’d gotten his attention.
“What kind of liabilities?”
“Well, the list is quite detailed and I thought we should probably go over it together.”
“Just fax me a copy, okay?”
“Roger, since I’m going to be living here while these repairs are being done, I’m the one who will have to handle the plasterers and painters and the carpenters. So I think—”
“Plasterers? Carpenters?” he grumbled before giving the kind of sigh that would have made me nervous if we were still married. “Yes, maybe we better discuss it.” I could hear him flipping pages on his day planner. “I’ll be there around six-thirty.”
“Perfect,” I said. When I hung up the phone I headed for the shower. I needed to get rid of the stench of yesterday’s pity party, then start making a grocery list.
I’d decided to splurge on ingredients, so I drove to the Market in the Cove in the heart of the village. When I pulled into the parking lot my heart did a little flip. God, I used to love this place. When Roger and I were still married I relished shopping here on Friday mornings, planning special dinners for the weekend. Once Roger split I’d started going to the bigger, less expensive chains. But they were just grocery shopping. The Market in the Cove, with its low green awnings and its clusters of pumpkins and corn stalks flanking the entrance, was an experience.
Buckets of fresh cut flowers greeted me as soon as I was through the door. Warm gold and vibrant orange zinnias. Jaunty brown-eyed Susans and roses of yellow and pink and red. There was a bucket of pale, creamy giant mums. I decided I had to have some of those. I grabbed a shopping cart and chose half a dozen. After the flower girl, in an adorable cobbler’s apron, wrapped them for me, I moved on to the butcher’s counter. The butcher wasn’t the same one as in the old days, but he was just as friendly when he held out the length of white butcher paper where an expertly trimmed loin of pork reclined for my approval before he wrapped it.
The fresh vegetable section was even more beautiful than the flower department. Every tomato appeared to be the same size and fully ripe. The asparagus was thin and tender enough to make one doubt the calendar and there were varieties of mushrooms I’d never even heard of. I chose a selection of vegetables to marinate and pan grill and was sorting through the fresh rosemary when I heard a familiar voice behind me.
“Lauren! I haven’t seen you shopping here in ages!”
I grimaced. Amy Westcott. The biggest gossip in the Cove. I made myself smile before I turned around.
“Amy! What a surprise!”
Amy lived across the street from me in a huge Colonial that was decorated within an inch of its life. She had parlayed a fondness for painting vines, flowers and birds on assorted surfaces into a business. Amy’s Ambience, her little gift shop in the village, was stocked with the overflow from her house as well as hand-dipped candles, homemade soaps and a selection of useless, overpriced gifts. Moira and I had often speculated on how she managed to keep her shop open since there never seemed to be any customers.
“Is it true what I’ve heard?” she asked with that overly concerned air that people affect when they’re hoping that whatever horrible thing they’ve heard really is true.
My stomach clenched. Had Amy somehow heard that I was soon to be homeless? “I don’t know,” I answered pleasantly. “That depends on what you’ve heard.”
“That you’re selling your little house!” she exclaimed, her fresh-scrubbed face looking the picture of innocence. Amy never wore makeup. She didn’t have to. This was a woman who’d sailed through high school without a zit or a blackhead to slow her down. And she was sailing into middle age with barely a crow’s foot to her name. “I mean, I saw Sondra Hawk over there this morning, so I just thought—”
“Oh, that,” I said as I turned my attention back to the rosemary. “I was just having the house—um—appraised.”
“Appraised?”
I didn’t have to look at her to know that she was skeptical.
“Yes. I’m thinking of having another bathroom put in,” I said, a little astounded that I’d grabbed this idea out of thin air.
“But, didn’t Gordy just leave for college? I would think the last thing you’d need is another bathroom at this point.”
I looked at her in her white button down and sixteen inch strand of pearls and wanted to tell her that it was none of her business but it’s like I was programmed to be nice. So instead I gave her a bright smile and said, “Well, you never know what the future will hold, do you?”
I could see that this response had whetted her appetite for more information. I decided to counterattack. “So how is Chuck doing? The stock market is so unpredictable these days.” Chuck was a stockbroker who liked to brag that his clients were the only ones who hadn’t lost money in the ’90s.
“Oh—well—Chuck is fine. And, as always, he just has a knack for picking the right stocks,” she said with a brief laugh, then opened her mouth to pounce again.
I beat her to it.
“And the girls? How are Annabelle, Belinda and Camille doing?”
“Oh, the ABCs are doing terrifically,” she gushed. “I’m sure you heard about our Belinda coming in first at her twirling contest and—”
I nodded, smiled, oohed and aahed in all the right places as Amy talked batons and gymnastics and swim meets. The ABCs, as Amy and Chuck liked to refer to their girls of eight, ten and twelve, were, as Moira liked to put it, “nauseatingly talented.” Not to mention Amy’s favorite subject. She could go on for hours. And that’s exactly what it felt like she was doing.
I looked at my watch. I didn’t have any more time to be nice. “Oh, gosh, look at the time!” I interrupted. “Gotta rush. Nice to see you.” I tossed a bundle of rosemary onto my other groceries and took off, rattling my cart down the aisle and leaving her standing there in her Eddie Bauer khakis with a dumbfounded look on her face.
Shameful, maybe, but I fully admit that I enjoyed every minute of preparing that meal, even though I was going to be feeding it to Roger.
The plan was to fill the house with the scents of home cooking so he wouldn’t be able to resist accepting my invitation to stay for dinner. Then I’d whet his appetite with baby spinach and fresh pears tossed with his favorite vinaigrette and a sprinkling of blue cheese and walnuts and wow him with my honey mustard pork loin and my pan grilled vegetable medley. I’d lull him with freshly baked yeast rolls then move in for the kill with warm apple crisp.
First I’d have him eating off our wedding china, then I’d have him eating out of my hand.
One thing in life I was sure about. I was a damned good cook. It was one of the reasons Roger had married me.
It was just past noon and I was kneading the dough for the rolls when I heard the front door open and close, followed by the tap-tapping of high heels on my liability floors. I thought at first that it might be the Hawk again, back to insult the backyard or something. No such luck.
“Hello, Mother,” I said when I looked up to find her standing in the kitchen doorway. “What brings you out to the Cove?”
But I didn’t really need to ask. She had a shopping bag from the upscale boutique she managed dangling from her arm. The only time my mother made a visit was when she’d plucked something tasteful from a clearance rack that she was certain would be perfect for me. Luckily, with her discount, she got the stuff for next to nothing so I didn’t really feel guilty that I never wore any of it. I was totally honest with her about this, but Bernice, who’d done some modeling in the fifties and sixties and still dressed, groomed and moved like she was camera-ready at all times, just could not seem to give up trying to dress me. It’d been a battle between us since I was about ten and decided I’d rather be comfortable than look “pretty.”
My mother, even at sixty-two, was still what I thought of as a Hitchcockian beauty. Tall and blond and sophisticated with a very chilly edge. She was wearing a pencil-thin camel skirt and a cream cashmere twinset. Her skillfully colored champagne hair was drawn back in a perfect French twist. Her earrings were small swirls of gold surrounding pearls. I looked down at my flour-dusted denim coveralls and sneakered feet.
Like I said, my mother and I are nothing alike.
“I brought lunch,” she said as she held up a little shopping bag from the café near her boutique, “but it looks like I needn’t have bothered.”
“Actually,” I said, “I could use some lunch. This is for dinner.”
“Are you having a party?” she asked skeptically.
“No,” I answered as I went back to kneading the dough.
“Surely you don’t bake this kind of thing for yourself?” Her voice held the kind of horror mothers usually reserved for something worse than the possible consumption of carbohydrates.
“No, Mother, I don’t.”
She reached into the refrigerator and brought out a pitcher of iced tea.
“Is that your honey mustard pork loin marinating in there?” she asked.
“It is.”
She poured herself a glass of tea, then sat down in the breakfast nook and started to lay out what she’d brought for lunch. Salads sans dressing. My mother carried her own fat-free concoction in a handsome little bottle she kept in her huge, tote-size purse.
“Well, it can’t be that you’re seeing someone,” she said.
Although she was right, her tone still pissed me off. “Why can’t it?” I asked with the petulance that only she can bring out in me. “Just because I haven’t dated anyone since that excruciating blind date back in nineteen ninety-eight—” I sprinkled more flour on the ball of dough “—doesn’t mean that I couldn’t date if I wanted to.”
“Well, are you seeing someone?” my mother asked, her voice icily amused.
“As it happens, no,” I answered curtly.
“Then what’s with all this mess?”
To Bernice, a mess in the kitchen was anything that eventually led to washing dishes. My mother’s idea of preparing dinner is to stop at the deli or pick up the phone. I probably teethed on biscotti and I was pretty sure my first solid food had been something with olives and feta cheese.
“Actually,” I said, despite my reservations, “I’m expecting Roger for dinner.”
“Oh, my God,” Bernice exclaimed, a forkful of arugula halfway to her mouth, her beautifully made-up green eyes wide, “don’t tell me you’re so afraid of the empty nest that you’re going to try to win that asshole back.”
I stared at her, wondering if her latest Botox treatments had somehow affected her mind but she didn’t seem to be drooling or anything.
“Get serious, Mother. I would prefer,” I said, picking up the dough and giving it a good bashing, “to never be in the same room with him again if I could help it. It’s the nest I’m after—empty or not.”
Okay, I’d said it. And I knew it would bring on the questions. And I knew what her reactions to my answers would be. My mother was not going to be pleased to find out that I was willing to flatter and feed my ex-husband just to keep from getting my ass tossed into the street. But what the hell, might as well get it over with.
I took a deep breath. “Mother, there’s something I have to tell you,” I began, preparing to spill my guts while my mother sipped her tea.
“This has too much sugar in it,” she said before I managed to get one word out. “I don’t see why you don’t leave it unsweetened and offer your guests the option of artificial sweetener.”
I rolled my eyes like a teenager. “Well, Mother, it’s not like I have crowds coming through here every day asking for iced tea.”
She eyed my hips. “Then do it for yourself,” she said.
Maybe I’m too sensitive, but I’m not fond of pouring my heart out to someone while they’re insulting me. The fact that it was my own mother just added to the fun.
I slapped the dough against the breadboard, sending up a little puff of flour. And then I told her my story.
And what did she say?
“Of course, it would never occur to you to just go out and get a job.”
I had to force myself to stop kneading the dough. It was long past time to shape it. Face it, the last five minutes had been overkill, but I’d needed to keep my hands busy while I told my mother what a mess I’d made of my life. “Of course, I’m going to get a job,” I said as I opened a cupboard door and searched for a baking sheet. “But I need time to find one, Mother.”
“Right. You’ve only had ten years,” she answered.
That my mother disapproves of my choices in life is no secret to anyone who has ever seen us together. But, just in case I might have forgotten, she was kind enough to take this opportunity to remind me.
“I honestly have never understood why you didn’t finish college. You weren’t raised to be dependent on anyone, Lauren. Certainly not a man. I’ve been taking care of myself since I turned sixteen. I’ve—”
I found the pan I needed and slammed it onto the counter top. “Just because you programmed yourself to be the woman you wanted to become when you were twelve years old and first discovered that you had cheekbones doesn’t mean—”
She didn’t let me finish. “Oh, you think that isn’t exactly what you’ve done?” she asked.
I gasped. “That’s nothing like what I’ve done!”
She shrugged. “Keep your little delusions, Lauren, if it makes you feel noble. At least I have the consolation of knowing you aren’t trying to win back that jerk you married.” She stood. “That said, I hope you intend to do some grooming before Roger gets here. It wouldn’t hurt to have him feel sorry that he screwed up for a change.” She picked up her enormous purse. “Take a look at what’s in the shopping bag,” she said. “And don’t be stubborn about it.” She came over and kissed my forehead—easy since she was about five foot eleven, even without the mules, and I was five foot six—murmured disapprovingly over my hair for a few moments, then clicked her way back to the front door. “Good luck with Roger,” she yelled before the door slammed.
“That woman drives me nuts,” I muttered to the dough as I started to shape it into dinner rolls. Face it, we drove each other nuts.
I’d always suspected that my mother had “career girl” stamped on her birth certificate. It wasn’t that she didn’t like men—there had been no shortage of men over the years to take her to dinner, the theater, New York—she just didn’t want to be married to one. She certainly hadn’t wanted all the things that came with marriage in the fifties and early sixties. I was obviously an accident. She’d stayed married to my father just long enough to give birth to me. Gorgeous and irresponsible, Daddy had set out for the Florida Keys before I’d learned to talk, but I still heard from him every Christmas and on my birthday. And I still kept a picture of him, wearing swim trunks and a tan George Hamilton would envy, on my bedroom dresser.
I finished shaping the rolls, covered them with a gingham linen towel and went to the sink to wash my hands. I kept glancing over my shoulder at the shopping bag Bernice had left in the breakfast nook. Curiosity finally got the better of me and I wiped my hands on a towel and went to investigate.
Another little black dress. I drew it out of the bag and held it in front of me. Not bad. Maybe I’d wear it tonight. If it fit. I looked at the tag and was surprised to see that it was actually my size. Maybe Bernice had finally gotten it into her head that I was never going to be a size eight. I grinned. If that was the case, then anything was possible.
