The Beach House

Chapter Thirteen
Daff hasn’t been in Richard’s house before, and she can’t help but be curious. She follows him through to the kitchen, noticing the furniture he took from their shared house, and the new things he has bought—the rugs, the flat-screen plasma, the bookshelves.
It is neat and tidy, far tidier than Daff’s house. Richard spent their marriage berating Daff for her scattiness, and she is astonished at quite how ordered he is. There is not a paper out of place, nor a pile on any of the kitchen counters. But nor are there any of the things that, for Daff, make a house a home. The photographs, the invitations stuck to the fridge, the cookery books stacked haphazardly on the shelves. The little objects she has collected over the years, the shells, the interesting boxes.
I couldn’t live like this, she thinks, sitting down at the kitchen table—Pottery Barn, she recognizes it from the catalog—and looking around expectantly.
“Where is she?” Daff says. “I was so worried. I can’t believe she left the house and came to you. How did she even get here?”
“She walked,” Richard says seriously.
“She walked? But it’s miles.”
“She left at three in the morning.”
“What?” Daff sits up straight, shocked. “Three in the morning? At thirteen? Oh my God! Anything could have happened to her.”
“I know. That’s what I said.”
“I can’t believe it. That’s punishable. She’s going to have a curfew from now on.”
“I agree,” Richard says quietly, “but there’s a bigger problem.”
“What?” Daff is suddenly fearful.
“She doesn’t want to go home.”
“What do you mean, she doesn’t want to go home?”
“She’s got this thing about living with me, and she’s refusing to go home.”
“She can’t refuse to go home. I mean, she can, but she’s thirteen. She doesn’t get to do what she wants. She has to come home.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I know you and she are struggling, and although it won’t be permanent, I thought maybe the best thing right now might be to have her here for a while.”
“What do you mean, a while?”
“I don’t know, and I’m sure it’s just a phase, but she is adamant and I can’t see the harm in trying.”
“But I’m her mother,” Daff says frantically. “She has to be with me.”
“Daff, this isn’t a reflection on you,” Richard says gently. “My sister hated my mother when she was a teenager, and look at them now, they’re the best of friends and you’d never know the hell they went through all those years ago. Jess reminds me of my sister, and maybe this is just something girls sometimes go through. I think if the two of you had some space from one another, it might help.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Daff says quietly, and, hating herself for it, she is torn. There is part of her that is desperate to cling onto her daughter. There is nothing like the mother-daughter relationship. How can Richard tell Jess about boys, and makeup, and periods, and all the things she is going to have to deal with any second now? And there is another part of her that longs for peace and quiet, that longs to live in a house where she doesn’t feel like she’s walking on eggshells every minute of the day her daughter is home, waiting for the next eruption, crying quietly in her bedroom at the end of the day, wondering when she will ever get her daughter back.
“She loves you.” Richard’s expression softens when he sees Daff’s eyes fill with tears. “She’s just filled with hormones and she doesn’t know what to do with all her emotions.”
“I know.” Daff swallows. “I was the same. But, Richard, you work. How can you be there for her? Who will be home when she gets off the bus? How could you possibly take care of her?”
“I have Carrie too,” Richard says. He didn’t want to have this conversation, not yet, but she has to know.
“Carrie. Your girlfriend?”
“Yes. She just moved in with me. She’s a writer and she works at home. She’s here all the time.”
“She doesn’t mind taking on Jess?”
“They get on. Not always, and God knows it isn’t easy, but Carrie seems to know what she’s in for, and she’s supportive of anything that might make life easier for all of us.”
“Do I get to meet her?”
“I think you should. I thought maybe you and Carrie could have a coffee. It might be easier for the two of you to get to know one another without me there.”
“Okay,” Daff says. “You have to let me digest all of this, Richard. ” She sighs. “This is huge. I just don’t know.”
“I understand,” he says, standing up. But Daff looks suddenly so lost, he finds himself holding his arms out, and without thinking she steps into them and allows herself to be hugged.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers, shocked at how familiar she feels, realizing that although he has moved on with Carrie, he will never fully move on, and not just because they have a daughter together. And he is sorry. He may have found happiness, but the fallout from his infidelity is so much bigger—it is so painful to see Jess so unhappy, and Daff so lost—that he still sometimes wonders what the hell he was thinking.
“I know,” Daff says, tears falling down her cheeks. “Can I go and see Jess?”
Jess is sitting on her bed, cross-legged, listening to her iPod. She takes the earplugs out of her ears as soon as she sees Daff and, for once, looks contrite.
“Oh Jess.” Daff sinks down and takes her in her arms, and Jess allows herself to be rocked like a baby.
“I’m so sorry, Mom,” she says. “I didn’t think about the things that could happen. I just wanted to see Dad.”
“I know. But please don’t ever do that again.”
“Did Dad talk to you?”
“About living here?”
“Yes.”
“You want to?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to live with you,” Jess says, looking like the five-year-old she once was. “It’s just that I miss Dad so much. I want to live here for a bit.”
“I said I’d think about it,” Daff says, blinking back the tears as she looks around the room. “Hey, I love this room. Who painted that mural?” She points to a mural of Hairspray.
“Carrie did,” Jess says sheepishly. “She knows that’s my favorite movie so she painted the mural as a surprise.”
“Wow! She’s really good.”
“She helped me decorate the room too.” Jess points out the futon, the pillows, the bookshelves. “We went to Ikea to get the stuff and it was so cool. I didn’t want to tell you”—she looks awkwardly at her mom—“I mean, I didn’t know what to tell you. About Carrie and stuff.”
“It’s okay,” Daff says. “I’m happy that Dad has a girlfriend. Do you like her?”
Jess shrugs. “Sometimes. I mean, I like her when it’s just her and me, but I don’t see why she has to be Dad’s girlfriend. I don’t think he needs a girlfriend, but maybe they can just be friends after a while, and that would be much better.”
“I understand that,” Daff says. “It must be very hard to share your dad.”
“Yeah. Now that they’re living together she’s always around and there’s no special time for just him and me. That’s why I want to be here, to live here, I mean, because that way I’ll get tons more ordinary time with him.”
“You think so?”
“Oh yeah. He already said. So can I, Mom? Can I come and live here? I’ll still see you all the time, but can I be here? Did you think about it yet?”
“Not yet.” Daff smiles, rubbing her daughter’s back and thinking how lovely it is that they are even able to have a conversation. It has been months since Jess talked to her about anything without a sneer, and for her to reveal how she feels about Carrie is huge. Maybe this isn’t such a bad idea after all. Maybe they could try it out over the summer, see how it goes.
But then that leaves Daff. On her own. What on earth is Daff supposed to do all by herself?
The answer comes to her as she drives home. She is thinking about work, what she has listed, what she can do to market her properties, when she remembers the pictures she was looking at in that house. Nantucket.
Why not go to Nantucket? This is the first time in thirteen years she doesn’t have to think about someone else. She could have an adventure. Go somewhere new. Meet new people.
And making a mental note to Google Nantucket and find out about rentals, Daff finds herself smiling all the way home.
Michael walks in the apartment to the smell of melting butter and garlic. It smells wonderful, smells like he has made a mistake and walked into someone else’s apartment, or the restaurant on the corner.
“Hello?” He pokes his head tentatively into the kitchen, for he thought Jordana was leaving today, was going off to stay with friends, a hotel, something, and he’s not sure he can bear the guilt now that Jackson has chosen him as an unwilling confidant.
Jordana looks up from where she is sautéing onions and garlic, in the corner of the tiny kitchen, pleasure in her eyes.
“I thought I’d cook you dinner,” she says. “To say thank you for taking me in last night.”
“I didn’t think you’d be here,” he says. “I thought you were going to a hotel.”
“I am,” she says, her face falling at Michael’s lack of pleasure. She thought he’d be thrilled—what man, what self-respecting bachelor wouldn’t be thrilled to have a beautiful woman cook him dinner?
What Michael so clearly needs, above all else, is a woman to look after him. She hasn’t just shopped and cooked—and her cooking days in Great Neck were long gone—she has dusted the apartment. She needs Michael to realize how wonderful she is, how good his life could be with the two of them together, for she senses his distance, and this is the only way she knows to get him back, to make herself indispensable, to make his life better with her than without.
That and a spectacular blow job.
“I’m booked into the St. Regis,” she says, laying down her spoon and turning off the gas as she rubs her hand slowly on the front of his jeans, and Michael, despite himself, groans.
“Want me to stay or go?” She sinks slowly down to her knees and unzips him, knowing the effect she has on him, knowing she is all-powerful where this is concerned.
“Stay,” he gasps, and with a satisfied smile on her face she takes him in her mouth.
Michael lays down the knife and fork and sighs. He’s trying to eat the pasta. He knows it’s probably delicious—it smells delicious, looks delicious and if he were able to taste anything at all, it would undeniably taste just as good, but he can’t.
He has forced one mouthful down, but he can’t do this. Can’t play happy families when he knows, suddenly and without any shadow of a doubt, that he and Jordana are not meant to be together.
It is as if he has just awakened from a trance, the shock of Jackson’s pain, the shock of all their lives being turned upside down, enough to force him back to reality, a reality that Jordana has no part of.
“What’s the matter?” Jordana is happy. She has him where she wants him, has been besotted with him since the first kiss, and has only been able to leave Jackson, to blow up her life, because she has barely thought about Jackson since that very first day when her fantasies became a reality.
This is what she has been waiting for these weeks, but this is not the way it is supposed to happen.
In her fantasies Michael is as adoring as he has always been, only more so, his gratitude immeasurable for her having had the courage to leave her husband. He welcomes her with open arms and tears in his eyes, telling her how much he loves her, how they will start afresh.
She would even have children for Michael, and Jordana never wanted children in her life. But imagine little Michaels, the product of their love for one another! She has even thought about coming off the pill, because, let’s face it, she isn’t getting any younger.
And Jackson? Jackson would deal with it. He’d have to. And at some point he’d find someone else, and then perhaps they’d all be, if not friends, then at least on friendly terms. Jordana certainly bears him no animosity, she doesn’t want to hurt him in the slightest, but Michael is her soulmate. How can she miss an opportunity like this? How can she spend the rest of her life knowing she was with the wrong man? Jackson may take a while, but ultimately he would realize that Jordana was not his soulmate, would realize that she had done the right thing.
Her heart beats faster as she watches Michael struggle to chew. He does not look the way she thought he would look. He looks like a man carrying a weight on his shoulders. He looks like a man who is about to say something she knows she doesn’t want to hear, and she doesn’t want this to happen, wants to turn the clock back to a few weeks ago when everything was perfect. She feels a wave of nausea as Michael opens his mouth to speak.
“I can’t do this, Jordana,” he says softly.
“Can’t do what?” She is almost choking.
“I saw Jackson today.” Michael looks up and meets her eyes. “He’s in so much pain. I feel horrible. I don’t know that I can do this to him.”
“I know,” she croons, thinking that if it is only his concern at hurting Jackson, she can deal with that, knows her way around that. “Of course it will be painful in the beginning, but I swear that in time he’ll see how wrong we are for one another.”
“Maybe,” Michael says. “Maybe you and he are wrong for one another, but I still . . . I can’t . . .”
“Can’t what?”
“I can’t be with you,” he says eventually, his voice soft.
Jordana sighs. “Okay. Fine. We’ll take a break until things settle down. I understand you feel horrible about this, and maybe it’s a good thing, maybe it’s too risky to keep seeing one another, so I can wait.” She stretches across the table and takes his hand. “We’re worth waiting for,” she says earnestly.
There is a long pause and then Michael shakes his head. “Jordana, I think you’re amazing. I think you’re beautiful, and clever, and funny and talented . . .”
“Oh my God,” she groans, her eyes widening in disbelief. “I know there’s a but coming.”
“In another life you would be everything I would look for in a woman, but we come from such different worlds. It isn’t just that you’re married, and I work for you, and I like your husband. That’s bad enough, but there’s more. You’ve always talked about not meshing your world and mine, creating one that both of us can live in, but I don’t see it. I don’t see how we do that.”
“We can,” Jordana insists. “I’d love to live a simple life with you. I don’t need all this stuff. I’d give it all up for you.”
“But I don’t want you to,” Michael says. “You wouldn’t be true to yourself.”
“I’ve got many different sides.” Jordana’s desperation is becoming evident in her voice as she tries to reason with him, tries to refute all his arguments. “You just know one limited side, and you think that’s all there is but that’s not true.”
“I don’t think you’re limited, but . . .” He sighs. This is so difficult. In such a short time they have become so incredibly close, but he knows, finally he knows, there is no way they belong together, and this has to end now. How does he tell her without destroying her?
“Jackson loves you,” he says, trying to convince her. “And you may have your hard times but who doesn’t? You’ve been together for years, and I don’t think you should throw it away for me. I think the two of you belong together. I think you owe him a second chance. Maybe this was what was needed, a catalyst to bring the two of you closer.”
“You have to be f*cking joking!” Jordana’s voice is hard as she sits back in her chair and looks at him with disbelief. “I’ve blown up my life for you and now you’re telling me to go back to my husband because you don’t want me? I don’t f*cking believe this.”
“It’s not that I don’t want you.” Michael feels pathetic in the face of her anger. “It’s just that I don’t see us together, and I don’t want to be responsible for this.”
“You’re a f*cking coward,” she stands up and hisses. “You just loved screwing the boss until it became serious. I can’t believe I fell for this. I can’t believe I fell for you. Jesus Christ.” She runs her fingers through her hair as she looks around the apartment frantically. “I’ve been so f*cking stupid.”
“Please don’t leave like this.” Michael stands helplessly in the doorway as Jordana throws the last of her things back in her suitcase, refusing to look at him, refusing to say anything. “Can we talk about this?”
But she doesn’t say a word to him. Zips her bag shut as tightly as her lips, then shoves past him and slams the elevator button, turning her back as he shuts the door of the apartment gently, not sure how he feels. Upset. Sad. Relieved.
The phone rings at 3:02 a.m.
“It’s me.” Jordana’s voice is husky down the phone. She has been crying, the rage of a few hours ago having worked itself out of her system by the time she reached her hotel room.
“Yes?” Michael is cautious.
“I’m sorry,” she says, and this time she breaks into sobs. “I love you. I really do. More than I’ve ever loved anyone, and I know we belong together. I know we can make this work. Please don’t do this to me, Michael. Please give me a second chance, give us a second chance.”
“It’s late,” Michael says eventually. “It’s been an exhausting day. Why don’t we both go to sleep and talk again tomorrow morning? Everything will be clearer in daylight.”
“Okay,” she says. “And I do love you.”
Michael puts the phone down and goes over to his computer. He opens a blank document in Word and starts to type.
Jackson sits in his offIce and tears open the envelope after looking at the return address on the top left-hand corner. Why would Michael, his jeweler, be writing to him? He unfolds the piece of paper and starts to read, shaking his head in disbelief, then he lays his head in his hands.
“Oh Christ,” he says, raising his eyes to the ceiling, his voice loud. “Why me? What the f*ck am I supposed to do?” And with that he picks up the phone and calls Jordana.
“I know you don’t want to talk to me,” he says into her voice-mail. “But I want to talk to you. Come to the shop at three o’clock today.”
“What’s the matter?” Jordana knew from the tone of his voice that morning that something was wrong, and she is shaking as she walks into his offIce.
“Well, quite apart from the fact that my wife left me two days ago, this morning I received this.”
He slides the paper over the desk to Jordana, and as she sees Michael’s name at the bottom, she instantly feels sick.
“What is it?” she whispers, but she knows.
“Read it,” he says coldly, and she does, finishing it and looking up at Jackson in confusion.
“He’s left?”
“Can you believe it? Twenty f*cking years I’ve looked after him and now he’s gone. No notice. Nothing. What the f*ck am I supposed to do?”
And Jordana bursts into tears.