“You are the silliest person, Charlotte. We can’t take that to lunch with us. But you’re a dear.” She touched my arm to bring me closer and, lifting herself to her full height, bussed my cheek. Taking the lamb, she gave it back to the saleswoman. “Wrap it up and have it put in my car with her other things.”
She took my hand and led me from the shop.
I was tired and feeling as though I might cry at any moment. “Maybe we should just go home.” Without the lamb, my arms felt strangely empty.
“You’re joking!” Now she took my arm instead of just my hand. “I’m starving to death, and we’re not leaving here until we get something decent to eat.”
We ate down the hill at the hotel’s Racquet Club café rather than in the massive formal dining room. The café was friendlier and more relaxed, with waitresses in white dresses and aprons instead of men in formal livery as in the dining room.
My head had begun to hurt a little and the sun streamed bright around our table, which was right beside a pair of open French doors. There were several sets of women’s doubles going on the nearby tennis courts, and a man and woman playing alone on the most distant one.
Our waitress, a bubbly young woman whose dark ponytail looked as though it would burst from its bun at any moment, set down a glass of brandy and a separate club soda for Rachel, and an iced tea for me.
“Why did you just get iced tea?” she asked, after the waitress left the table. “Are you mad because I didn’t get all gooey over that dear lamb you bought? I only wanted a day away from all the baby talk. Jack won’t shut up about it.” She sighed. “You’d think he invented babies.”
“I’m not mad. I just haven’t understood why you’re not more excited. I loved being pregnant.”
“That’s fine for you. But listen to this: Jack doesn’t even want me—” she stopped, closing her eyes for a few seconds and taking a deep breath. “Jack doesn’t particularly want me having sex with the baby inside me. How stupid is that? He’s afraid it will know what’s going on, or something.”
I remember thinking how strange it was that Jack would have that concern, given that he was a doctor. Self-conscious about how many times Press and I had had sex with both of my pregnancies, I didn’t respond.
“I bet that doesn’t stop Press.” Rachel leaned forward, whispering. “He’s not afraid of anything, is he?”
“Rachel!”
She gave me a knowing smile. “Come on. You can tell me.”
When I wouldn’t tell her what she wanted to know, she launched into a litany of what clothes she would buy once she was back down to what she called a normal size. From there she complained about her mother’s obsession with the baby. I waited, but she never brought up the Heasters. It was as though they had never existed. Nonie had come close to calling Rachel outright selfish many times. I couldn’t, because she was one of the few people I loved and trusted.
I’d been unable to hold on to the small sense of happiness I’d had in the car, but Rachel’s chatter made it easy for me to just sit and be glad of the sunshine.
Finally the waitress brought our order, and I moved the subject away from babies and bodily functions.
“A while ago, I had this idea. It might sound a little crazy.”
“If you want me to stop you from doing something crazy, you’re talking to the wrong person. You know that.” Rachel took a large, unladylike bite of her club sandwich. Her brandy was gone, and I suspected she was a bit drunk.
“Well, I read this piece in Harper’s Bazaar about how people are transforming all those big old mansions in New York into more family-friendly houses. You know, modernizing them.”
“And you want to change Bliss House into apartments?”
“No. But one family turned a ballroom into a giant playroom. Children can ride bikes inside, or they can use pogo sticks or roller-skate. One ballroom was even big enough to have a bowling alley installed. And, of course, most of them don’t have any windows, so they don’t get broken. I wonder why that is.”
She shook her head. “I can’t see Press wanting to do that. He’s already redoing the theater, right? I’m not going to be stuck out with the bugs in my barn forever. He promised! And the idea of roller-skating and whatnot in a ballroom—particularly that creepy ballroom—is a little weird, Charlotte. You know Press got himself locked in there for hours once when he was a boy? He never told me what really happened, but it shook him up.”
Press had told me about being locked in the ballroom, but he’d made it sound like a joke. I didn’t think Rachel knew what she was talking about.
“Well, it really is partly my ballroom, too.”
“Maybe.” Rachel sounded doubtful. “What about Olivia? Since she’s come back, don’t you think she’ll be pissed off?” Now she had a look of mischief in her eyes.