“Good.” Sternman stopped to do his business, and Val whipped out a plastic bag from her pocket. “Those girls of yours, that husband, you’re about as lucky as anyone ever gets, you know.”
“I know,” said Eliza. “I am, I know. But I’ve done a shitty job of showing it, this summer.” She watched Val tie up the bag. Val made a groaning noise when she stood up, and that reminded Eliza that Val, along with everyone else, was aging. If Joanie were still alive she’d be nearly sixty, just like Val.
When Val had finished working with the bag she said to Eliza, “No, honey. Of course not. With what you’ve been dealing with, with Charlie—you’ve done the best you could, as good as anyone would have. Better than most.”
Eliza shook her head, intent, like a child, on proving herself right. Then she said, “Val? You know that letter you gave me from my mom when I was sixteen?”
“Yuh.” Val had a strange look on her face, something indecipherable.
“I wish I had the rest of the lessons, all of them. I need all ten.”
“Oh, Eliza, you don’t need any more lessons. Look at you. You’ve figured everything else out on your own.”
“I haven’t,” said Eliza. “I haven’t at all. I’ve been gone, I’ve missed so much, I’ve said terrible things to Rob—” She paused. It was more than the things she’d said, really. Things said in a fight could be forgiven. She went on, trying to get at the root of it. “It’s not just that. I’ve been doing this weird thing where I’m sort of, I don’t know, keeping myself apart from him. Like I’ve not completely bought into our life together, like I’m letting myself be an outsider.” She didn’t mention Phineas Tarbox, but he was there, with his minty breath, his smooth brow.
Val made an odd noise, like a goat coughing. “But.”
“What?”
“Nothing. I didn’t say anything.” Val bent to fiddle with Sternman’s collar, which didn’t appear to need any kind of adjusting.
“Yes you did. You said, But.”
A long moment passed and stretched between them and then Val stood up again and considered Eliza.
“There aren’t any more lessons,” said Val. “But there’s more to the letter.”
That was weird: Eliza’s ears were playing some kind of trick on her.
“For a second,” said Eliza, “I thought you said there was more to the letter.”
“That’s what I said.” Val looked straight ahead, her gaze almost presidential in its dignity, its seriousness of purpose. “There’s more to the letter.”
41
BARTON, MASSACHUSETTS
Deirdre
Mrs. Palmer said she would buy the flowers herself.
Not really, of course. But during her penultimate meeting with Bree Dawson, the event manager at the club, Deirdre couldn’t help but channel a little Virginia Woolf; Mrs. Dalloway had been one of her favorite books in Modern British Lit at Penn.
“Almost there!” said Bree. She was young, in her late twenties probably, and head-to-toe gorgeous, with a tousled, short, choppy haircut that only those women blessed with perfect cheekbones can pull off. Deirdre tried to listen to her instead of looking at the hair; she tried to tamp down her envy and think instead about the EANY children, who sometimes had no hair at all. “You must be so excited,” Bree added. There was less than a month to go until the gala, and all of the pieces were sliding into place.
“I am excited,” Deirdre told Bree. “I am.”
In reality Deirdre would not buy the flowers herself. (What was she, crazy? She couldn’t buy all of those flowers herself, how on earth would she transport them, keep them fresh?) No. The flowers would be brought up from Lotus Designs, in Boston, and the sometimes overzealous decorating committee would use them to put together the centerpieces, and also a few larger arrangements that would be placed strategically around the ballroom. Deirdre would have to remind them to exercise restraint and caution; she wanted the centerpieces to be tasteful, not to scream excessiveness and waste—excessiveness and waste, of course, represented the opposite of the EANY mission.
Come to think of it, she should probably oversee the putting together of the centerpieces her very own self. She made a note.
“Okay,” said Bree, glancing down at her clipboard. “Let’s go over everything.” They sat at a cocktail table near the bar and covered the menu: the passed appetizers, the cold-appetizer station, the sit-down dinner, the specialty cocktail, the liquors, the wine and beer. They walked through the foyer between the grand ballroom and the outside deck where the long tables holding the auction items would be set up. Deirdre produced her list of auction items, and they went through them one by one. They went over the seating arrangements.
She felt her phone vibrate. Kristi had taken Sofia into Boston for the day; they were going to go on the Swan Boats and get ice cream and maybe do a little shopping on Newbury Street. It was the kind of outing Deirdre would have liked to have with her own daughter, but Judith had told her that the last few weeks before the gala were when the proverbial blank could hit the fan, and that she should stay local. (She’d said it like that, blank.) “Stay on your toes!” Judith had said. “I’m here if you need me.” Deirdre didn’t know what she’d do without Judith. She wished it were possible to adopt someone else’s mother-in-law as your own. She wondered if Eliza might lend Judith out on a semipermanent basis.
“Excuse me,” she said now to Bree, who was running one hand through her gorgeous hair and making a note on her clipboard with the other. Deirdre dug in her bag for her phone. Sheila Rackley. WANT TO HAVE LUNCH AT THE CLUB?
She rolled her eyes, hesitated, and texted back, ALREADY HERE. I’LL GET A TABLE.
When she and Bree had completed their business, Deirdre asked for a table on the outside patio. The day was stunning, not a trace of humidity, and the sun was shining as though it were getting paid by the hour to do so.
While she waited for Sheila to arrive she checked her phone again, to see if Kristi had texted any photos of her and Sofia on Newbury Street. Kristi hadn’t, so Deirdre checked Sofia’s Instagram account. Nothing. Then Sofia’s fake Instagram account. Still nothing. Well, she’d just have to use her good old-fashioned imagination.
When Sheila arrived she ordered a burger, rare, no bun, and Deirdre ordered a Cobb salad. Then Sheila ordered a bottle of Piper-Heidsieck. Champagne. Good champagne!
“I thought you weren’t drinking,” said Deirdre. She hoped that this lunch was going on Sheila’s club tab and not hers.
“I’m making an exception,” said Sheila.
“For what occasion?”
“For the occasion of a beautiful summer day and lunch with my friend.”
That sounded suspicious. There was something else at play here, Deirdre just didn’t know what it was.
After the champagne arrived and the fresh young server had opened it and poured it into two flutes and they’d each had a quarter glass Sheila leaned forward and said, “So. Public service announcement. I’d check in on Sofia if I were you.”
“Why?”