“What? Oh—no. I told you, this isn’t even connected to me.”
Marin didn’t miss the slightly wounded look on Rachel’s face. She wished she’d responded a little less sharply. “I have a lot going on here,” Marin said. “Work—that sort of thing.”
“Totally. I get it. I don’t know—I thought maybe you’d want to get away.”
Marin’s phone buzzed. Her mother texting to ask if she wanted red or white wine with dinner. She ignored it, turned off her phone, and shoved it into her bag. “I’m sorry—what were you saying?”
“Oh, just that I thought maybe you’d want to get away.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Look, I’m not a stalker or anything, but I really didn’t think you’d actually meet with me, and on my way to New York I Googled you again and, um, your…situation came up.”
Marin pressed her face into the palm of her hand. “The Page Six piece.”
The overwhelming reality of the mess of her life felt crushing. Suddenly, it was hard to breathe.
“Are you all right?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out—unloading all this on you. I guess it was selfish of me. I should hit the road.”
“How are you getting to Provincetown?”
“I’m renting a car. A six-hour straight shot to Amelia’s.”
“Amelia?”
“My grandmother.” She grinned.
Marin envisioned hours on the road, heading away from the city. Quiet. Anonymity. A cottage by the sea.
That’s when Marin noticed the packet of sugar in Rachel’s fingers, the way she’d made a row of tiny rips along the base, turning it into fringe. Marin looked at her own yellow wrapper, torn in the exact same pattern. She slid it across the table to Rachel, and their eyes met.
“Okay,” Marin said, practically a whisper. “I’ll go with you.”
Chapter Nine
Blythe juggled the heavy shopping bags from Whole Foods, marveling at the outrageous cost of the produce and kicking herself for not thinking ahead and bringing her own from the garden. She was so scattered lately. But with everything going on, who could blame her?
When she walked into Marin’s lobby, a doorman scurried out from behind the front desk to help her.
“Thanks—I’ve got it,” Blythe said. “If you could please just press the elevator button for me.”
Marin’s building on Eighty-Seventh between Park and Madison was a starkly modern space, opulent in its minimalism. Lots of chrome and white. Blythe would never feel at home walking through the wide revolving door into the cold and impersonal lobby. When Blythe was Marin’s age, she and Kip already had their two-story Colonial that Blythe fell in love with at first sight.
But there were other aspects of being the young Mrs. Kipton Bishop that she had not embraced with such enthusiasm. For instance, the family country club.
Blythe had been dating Kip for a month when he first brought her to Philadelphia Racquet and Hunt, where the Bishop family had belonged since the club’s founding in 1897. Kip was unabashed in his reverence for the place; Blythe, walking into the front hall, all dark wood filled with portraits of illustrious past members (all white men), was struck by an inexplicable but immediate sense of alienation. She should have taken to it; like ballet, it was a closed society with its own set of rigid rules and expectations. Except here, it was name and lineage and money that counted, not blood, sweat, and talent.
She hated golf. And she was young; she had no interest in passing the time playing cards upstairs in the ladies’ lounge. What else was there to do at the club? She wasn’t used to being idle, and how many hours could she lie sunbathing by the Olympic-size swimming pool? And so Kip spent his weekends at the club, and Blythe spent them at home—alone. His long hours at work during the week, she understood. The club, she resented. She felt trapped.
What a different life her daughter was living. She had her freedom, her independence, but where had that gotten her? In a span of one month she’d lost her fiancé and her job. And from what she was hearing, it didn’t sound like the new man in her life was being very stand-up about the debacle. After all, it was partly his fault.
Blythe had fought the urge to drive straight up to New York the day Marin called her with the news about her job. Kip had been the one to ultimately talk her out of it, reminding her that Marin was an adult and that whatever was happening was a result of her own choices. But after days of no response to her calls and texts, Blythe couldn’t take it any longer.
And from the moment she’d walked into the apartment, Blythe knew she’d waited too long. She could tell Marin had lost weight since she’d last seen her, just a week earlier. She looked tired and pale. And when Blythe hugged her, though Marin had never been much of a hugger, not even as a small child, she felt her daughter fold into her arms.
Blythe had to admit it felt good to be needed. She hated to see her daughter hurting, but at least she could do something about this. At least here she didn’t feel completely out of control—unlike everything with the divorce.
Kip had her served with papers. He was so businesslike! Her friends told her that enough was enough—she needed to get her own attorney, no matter how generous Kip claimed he would be. Reluctantly, she’d made an appointment for the following week to meet with Patricia Graf, Esquire. “The best,” she’d been told. A “shark in Chanel.”
Blythe shook the thought away. She would deal with that crisis next week. For now, Marin was the only thing that mattered. She would help her get some perspective on all this and rally. She would start by cooking her a nice meal.
“Marin?” she called after she’d let herself into the apartment. She dropped two bags on the floor and closed the door behind her.
No response. Blythe checked the bedroom. Nothing.
She must have gone out, finally back to the land of the living. Blythe just hoped she’d gotten her text about the wine and hadn’t run off to buy more.
Blythe smiled, satisfied. She knew coming here was the right thing to do!
She unpacked the groceries: boneless chicken breasts, Italian bread, olive oil, eggs, butter, lemons, a bunch of kale, kosher salt, anchovy fillets, Worcestershire sauce, garlic. Everything she’d need for Marin’s favorite chicken piccata and a new recipe she was trying out for a kale Caesar salad. She hoped Marin hadn’t returned the food processor she’d given her last Christmas; she’d need it for the dressing.
She heard the apartment door open.
“Hi, sweetheart,” Blythe called, closing yet another near-empty cabinet. “I’m just looking for your food processor.”
The door slammed shut, and Blythe looked up to find Marin was not alone. She had a friend with her, a beautiful young woman with tawny, sun-burnished skin and long wheat-colored hair. The young woman carried a large duffel bag.