Beautiful Day (29 page)

Ann remembered Olivia giving her googly eyes. As in
What the hell is wrong with you?
But Ann was too drunk herself to pick up on it.

She remembered that Jim had come home whistling.

But at the time, Ann thought nothing of it. She was happy that Helen had felt close
enough to the group to reveal the truth. It meant the evening had been a success.
And the next day everyone called to thank Ann and tell her it was the best wine tasting
yet.

Cabernets at the Fairlees’.

Finally, it was Helen’s turn to host. She had moved out of the house that she had
shared with Nathaniel and into one of the brand-new lofts built at Brightleaf Square.
She invited everyone over for a port tasting. She would serve only desserts, she said,
and cigars for the men.

Ann had been excited to go. She was dying to see what those lofts looked like, and
she wanted to support Helen in her new life. It must have been difficult to stay in
the wine-tasting group as the only single person among couples. But then Ryan got
the chicken pox. On the Saturday of the port tasting, he had a temperature of 103
degrees and was covered in red spots. Jim had offered to stay home and let Ann go.
But Ann wouldn’t hear of it. She didn’t really like port anyway, and Helen had made
a big deal about the Cuban cigars she had gotten from a friend of hers living in Stockholm.
Jim should go. Furthermore, Ryan was a
mama’s boy, a trait that became even more pronounced when he was sick. Ann couldn’t
imagine Jim staying home to deal with him.

“You go,” Ann said.

“You’re sure?” Jim said. “We could both stay home.”

“No, no,
no!
” Ann said. “That would make it seem like we’re rejecting Helen.”

“It will
not
seem like we’re rejecting Helen,” Jim said. “It will seem like our child has the
chicken pox.”

“You go,” Ann said. “I insist.”

At the groomsmen’s house, breakfast was devoured, and everyone complimented Ann’s
efforts in the kitchen—especially Autumn, who seemed surprisingly at ease with Ann,
considering that Autumn was wearing no pants and had spent the night with Ann’s son
after knowing him all of six hours. Ann cleared the dishes and began washing them
at the sink, until Ryan and Jethro nudged her out of the way and told her to go relax.

Relax?
she thought.

She headed upstairs to find Stuart.

Ann often wondered: If Jim had stayed home to take care of Ryan with the chicken pox
and Ann had gone to the port tasting at Helen’s new apartment, would any of this have
happened?

As it was, Jim went to Helen’s party and returned home at 3:20 in the morning. Ann
had fallen asleep a little after ten after giving Ryan a baking soda bath, but she
opened one eye to Jim, and the clock, when he climbed into bed. He smelled unfamiliar—like
cigar smoke, and something else.

In the morning, Ann asked, “How was the party?”

Jim nodded. “Yep. It was good.”

In the afternoon, Olivia called. She said, “Helen Oppenheimer is trouble. She was
all over
every man at that party.” She paused. “What time did Jim get home?”

“Oh,” Ann said. “Not late.”

The affair had started that night, or at least that was what Jim confessed later.
Ann had her suspicions that something had actually happened when Jim drove Helen home
after the champagne party. But Ann had continued on, blissfully unaware, throughout
the spring, into the summer.

It was in July that Shell Phillips had called with the idea of hot air ballooning.
It could be done near Asheville, in the western part of the state, a four-hour drive
away. They would lift off at five in the evening and land just before sunset in a
meadow where there would be a gourmet picnic dinner with wines to match. There was
a bed-and-breakfast nearby where couples could spend the night.

“Perfect for our group,” Shell said.

Ann had been thrilled by the prospect of ballooning, and she accepted right away.
She wasn’t sure how Jim would react. He had been moody around the house, sometimes
snapping at Ann and the kids. He bought a ten-speed bicycle and started going on long
rides on the weekends; sometimes he was gone for three hours. Ann thought the bike
riding was probably a good thing. She said to Olivia, “He must have seen
Breaking Away
one night on TV. He’s
obsessed
with the biking.”

Ann started calling him “Cutter.”

She worried that Jim might not want to go on an all-day ballooning adventure with
the wine-tasting group. But when she asked him, he said yes right away. It was almost
as if he already knew about it, Ann thought.

It had been so many years earlier that certain details were now lost. What did Ann
remember about the hot air ballooning trip? She remembered that Jim had been quiet
in the car on the way to Asheville. Normally on a ride that long, he popped in a cassette
of Waylon Jennings or the Marshall Tucker Band, and he and Ann sang along, happily
out of key. But on that ride, Jim had been silent. Ann asked him what the matter was,
and he said tersely, “Nothing is the matter.”

Jim liked to stop on the highway at Bob’s Big Boy for lunch. He positively
adored
Bob’s Big Boy; he always ordered the catfish sandwich and the strawberry pie. But
this time, when Ann suggested stopping, he said, “Not hungry.”

Ann said, “Well, what if
I’m
hungry?”

Jim shook his head and kept on driving.

Ann remembered gathering with the group in the expansive green field; she remembered
her heightened sense of anticipation. Along with Ann, Helen Oppenheimer seemed the
most excited. She had been positively
glowing.

Ann remembered the gas fire, the heat, the billowing balloon, the stomach-twisting
elation of lifting up off the ground. She recalled the incredible beauty of the patchwork
fields below them. The farmland, the woods, the creeks, streams, and ponds below them.
She filled with pride. North Carolina was the most picturesque state in the nation—and
she represented it.

The basket was eight feet square. Their group was packed in snugly. Ann, at one point,
found herself hip to hip with Steve Fairlee and Robert Lewis as they leaned over the
edge and waved to children playing a game of Wiffle ball below. It was only bad luck
that caused Ann to turn around to see how Jim was faring. She happened to catch the
smallest of gestures—Jim grabbing Helen’s
hand and giving it a surreptitious squeeze. Ann blinked. She thought,
What?
She hoped she’d imagined it, but she knew that she hadn’t. She hoped it was innocent,
but she knew Jim Graham. Jim wasn’t a hand grabber—or he hadn’t been—with anyone except
for Ann. He used to grab Ann’s hand all the time: when they were dating, when they
were engaged, the first few years of marriage. It was his gesture of affection; it
was his love thing.

And at that moment, it all crashed down on Ann. The champagne party, the port party,
Jim coming home at three in the morning, the absurdly long bike rides. He rode to
Helen’s loft, Ann knew it, and they fucked away the afternoon.

Ann came very close to jumping out of the basket. She would die colliding with North
Carolina; her body would leave an Ann-sized-and-shaped divot, like in a Wile E. Coyote
cartoon.

Instead she turned. The fire was hot enough to scorch her. She called out, “Hey, Cutter!”

Jim and Helen both looked over at her.
Guilty,
she thought. They were guilty.

Once back on the ground, Ann drank the exceptional wine Shell had selected, but ate
nothing. She tried to keep up with the conversation swirling around her, but she kept
drifting away. Jim—and Helen Oppenheimer. Of course, it was so obvious. Ann had been
so
stupid.

She shanghaied Olivia, pulling her away from the picnic blankets to the edge of the
woods. She said, “I think my husband is having an affair with Helen.”

Olivia gave her a look of sympathy. Olivia knew. Possibly everyone knew.

After the picnic was eaten and every bottle of wine consumed, they all piled into
a van that drove them back to where their cars
were parked. When they arrived, it was ten o’clock. The other couples were all making
the short drive to the bed-and-breakfast for the night. Ann and Jim had booked a room
at the B&B as well, but there was no way Ann was going to spend the night under the
same roof as Helen Oppenheimer. She was certain Jim and Helen had made plans to meet
in Helen’s room in the middle of the night to fuck.

When Jim and Ann got into the car, Ann said, “Jim.” His name sounded unfamiliar on
her tongue; she had been calling him “Cutter” for weeks.

“Yes, darling?” Jim said. The wine had significantly lightened his mood, or seeing
Helen had. Ann wanted to slap him.

Ann said, “You’re sleeping with Helen Oppenheimer.”

Jim froze with his hand on the key in the ignition. The other couples were pulling
away. Helen, in the lipstick-red Miata she had bought herself upon leaving Nathaniel,
was pulling away.

Jim said, “Annie…”

“Confirm or deny,” Ann said. “And tell me the truth, please.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Are you in love with her?” Ann asked.

“Yes,” he said. “I think I am.”

Ann nearly swallowed her tongue. Her head swam with wine and the fumes from the balloon.

“Drive home,” Ann said.

“Annie…”

“Home!” Ann said.

“She’s pregnant,” Jim said. “She’s pregnant with my child.”

Ann had started to weep, although the news didn’t come as a surprise. Ann had known
just from looking at Helen that she was pregnant. The glow.

Jim drove the four hours home; they arrived in Durham at two
in the morning. Ann took the babysitter home, and by the time she returned, Jim had
a bag packed. The very next day he moved into Brightleaf Square with Helen, and when
Chance was born, he bought a house in Cary. Ann was certain he did this so that he
and Helen would no longer be Ann’s constituents.

It had not been Ann’s intention to relive all of this on the weekend of her son’s
wedding. But since she’d made the ill-advised decision to invite Helen, it now seemed
inevitable that this would be exactly what she was thinking about.

Ann knocked on the last door on the left, which was the room where Stuart was staying.
“Sweetie?” she said. “It’s Mom.”

No response. She pressed her ear against the door, then tried the knob. It was unlocked,
but she couldn’t bring herself to open the door. One of the things she had learned
when the boys were teenagers was that she should never enter their rooms uninvited.

“Stuart, honey?” she said. “I made breakfast. There’s still some left, but you’d better
hurry or H.W. will finish it.”

No response.

“Stuart?” Ann said.

The door opened, and there stood Stuart in wrinkled madras shorts and a white undershirt.
His hair was sticking up; his eyes were puffy. It had been years since Ann had seen
Stuart look anything but pressed and professional. Right now, he seemed far younger
than he was. Ann was again reminded of visiting Stuart at the Sig Ep house at Vanderbilt.

“Darling,” she said. “Are you okay?”

He shrugged. “Jenna’s upset.”

Ann nodded. “I heard something about that.”

“She found out about Crissy,” he said.

“What
about
Crissy?” Ann said. Had Stuart
seen
She Who Shall Not Be Named? Had he suffered a Crissy relapse? Oh, God. Ann had prayed
nightly that infidelity wasn’t a behavior Jim had passed on to the boys. “What
about
Crissy, Stuart?”

“Just that we were… you know… engaged…” He swallowed. “And, um, that she has Grand-mère’s
ring.”

“Oh, dear,” Ann said. “You never told her that?”

Stuart shook his head. “I didn’t see the point. I can’t stand talking about it.”

Well, yes, Ann thought; the entire family shared this sentiment.

“So she knew nothing about it?” Ann said. “Nothing at all?”

“She knew Crissy was my girlfriend. She didn’t know about the engaged part. Or the
ring part.”

As a state senator, Ann had had plenty of lessons in damage control. She tried to
assess how bad this was. Why oh why hadn’t Stuart just told Jenna about Crissy on
their first few dates, during the information-gathering period? The engagement had
been brief, a matter of weeks. Ill conceived from the start! Ann had never uttered
an “I told you so,” but she had been very reluctant to hand over her grandmother’s
ring, even though she had always planned on giving it to the first son ready to propose.
She hadn’t thought Crissy Pine worthy of the ring; Ann had been certain the marriage
wouldn’t last. Crissy was a complainer (she sent back food in restaurants, she criticized
Stuart’s taste in clothing, and she mimicked his accent), and she was a spendthrift
(she had a weakness for anything French—champagne, soap, perfume, antiques). Ann vividly
remembered the day that Stuart broke off the engagement. He came home smiling for
the first time in months, and the eczema that had been plaguing him for just as long
stopped itching, he said, the instant Crissy drove away. The
only problem was the ring. Stuart felt too guilty for breaking off the engagement
to ask for it back.

Ann had said,
Well, it’s a family heirloom, a two-and-a-half-carat diamond in a platinum Tiffany
setting. It’s valuable, Stuart. We sure as hell better get it back.

But the ring had never been returned. Jim had made a gentleman’s phone call to Thaddeus
Pine, Crissy’s father. Thaddeus had listened considerately and then called Stuart
an “Indian giver.” Next, Ann and Jim had contacted an attorney. They had spent nearly
a third of the ring’s value trying to force Crissy to return the ring, but their legal
recourse was limited, and Ann’s high-profile career made her hesitant to pursue the
lawsuit.

Now, Ann shuddered every time she thought of Crissy Pine. Who would want to keep a
diamond ring after the engagement had been broken? No one! For a while, Ann checked
on eBay, hoping the ring would turn up, but it never did, leaving Ann with the disturbing
vision of her grandmother’s ring on Crissy’s finger.