Family Pictures (16 page)

“I really am. I guess I haven’t been dealing well with all the changes coming up. I’ve found the whole transition thing kind of stressful. This is the first time I’ve felt … normal.”

“You’re not sick or anything?” asks Grace tentatively.

“No! Why would you ask that?”

“Just that you’re really thin. I didn’t want to ask, but—”

“It’s okay. I guess when I’m stressed I don’t eat.”

“Lucky you. When I’m stressed, I dive straight into piles of chocolate,” she laughs.

“And my stomach just closes up,” Eve lies. “I’m getting kind of tired. Would you mind if I went to bed?”

“I’m tired too. Let’s go up now. Landon’s sleeping over so the boys well sleep in the basement.”

*   *   *

Eve is first to wake up, despite the jet lag. She reaches for her phone, sends a text to her mom saying she’s having a great time, then grabs a magazine from Grace’s shelves, planning on staying there quietly until Grace wakes up.

It’s hard to concentrate, knowing that Grace’s brother is downstairs, that she’s going to be seeing him again very soon, and she puts the magazine down, staring at Grace, willing her to wake up so she can spend more time with Chris.

Nothing happens. Eve coughs, then gets up and goes to the ensuite bathroom, ensuring she makes enough noise that Grace couldn’t possibly stay asleep.

Sure enough, when she walks back into the room, Grace is stretching, letting out a big yawn. “Hey,” she murmurs, smiling at Eve. “Have you been awake long?”

“Hey, you. Not long, but I didn’t want to go downstairs until you were awake.”

“Good!” Grace says. “My mom has some big fund-raiser thing today and we’re supposed to stay out of the way. We should get Chris to take us to the diner. They have chocolate chip pancakes to die for. Let’s go and see if the boys are up.”

“Should I change?” Eve says uncertainly, gesturing to her plaid pajama pants and vest.

“I’m not,” Grace says. “This is pretty much the uniform out here. Wear my flip-flops and we’re good to go. We’ll sneak out the front door so Mom doesn’t see us.”

Chris is awake, watching sports, as Grace informs him of the plan, and the three of them tiptoe up the stairs, Eve and Chris locking eyes again, relief washing over her that this wasn’t something she imagined: he is as hot as she thought, and it does seem like he may be interested in her.

The three of them move quietly through the formal part of the house, Eve pausing only as she passes a table piled with photographs of the family. There’s Chris, looking impossibly handsome, tallest in the family group, a huge smile on his face.

She hesitates, leaning forward to see better, wishing she could slip the photograph into her bag, before incomprehension, confusion, then shock cross her face.

And with a gasp of horror, Eve’s legs give way, sending her plummeting down to the marble floor.

Part Two

21

Maggie

The ball arcs high in the air, my left arm points high, triumphantly, toward the sky as satisfaction sets in. I’ve got it. This is the shot that will win us game, set, and match. In slow motion, enjoying every second, my arm sweeps back and at the perfect moment slices forward into the thump of contact with the ball as I smash it over the net at the speed of light.

Kim doesn’t stand a chance. Venus Williams wouldn’t stand a damn chance. It might well be the greatest shot of my life, and Lara and I grab each other to do a small victory dance as Kim pretends she’s totally fine with me, her archnemesis, finally beating her.

“Great game.” Kim forces a twisted smile as she shakes hands over the net. “My ankle still isn’t right.” She frowns while explaining why she didn’t crush us. “I’m going back to the bone guy this week. It’s really painful. I could hardly run.”

“Really?” Lara’s voice is pure innocence. “You seemed to be all over the court.”

*   *   *

“Are you showering here?” Lara asks as we put our racquets away and pack our stuff.

“Can’t. I have the tea at two
P.M.
at my house, and there’s a ton of stuff I need to do. You’re coming, right?”

“Of course. And I don’t believe for a second you’ve got a ton of stuff to do. You’re the most organized person I know.”

“It’s all an act,” I say, although I welcome the compliment. “I still have to make the sandwiches and I can’t do those until right before or they’ll be soggy.”

“You’re not using the caterers?” Lara seems surprised.

“For a tea? Even I can manage a couple of cakes and some sandwiches,” I laugh, dismayed that Lara—that anyone—might question my ability to bake something wonderful.

“Do you need some help?”

I pause for a second. The truth is I
could
do with some help. I could
always do
with help, but whenever I let people help me, they screw it up somehow. They’ll arrange the flowers horribly; set the tables badly; put the chairs out in the wrong positions. I try to delegate because I know it makes people happy to help, but then I end up resenting everyone for not doing as good a job as I would.

Honestly, it just seems to be easier to do the whole thing myself.

“I have a couple of waitstaff coming, so they can do everything,” I lie, knowing I’ll be frantically running around, placing chairs and tables myself, because I’ve never trusted the waitstaff either. “I’ll see you later!” I blow her a kiss good-bye and practically skip over to the parking lot, floating on air at finally putting Kim in her place.

*   *   *

A quick look at the phone—texts from family, nothing important, nothing that can’t wait while I think about all I have to do before 2
P.M.
this afternoon. A deep breath. I can do this. I always do this. I’m
known
for doing this: pulling off a beautiful event at the last minute.

I check my hair in the mirror and tuck the frizzy bits of hair back under the baseball hat before sliding on the ubiquitous large tortoiseshell sunglasses to hide my lack of makeup.

I really shouldn’t have agreed to play tennis this morning. It’s two hours I really need, but how could I turn down the invitation to play Kim after she thrashed me last time? Particularly after I’ve spent a fortune taking secret lessons in Norwalk three times a week since then.

I swing in to an open spot just outside the flower store on Main Street—thank you, God!—and run in to pick up more flowers. Louise is on the phone, but she knows me well enough to know I know exactly what I’m doing, and I walk quickly through the store, scooping up armfuls of tulips, hyacinths, lilacs, and some gorgeous, lush peonies.

“Anything else?” Louise puts the phone down and wraps the flowers, calling out to Juan in the back to help me into the car. “You must be having a party!”

“You know me,” I laugh. “There’s always something!”

“I don’t know how you do it!” She finishes wrapping as Juan lifts the flowers, and she takes the card from my proferred fingers. “All those kids and all that wonderful charity work. Do you ever rest?”

“You know what they say.” I smile. “No rest for the wicked!”

She doesn’t hear, frowning as she looks at the card, then tries sliding it again.

“Is everything okay?”

“I’m sorry Mrs. Hathaway,” she apologizes, as if she is embarrassed on my behalf. “Your card is being declined.”

I know there is absolutely no reason for my card to be declined, yet I feel instant shame. This is not the first time this has happened recently; I know it is a snafu with the bank—Mark explained it as the transferring of funds into a new account with a lower interest rate—but that does not stop my humiliation.

I pull another card out from my purse, attempting to explain.

“My husband was supposed to sort it out.” We both roll our eyes at the hopelessness of men.

The other card is fine. I don’t realize I’ve been holding my breath until she hands the card back as the receipt prints out, and I make a mental note to phone the damn bank myself.

You’d think, with the amount of business we do with them, they’d make sure we didn’t have to have these embarrassments. We smile at each other with relief as she wishes me luck with the event, and finally I’m on my way home.

*   *   *

It doesn’t matter how many times I drive up this driveway, how many years we have lived here, I still pause at the curve, still find myself unconsciously sighing with pleasure at the beauty of this house.

Sometimes I stop, right here, and turn the engine off, feasting on the elegant symmetry, the French planters nestled in between the windows, the huge copper beech that dwarfs the house. I take in the old wooden swing that has borne the weight of all three children over many years, hanging disconsolately from one of the majestic branches.

This is the kind of house around which fairy tales are written. It is the kind of house I grew up dreaming about. After school, while both my parents were at work, I would watch hours of television, with me praying that one of the movies I loved would come on:
The Great Gatsby
or maybe
High Society.

At night, I lay in bed dreaming I was Grace Kelly, designing my wardrobe, imagining my handsome prince, visualizing every room of my elegant home.

In the morning, my father would come roaring through the house in his undershirt, and the dreams of the night before would go out the window. Those were only dreams. How would a girl like me ever have a hope of having a life like that?

As I grew older, I started to realize it was possible. It was unlikely, certainly, but there was nothing I loved more than a challenge, and I was already obsessed with grand lifestyles, the upper classes. I knew everything there was to know about manners, how to behave.

I watched all the movies, read every memoir I could lay my hands on. I could reel off the histories of the Rockefellers, the Du Ponts, the Cabots, as if they were cousins.

Do you think I cared that my parents mocked me mercilessly when I practiced my accent in the mirror, emulating Katharine Hepburn, the way she moved, the way she spoke? I learned to catch myself every time my Astoria accent slipped through, until there wasn’t a trace.

If I changed my accent, my bearing, the things I couldn’t change were less important. I was lucky in inheriting my slim, wiry body from my father, but my fair, freckled skin and red curly hair were my mother’s family through and through. As my grandmother used to say, I wore the map of Ireland on my face.

Granted, no amount of facial scrubs would give me the porcelain skin of Grace Kelly, but red curly hair? Long before Nicole Kidman morphed her fiery curls into a sleek blond mane, I’d already thought of highlights and a flat iron for the same effect.

I’d sit at my parents’ table, as groomed and chic as Grace Kelly, my sleek blond hair tucked in a chignon, a faux Hermès scarf around my neck, attempting to close my ears as my parents screamed across the table at each other.

Is it wrong, I’d wonder—hoping my silence would render me invisible, protect me from their abuse—to want more than
this
?

Is it possible to reinvent yourself and have the life you’re sure you deserve?

This house remains the strongest evidence that it is. My husband, so charming, handsome, successful, is evidence that it is. This gilded, charmed life on Connecticut’s Gold Coast is evidence that it is.

I am grateful. I will never let my facade slip among the women I have come to call my friends. I am not stupid. I am fully aware of the undercurrent of competitiveness among these women. I’ll never let them know where I came from, who I really am, because all that matters is where I am today, who I’ve turned myself into, the life I’ve created for myself.

Each time I pull around this corner and glimpse our stone house, the climbing hydrangeas now leafing as they climb up the trellised wall, I take a moment to appreciate how far I have come.

*   *   *

Usually I leave the car in the driveway. Not today. Today I pull into the garage to ensure the house will be picture-perfect for the first guest, no cars to clutter up this example of the quintessential New Salem house.

*   *   *

The pool is open. A little early, but so pretty to see the water rather than the godawful winter cover, and the planters by the pool have been replanted with huge hydrangeas, already lush and green.

I shake my head with a sigh as I glimpse a flash of orange netting in the middle of the lawn. Despite my rules, despite how many times I tell those boys to clean up after themselves and put their sports equipment away, there are lacrosse sticks and balls all over the yard. I gather them up, put them away, then take the flowers out of the car and put them in the sink in the pool house.

The tea is being held in the pool house. Willow baskets sit on the rental tables, waiting for the flowers; trestle tables are waiting for the crisp folded linen tablecloths to cover them; printed-out minutes for the meeting with cute drawings I found are rolled up in tiny spring baskets, each containing a small sample of a new lilac-scented room spray, donated by a local designer to use as a favor.

I open the French doors, arrange the flowers, and spray some of the lilac spray, which instantly freshens everything up and makes it smell like spring. Damn waitstaff. I should have ordered them far earlier, but there’s nothing I can do now. I check my watch, take a deep breath, and leave the pool house to them—there’s more important stuff to be done at the main house, and if I don’t get started now, it’s all over.

22

Maggie

Thank heavens I made piecrusts yesterday. After pulling the covered tart pan out of the fridge, I open a can of pear halves—and yes, I know it sounds so terribly déclassé, but even Jacques Pépin advises canned pears—slice them thinly, and set them aside. Then I set out eggs, almonds, flour, vanilla, and sugar, mix all of it together, and pour the batter into the crust.

An hour later, a perfect pear and almond tart sits on a crystal cake plate. Alongside sits a plate of buttermilk scones, still hot from the oven, with strawberry jelly in a bowl in the middle. Rows of tiny triangular sandwiches line up on platters: cucumber, smoked salmon, cream cheese and watercress. And finally, the one thing I didn’t make, although I will pretend I did: a plate of delicate pastel–colored petits fours.