Rainy Day Sisters (10 page)

Lucy

SHE'D FORGOTTEN ABOUT THAT
stupid pony party. As Juliet left the room to go make up some beds, Lucy sank into a chair at the kitchen table. And to think she'd been so full of optimism, so
determined
to reconcile with Juliet. What a joke. Juliet didn't want to reconcile. Not remotely. Her sister's anger had shocked her, because despite Juliet's obvious reluctance to have her here, she hadn't realized the emotion ran that deep.

She stared out the window, oblivious to the uncharacteristically bright sunshine, as she remembered that long-ago afternoon. The pony. The party. And, yes, the jodhpurs. What a miserable day it had been. Not, she knew, that Juliet would understand that. And maybe her sister had a point. She'd still had the party, something Juliet had never had. But it hadn't been for her. She'd never even liked ponies and had been too scared to ride one on that awful, endless day.

The pony party, like so many other things in her childhood, had been Fiona's way of showing the world she was both an incredible artist
and
a loving mother. She didn't consult Lucy about what kind of party she wanted; she didn't even talk to her for most of the day. She simply arranged the party and then became annoyed when Lucy had refused to have a ride. Afterwards, in her misery, Lucy had eaten too much cake and been sick. But at least she'd had a cake. And, to be fair to her mother, Fiona had tried to give her something nice, even if it wasn't what Lucy had wanted. Her mother had tried in a way that she obviously hadn't with Juliet.

It was hard for Lucy to separate Juliet's anger from her own hurt, but she knew she needed to. Needed to get to the bottom of what was—or, really, wasn't—between her and Juliet. Like Chloe had said, this could be an opportunity.

She just wasn't sure it was one she wanted.

She took a deep breath and then, for lack of anything more useful to do, wrung out the sponge and replaced it on its little dish by the sink. The kitchen was otherwise spotless, and so she went upstairs in search of her sister.

She found her in one of the four guest rooms, smoothing an already perfectly smooth duvet. Lucy stood in the doorway and watched as sunlight touched Juliet's hair, showing up the streaks of gray by her temples.

“Juliet.”

“Don't.” Juliet didn't even look up. “I'm sorry, all right? I shouldn't have said all that. I know it wasn't your fault you had a pony party, or the rest of it. I just don't want to talk about it now.”

Lucy hesitated, with no idea how to breach her sister's defenses. The easiest thing, the thing she actually
wanted
to do, was to quietly agree and tiptoe away. They could call a truce, tense as it would be, and learn to work around each other. She could have a perfectly satisfactory life here in Hartley-by-the-Sea without Juliet actually in it.

But that was the same as running away, and she'd told herself she wasn't going to do that anymore.

“I won't talk about the pony party,” she finally said. “Trust me, that's not something I care to remember.”

“Oh, why not? The pony wasn't pretty enough?”

“Juliet—”

“Look, I know I'm bitter, all right?” Juliet looked up, and Lucy saw the ravages of emotion on her sister's face. “I get it. It's a stupid pony party you had when you were six. I understand that to mention it twenty years later and act like I'm still angry about it is—pathetic.” Her face tightened briefly with that word, and she went back to making the bed.

Lucy watched her for a moment, at a loss. Finally, because she didn't have any better idea, she ventured, “I don't actually think you can get that duvet any smoother.”

Juliet let out a snort of laughter and shook her head. “Now that's just stating the obvious.”

“I'm sorry,” Lucy said, and realized she meant it, maybe even more than she'd meant any “sorry” she'd ever said. “I'm sorry I had a pony party.”

“I said not to talk about that,” Juliet answered, and Lucy couldn't tell whether she was joking.

“I know. But I'm sorry I never even realized . . .”

“Why would you? You went to America when you were six, right after that party, as I recall. I wouldn't expect you to be emotionally attuned to what had been going on in my life, Lucy.”

“But afterwards,” Lucy admitted, searching for words that would bridge this awful chasm between them. “I never even really thought . . .”

“Why would you?” Juliet repeated wearily. She sat on the bed, creasing the duvet. “I was never a part of your life.”

The words seemed to echo through the room, fall into the stillness. What could she say to that? All she could do was agree, or attempt some cringingly corny expression of how she wanted Juliet to be in her life now. And truthfully, considering how difficult every interaction with her sister was, she wasn't even sure she did.

“Anyway.” Juliet rose from the bed and started smoothing it all over again. Her hair had fallen out of its usual neat ponytail, obscuring her face. “I should get on. I've got two Scottish blokes coming to do the Coast-to-Coast walk tomorrow morning.”

It sounded like a dismissal, and Lucy decided to take it as one. She'd had enough angst-ridden interactions with her sister for one day.

No, she decided as she went back to her own room, she'd hold on to the successes of the day: her coffee with Alex and her walk through Hartley-by-the-Sea. The little boy sticking his tongue out and Dan Trenton's surly confidence in the post office shop. It was all progress.

She and Juliet seemed to have reached that tense truce Lucy had envisioned by the next morning, when Juliet busied herself in the kitchen, in preparation for the arrival of the next batch of walkers. Lucy thought about trying to make herself useful, but then she decided she could best help Juliet by staying out of her hair.

She ended up catching the train down to Ravenglass and wandering around a different, and slightly quainter, village; Ravenglass had, in addition to replicas of Hartley-by-the-Sea's pub and post office shop, an impressive set of Roman ruins and a miniature railway that traveled several miles through the fells to Eskdale, passing one of the county's lakes that Lucy had yet to see. It was sunny but chilly out, and Lucy spent a good part of the afternoon cradling a paper cup of coffee as she sat on a park bench by the miniature railway and watched all the families cram into the tiny seats, smiling and laughing, although, to be fair, some of the mothers looked a bit hassled, trying to keep their toddlers from climbing out of the train.

Still, it looked like fun.

She headed back to Hartley-by-the-Sea late in the afternoon on the Northern Rail train with all the families she'd seen in Ravenglass, their children now cranky and tired, as well as the parents. The train trundled along the coast and half a dozen families unloaded themselves along with Lucy at Hartley-by-the-Sea.

Home,
she thought with a funny little pang.
Sort of.

Eva and her mother, Andrea, were among the passengers who got off the train, and they caught up with Lucy as she stared towards Tarn House.

“Had a day away?” Andrea asked.

“Yes, down to Ravenglass. Trying to catch some of the sights.” Lucy smiled at Eva, who was dancing on her tiptoes as she clung to her mother's hand. “Where have you been?”

Andrea made a slight face. “Down to Barrow for a doctor's appointment.”

Eva did a little twirl. “I get to draw pictures and talk about my
feelings
.”

“An art therapist,” Andrea said. “We go on the weekends.” She drew a quick breath and added, her voice so low Lucy had to strain to hear her, “Her dad and I split up last year and it wasn't . . . friendly. It's been tough on her.” She gave Eva a quick, concerned glance, but the girl was oblivious.

“I'm sorry. Divorce is tough.” It had been hard on Thomas's two boys and Lucy's attempts at helping certainly hadn't worked.

“It's also a blessed relief,” Andrea said, and then let out a guilty laugh. “Sorry, I know how that sounds. But I'm glad Eva and I are shot of him. He wasn't a nice man.”

“I'm sorry,” Lucy said again, helplessly. Despite Andrea's laughter and easy smile, a darkness lingered in the woman's eyes and in the tightness of her mouth. She reached once more for Eva's hand.

“I should get on. Have a good night,” Andrea called, and hurried up the main street.

Tarn House was quiet when Lucy entered, and guiltily she wondered if she should have come back sooner. She could have helped Juliet with dinner, although that thought hardly inspired happy images of them chatting while chopping vegetables.

Lucy shed her coat and walked into the kitchen, struck again by the coziness of the room—and how many discouraging conversations she'd had in it.

Juliet was out with the dogs, and Lucy didn't dare start making dinner on her own. Juliet was the kind of person, she was quite sure, who knew exactly what was in her fridge at all times, and would be seriously annoyed if Lucy used up something she wasn't supposed to.

But she was hungry and tired after spending all day wandering around, and she felt like eating her favorite comfort food, scrambled eggs and toast. Resolutely, a little defiantly, she got out the eggs a local farmer delivered every Monday morning and cracked two into a bowl. She was
living
here. She should be able to make herself a meal. And she'd talk to Juliet about contributing to the grocery bill and paying rent. Feeling both better and worse at the thought, she made herself eggs and toast and ate them at the kitchen table, gazing out at the sheep fields, thinking about Andrea and Eva, about Dan Trenton and Mary from the beach café, and, yes, about Alex Kincaid. All of them with sorrows and stories to tell.

She'd cleaned up everything, wiped the counter and stove top until they gleamed, and even inspected the sink drain for bits of egg, when Juliet came in. Her narrowed gaze took in the kitchen, the plate Lucy was about to load in the dishwasher, and absurdly, she felt guilty.

“I was just thinking,” Lucy said, her voice sounding a little too loud, “that I should contribute to household expenses. And I'll pay rent.”

Something flashed across Juliet's face but was gone before Lucy could figure out what it was. “That sounds like a good idea,” she answered tonelessly, and Lucy swallowed.

“So if you think of an appropriate amount . . .”

“I think one hundred pounds a month should cover both bed and board.”

“Okay.” Lucy had seen a sign in the post office shop advertising a room for rent for a hundred pounds a week. Juliet was being generous, even if it didn't feel like it. “Great. I'll . . . get a bank account, I guess.” She hadn't even organized how she was to be paid at school. “When would you like me to . . . pay?”

“It doesn't matter,” Juliet replied, her tone both flat and brisk. “Whenever you get around to it.”

“Okay.” And then, because it was painfully obvious they had nothing more to say to each other, Lucy started upstairs. The last thing she heard was the sound of Juliet closing the dishwasher she'd left open.

Juliet was out with the dogs when Lucy left for school the following morning; it was another crisp and sunny day, and her spirits lifted at leaving Tarn House—and, she had to admit, at seeing Alex again. Would he be different towards her, now that they'd had a coffee together and could, perhaps, consider themselves friends?

That question was answered when Alex stalked by reception without so much as a glance at her, or even his usual muttered hello. Lucy felt the expectant smile fade from her face as Alex disappeared into his office, shutting the door behind him with a very firm click.

Okay, so maybe they weren't friends. Maybe he'd just had a difficult morning. Still, a hello would have been nice.

Moodily Lucy started up the computer and watched the first trickle of pupils come up the hill. She could hear their excited chatter and laughter, and something inside her twisted and ached.

She'd wanted that once. A husband. Children. An actual family, something she'd never experienced. She'd tried to find it with Thomas and his sons. She'd met the boys first, two towheaded imps who had come into the gallery café and careened wildly around, arms out as they pretended to be airplanes. Thomas had come in after, looking handsome and harassed, and something in Lucy's heart had squeezed.

She'd made the boys chocolate milk shakes with extra whipped cream and sprinkles, and chatted to them—they'd been to the Boston Aquarium and their father was a professor at boring
Harvard
—while Thomas had sipped an Americano and had looked, in retrospect, quite self-consciously wryly self-deprecating.

Still, Lucy had fallen for it. She'd fallen for the whole package: the adorable, if a bit wild, boys, the winsomely nerdy academic father, the image of the four of them spending lazy Sunday afternoons on Boston Common.