Slightly South of Simple Read online

  He pulled me tighter, and I wondered if he could feel my heart racing through his sport coat. “Every time I heard this song on the radio I used to wonder if you were somewhere thinking of me, too. Even when I was married, I think I always knew that this would never end for me. For me, Ansley, the road leads back to you.”

  I could feel tears in my eyes, and I rested my head on his shoulder.

  “Ahem,” I heard from across the deck.

  I turned and was surprised to see Kimmy, holding two tiny plates.

  She set them down and said, “Your appetizer this evening is a goat-cheese-stuffed fig with pancetta.”

  I raised my eyebrows at Jack and walked toward the table. “So, Kale Yeah Kimmy is also Caterer Kimmy?”

  “Ansley,” she said, “it’s not happening. I’m not getting one of those cheesy nicknames, no matter how much you want me to.”

  “I don’t think it’s really your choice,” I teased.

  I caught a glimmer of a smile from her.

  “I can’t believe you’d participate in something so sappy. You old softy.”

  She definitely smiled now. “I can’t sell you vegetables for one anymore, Ansley. It’s too pathetic.”

  Jack raised his glass and said, “To Ansley. The stars may be awfully bright tonight, but none shines as brightly as you.”

  He smiled that winning smile at me, the one that couldn’t help but make me feel a little giddy, and that’s when I realized it. “You,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Sloane is exactly like you.” My palms started to sweat.

  Jack smiled. “That’s good,” he said. “If you think I’m like one of your children, then you’ll be predisposed to liking me.”

  But I hadn’t just liked Jack from the first time I laid eyes on him. Something inside me shifted, and I knew that after this moment, Kimmy was right. Vegetables for one weren’t going to cut it anymore.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  mending fences

  caroline

  Sloane, Emerson, and I couldn’t imagine why my mother would have devoted years of her life to hating her next-door neighbor. I mean, sometimes I give my mom a hard time, but at the end of the day, she’s one of the most rational people I know. She has a good head on her shoulders and is always talking us down from one ledge or another. Well, Emerson and me. Sloane doesn’t have ledges, because Sloane is a reasonable person.

  I had fed Preston, Hummus was watching him during his nap, and I recruited Vivi to help me with a project. “We,” I said, “are going to end this feud between your grandmother and Mr. Solomon once and for all!”

  She put her sassy little hands on her sassy little hips. “Mom,” she said, rolling her eyes, “people have to work out their own problems.”

  In the most ironic of ironies, Vivi’s Georgia friends were possibly even worldlier than her New York friends. Vivi had an answer for everything, and I was quite sure that I seemed even dumber than usual to her. That was really saying something, because she already thought I was the stupidest person on the planet.

  I nodded. “They do, Viv. But sometimes they need a nudge in the right direction.”

  She smiled. There was my little girl.

  “We’re going to need Hippie Hal,” I said.

  It was a beautiful day in Peachtree, and I could walk more than three feet again without feeling as though I would imminently die. It was a good thing. “So Viv,” I said, walking down the crepe-myrtle-lined sidewalk, “tell me what’s going on at school.”

  “Nothing,” she said, predictably. “Everyone is already talking about what they’re going to do for spring break, and it’s still like six weeks away.”

  Spring break. I hadn’t thought about spring break. In six weeks, I could probably take Preston somewhere. Maybe Mom, too. Get her out of town, give her a break.

  “Oh!” I said. “I know! Let’s go to the Cloister.”

  Vivi nodded. She already had my taste for the finer things. “Can we get our toes done?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Can Daddy come?”

  I paused. Um, no. Hell, no, Daddy cannot come. Had she lost her mind? “We’ll see,” I said. I meant, Not on your life, kid.

  We reached the home of Hippie Hal, with row after row of bikes lined up in the yard.

  “Can I have one?” Vivi asked.

  I looked at the rusting refurbished pieces of crap in the yard. Who would want one of them I wasn’t sure, but I said OK anyway.

  “Can I ride it to Melanie’s house?”

  Melanie was a sweet girl in Vivi’s class who lived a few blocks away. Melanie’s mother was one of my favorite moms at school and had brought a casserole when Preston was born. I knew we would be good friends—if I had time for friends, that is.

  I shrugged. “Sure. As long as you’re home by dinner.”

  It was so suburban I almost fell off the sidewalk.

  “Hey, Viv,” I said, “do you miss New York?”

  She thought for a second. “I miss our family,” she said. “But I love Peachtree.”

  I missed our family, too. Perhaps her father should have thought about that before he made an ass out of all of us. And I knew I missed New York. As much as Peachtree had grown on me these last few weeks, it was like a nice vacation. I knew it would end. When it did, I’d be ready to go back. The storm would mostly have blown over, and I would be ready to face whatever residual music was there waiting for me.

  Alone.

  My stomach flipped at the thought. It was very antifeminist, but I’d never been one of those women who wanted something more for herself. I loved being a wife and a mother. I loved making my home beautiful and going to lunch with my friends and raising money for charities that were important to me. I wasn’t like Sloane or Emerson or Mom, who all had these fabulous creative abilities and outlets, passions that they didn’t feel like themselves if they weren’t doing them. Sometimes it made me jealous, especially times like now, when I realized that I would probably have to go back to work, but I had no idea what that work would be. Either way, it was time to stand on my own two feet. I had learned in the worst way that depending on your husband for everything wasn’t the best strategy.

  “Pick out whichever one you want,” I said. “But you can’t ride it until you go back to Gransley’s and get a helmet out of the garage.”

  She took off running. “Look both ways!” I called.

  Of all the things I wouldn’t miss about Peachtree, I would miss that I could let my eleven-year-old tear off down the street by herself and not think even once that she was going to be kidnapped. That was a load off.

  I knocked, and Hal opened the door so quickly I thought he must have been standing there waiting for me.

  “Hey there, Caroline,” he said, lids heavy, eyes red. He was super-duper stoned. No problem. High or not, we had work to do.

  “First,” I said, “Vivi wants this bike. Can I pay you for it when we get to our house?”

  “When we get to your house?” he asked.

  Ah, yes. The window had opened. I knew how to play this now. It was so simple.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Remember? You and I are peacemakers, trailblazers, Hippie Hal. We’re planning to take down that wall today. Or, well, the fence, rather. Remember?”

  He rubbed his long beard for a moment. “Take down the fence,” he repeated. “All right. Let me get some tools.”

  He disappeared inside, reappeared with a grocery bag full of clanging metal, and said, “Oh, Vivi can have the bike.”

  What a good guy he was. I felt sort of bad about tricking him. Sort of. But not bad enough to tell him the truth, especially now that I was getting what I wanted.

  He pushed the hot orange bike down the sidewalk.

  “So how’s it going with old McClasky?” I asked.

  “Well,” he said, “she’s as big a pain in the ass as ever. At this week’s town meeting, she was as feisty as I’ve seen her about the bikes.”

  You couldn�
�t help but notice the gleam in his eye. They were fighting. All was right with the world.

  Vivi met us before we reached the boardwalk, helmet already on. She took the bike from Hal. “Thanks, Mom,” she said, out of breath.

  “Thank Hal,” I said. “He gave it to you.”

  She hugged him, which you could see thrilled him to no end.

  “OK, Hal,” I said. “We’ve got to work quickly. Mom is at the shop, and I saw Mr. Solomon’s car leave like ten minutes ago. I have to feed the baby, but then I’ll come help you.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Hal said. “I’ve got this under control. I built the fence in four-foot sections that screw onto a frame, so it’s a piece of cake to take down. I can’t say I didn’t see this coming.”

  We both laughed.

  When I went upstairs, Preston was still sleeping. Hummus didn’t approve of swaddling, so he was spread out in his crib, tiny hands open and relaxed with sweet dreaming. It took everything I had not to pick him up and squeeze him to me.

  That was the difference in being a second-time mother. When Vivi was born, I almost wished part of it away. I was so tired. I was so overwhelmed and consumed with the care of this person that I didn’t savor it like I should have. This time, I knew exactly how quickly he would be riding bikes with his friends. The diaper changes were short. The sleepless nights were short. The breastfeeding was short. And so I was going to savor every day.

  Or maybe I was getting some semblance of sleep this time and that was giving me a fresh and rosy perspective on life. Who knew? But I know for sure that I felt more grateful than I had in a long, long time. Even though James had humiliated me and broken my heart, I knew that I would do it all again. Because without all of it, I wouldn’t have Preston. The world would be hideously incomplete.

  I looked out the window, the very same window where, the night before, I had been up for a four thirty feeding and had seen Mark tiptoeing out the back door—moments after giving Emerson a kiss good-bye that did not look like anything I’d ever seen friends share. But if her party line was that they weren’t dating, far be it from me to meddle. I knew Mark was Emerson’s first love. She had dumped him mercilessly when she left for LA, but I always thought she had a place for him in her heart. I tried to deny it, of course. Like any good stage mom (I had to take on that role, because clearly, my mother was anything but a stage mom), I didn’t want her throwing away her big, beautiful career on some townie. He was nice and all, but frankly, Emerson could do better. Emerson could do A-list. I saw her with a professional athlete, a movie star, Prince Harry . . . not some regular guy. So if she wanted to deny, I was a happy clam.

  Currently, outside that same walk-of-shame window, Hal was working. The poor tomatoes. He was doing his best to salvage them, but they were pretty attached to the fence. That would be the only casualty of this adventure. But I knew that Mom and Mr. Solomon were going to be so, so happy.

  Being selfless was not necessarily my strong suit. So I was glad I had tried it out. I could see the appeal.

  A few hours later, I was snuggling my precious baby, who was fed and happy and so delicious I could eat him up. We were rocking in the rocking chair, which was making me sleepy. I was about to drift off when a man’s voice yelling “You murderer!” reverberated from outside.

  I looked out the window to see Mr. Solomon standing over the tomatoes, shaking his cane.

  No, not exactly the response I had been looking for. I walked gingerly down the steps, Preston snuggled to my chest.

  “Mr. Solomon,” I said. “Look! I had Hal take the fence down. Aren’t you happy?”

  “Happy?” He practically spat. “Happy? You killed my prize-winning tomatoes.”

  They were all sort of lying there in a heap.

  “Didn’t kill them,” I said. “Simply reconfigured.” I paused. “And it’s OK. Kimmy is coming over later with stakes to tack them up.”

  He still looked extremely flustered, which was when Mom pulled into the driveway.

  She burst out of the car. “Where is my fence? Frank Solomon, what have you done with my fence?”

  “It wasn’t me! It was her.” He pointed his cane at me.

  I bounced up and down with Preston. “Could we keep our voices down a touch so as not to traumatize the baby?” I asked.

  “Look,” he said to Mom. “My babies are ruined!” He pointed his cane at the tomatoes.

  “You think you have problems? Now I have a full view of your disastrously unkempt yard.”

  I looked over. The yard wasn’t going to be in Southern Living or anything, but it wasn’t horrible looking. They were both being pretty unreasonable, if you asked me.

  “I want it back up,” Mr. Solomon said.

  “Are you serious?” Mom asked. “All these years of fighting and hating me over this fence, and you want it back up?”

  He sniffed. “I rather like the fence. It’s good for growing tomatoes. And I don’t like seeing into your yard.”

  “The feeling is mutual.” Mom looked at Mr. Solomon intently. “So if I put the fence back up, you won’t terrorize me anymore? You won’t say it’s four inches on your property or threaten to watch me with security cameras or any of that?”

  Mr. Solomon put his hand out for Mom to shake. “I’m too old to fight anymore. I’d rather be friends.”

  I’ve never seen my mother so astonished. And honestly, I mean, I had thought this would help, but I had no idea how much. I knew I was good, but I had no idea I was this good.

  As Mom shook Mr. Solomon’s hand, her phone rang. She put her finger up and walked across the yard to talk.

  “Mr. Solomon,” I said, “do you promise you’re invested in this truce?”

  He nodded. “I promise. I like getting your mother’s goat. But I think I’d rather drink coffee with her on the porch sometimes than have to take an extra blood-pressure pill every time we’re in the yard together.”

  “That’s nice,” I said. “I know she feels exactly the same way.”

  Mom returned, her face white.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She shook her head, and I could see that there were tears in her eyes. “They’ve taken away your grandmother’s driver’s license.” She paused, looking totally defeated. “I’m going to bring her here until we can figure out our next steps.”

  “Oh, Mom,” I said, looking back at the main house. “Seriously? We’re like Full House on steroids over here.”

  “I know,” she said. “But what else are we going to do? John certainly isn’t going to take care of her.” She rolled her eyes. “Scott can’t. I’m not going to just dump her in some home.”

  Uncle Scott had spent his life traveling the world. He’d never married or had kids, because nothing had ever been tempting enough to slow him down. He was a travel writer, and his life depended on his ability to jump on a plane to Ibiza one day and a boat to Virgin Gorda the next. It was a cool life, but even as a kid, I had known it wasn’t something I would ever have been able to do.

  I didn’t know John well enough to comment, sadly.

  Mr. Solomon didn’t say anything. He turned to walk back inside his house. But later that night, when I opened the back door, there was a small vase with four blue hydrangeas in it. It was a beautiful peace offering, and you couldn’t help but notice how my mom smiled when I handed her the flowers.

  Even I couldn’t believe how easy it had been, after seven years of feuding, to mend fences. All it had taken, in fact, was tearing one down.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  the most natural thing

  ansley

  I am the official town decorator. I know. I’m a big deal. Whenever the library needs new carpet or the museum’s reading room needs to be updated, I am the person they call. It was my first paying gig when we moved back to Peachtree. I donate a ton of my time, too, because in the laundry list of positions I fill, this is one of my favorites. It appeared that I would be adding another role to that laundry list: caretaker. It i
sn’t somewhere a mind ever wants to go. But I guess that at fifty-eight, with an eighty-three-year-old mother, I knew this was coming. Maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow, but I had to have known that my mother wasn’t going to be able to live on her own forever.

  I think that’s what hit me the hardest, realizing that her needing me, depending on anyone, was the beginning of the end. There was no question that my brother Scott got his independence from my mother. She was still living alone, cooking alone, driving alone. She still did her own grocery shopping and went to Zumba and walked her dog. Scott had taken the dog, much to my disappointment. But when I told Caroline that my mom was coming to stay, she had printed an article for me about a new study on how, while it was previously thought that dogs and humans couldn’t pass viruses and bacteria back and forth, they were now realizing that this wasn’t true—and dogs carry hundreds of viruses not usually found in humans.

  I tacked one on the fridge, over hers, that said that children who grow up with dogs or cats have stronger immune systems—because they are exposed to hundreds of viruses not normally found in humans.

  But honestly, despite how much I wanted a dog running around the house again, between the three daughters and the four grandchildren and now the mother, I had enough to take care of. So I let Caroline think she had won that one.

  When I walked into the living room that morning, everything was quiet. Sloane was on the floor with Adam, sorting plastic animals by color.

  “Wow!” I said. “Adam, you are so smart!”

  He grinned up at me, plunking a green dinosaur beside the other green dinosaurs with enthusiasm.

  “So you still think you’re going to do this homeschooling thing all the way through?”

  Sloane nodded. “Absolutely. Then if Adam is transferred or deployed for a long time, I’m flexible. The kids won’t have to switch around to a bunch of different schools.”

  Emerson walked down the stairs, eyes blurry, hair in a messy bun on top of her head.

  Now that my mother was coming, Emerson had to move upstairs with the rest of us to make room.