Slightly South of Simple Read online

  I blushed. I was terribly transparent.

  “Are you OK?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah. Just needed a deep breath.”

  Jack squeezed my shoulder. “Those are good every now and then.” He paused. “Do you see how good I’m being? I’m trying to stay away to avoid becoming one of those pathetic TV characters who won’t get a clue.”

  I laughed. “You’re doing a good job. I think I’m the pathetic TV character tonight.”

  He smiled. “In that case, can I walk with you?”

  I nodded. “Sure.”

  We walked in silence into the dark night. The sunset earlier had been hot, fire-orange and brilliant, giving way to an iridescent crescent moon. It looked to me like a perfect half. A perfect half. I grinned to myself. Why, oh, why could I not keep myself away from him? I was too old to be acting like this.

  The shops were closed, and the restaurants had served their last patrons. The boardwalk was totally deserted. We walked a few yards, and I leaned over the railing and looked into the night sky, feeling infinite, feeling eternal, feeling so very small and unimportant in the scheme of this great, wide universe. It was perhaps my favorite feeling.

  “Well, I’d better get back and clean up my mess,” I said.

  I turned around and bumped right into Jack. Before I could think about what was happening, he kissed me. Not a little kiss but a big, wrapped-in-strong-arms, dipped-toward-the-ground kiss to remember. And I did remember. In some ways, it was like my mouth had never left his, like my body had never forgotten exactly how it felt to be in his arms and was simply acting on muscle memory.

  Jack and I had had so many perfect moments together since he came back into my life. Romantic moments. Sunsets and starlit dances, rainy coffee runs and long, lingering stares. But this, when I was distracted by my daughters’ worries and he wasn’t expecting me at all, was the perfectly imperfect moment. In my life now, perfectly imperfect seemed exactly right. And for the first time in a long time, I could honestly say that it felt wonderful to lose control.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  more than words

  caroline

  Sloane and I were seven and nine, it was snowing, we were bored, and I wanted to go sledding.

  I remember how she scrunched up her nose at the idea. She did it so much when she was young that her nose had a little red line across the bridge.

  “How will we go sledding?” she asked. “There aren’t any hills.”

  We may have been short on hills, but we had steps. It was basically the same thing, if you asked me. Emerson wasn’t quite one yet, and while Mom was putting her down for a nap, the best thing happened: Mom fell asleep.

  “Grab that cardboard box out of the closet, Sloane!” I said.

  She did, and I wrestled the plastic purple toboggan out of the storage area outside our house. Dad would pull us down the sidewalk in it when there was a lot of snow like there was that day.

  My strategy was simple. Lay the cardboard down the steps like a trail, cover the cardboard with snow, slide down. I was very confident in my plan. Well, I mean, kind of confident. I still instructed Sloane to get our bike helmets.

  “OK,” I told her. “When we get to the bottom of the steps, we have to fall off to the side.”

  “Fall off to the side?” Another nose scrunch. (I realize now that that little red line was because of me.) You could tell she was becoming less convinced that this was a good idea. “But won’t we get hurt on the concrete?”

  I poked her down jacket. “Nah. We’re padded.”

  That was the optimistic part of the day. The part before the screaming and the bruising and the “You are so lucky you didn’t break any bones.”

  But it was worth it for that one moment of glory. I was in the front, holding the rope to steer, and Sloane was in the back, holding on to me for dear life. And right before we made our maiden—and final—voyage down the steps, Sloane yelled, “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this!”

  Now I finally understood how she felt back then. Because I couldn’t imagine that I had let James talk me into this. I mean, yes, I realize that I was, in some ways, culpable in this situation. I had told Vivi that we could go to the Cloister for spring break. It was really close by, but I didn’t feel anywhere near ready to leave Preston. He was only two months old, for heaven’s sake. I didn’t leave Vivi until she was eighteen months.

  But my milk had dried up all of a sudden, so it wasn’t like I was an integral part of the whole feeding thing anymore. And James promised that Hummus could stay one more week. We’d only be gone two nights. That was all I would agree to. But even two nights under the same roof with James would be tricky.

  “I got us the penthouse at the Beach Club,” he said that morning, standing in Mom’s kitchen, smiling very proudly. “Vivi can have her own bedroom.”

  My heart stopped beating. “Excuse me? If you think I’m going to stay in the same room with you, then you really have lost your mind.”

  “So what will we say?” he asked, sliding a stool out from under the island and sitting down. I pulled a bag of sliced pepperoni out of the fridge and started munching. I had three pounds to go, and I was to that point where the only thing that was going to singe them was no carbs. So, sure, I could have been having a grilled chicken salad. But my thought was why not live a little?

  James sighed and shook his head. “Caroline, honey, honestly. You are going to die. You just had a baby. Give yourself a break. You don’t need to live on processed meats over three pounds. It will come off.”

  Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t need to live on processed meats over three pounds two months after I’d had a baby. But for some strange reason, being left for a twenty-year-old model had not made me feel my best.

  I sighed. “I don’t know what to say, James. She’s eleven years old. She knows you left me for another woman. How about Mommy and Daddy are getting divorced, so they don’t sleep in the same room?”

  He looked down at his feet. “Don’t say that. Please don’t say that.”

  To be honest, I hadn’t filed the papers yet. There must have been some reason for that.

  “Fine,” I said.

  “Fine what?”

  “Fine. I won’t say that. I will sleep in the same room with you with a line of pillows separating us.”

  He grinned. “Well, baby, that’s a start.”

  A few minutes later, in the passenger seat of the highly impractical convertible James had procured for me after I got my license, I could feel tears coming down my cheeks. It was too soon to leave my son, even if it was only for two nights. James squeezed my shoulder, which grossed me out. I had told him not to touch me with those hands. That was not a good sign for our future.

  “He’s going to be fine, sweetheart. He’s too young to realize you’re gone. Five months from now, he’ll be screaming bloody murder every time we leave. That’s when things are going to get tough.”

  “Yeah, Mom,” Vivi said. “You need a little bit of time to yourself.”

  I wiped my eyes and turned to grin at her. She’d had a hard few months. Vivi deserved some time with both of her parents. She deserved for it to be about her.

  “So,” I said, “we have Pilates first thing when we get there.”

  “Look fourteen,” James interjected.

  “Oh, right,” I said. “You have to be fourteen to go into the gym, so we neither confirmed nor denied your age.”

  Vivi laughed. “Then is it sparkly manicures and pedicures?”

  “Yes!” I said. “Do you think I should get sparkles, too?”

  “I do,” James interjected. “You definitely look young enough to have sparkles.”

  You couldn’t blame the man for trying. It was a pretty obvious ploy, but I didn’t hate it.

  “Then horseback riding on the beach,” James said. “And then your mom and I are going out while you do dinner and a movie with the other kids.”

  “Yay!” Vivi said.

>   “Wait,” I said, trying to keep my voice even so she wouldn’t catch on. “I thought this was supposed to be family time.”

  “But Mom,” Vivi said, “I want to do the kid stuff at least part of the time. It’s so fun. And you and Dad can have a boring grown-up dinner and talk.”

  She caught her dad’s eye in the rearview mirror. They planned this, the little sneaks.

  Three fights over the Pandora station and two bouts of James thinking he knew better than Waze later, we had arrived. You would think that after living on the sound for months, the water wouldn’t affect you so much. But looking out the window onto the beach was still incredible. At Mom’s, we had sand, of course, and sea grass, and the water quietly lapped the sandy shore. But the majesty and power of the ocean, roaring to the beach and then retreating, was a surprise every time. It never got old. And it never ceased to remind me that the world was large and, in the scheme of things, my problems were nothing.

  We were all sitting on couches in our penthouse living room. I loved the Cloister. My aesthetic was much lighter and brighter, but I still appreciated the heavy Oriental rugs, the dark stained beams on the ceiling, the deep reds and blues of the décor. They felt very Old World, very Sea Island, very much the Cloister.

  “Caroline?”

  “Yes?”

  “Are you up for tennis yet?”

  “Tomorrow?” I asked.

  Usually when we played, it was Vivi and James against me. In New York, I did cardio tennis three mornings a week at our tennis club and then had a match every Friday afternoon. I don’t like to brag about my skill level, so let’s just say that if I’d indulged my fantasy about taking a racket to Edie Fitzgerald’s head, I’m pretty sure her modeling days would have been over.

  “How about you and me versus Dad?” Vivi asked.

  Yes, I thought. What happened to you and me versus Dad?

  I remembered giving her the talk about having her father in her life, about how I would give anything to have my father back, just for one day. For the second time, I realized that while I hated this situation, I was largely responsible for it.

  “Pilates time!” I called, retreating toward the bedroom.

  Vivi jumped up. “Yes! Getting my clothes on.”

  James followed me.

  When I turned, I said, “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Just wanted to talk to you.”

  “No,” I said. “I am changing. You may wait outside.”

  “Caroline, come on. I’ve seen you naked for like the last fifteen years.”

  “Yes,” I said icily. “That was before you were seeing other people naked.”

  I was proud of how I looked in my leggings and top. The shirt was tight at the bottom and blousy throughout, which was perfect since I hadn’t totally gotten my abs back yet. But the Pilates would help. Tennis, too. It was always fun to quit doing something for a while and then see how sore you were when you got back to it.

  Vivi looked so cute. Her outfit was exactly like mine, only neon green, not black.

  “All right, girls,” James said. “I’m going to the driving range and will meet you back here after the spa.”

  As much as I missed Preston, I had a great afternoon with Vivi. We needed this time to relax and really talk about friends and school and everything in between. Over sparkly pedicures, we agreed that while we loved Peachtree, we were both on board with moving back to New York.

  “I understand that Daddy might not be living with us,” Vivi said. She was so grown-up. “A lot of my friends’ parents are divorced.” She paused. “But Mom, it sure would be cool if he were living with us.”

  Talk about feeling like the worst person in the world. That was the moment I decided that I was really going to give it a shot. I was not going to make snide comments. I was going to attempt not to hate him so much—although, God, I sure did hate him—and I was going to give this thing a fair shake. I didn’t want Vivi to be one of those kids with divorced parents. If she was, it would be because I could not move on. And we would all have to be OK with that.

  So we added blowouts onto our spa day, and I wore James’s favorite dress and slid on those strappy shoes he liked so much. And when he came in, handed me a glass of wine, put his arm around my waist, kissed my cheek, and said, “You look so unbelievably beautiful,” I didn’t slap his hand away or say something nasty.

  I smiled and said thank you.

  James took my arm, and we walked the short distance to the Georgian Room. A bottle of my favorite champagne was already chilled and waiting at the table when we sat in the floral upholstered chairs and slid under the white tablecloths. Everything about dining at the Georgian Room was impeccable.

  I eyed the bottle of champagne and said, “So, James, trying to get me drunk?”

  He shrugged. “It’s a gamble, because you’ll either get drunk and be nice to me or get drunk and hate me more.”

  He was right. It was a gamble. But champagne was a good choice. It usually made me bubbly, too. Usually. Now, not that time at the fund-raiser for 57th Street Primary when that damn Jenna outbid me at the last minute on those estate sapphire earrings she knew I wanted. That night, being a little champagne-drunk made me feisty.

  “I wasn’t going to give you this yet,” James said, “because I don’t want you to think it’s a bribe.”

  He pulled a tiny box out of his pocket. My heart raced. I loved a good tiny box. Which is why I got so mad about the earrings.

  “But then I decided that giving you this will prove to you how serious I am about working things out. Because I know right now there’s like a ninety percent chance you are leaving me, and I want you to have it anyway.”

  He slid the box across the table. I opened it, and I think I went blind. Seriously. It was a single emerald-cut diamond with two teeny baguettes flanking it. It was huge but not so huge that it looked too clunky like some sort of ungroomed ice rink.

  “Whoa.”

  I slid off the emerald I always wore on my right hand, put the diamond on, and lifted my hand to show him across the table.

  “Wow,” he said.

  “This is seriously amazing, James. Thank you.” I paused. “Now there’s only an eighty-five percent chance I’m going to divorce you.”

  He laughed cautiously, and I laughed wholeheartedly. He was treading lightly, as he should have been, because I was incredibly leery of the man. There was no doubt in my mind that if we got back together, I would spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder. I mean, my shoulder would be more toned from wearing this massive diamond, but still, I’d be looking over it.

  I took a sip of my champagne and admired my new jewel. “It really is quite spectacular,” I said.

  Then I stopped cold, my champagne in midair. I set the glass down too forcefully and glared at James.

  “Oh, my God. This was an engagement ring. You bought this for Edie Fitzgerald because you were going to ask her to marry you. I can’t believe you!”

  “Hold up,” James said. “I had Craig make the ring for you. If you’ll look inside the box, it says, ‘Designed especially for Caroline Murphy Beaumont.’ ”

  Ah, yes. So it did. My longtime jeweler, Craig, was always on point.

  James reached for my hand across the table. “I don’t get how you can be so sweet one minute and so cruel the next.”

  And that’s when I realized that I might have run from Peachtree Bluff like my hair was on fire, but somewhere in there, a little Southern must have gotten in.

  With his hand on mine, I felt that spark that I used to feel, that jolt of electricity that made me know that our being together was so right. And it made me realize how long it had been since I had kissed him, made love to him. It was another gamble. Because I might think of Edie Fitzgerald and how my life was shattered, how I had to leave town and come to my mother’s house so as not to be the laughingstock of Manhattan.

  As I cut my very rare, very perfect steak, James said, “So where do we go
from here, Caroline? What can I do to prove how much I love you and how very sorry I am?”

  I didn’t say that the ring was a good start.

  “I’m trying, James,” I said. “I swear I am. But this nearly killed me. You can’t imagine how vulnerable you feel when you’re six months pregnant and all alone. It is terrifying. I’m not going to forget that soon. You’re going to have to be patient.”

  He nodded. “I’ve cleared my schedule through July.” He grinned.

  I smirked, then looked up and said, “I don’t want to know details. I don’t want some bullshit explanation of why you did what you did or some self-reflective crap. The more I know, the more I’ll have to dwell on.” I paused. “But James, you didn’t tell me that you were having an affair and you were sorry. You told me you didn’t love me anymore and you were leaving me. How am I supposed to move on from that? How do I know you aren’t going to quit loving me again next week?”

  I hated to cry. Couldn’t stand it. But I could feel tears in my eyes as I said it. I had spent so much time, understandably, I think, worrying about the outside world, thinking about what people were saying about me and how I looked, that my primary emotion these past few weeks had been humiliation. I hadn’t spent all that much time fully feeling how devastating it was for the person who was supposed to be your everything to cast you off like you were nothing.

  He looked up at the ceiling for a moment as though I might forget my question if he didn’t make eye contact.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I am trying to answer you in a way that doesn’t sound like a bullshit explanation.” He put down his knife and fork and took my hand. “It wasn’t about you. It was about me. I felt like I’d made a mess of my life and I hadn’t amounted to anything or lived up to my expectations. It was like I was breaking out of my rut or something. I made things about us that were really about me.” He took a sip of wine. “This sounds insane, I know, but it was like I was living two separate lives, and I couldn’t process how this would affect you. It was like the whole thing was a delusion, and I was going to get to keep the life I had while still doing this horrible thing.” He shook his head. “You’re right. Whatever I try to say sounds idiotic. But I realized that feeling your heart race because someone famous was giving you all her attention is not love. Someone who has your back, who gets you through the hard times . . . that’s love.”