Slightly South of Simple Read online

  I consoled myself with the fact that Mr. Solomon had to die someday. So far, it wasn’t looking good. He had to be nearly eighty-five. And I still saw him leave his house every day, with his insipid yippy dog, for a walk. I immediately felt guilty. It wasn’t the dog’s fault. The dog was adorable. In fact, sometimes I had fantasies of kidnapping little Biscuit and rescuing her from her terrible owner. But she’d be pretty hard to hide right next door.

  I knew Mr. Solomon had to be lonely over there all by himself. He rarely had visitors. And I would have been nice to him, taken him dinner, had him over for a glass of wine, if he wasn’t such a vile little man.

  I got into the car and cranked the ignition. It was 9:42. Damn it! Now I had missed the window when Kyle was back at the coffee shop to make my latte. Mr. Solomon was going to pay for this.

  I pulled up in front of the coffee shop anyway. It was one in a row of smaller white clapboard houses on a side street that had been converted into commercial space. I walked into the plain, one-room shop. It had built-in banquettes around the picture windows, small tables and chairs scattered throughout the back, and a simple counter running down the side. The walls were bare, weathered shiplap. Oh, how I longed to accessorize them. I expected to find the honor jar for my plain, boring coffee. No foam, no whip, no pizzazz.

  Instead, I found a note from Kyle. “Check the microwave, Ans. Heat for exactly 27 seconds.”

  I almost cheered when I saw that latte waiting for me. And just like that, the calm and happy I had cultivated on the water that morning returned. I slid a ten-dollar bill into the slit in the locked cash register drawer. Kyle deserved an extra tip for this one. As I stepped back out onto the sidewalk, into the warm morning sun, and said hi to several neighbors walking by, it hit me that I had done this all on my own. I had created a new life for my girls and for myself. But as I took a sip of the perfect latte, I had to consider that just because I had done it on my own didn’t mean I had to do it on my own forever.

  SIX

  come hell or high water

  caroline

  When I had left New York that morning, the group text from Sloane and Emerson chiming happily about how much fun we were going to have, all the great things we were going to do, had bolstered my spirits and helped me walk out that door. But simply stepping into the airport in Georgia a few hours later made me realize what a mistake this had been. Two gates. Almost no way out. But then I looked over at Vivi. She was smiling ear to ear like I hadn’t seen her do in quite some time.

  “Mom, it’s so warm,” she said. “Isn’t that awesome?”

  Or eerie, I thought. It was January. Shouldn’t it be colder? It wasn’t tropical or anything. But it was at least in the high sixties, which was practically balmy considering we had left that morning in our down parkas.

  “I hope our stuff gets here tonight,” I said. Vivi and I had packed only enough clothes for a couple of days.

  The fear that I had perhaps kidnapped my child rippled through me. An image of an AMBER Alert ran through my mind. But no, I was sure James would be too busy with Edie Fitzgerald to notice that we were gone.

  “Me, too,” Vivi said. “I can’t wait to give Gransley all the stuff we got her!”

  I nodded. “She’d better be able to fit into it.” I could not tolerate it when women got older and started putting on weight and blamed it on their metabolism. Um, yeah. Your metabolism changed. So eat less. Work out more.

  Vivi shot me a look. “Mom, I’m not sure you can talk right now.”

  I put one hand on my hip as I walked toward the door. Yes. The door. Which you could see from the gate. It was kind of hilarious. “Excuse me. I am growing your brother or sister. I am still in size two maternity clothes, I’ll have you know.” But honestly, being pregnant was the only time I didn’t obsess about my weight. I wanted my baby to be healthy even more than I wanted to be sample-size thin. That was really saying something.

  We walked out into the sunny day, and you could almost taste the salt in the air. The humidity wrapped around me and clung to my skin like a toddler who didn’t want to be left at preschool.

  I pulled out my phone and hit the Uber app. Something I’d never seen popped up on the screen: Uber not available in your area. I toggled back to the home screen and tried again.

  “What is this?” I asked, genuinely stunned.

  Vivi took the phone from me. She rolled her eyes. “Mom, seriously? It means they don’t have Uber here.”

  I looked around the desolate parking lot. I racked my brain. I couldn’t ever remember seeing a cab around here in that lost half-year I had whittled away in Peachtree. “OK,” I said. “We can call Gransley, but she lives like half an hour from here.” I remembered seeing a customer service desk inside. They’d know what to do.

  As I turned to walk back inside, Vivi squealed, “Gransley!”

  I was about to say, “Gransley will take forever to get here.” But when I turned, there she was, running to my daughter.

  She wrapped her up in her arms and said, “Oh, Vivi! You are so grown-up and so gorgeous!” She kissed both of Vivi’s cheeks, held on to her shoulder, and said, “Let me look at you. How have you turned from eleven to eighteen in the two months since I last saw you?” She squeezed her again.

  Then she lifted her very stylish, I must admit, sunglasses and said, “You look absolutely beautiful, my girl.”

  I smiled. That was always a nice thing to hear. She hugged me and then put her hands on my stomach. “You are looking well, too, grandchild.”

  “Hi, Mom. Thanks for letting us come in our time of need.” I smiled pitifully.

  “Chin up, darling. You’re in Peachtree now. This is where people come to heal.” She pulled her glasses down her nose. “Trust me, I know.”

  Um. Yeah. Sure. I could tell she had really healed. The woman hadn’t been on a date in sixteen years. That was real moving-on type stuff.

  She put her arms around Vivi and me and said, “All right, girls. Let’s get you home so I can show you off!”

  We dropped our bags in the back of her SUV and slid into the backseat.

  “Am I your chauffeur now?”

  Vivi and I looked at each other and laughed. “Just habit, Mom. Sorry. But I’m such a whale. Can I stay back here?”

  She waved her arm at me and started the car.

  “Mom,” I said, looking out the window. I had forgotten how empty it was here. I mean, yeah, there were a few cars on the highway, but how could a place be so unpopulated? It felt like an undiscovered colony. “Your arms look amazing.”

  “Do they?” she asked.

  “You know they do,” I responded.

  “When someone sends you an e-mail every day with a new arm workout and an entire case of cellulite-reducing cream that costs more per tube than most people’s car payment, you get the hint.”

  I smiled. Subtlety might not have been my strong point. But I got results. Her arms looked terrific. I was happy. She was happy. It was a win-win.

  “Mom,” Vivi scolded. “Why would you do that to Gransley?”

  I patted her leg. “It was a gift, darling. A well-intentioned gift.” I paused. “And Mom, you look amazing. Like seriously awesome.”

  “Yes,” she said, looking over her shoulder to change lanes. “I also received your e-mail about my slowing metabolism and how I needed to cut all carbs and sugar.”

  Vivi looked at me, mouth open.

  “Oh, what?” I hissed at her. “Like this surprises you?”

  “Not with other people but with your own mother?” she whispered.

  “Well,” I piped up, “you won’t get cancer, and you’ll live a long time, too. So wasn’t that nice? I’m worried about your health. You should be grateful.”

  “Thank goodness,” she said. “Because I am quite elderly.”

  We passed a shopping center, and Mom said, “Girls, do you need anything before we get to Peachtree? This is the last specialty shopping enclave.”

  “You
have a Vitamix, right?” I asked.

  “And some sort of gluten-free flour?” Vivi chimed in. “I’ve really gotten into baking lately.”

  Mom hit her blinker. I could see her shaking her head.

  “What?” Vivi asked.

  “Nothing,” she said. “I’ve never met an eleven-year-old quite like you.”

  “Gransley.” Vivi sighed. “Do you understand how inflammatory wheat can be?”

  Mom pulled into a parking spot and rested her head on the steering wheel.

  “What?” It was my turn to ask.

  “You girls are going to be the death of me.”

  What used to be a standard strip mall had been completely renovated with a new façade that made it look vintage and almost charming, which was no small feat. It contained a kitchen store, a health-food store, a women’s shop, a gift shop, and a baby store, which would be good to remember down the road. I walked into the brightly lit kitchen store, where a woman was whipping up something on a small stove in the middle of the room while people gathered around to watch.

  I ended up filling my cart with a Baby Brezza for making baby food, two Vitamixes, one for the main house and one for the guesthouse, an entire set of All-Clad, every Calphalon baking pan known to man, a set of Wüsthof knives, a KitchenAid mixer, a Hurom juicer, a Crock-Pot that I would never use, a toaster that I would really never use, eleven containers of soap, and sixteen bottles of cleaning spray that were organically antibacterial. Charge it to James Beaumont, please, and thank you very much.

  It would have made me feel even better if I thought he would see the credit-card bill. But we had made a pact long, long ago that the accountant paid my bills, and we didn’t discuss them. It was better for our marriage. That had worked like a charm, obviously.

  About the time I was done, Mom and Vivi appeared, weighted down with bags from the health-food store next door.

  “Is any of this food?” Mom asked me, nodding her head toward the bags.

  I shrugged. “That really depends on your definition of food, I think.”

  I gestured for the three men behind me to follow us to the car.

  Mom gave me an annoyed look. “Caroline. Honestly. My house isn’t in the Serengeti.”

  “Well . . .”

  We all laughed. Well, all of us except the three men with the muscles schlepping all my crap. They did not laugh at all. But they smiled very big when I gave them their very large tip. So that was something.

  I had to sit in the front seat this time, because our packages filled the entire trunk and backseat of the car. But I felt much more relaxed knowing that we would have a well-appointed kitchen. Not as relaxed as I would have felt if we had had a personal chef. But pretty relaxed.

  Vivi put in her earbuds in the backseat.

  I smiled and said, “So Mom, what’s up with the hot bod? Is there a man?”

  She scowled at me. “Don’t be ridiculous. You know your father was the only man for me,” she snapped, defensively enough to make me think she was lying.

  Her face looked weird when she said it, and I thought I should change the subject.

  “Actually,” she said, “I figured I’d better keep myself in good shape since it appears that all of my daughters still need me from time to time.”

  I leaned back on the headrest, putting my hands protectively over my stomach. In the rush of the day, it was the first time I had remembered to panic. I had Vivi, and the new baby was coming in a few weeks, and my husband was gone. Gone. I was going to be all alone. I mean, as alone as you could be with your mother, your two sisters, and your two nephews.

  Mom looked at me briefly. “It’s going to be OK, you know.”

  I was never one for showing weakness. I never acted anything less than totally confident in my abilities and my choices. But on this point, I wavered a bit. “Do you really believe that?” I whispered.

  “Sure I do. As tough as you are, you can handle anything.”

  I was tough. She was right. But sometimes you don’t want to have to be tough. I got that strength from my mother. I knew that. I had given her such a hard time the year she took us away from Manhattan, and I felt guilty for that every day. I understood her better now that I was on my own. Sometimes you have to have a fresh start to even be able to get out of bed. Truth be told, selfishly, I didn’t hate that she never remarried, because she was always there for us.

  “Mom,” I said, “just so you know, you don’t have to be alone forever. Emerson and Sloane and I wouldn’t care. We wouldn’t think badly of you.”

  “Carter was the love of my life. It’s hard to move on.”

  She had never called him Carter to me before. It was jarring, though I couldn’t quite figure out why.

  Mom looked at me briefly, right before we started on the bridge that crossed over from the beach town into Peachtree. “But you should, Caroline. Going it alone is OK. It has its merits. But there’s nothing like being with a man you love who loves you back. It’s worth everything.”

  I often wonder if her never dating, never finding anyone new, was less about protecting us and more about being stuck in a holding pattern. I couldn’t imagine moving on right now, but I also knew myself well enough to know that I never did well being alone. I would probably find someone new eventually. And he’ll be hotter than Edie Fitzgerald, I couldn’t help but think. I looked down at my stomach. The man could at least have had the decency to leave me after I got my figure back. No couth at all, that James.

  I felt that queasy rumble in my stomach again, the uncertainty in my decision, as we drove over the Peachtree Bluff bridge. The sunlight on the water sparkled and shone like a million hand-sewn crystals on an Oscars gown. It was breathtaking. I knew I should have told James that I left Manhattan, that I took Vivi with me. But I’d be able to throw him off the scent for at least a couple of weeks. And I deserved that. Just a couple of weeks on my own, a couple of weeks that weren’t about him.

  Mothers have this sixth sense about things, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when Mom asked, “So what did James say when you told him you were moving Vivi to Peachtree?” I was trying to formulate some sort of half-truth when she said, “Caroline!” in that scolding tone I hated.

  I was about to respond when she pulled into the brick driveway. At first, it all looked the same. The white clapboard house, perfectly symmetrical, with the Charleston green shutters, so dark that they almost looked black. The guesthouse with the garage underneath and those beautiful wooden doors, not the standard ones with the four glass panes. The picket fence that Mom and Mr. Solomon had been fighting about for half of my life. But something felt off. I couldn’t put my finger on it until I saw her. Emerson sauntered out of the front door of the guesthouse—over which Mom had grown a beautiful jasmine vine—like she owned the place. She waved at us, with one hand in the back pocket of her slightly baggy boyfriend jeans, which were rolled up to her calves.

  I loved the girl like I had birthed her. I swear I did. But if she was trying to take that guesthouse, this meant war.

  SEVEN

  world war three

  ansley

  The Peachtree airport houses exactly three planes in its hangar. One is a Citation jet that belongs to Susan Henderson, the leading asbestos attorney in the country. One is a spiffy new Cirrus that Jerry Cross takes back and forth to his winter place in the Bahamas. The third and only one I have ever been asked to fly on is Henry Birman’s. Henry is notoriously blind as a bat, and his old rust bucket belongs in an aviation museum. But those were only two of the reasons I never took him up on his offer to sweep me over to Florida to see my mom. The third and most important reason was that I was terrified of leaving three orphans.

  After the horror of 9/11, I didn’t fly without my children for years and years. Sloane was terrified to fly. Bless her heart, Sloane was terrified of everything for years after her father died. I didn’t blame her. It was a terrifying event, one that shaped most of the people alive at the time. To be that clos
e to it, to experience it the way we all did, took the fear to the next level. But I tried to show her every day, in small ways, that we had to carry on, we had to move forward. It saved me, having to be strong for those girls. I don’t even like to think about what would have happened to me if I hadn’t had them to live for.

  The move to Peachtree was better for Sloane than my other girls because it allayed her fears somewhat. For her, New York was the center of the evil; Manhattan was the place where she was in jeopardy. So far away, on the water, in this tiny town that most people had never heard of, much less targeted, she was safe. She could breathe again—after a while, anyway.

  But my fear went deeper than my girls’ fear. I was a single parent now. I was all they had. If something happened to me, they were on their own, and I knew that couldn’t happen. Not yet. By the time Emerson was eighteen, she was already in LA, out on her own, going to audition after audition. Plus, Caroline was settled enough that I knew she would take care of Emerson. In some ways, I felt like Caroline had had as big an impact on her life as I had. Caroline was certainly the one always pushing Emmy to follow her dreams.

  That was the dichotomy of my eldest daughter, the thing you wouldn’t expect. She’s so brash and headstrong that you would assume she was selfish. But she wants everyone to do well and be happy. It took me a while to realize it, but when she does those things—like sending me the cellulite cream—that seem like the bitchiest things in the world, she does them because she knows you will be happier if your arms are more toned. I admire her for that. She is truly pleased to see the people in her life find success.

  Maybe not Edie Fitzgerald. But I think anyone could agree that was warranted.

  All the blood rushed to my head when I saw Emerson standing at the door to the guesthouse. Oh, Emmy, no, please don’t start out on this foot. I wasn’t insane. I knew my three daughters weren’t all going to come home at the same time without some issues. But this wasn’t a great time to ruffle Caroline’s feathers. I was trying to keep her calm, not rile her up. Anyone could see that leaving your home and your husband behind, while pregnant, was a giant transition. I was never one to bow down to Caroline, thinking it only increased her power, but at this particular moment, some concessions should be made.