Destined (27 page)

Laurie looked up and saw me. “Emily’s
back! Hooray!!” They all sat up and applauded and cheered. I took a bow. Then
everyone started getting up to hug me, as each one welcomed me home. I felt
loved and important, basking in their warmth. After Mindy hugged me, she looked
at the clock on the wall and suggested this was a good time to stop for the
day. We all agreed to meet again next week, and the girls started to tidy up
the space. I put the electric kettle on and brewed several pots of Irish
Breakfast tea. When all the tables and chairs had been repositioned, we
gathered around the coffee bar and drank a cup together.

“So, how was it?” Laurel asked,
looking slim and fit in her purple leggings and Green Thumb T-shirt. Today she
wore tiny silver moons and stars dangling from her ear lobes.

“Well, first of all, F. Scott
Fitzgerald was absolutely right!” I replied.

“
’The very rich are different from
you and me
…’” Alyssia
said, recognizing my reference. She taught English at the high school and
nodded knowingly. She had slipped a bright blue tunic on over her leggings and
sports bra, and was wrapping her head in a colorful turban. Like several of the
women, she would be heading straight to work from here.

“You got it,” I confirmed.

“Lexi Land is a pretty weird place,
eh?” asked Bella, sitting perched on one of the bar stools, a cold pack
balanced on her knee. Mindy stood next to her and held it in place while they
secured it with Velcro straps.

“Was it all these snobby rich guys
with snooty British accents, or what?” perky little Mei wanted to know, piping
up in her high girlish voice, and we all laughed.

“Lots of white-haired old geezers
wearing black suits, and incredible huge diamonds and pearls on all of the
women. At least half of them were over seventy. They all looked so much alike
it was impossible to tell them apart. The most interesting characters were
Lexi’s immediate family, her parents and her two brothers,” I said, taking a
scone off the plate Siri had brought in from the kitchen. Suddenly I was
starved, and remembered I hadn’t eaten since last night. Getting off the Island
while the opportunity was available had seemed more of a priority this morning.

“Tell us about their house! Is it
incredible?” demanded Mindy, taking her teacup and settling down onto the stool
next to Bella’s.

“Is it obscenely enormous?” Laurie
asked.

 
“Yes! What was it like?” Siri stood behind the coffee bar,
cup in hands. She had wrapped one of her wide, long blue-green scarves like a
sarong over her low-cut black spandex exercise clothes, and she looked like a
voluptuous sea goddess once again.

They all chimed in curiously, and
awaited my response with shining, eager eyes.

“It’s pretty big,” I answered, “I
think there are eight bedrooms in the main house, plus there’s an addition on
the back of the kitchen where the housekeeping couple live. Each bedroom has
its own bathroom, and some have a private sitting room too. The house sits up
on this big hill overlooking the beach in two directions. And there’s also a
four-car garage and two other buildings, guest cottages. Two of Lexi’s cousins
were staying there, they both have young kids. All together, they could
probably put up about twenty-five or thirty people, I think, with nobody
sleeping on the couches.”

“Wow,” said Siri. The others nodded
agreement. “Where did you stay?”

“Lexi has a suite in the main house,
with a second bedroom that opens into her sitting room. I stayed there, with
her. The whole place is gorgeous, beautifully decorated, right out of a
magazine. Lexi’s rooms are all done in Laura Ashley floral prints, very girly
and romantic.”

“Was she really flipped out?” Bella
asked.

“Totally,” I confirmed.

“Did you have to scrape her up off the
floor, or what?” she persisted.

I nodded.

“Everyone totally lost it at the
funeral and they were sobbing and crying,” I said, “And then they all got
drunk, which kind of made it worse. Some people seemed to brighten up and have
a great time, though. I guess it depends on your body chemistry!”

“People can get pretty wild at a
funeral,” Mindy remarked. “It almost like they need to express an affirmation
of life, at a time of death.”

“Yes,” Laurie nodded. “There is
usually a lot of illicit sex going on. Have you ever noticed that?”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh yeah, I noticed!”
The girls all giggled.

Siri looked at me with her eyebrows
raised. “Emily! Not you!”

“No, no, not me,” I replied. “Though
it wasn’t for a lack of invitations. Lexi’s brothers are very competitive, and
at some point they decided I was going to be the prize. A bunch of the younger
people gathered at one of the guest houses to hang out after the service, and
there was a lot of sneaking off happening.”

“Does Lexi have a boyfriend? Was he
there?” Alyssia asked.

“Actually, yes. He’s a
doctor
!”

Everyone said, “Ooooooooooh!” in silly
voices, and then we all laughed.

“So how come Mr. Doctor didn’t come
here to pick her up instead of you having to do it?” Bella asked, sniffing
disdainfully.

“Because he was scheduled to perform
spinal surgery in Boston, and people were going to be crippled for life if he
didn’t show up, you know, stupid stuff like that,” I said.

“Excuses, excuses!” Bella shook her
head.

“He’s a very nice guy. Good looking,
too. And he really seems to adore Lexi! I guess the only problem is, he works
all the time. She’s thinking about moving her art business to Boston, so they
can see each other more. Her clients will follow her anywhere. ”

Everyone nodded, agreeing this would
be a wise move on her part. I realized we were all sitting there sympathizing
with Lexi, just like she was a real, normal woman like us. I’d been having this
unusual sensation quite often over the past few days. It was disconcerting. But
it felt, right. Lexi
was
a real, normal woman like us. With the caveat that her point of view was
different, so her expectations and definition of “normal” were different.

Being around Lexi was like watching a
soap opera happening in 3D all around you, live and in person. She and her
fair-haired clan were bigger-than-life, and they all were perfectly dressed and
perfectly air-brushed at all times. They all had carefully modulated voices.
The women wore tailored suits by Dior or Chanel, and they were lean and
beautiful with smooth faces, red lipstick and perfect teeth. They had
beautifully styled blonde or silver hair, depending on their ages. Most of them
didn’t even notice me, but the ones who did at first appeared shocked, then
sympathetic in a sort of you-poor-thing way. I guess they didn’t think my black
linen was appropriate for the occasion, but it worked fine for blending in with
the background, which was my chosen vantage point.

The girls started packing up their
bags to go home or to work. I told Siri she should take the rest of the day off
with my thanks for filling in while I was gone. She looked relieved. I knew it
had not been easy for her to spend so much time away from her family.

“Come here,” I beckoned as the others
went out the door. I pulled a little white paper bag out of my purse and handed
it to her.

Siri smiled delightedly and opened the
bag. There was a white jewelry box inside. She opened the box and found a small
gold Nantucket Basket pendant hanging from a fine gold chain. These charms are
a traditional keepsake from the Island, and the design is based on actual
historical baskets that have long been made there. Inside the little gold basket
with its lid that really opened, was a tiny diamond chip.

“Thank you so much for covering for
me, Siri!” I said.

“Oh, you are very welcome!” she said, “Thank
you, too! This is beautiful!”

She took the necklace out of the box
and put it around her neck. We both admired it on her in the mirror on the
wall.

“You know, Bella did a great job of
helping out in the shop,” Siri said, to my reflection. I looked at her
reflected eyes and nodded.

“Well she’s a doll, I’m sure the
customers liked her!”

“Oh they did,” Siri confirmed. “Check
the receipts! I think you’ll be surprised.”

“That good, eh?”

She nodded, smiling, and raised both
eyebrows. She started to wave her hands around in that excited manner of hers,
and turned to face me directly.

“She starts telling those jokes and
people love it! You should hear the way she talks to people on the phone. She
creates a very happy atmosphere. Not that you and I are boring,” Siri said
earnestly, “But we are not stand-up comics.”

I knew what she meant. Bella was the
one who always made us laugh. That was a very good thing. It was something we
could all use a lot more of. Laughter is healing and energizing. It builds
trust when shared between friends, and gets things flowing.

The energy always seemed to flow the
best when we women merged our motley assortment of characteristics together,
balancing and supplementing each other. Each of us was unique, different from
all the others in many ways. But we also were very much the same in essential
qualities of the heart, the spirit.

For example, we were all women of
imagination and creativity. Women who looked ahead, who cared about shaping the
future. When we deliberately linked our thoughts and feelings together we
created a new being, the group itself, which was
way
stronger than the sum of its
individual parts. We gained power from each other and were emboldened by it,
daring to try to make a difference in more and more audacious ways. This was
one of the most beautiful things, to me, about having these wonderful women as
friends.

We usually ended our Pilates sessions
with a short group meditation. We all joined hands in a circle, closed our
eyes, and envisioned a clean and verdant planet Earth, serenely spinning
through space surrounded by a big fat shiny bubble of healthy atmosphere. We
pictured frozen polar ice caps, lush rainforests, thriving species of all
kinds. And wise politicians all over the globe joining their intelligence and
power to enlighten and evolve mankind. We were getting pretty good at holding
that mental image, now that we’d been practicing for a while. Sometimes I
called the image up in my mind when I had trouble falling asleep at night. I
found it comforting.

“I’ll talk to Henry about asking Bella
to give us some hours on a regular basis,” I said, and Siri nodded in
agreement. “We’ve been getting busier, anyhow, and it’s a lot easier when there
are at least two of us here. We need to be careful not to get burned out from
stretching ourselves too thin. Our business is growing!” I took a step back,
mentally, and looked at the long-term progress we had made. It was impressive
and I was proud.

While Siri prepared to go home, I went
upstairs to tell my employer I was back. He was getting ready to go out and
seemed to be excited. He greeted me enthusiastically, kissing me on both
cheeks. He had never done that before! I immediately wondered what was up. The
old boy was very jazzed about something.

“How have things been going while I
was gone?” I ventured, watching him alertly.

“Excellent! Swimmingly, in fact!
Couldn’t be better,” he crowed, bustling around the room looking for something.
“Of course, we missed you immensely, my dear.”

“And how is Tony?”

“What? Tony? Very well, very well.
Gave him your message, of course.”

I had called the store yesterday and
informed Henry of my estimated arrival time, as soon as our travel plans were
confirmed. I’d asked him to pass the news on to Tony and Siri.

“Hm,” he said, stopping for a moment. “Forgot
what I was…oh yes!” He located a straw panama hat on the desk, and put it on
his head at a rakish angle. I admired him, nodding in approval.

“Where on earth are you going, Henry
Paradis?” I asked suspiciously. He was wearing Teva sandals and carrying a
walking stick.

“For a stroll!” he replied, pulling
out a pair of sunglasses from the desk drawer. He put them on and struck a pose
for me. I chuckled. He swept out the door with a dramatic swoosh.

OK, he obviously was telling me
nothing, which was not a new phenomenon around here. My employer was the
maestro of mystery, when he chose to be, and he got a tremendous kick out of
it. Which was fine with me, cause I loved the old boy and anyhow,
carpe diem
, I had work to do downstairs in my
place of business.

I grumbled a little to myself as I
went down the stairs. He had already disappeared, as had Siri, and I was alone
in the store. I wandered around, looking at everything with fresh eyes. Being
away for a while had given me a new perspective. I’d gotten some display ideas
from the shops on Nantucket.

I unlocked the front door and put the
A-frame sign out on the sidewalk in front of the building. It was a sunny, hot
summer day. There was lots of activity up and down the street and across the
way I saw John with his straw hat on, pushing a wheelbarrow through the garden
in front of the flower shop. He saw me and we waved. I realized how much I
loved this neighborhood and the friendly, open, positive attitudes of the
people who worked and lived here.