Dune Road (9 page)

Except now it seems that day has come. Tory is only thirteen, but their shoe size is exactly the same, and no matter what shoes Kit buys for her, no matter how cool the clothes—Abercrombie is all the rage—the only things she is desperate to wear are in Kit’s wardrobe, and the more Kit likes them, the better.

Kit’s favorite J.Crew flip-flops with the embroidered whales on them? The ones that were sparkling white and navy? Now they are filthy dirty, Tory having taken them, without asking, and worn them to a baseball match, getting them covered with dust and dirt.

Her pink cashmere pashmina that cost a fortune, that she wore to a wedding a few summers ago and hasn’t had occasion to wear since? Disappeared, Tory swearing blind she hadn’t seen it and hadn’t taken it, only for Kit to find it, damp and crumpled, under a mountain of dirty clothes in the back of Tory’s wardrobe.

Half the time Tory will lie and tell Kit, all wide-eyed and innocent, that she found the clothes in her own closet, as if a) that were true, and b) the fact that they are in her closet means they are automatically hers.

If Tory treated her clothes well, asked before taking them, put them back in the closet, Kit would have no issue with lending her things, but she can’t stand this attitude of entitlement, this
what’s yours is mine
, and
I’m going to treat everything of yours just as horribly as I treat my own things
.

It was funny when Tory was six. Anything sparkly or bright—hair clips, nail polish, makeup—would disappear from Kit’s drawers and reappear in Tory’s. Kit and Adam would laugh about how precocious their daughter was, coming down for breakfast with NARS blush on her cheeks and Lancôme Juicy gloss thickly slicked on her lips.

Although heaven forbid Buckley gets his hands on anything of Tory’s. Heaven forbid Buckley even enters Tory’s room without permission. The screaming that ensues is quite unlike anything Kit has ever heard.

But the missing lilac yoga pants? There’s only one place they can be, and by the time Kit has turned Tory’s room upside down, finding two sweaters, three pairs of shoes, one pair of pants and four scarves that belong to Kit, she is positively fuming.

 

The bus pulls up at the end of the driveway, and Kit storms out of the front door. Buckley, seeing his mother in a rage, adjusts his facial expression from one of delight at coming home to his mom to one of nervous anticipation. Tory shuffles toward the house, kicking up stray stones on the road, clad in none other than Kit’s lilac yoga pants.

“Get those off right this second,” Kit says, trying hard to keep her voice calm.

“What? ”

“You know what. Those are my pants. How many times have I told you not to take my things without asking? I’ve been looking for them all day, and I cannot believe you had the nerve to just help yourself.”

“Oh relax.” Tory shoves past her mother and starts heading up the stairs. “I don’t even like them that much.”

“Don’t you dare walk away from me,” Kit yells, starting up behind Tory, who runs into her room, slamming the door. “That’s it. No more clothes. I’m not buying you anything else this summer.”

“I don’t care,” Tory shrieks. “Daddy will buy me stuff anyway, and he spends much more money than you. I wish I lived with him! I hate you! ”

“You spoiled little brat.” Kit can’t help herself; but Tory undoubtedly knew that her words were like a red rag to a bull. “How dare you! I work my ass off to try and buy you nice things, to give you what you need, and this is how you repay me? By acting like one of those bratty spoiled girls you hang out with, who snap their fingers and get whatever they want? That’s it. I’m canceling the Jonas Brothers tickets.”

“Nooooooooooooooo! ” comes a wail from behind the bedroom door. “You can’t do that.”

“Oh no? Watch me. When you’re rude to me, young lady, there is a consequence, and this, I’m afraid, is the consequence.”

“But how am I going to tell Paige? ” The wail becomes louder. “You can’t do this to me.”

“You’ll have to think about how to tell Paige. It’s not my problem.” Kit’s shoulders sag with the drama.

“I’m sorry.” The door opens and Tory appears, now contrite. “I’m sorry, Mommy. I’m really sorry. I’m sorry I was rude and I’m sorry I took your clothes without asking.” Standing in underpants she hands Kit the yoga pants in a ball.

“Okay,” Kit takes a deep breath, “I’m sorry I shouted too.” She opens her arms and she and Tory hug.

“So I can still go to the Jonas Brothers, right? ”

Kit detaches and shakes her head. “No.”

“But I just said sorry,” Tory starts to wail again. “You said okay.”

“I did. And I accept your apology, but the consequence hasn’t changed.”

“Nooooooooooooooo!” The door is slammed again and Tory collapses in a sobbing mess on her bed.

Kit goes into the office, tired and upset, to find Buckley doing what he always does when his sister starts screaming: sitting coma-like in front of the computer playing Club Penguin.

Thank God, she thinks, I’m going to yoga. Thank God I’m doing something for myself. Putting the lilac pants in the washing machine, she gazes out of the window wondering when her life became so damned hard.

 

Kit manages to calm down by the time she walks into Namaste. There is something about the incense, the ambient music, the soft lighting, and her breathing changes, always, as soon as she steps through the door.

She takes her place in the yoga class, waiting for the teacher to arrive. In her usual yoga class there are just the same five women that show up every week, but here she knows no one. A different crowd, who clearly know one another, who just smile at Kit but don’t include her in the conversation.

The door opens and a stranger walks in, male, handsome. You can feel, instantly, the energy in the room shifting, and she knows this is the man Tracy was talking about.

He is impossible to miss.

Tracy isn’t taking this class—she tended to teach the Ashtanga yoga and this is Vinyasa—but after he rolls out his mat, Kit notices Tracy peeking in through the round glass window in the door, grinning and giving Kit a discreet thumbs-up.

Breathing in and out, in and out, absorbing the peace and calm in the room, Kit starts to forget about the stress and drama at home, starts to feel the tension leave her body. These episodes with Tory are so disconcerting, so upsetting, it can often throw her for an entire day.

She has tried to talk to Adam about it. Tried to explain the problems she is having, but Adam has only ever seen Tory as his little girl, refuses to believe that she could ever be rude, or difficult, and if there is a problem with Kit, surely it must be something to do with Kit.

Kit recognizes that she plays a part in this. Tory can behave however she chooses to behave, but every time Kit reacts to her behavior, she is making the situation somehow worse.

“This has nothing to do with me,” she tries to tell herself, during those moments when Tory flies off the handle. “These are her hormones. I didn’t cause it, I can’t control it, I can’t cure it.”

And her other mantra: “Today I choose to be happy, irrespective of other people’s behavior.”

Life has been so much easier since she found yoga. Since she and Charlie now see one another several times a week because of these classes, since her burgeoning friendship with Tracy. So much easier since she discovered a place that’s all hers, a place where she isn’t a wife or ex-wife, a mother, an assistant, but Kit.

Just Kit.

She can’t help but sneak a peek at the stranger. He is, just as Tracy described, adorable. But more than adorable, the phrase that Tracy used recently comes to mind: tall, dark and dangerous.

He glances up from Downward Dog to find her looking at him, and she blushes furiously and looks away, not before he smiles at her. A sweet smile. Shy, almost. Embarrassed.

The lovely thing about yoga, Kit thinks, as the class ends and they bow their Namastes to one another, is that it forces you to switch your mind off for an hour and a half. It becomes more than exercise, it becomes a meditation; all you are able to do is concentrate on your poses, your breathing, being in the present.

She watches the stranger walk over to talk to the teacher, thank her, explain that he has had some problems with his knee and could some of the poses be modified. Kit rolls up her mat and leaves, wanting to strike up a conversation of some kind, but not having the slightest idea how to start.

 

She had met Adam so young, had been married so long, she never thought she’d be single at the age of forty, never thought she’d have to meet men, tell her stories, be vibrant and fun and interesting in a bid to attract someone who may or may not turn out to be her soul mate.

She sees others do it, put profiles up on
Match.com
, give their business cards out to men in bars. Business cards? Why would she have a business card? She has had a handful of dates, less perhaps, since the ending of her marriage, because she just doesn’t know how to do this whole dating thing.

She has been set up, from time to time, but that is usually awkward, and although she never expects them to be interested in her, they usually call her afterward, and she doesn’t know how to tell them she doesn’t want to see them again, so she procrastinates, or avoids picking up the phone, screening her calls until they get the message and go away.

“You’re gorgeous,” Charlie always says. “They’d be lucky to have you.”

But Kit doesn’t see gorgeous very often these days when she looks in the bathroom mirror. Mostly she sees tired. She sees gray in her hair and bags under her eyes. She sees washed-out sallow skin and a deadness to her face.

Sometimes she looks at the old pictures, from when she and Adam were married, and she barely recognizes the girl in them, not because much has changed—same hairstyle but more gray, same figure, just slightly more padded—but because the bloom of youth, already fading when she gave birth to Tory, disappeared swiftly and suddenly when she went through her divorce.

Other things disappeared just as swiftly and suddenly. The ten pounds she had been wanting to lose ever since she gave birth to Tory, fell off her frame. She still has no idea how she did it, doesn’t remember not eating, or dieting, but the stress seemed to make it melt away.

Occasionally, she can make herself look like the girl of old, the glamour girl she used to be when she was married to Adam. Like when she goes out with Tracy and Charlie, when she makes an effort, straightens her hair, brushes on blush and lip gloss, concealer on the shadows under her eyes, spray-tan to give her body a healthy glow she doesn’t usually feel. But most of the time she can’t be bothered; she runs around town with hair shoved back in a ponytail, practical and no-nonsense, certainly not wanting to be mistaken for one of the glamorous, scary mothers at school who look down their noses at Kit (or at least did, until they discovered she works for Robert McClore).

 

Today, for yoga, she may not have managed the lilac pants—they weren’t dry in time—but she wore the chocolate brown ones that are pretty nice, with a sky-blue tight vest. She washed her hair and blew it dry, then decided it was too over-the-top for a yoga class, so drew it back in a tight, swinging ponytail.

Adam always loved her hair back in a ponytail like this. He said she looked both elegant and young, and with her hair off her face you could actually see how pretty she is, how high her cheekbones, how full her lips.

But he hadn’t noticed her, the stranger. Or at least, not enough to come and talk to her. Tracy is not at the desk when she walks out, and because this is not her usual yoga class, she does not know the women who are there and feels awkward about going to the smoothie bar by herself.

She is heading out of the door and toward her car, when she hears footsteps behind her, and turns to see the stranger following her out. Is he following her? Surely not. Why on earth would he be following her? But he flashes a big smile at her and she falters, awkward, giving a half-smile in return, not sure if he wants her to stop or not.

He approaches her. “Hi, I’m Steve. This is my first yoga class here, I wanted to know whether there are any others you recommend.”

“Oh. Sure.”

“Do you have a name?” He peers at her, squinting in the sunlight.

She laughs. “I’m Kit.”

“Nice to meet you.”

He takes her hand in his and she is shocked at how warm and masculine it feels, shocked at how she had forgotten what a man’s hand feels like, looks like; she feels a thrill run up her spine.

“Um, are you still here? ”

“Oh God!” Kit shakes her head, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I was just thinking about something.”

“No, I’m sorry. You’re obviously busy. I just thought you looked like someone who could tell me about the town. I just moved here.”

“You did? Where are you from? ”