Folly Cove (36 page)

He was attractive, Laura decided: compelling to look at in the way a man is when he's confident. He looked vaguely British, in his wax jacket and corduroy trousers. The look suited him.

“I'm sorry,” Tom said as the silence lengthened. “Maybe this wasn't a good idea. I don't want to intrude or make things awkward for you. I really did just stop by to make sure you're okay.”

“You aren't making things awkward!” Laura realized from the heat in her face that she was probably blushing, and not prettily, either. Probably more like she'd been lifting weights. “Nobody's here.”

Tom glanced past her through the barn doors, where they could hear the riders talking as the third horse entered the ring.

Laura laughed. “I mean, nobody in my family. Kennedy's with a friend.”

“Your daughter.” Tom smiled. “She looks a lot like you.”

From Facebook, Laura realized, Tom knew a lot about her life. At least about those things she chose to share. She posted victories and celebrations. Not the burned dinners or shouting matches over laundry strewn about Kennedy's floor; not her worries over money or her resentment toward her mother; not the middle-of-the-day naps Laura took when she sometimes felt she couldn't go on.

Tom knew only the profile she'd chosen to present to the world. He had no idea that Jake had left her, that she'd just heard about her father's death, or that her mother had been lying to her all her life.

“Well. Guess I should be going,” he said.

At that Laura realized she'd said nothing to indicate how happy she was to see him; he must think she was unhinged.

She was, a little. But she was also glad: Tom was here, and he was real. He cared enough to make the effort to find her even after those silly photos, and she didn't need to worry about what he thought about the way she looked. She'd shown him everything already. As in,
everything
.

This fact probably should have made her want to run and hide. Instead, as Laura met Tom's warm gaze—his face was as lined as her own—she suddenly relaxed. She smiled, and he smiled back. It was as easy as that.

“Why don't we go inside and I'll make some coffee?” she said. “Do you have time? I have a lot to tell you.”

Tom's smile widened into a grin. Now she remembered the boy he'd been, circling his bicycle around hers, talking excitedly about math and chemistry. The sort of boy who was curious to know everything about the world and what it was made of, down to the most basic elements.

“For you? I have all the time in the world,” he said, and followed her up to the house.

E
lly had seen Sarah in a fury many times before. Cut to childhood: a broom thrown at her once, when she'd failed to sweep beneath the kitchen counters; a sharp twist of the arm when Elly defied her mother and tried to sneak out to meet a boy at fourteen; sharp words when she'd eaten apples meant for a pie.

Now Sarah was shouting at her, though really she was angry that Flossie had told them everything. “It wasn't her place to share my history with my children!” she repeated. “I should have been the one to tell you!”

Elly waited her out for a while, letting her wind down, then finally put a hand up to stop her. “Chill, Mom.” She was getting angry, too; she was too old to take this abuse. “Flossie told us because she knew you wouldn't. Don't you think we deserved to be told that Dad was dead, at least? And those lies about your background! Were they really necessary? Did you really think any of us would
care
that you didn't grow up rich? Or that you never finished college?”

“The Bradfords would have cared! You girls can't understand what it was like.” Sarah's face was pink with rage. She was pacing in her office and—for the first time ever, perhaps—seemingly unaware that there were guests in the reception area, a family of four that looked ready to bolt as they witnessed the scene.

Elly rose from the chair in front of Sarah's desk and closed the
office door after a friendly wave at the family group and at Rhonda, who looked as jumpy as a gerbil behind the reception desk. Sarah never yelled while she was working. Her commands were always made professionally and quietly, with an undercurrent of steel.

“Try me. What was it like?” Elly turned back to her mother, who was still pacing.

When her mother didn't answer, Elly said, “Okay. Never mind the Bradfords. Let's start with something easy. How about your age? Why did you lie about it? I can't believe you're seventy-five! You don't look it at all,” she added, hoping to calm her mother with a compliment.

Sarah glanced at her, then away. Finally she went to stand in front of the windows with her back to Elly. “I work hard not to look my age.”

That much was true. Sarah's face was heavily made-up this morning, her complexion smoothed by foundation, her eyes neatly outlined in navy blue, the lashes thick and black. But she was so pale beneath the makeup, she looked waxy. Like a corpse made up for an open-casket funeral. If the corpse was a showgirl.

“Sit down, Mom,” Elly said gently. “I'm sorry I upset you. Let me get you some water.”

Sarah waved a hand. “I don't want any damn water.” She sank into her office chair, gripping the handles like the chair itself might take off and start flying around the room with her in it. “Jesus Christ. Damn it all to hell.”

Her mother never swore and didn't let them get away with it, either. Elly had to press her lips together because her first impulse was to laugh, hearing these words coming out of her mother's delicate mouth, painted its customary rose pink. “Mom, start at the beginning. Come on. Please? At least tell me why you lied about your age.”

Sarah's eyes flickered across Elly's face and beyond, to the closed doors behind her. She had recovered enough from her tantrum to sound exasperated. “Your father was barely twenty-one years old when I met him. A baby! And I was thirty. Nearly thirty-one. His parents had enough problems accepting me into the family as it was. Even though I fabricated a background I knew they couldn't refuse, they considered me an unsuitable match for Neil because I was an entertainer. The
Bradfords went to Harvard. They went into banking or the law. They rode horses and played golf. But they were never entertainers. So there was that strike against me already. Now, what do you think they would've said if they'd known their golden boy was going to marry a woman who might be too old to give them any little Bradfords? Remember, having children after thirty back in those days was simply not done. Unless you were Catholic and couldn't help it, of course.”

“Still, it seems unfair to Dad.”

“Oh, for heaven's sake, why?” Sarah asked. “I was every bit as sexy and beautiful at thirty as most women his age. More so, because I had the confidence they lacked! And your father was legally an adult when we got married. It wasn't like he got a bum deal. I gave him children. And then he didn't want you in the end, anyway, did he?”

Of course her mother wouldn't miss an opportunity to rub
that
in, Elly noted. “What about the rest of it? Did you actually grow up in some crap apartment in Everett?”

Her mother turned away. “Yes. But you can't let anyone know any of this, Elly. I mean it. The reputation of this inn rests on me being the person I am today, not who I was too many years ago to count. Please.” She turned back to face Elly, her blue eyes wide and brimming over. “I beg you. Hate me if you want. But I had my reasons. Now please go. Leave me in peace.”

Elly sighed. “I don't hate you, Mom. But it'll take a while for us to adjust to everything. And you have to start being honest with us from now on, okay? I mean, do you really have a sister?”

Her mother nodded, but she pressed her lips tightly together, as if terrified something else might escape.

“Well, tell me about her. Is she older or younger? All Flossie told us is her name.”

“Joanie,” Sarah whispered. “She's five years younger than I am. I haven't seen her in almost fifty years. She was a sweet little thing.”

“Wow. Do you want to see her again before you die?” Elly hated to put it like that, but having just seen her father literally in a box, the possibility of losing her mother seemed far more imminent.

Sarah looked startled. “No, I don't think so. What would be the point?”

“I don't know,” Elly admitted. “Just to find out how she's doing, I guess. What about your birthday? The invitations have all gone out. They say you're turning sixty-five. You've just blatantly lied to about a hundred people. Never mind to your own family. Doesn't that seem just the tiniest bit wrong to you?”

“Like I said, I had my reasons for everything. What are you planning to do, Elizabeth?” she demanded. “You can't possibly change the invitations. They're already in the mail!”

“The one thing I won't do is lie for you,” Elly said. “You got yourself into this mess, Mom. You'll have to figure a way out of it. Just know that the more you lie, the less we'll ever trust you. Is that really what you want?”

“I don't know what I want,” her mother said, “except for all of you to quit badgering me.”

“Fine. I'm done,” Elly said, and left before she could say anything she would truly regret, aware of Rhonda's curious eyes on her back as she heard the office door shut behind her.

Outside, the sun was a bright, merciless eye. The landscape lit up around her, oranges and golds and reds. Elly blinked and walked back slowly to Laura's house with her head down. Just when it seemed like her family couldn't get any more dysfunctional, there was a whole new level of crazy.

She didn't notice the man sitting on Laura's front steps until he stood up. Then she recognized the ponytail and broad shoulders, the pierced ear.

“Oh my God,” Elly said. “Ryder! What are you doing here?”

He looked confused. “Your sister invited me,” he said. “Laura thought I should come film your mother's birthday party. Didn't she tell you?”

“No,” Elly said. She went up to him tentatively and touched the collar of his leather jacket.

Ryder wrapped his arms around her, smelling as he always did: of lemon and salt, making her imagine him either drinking shots of tequila or shaving. Once, she'd seen him do both at the same time. “You okay? What's going on?” he said.

“Can you please just tell me I'm normal?”

Ryder kissed the top of her head. “Sorry, babe. If you were normal, I probably wouldn't be here.”

•   •   •

Somehow, having Tom in her kitchen made Laura lose track not only of time but of her life: of the strange, surreal news about her father's death; of her mother's falsehoods; and even of Jake and the pain of knowing their marriage was a sham.

“As devastated as you are, though, isn't it still better to know the truth?” Tom said after she told him about Jake.

She had to admit that it was, though the financial practicalities of a divorce terrified her.

Well, if she had to sell this house, she would. She was determined to separate her life from Jake's as quickly as possible, and she was going to do it without her mother's help. In fact, if there was any way to avoid even
telling
her mother what was happening, she would. She wouldn't feel bad about shutting her mother out of her life, either. Not after all the lying her mother had done.

“I don't want to tell her, because I don't want my mother meddling or criticizing,” she told Tom. “She lost the right to give me advice when she lost my trust. Besides, I know she'd want me to stay with Jake.”

“Why?” Tom asked.

“She's not a huge fan of divorce, obviously. My father was missing for thirty years, and she still calls herself Mrs. Bradford.”

Laura felt reassured by Tom's presence, by his easy acceptance of the things she told him, just as she had been when they were teenagers. He listened intently and spoke little, other than to reassure her that Kennedy might be more resilient than Laura believed.

“She has a lot of support in her life, between you and her aunts,” Tom said. “Anyway, she might already suspect something. Teenagers have pretty powerful radars when it comes to the adults in their lives. Kids pluck things out of the air. It's the nature of humans to be observant so we can survive.”

Then one of Laura's boarders had come up to the house and knocked on the door, letting her know that her four o'clock lesson had arrived.

“My God. I completely lost track of time,” Laura said, pulling her boots back on.

“In a good way, I hope.” Tom stood up, too, watching as she zipped her jacket and ran a hand through her short hair.

Laura felt shy, suddenly, remembering the photos she'd texted him. “I'm glad you found me,” she said. “I'm just sorry it's such a crazy time. Jake and I haven't even officially separated yet. I'm not ready for much.”

A slow smile spread across Tom's face as he returned Laura's gaze, and she couldn't help but smile back.

“Are you open to the possibility, though?” he asked.

“The possibility of what?”

He crossed the room to take her in his arms. “The possibility of us,” he said, kissing her so deeply that she thought her knees might buckle.

When Laura came up for air, she smiled again. “I don't know,” she said. “Do that again so I can think about it.”

The four o'clock lesson went quickly, though Laura had to keep reminding herself of where she was and what she should be doing. So did her five o'clock lesson with Blythe, who was nineteen years old and Laura's most advanced student.

Star was calmer with Blythe astride him than with anyone else. Laura folded her arms and moved around the center of the ring with the stopwatch, timing Blythe and Star over the cavallettis. She'd set the basic jumps at four feet and was happy to see Star clear them smoothly, not even a hoof tick.

She called them back to the center of the ring and gave Blythe a few pointers on form, then waved them off. Blythe would untack Star and groom him; she had started helping Laura out in the afternoons in exchange for extra lessons.

Finally, after the horses had been brought in from the pasture and fed, Laura walked back to the house, thinking again about Tom and about the strange events of the afternoon.

She felt her stomach clench as she raced through dinner preparations, anticipating the conversation she and Jake were going to have with Kennedy. Omelets were the obvious choice. She was too tired and frazzled to make anything requiring more thought.

She was grating cheese when Kennedy arrived, dropping her backpack to the kitchen floor and announcing she wasn't hungry, because she'd gone to Melanie's house after school and her freezer “has pretty much an entire Costco store in it.”

“I still want you to eat something,” Laura said. “I'm guessing there weren't a lot of vegetables involved.”

“Mom,” Kennedy moaned, flopping down on the chair next to her backpack. “Don't make me eat. Please, please, please don't make me. I will explode!”

“Well, all right. Sit with us anyway.”

Laura glanced at her. Kennedy had done something different with her hair. There was a blue streak along one side and it was pinned up in back. She was also wearing a sweater Laura didn't recognize, something black-and-white striped that made her look like a mime.

“Fine. I'm sitting.” Kennedy took out her phone.

“How was it at Melanie's?” Laura asked.