Heat Wave (14 page)

“What about Friday and Saturday nights?” Cisco pleaded.

“Oh, Cisco.”

“I think Nana would like that, Mom. I think it would help her.”

“Oh, Cisco. All right, then. Do you know how much I love you?”

“I know, Mom.”

Cisco leaned in to Carley’s embrace. They sat together, hugging tightly, too tired to cry.

• • • • •

C
arley had had Hugo build a row of cubicles in the back hall leading into the kitchen. She was folding and carefully putting away brand-new, newly washed hand towels, bath towels, washcloths, and beach towels, stacks and stacks of them so that Maria, who was going to help her clean the rooms, would always have plenty on hand.

She stood back to admire her organization. Each room would have its own summery color—sea blue, navy blue, or leaf green. The beach towels were in stripes of all three colors. Everyone could use those. At an amazingly inexpensive outlet shop, she’d found beach bags and umbrellas covered in polka dots in similar colors, dark and light blue and green. Next, she’d take the hair dryers around to each room, and the shampoos and conditioners and the clever little radio alarm clocks—

Maud pounded on the kitchen door and then burst into the house.

“Carley, Toby’s going to leave Vanessa!” Maud’s eyes were shining. She’d never looked so glorious.

Quickly, Carley took stock. Margaret was in her room, playing with a neighborhood friend. Cisco was out with Polo. And there went Maud’s boys, kicking a soccer ball around the yard.

“I told the boys to stay in the backyard.” Maud hugged herself, grinning from ear to ear. “Toby’s going to do it. He’s telling Vanessa tonight.”

Carley’s fists clenched. “Maud, come on! You can’t do that to Vanessa. It’s so wrong! You should be ashamed of yourself for even—”

“
Ashamed
? There’s nothing shameful about love. When have you become so frigid?”

Carley stared at Maud, inarticulate with anger and misery. Maud glared back, determined.

“You don’t know what you’re saying, Maud.” Carley let her voice go soft as she sank into a chair. “You don’t know what you’re doing.” She felt ill. “My God, Maud. This will change everything.”

“Well,
duh
! I’m
dreading
it.” Maud paced around the kitchen table. “But it will be all right, Carley, really it will! I mean everyone on the island adores Vanessa. Toby won’t be out of the house two seconds before half the men on the island show up to take care of her!”

“I hope you’re right.” Carley put her head in her hands. She could think of no way out of this.

Maud was irrepressible. “Carley. Toby loves me and I love him.”

“And Vanessa?”

“Toby will take care of Vanessa financially.”

“Oh, good. Because money’s all that matters.”

“I’m not saying that. But it is important. Vanessa will be fine, Carley. To start with, she’s totally beautiful. She’s a strong woman, and she’s so active on all those boards. She won’t even realize Toby’s gone.” Seeing Carley’s face, Maud sagged. “Oh, Carley, of course I’m concerned about Vanessa. I don’t want to hurt her. I don’t want to hurt anyone. But it’s possible, isn’t it, that after all the dust settles, Vanessa could be happier?”

“I don’t know. It’s not like it’s her choice.”

“Come on, Carley. Her marriage with Toby is
over
, it was over before he and I started sleeping together, we wouldn’t have gotten involved if there had still been even a
spark
between him and Vanessa. You have to trust that Toby and I care about Vanessa. We’ve gone over and over this, looking at it from every possible angle.”

“Especially from lying on the bed,” Carley shot back.

“All right, yes, and what’s so terrible about that? Life is short. Life is fragile. Life is hard. Toby and I are
passionately
in love, and it just seems right for us to be together.”

Looking at her friend’s shining face, Carley sighed. She knew she couldn’t change anything. Perhaps she should have done something when Maud first told her, but she hadn’t, and things had gone so far, it was too late now.

“Okay, Maud. Talk it through for me.”

“Okay. First, my boys will not have to go through any major upheaval. Of course they already think Toby’s cool; he’s their doctor. I’ll need to introduce them to the idea of Toby being in my house and in my life. Second, Toby’s going to talk with Vanessa tonight.” She shivered with happiness. “He’s going to come to my house tonight. He’s going to spend the night.”

“Who’s going to be with Vanessa?” Carley asked.

“Don’t be so judgmental.”

“I’m just asking the question. If Toby leaves her, she’ll be all alone. It seems only decent to arrange for a friend to be on call.”

“Fine. You can be on call.”

Carley spit out the word.
“Fine.”

Maud put her hand on Carley’s arm. “Please don’t be angry with me. I’ve been so lonely for so long, Carley. You’ve lost your husband, you should understand the kind of loneliness I’ve gone through, except I’ve been going through it for
years
. John left me when Percy was just a baby.” Tears flooded her round blue eyes. “Carley,
now
my boys will have a father living with them! Vanessa doesn’t have any children, so we won’t be hurting any, don’t you see?”

“Yes,” Carley agreed, reluctantly. “Yes, I do see that. Of course it’s been hard for you, raising the boys alone. But you’ve done a good job, Maud, remember that.”

“Thanks for saying that, but I do worry. Sometimes the boys seem so wild. And as hard as I try, I can’t show them how to hit a ball or catch a Frisbee.”

“That’s true,” Carley agreed; Maud was spectacularly uncoordinated.

“But that’s not why I’m in love with Toby,” Maud insisted. “Give me a break, if I’d just wanted to get a father for my boys, I could have found
someone
.”

Carley nodded. This was true. Not only was Maud lovely to look at, she could be staggeringly funny and great fun to be with. She was often almost eerily insightful about people. She’d predicted that the high school principal’s son would join the military, that the Grossfelds would get divorced, that Sonya Elliston would go to New York and make it in the theater. When Vanessa and Carley asked Maud how she got to be so psychic, Maud had replied simply that she just looked and listened, and she did have an innate talent for paying attention. She worked hard on her books, which were favorites in children’s libraries and bookstores across the country, but she was modest about her success, never flashing herself around like a star.

Carley looked hopelessly at Maud. “But how can I wish you happiness when I’m sure it’s going to cause Vanessa misery?”

“Because it’s not.” Maud drew herself up straight. “Do this: remember all the times Vanessa complained about Toby.”

“I complained about Gus just as much,” Carley retorted dryly.

“Yes, and that’s something you ought to think about, but that’s not what we’re talking about right now. We’re talking about Vanessa and Toby. She thought he was boring sexually, right?”

Carley ducked her head. A kind of sadness slid through her, like the guilt of a child who tattled on her sibling, or stole someone’s doll. An intimate, deep, even primitive regret settled in her heart and fogged her mind. She
had
loved Gus, but never passionately. She’d never told her friends that. She probably never would. It seemed wrong, now that he was gone.

“Do you agree?” Maud prompted. “Vanessa found Toby boring?”

Quietly Carley agreed, “Yes. Of course I remember.” Lifting her head, she met Maud’s bright gaze. “Maudie, to be honest, I think I’m sad for myself, too.”

“Because I found someone and you’re alone?”

“No. Not that. No, because our threesome has been so important to me. It’s held me together, in a way. I’ll miss it.”

“Look, you can still be my friend. And Vanessa’s friend, too.”

“But not the three of us together. Las Tres Enchiladas! Won’t you miss that?”

“Of course I will. I love Vanessa. I know how remarkable our threesome was, but it wasn’t enough, it wasn’t everything.” Maud stood up. “Carley, the whole wide world is before each of us. Maybe
now
Vanessa will meet a man who really rings her chimes. Maybe in a year she’ll be in love and the three of us will be back in our trio again.”

“Maybe pigs will fly.”

“Don’t be so negative!”

“I’m not trying to be negative, I’m just trying to think this through. Look, Maud, be sensible. I can’t be your friend and Vanessa’s, too. In divorces people always have to make choices, and this is really hard, because I love you both. But someone has to be on Vanessa’s side. Someone has to help her through the next few months.”

“Well, you’ll have to see me sometime because our kids play together.”

“It’s almost summer. Margaret will be at day camp.”

“So will Percy and Spenser!”

“So they can see one another then.”

“Fine.” Maud turned to leave, then stopped and faced Carley. “I love you, Carley.”

“I love you, too.”

“I love Vanessa, too.”

“Strange way of showing it.”

“I’m happy for the first time in my life. Can’t you be glad for me?”

“Honestly, Maud, it’s a challenge.”

“Well, I think you’re being a pill.”

“Well, I think you’re being selfish, greedy, and spoiled, wanting everything your way immediately.”

Maud opened her mouth, then shut it. After a moment, she shrugged and grinned ruefully. “You know, Carley, perhaps you’re
right. I apologize. But I won’t stop being happy.” She went out the door, into the yard, calling her boys.

That evening as she prepared dinner and ate it with her daughters, discussing the day, Carley was tense with anticipation, expecting the phone to ring at any moment, expecting to hear Vanessa in tears. But the phone was silent.

She got the girls tucked into bed and finished cleaning the kitchen, then went into her office and spent some time organizing her B&B files and tax-deductible expenses—the amenities she’d bought at the Cape the day before. The phone didn’t ring.

By eleven, she decided Vanessa wasn’t going to phone her for help and consolation. Despair and self-anger plunged through her. What kind of friend had she been to Vanessa? Both Vanessa and Maud had been so good to her when Gus died, bringing over dinners, taking the girls out for a fun afternoon, helping with the myriad details of the funeral, and most of all listening endlessly while Carley wept and ranted. They had both wept with her. They had spent hours sharing their special memories of Gus, how blissed-out he’d been when his daughters were born, how many people loved him because he’d coached Little League baseball, what dazzling hours they’d enjoyed when he took them sailing. Their friendship, their words, their embraces, and most of all, their
listening
had woven a kind of cocoon around Carley, a soft protected world in which she could curl up and mourn, and eventually recover and reenter the real world.

It pierced her heart that she couldn’t do the same for Vanessa. Maud didn’t need her tonight. Maud had Toby coming to live with her. If all went as Maud had planned, by now Vanessa was
alone
. Should she phone Vanessa, ask her to come here?

By midnight, Carley couldn’t stand it any longer. She dialed Vanessa’s number. The line was busy.

• • • • •

C
arley drove Cisco out to Lauren’s farm to spend Saturday morning. She dropped Margaret at Annabel’s for a special day with her grandmother. Then she drove to Vanessa’s house.

Vanessa’s phone had been busy all morning, which made Carley sure Vanessa had taken it off the hook. She was determined to help Vanessa somehow, to be there for her, and when she turned onto Duck Pond Lane and saw only one car—Vanessa’s Saab—in the driveway, she was glad she’d come. Toby’s Volvo was gone.

The front garden was in full, luscious bloom. Vanessa spent hours planting, weeding, nurturing her flowers—Carley could only imagine what a fabulous mother she could have been. It was too cruel, Carley thought, that Vanessa was left, after years of marriage, with nothing.

Carley parked behind Vanessa’s car, went up the walk, rapped the brass whale knocker. After a moment, the door opened, and Vanessa was there, her face swollen from crying.

“Vanessa, can I come in?”

Fury tightened Vanessa’s face into an ugly mask. “Why would I
ever
want
you
in my house again?”

“Vanessa, please. I’m so sorry. Let me come in. Let me explain.”

“Explain? Really?” Sometimes Vanessa could be sarcastic in a humorous way, but today there was only misery in her voice and her
eyes and her posture. “You can explain why you helped Maud have an affair with my husband.”

“I didn’t help—” But Carley broke off. Because, of course, in a way, she had helped.

“Oh, come in.” Vanessa yanked the door open. “Otherwise the neighbors will hear me yelling like a fishwife and they’ll think
poor Dr. Hutchinson, no wonder he left her
!”

“No one will think that,” Carley protested. She shut the door behind her and waited for Vanessa to lead her into the kitchen or living room, but Vanessa only stood in the hall, arms crossed defensively over her bosom. “Look, Vanessa, can’t we talk?”

“Oh,
now
you want to talk.” Vanessa was barefoot, her lavender dress creased with wrinkles, as if she’d slept in it, her black curls savagely pulled back in a band.

“Vanessa—”

“You didn’t tell me! How could you not have told me? All those days and nights and weeks when we saw each other, Carley, you
knew
!
You knew!
I trusted you and you lied to me, you sided with Maud, you chose Maud over me, you let Maud steal my husband, you let her take away my entire life! What kind of woman
are
you?”

“Vanessa, I promised Maud—”

“What, and you’ve never broken a promise? Come on, Carley, you have to admit you made a choice. You chose Maud.”

Carley’s stomach cramped with guilt. “Vanessa, I’m just sick about it. I was
wrong
. I made a terrible mistake. I should have told you. I should have done
something
. But Maud told me it was a fling. That it would end. That it was like a vacation.”