Table for Seven (14 page)

“Did she agree to take the sunglasses back?” Fran asked.

“What?” Will had been distracted by thoughts of fried polenta. “Oh. She said she can’t.”

“Can’t?”

“The store she bought them from has a no-return policy.”

“Please tell me you didn’t fall for that,” Fran said, fixing him with a bold stare. “She bought them at Nordstrom. Of course they accept returns.”

“They do?”

“Of course they do!”

“How was I supposed to know?” Will asked, stung. “You know how manipulative Iris can be.”

Fran snorted. “The understatement of the year. You didn’t tell her she can keep them, did you?”

“No, I wouldn’t do that,” Will said, trying to remember if he had. No. He definitely hadn’t said that. Instead, he’d told her that she was stupid and ugly. He wondered if he should mention this to Fran, but then decided against it. His wife was in an odd mood. “But she’s going to be impossible to live with if we make her take them back.”

“So? She’s not exactly a delight to live with now,” Fran said.

“I did tell her that she should have some latitude to buy things with the money she earns,” Will said.

Fran looked up from the leftovers she’d been arranging on the counter. “Why on earth would you tell her that?”

“We want her to have some free will,” Will said mildly. “But I also told her she’d have to make better choices.”

Fran lifted her arms and then let them fall, slapping her thighs in irritation. “You just completely undermined me.”

Will blinked. “How did that undermine you?”

“Because I told her she had to put the money in a savings account, and that from now on she’d have to talk to one of us before she spent it. It’s not just the sunglasses. I don’t want her frittering her money away on makeup or clothes, either,” Fran said, tearing plastic wrap off a Pyrex dish with more force than necessary.

“You did? When did you tell her that?”

“You were standing right there!”

“I was?” Will tried to remember back to the conversation that ended with Iris storming out of the room, yelling that she hated Fran. It had gotten a bit repetitive at one point—Fran telling Iris she would be returning the sunglasses, Iris’s insistence that she never had anything nice—and so his mind
had wandered to Iggy the Rammer bot and the problems he was still having with its mobility.

“Jesus, Will!” Fran turned away.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t hear that bit. But, look—Iris thinks that we’re trying to control her. That’s not a good dynamic to get into with a teenage girl,” Will said gently.

“We should just stand back and let her make stupid decisions?”

“To a point, yes. If she spends all of her money on lipstick or bathing suits or overpriced sunglasses, and then doesn’t have money to get something else she wants, well, that’s a good lesson for her to learn,” Will said.

“Now you think she should keep the sunglasses?” Fran shook her head in disgust, and then shrugged, as though her earlier burst of anger had sapped away all of her energy. “Fine. Do whatever you want. You can be the good guy who lets her keep the glasses. I’ll continue in my role as the evil witch who makes her life miserable.”

“Come on, don’t be like that. It’s not you versus me. We’re a team. I just don’t think it should be us versus her, either,” Will said, stepping forward, and resting his hand on Fran’s shoulder.

“I’m not making it us versus her.
She
is. That’s part of what being a teenager is. We set boundaries and she tests them. If we give in on this, it’s just going to teach her that if she tantrums long enough, she’ll eventually get her own way,” Fran said.

“It might. But maybe we could explain to her that we’ll trust her judgment more, but she’ll have to live with the consequences of her behavior. It could help dial back the hostilities,” Will said.

Fran sighed and shrugged. “Okay, fine. We might as well
try another approach with her. God knows the current one hasn’t been working.”

Will smiled at her and rubbed her shoulder. But Fran just frowned down at the short ribs, and said, “Do you think this is enough for dinner? I thought there were more ribs than this. Oh, well. Rory would probably rather have a hot dog anyway.”

Fran moved away from him and began rummaging in the fridge again. And even though Will had prevailed—and, he thought, had done so with a well-reasoned position—the fact that Fran gave in so quickly made him uneasy.

THE TENNIS CLUB WAS bustling with activity. Kids wearing sweat-wicking T-shirts and baseball hats milled around, while their parents trailed after them, clutching bottles of water and containers of sunscreen. Bleachers had been set up courtside and people were queued up at the concession stand to buy hamburgers and grilled chicken sandwiches.

Emily was playing singles on one of the center courts—“The show court,” Mark had said proudly—and was already up one set over a taller, older girl. Wearing her long hair back in two ponytails, reminiscent of a young Chris Evert, Emily looked fiercely determined. Her small face was set in concentration and she didn’t pay any attention to the crowd that had gathered to watch her.

Jaime watched as much of her stepdaughter’s match as she could, although she spent most of her time chasing after Logan, who—unlike his younger sister—refused to sit still on the bleachers. Instead, he kept taking off in one direction and then another, running as fast as his chubby legs could
carry him. At one point, he ran right onto Emily’s court. Luckily, he timed this for when the girls were taking a water break and changing sides. Still, Mark—who was sitting next to Emily’s coach, Sarah, in the front row of the bleachers—was not pleased.

“Jaime,” he hissed, “can’t you keep him under control?”

Jaime had to swallow her scalding retort. Libby was sitting just two rows behind Mark, looking coolly chic dressed in all white with her eyes hidden behind huge tortoiseshell sunglasses and obviously listening to every word. Jaime pasted a smile on her face and smoothed back Logan’s hair.

“He’s just feeling extra wiggly today. I’m going to take him back behind the clubhouse and let him run off some of his energy,” Jaime said brightly, handing Ava to Mark. She took Logan’s hand firmly in hers and retreated, not letting go of him until they were a safe distance away from the courts. A group of boys around Emily’s age were kicking a soccer ball back and forth in a grassy area, and Logan scooted closer to them, mesmerized.

This was exactly the reason she hadn’t wanted to bring the kids to the tournament today, Jaime thought. She knew she’d end up spending the entire time chasing around after one or another of them and would hardly get to watch Emily play. Plus, Ava’s naptime was in less than an hour, and she always got cranky when she didn’t have her rest. If she started fussing while Em was still playing, Mark would get annoyed.

Well, let him be annoyed
, Jaime thought.
He’s the one who insisted that the whole family should be here to cheer Emily on
. It was nice in theory, but just not practical when you had a two- and three-year-old in tow. They should have booked a sitter
and come on their own, as Jaime had suggested. They could even have stretched it into a real date and had dinner afterward.

Logan turned again and ran smack into a woman who was wearing a white tennis skirt and holding a clipboard in one hand and a Diet Coke in the other. She looked down at him in surprise.

“Hello, small person,” she said.

Logan—who wasn’t really shy but occasionally liked to pretend that he was—ducked his head and didn’t answer.

“Sorry about that,” Jaime said, reaching forward to take Logan’s hand in hers again.

“No problem.” The woman smiled at Jaime. She had brown shoulder-length hair and was very tan with very white teeth. “I’m Becky.”

“Hi, I’m Jaime. Oh, wait, Becky? You’re the one who runs the club, right?”

“Yes, although on a chaotic day like today, I don’t know if I should admit to it,” Becky said with a laugh. “Do you have a child playing? This little guy looks young to be competing.”

One of the problems of being a stepparent was that there wasn’t a great way to introduce yourself. Thanks to an entire genre of Disney movies, the very term
stepmother
was tainted. Cinderella’s stepmother enslaved her, forcing her to cook and clean and wait on her stepsisters. Snow White’s stepmother attempted to murder her with a poisoned apple. In fact, you rarely even heard
stepmother
without
evil
smack in front of it.

“His older sister is playing,” Jaime said. “Emily Wexler.”

“You’re Emily’s little brother?” Becky smiled at Logan, who had apparently forgotten about pretending to be shy.
He held up a faded yellow tennis ball he’d found deserted under the bleachers.

“Look, a ball,” he said, holding it up to her.

“Very nice,” Becky said. Then, turning back to Jaime, she said, “You must be Emily’s stepmom.”

Stepmom. Okay, I can live with that
, Jaime thought. It sounded nicer, friendlier than stepmother.

“Yes, I’m Jaime,” Jaime said, squeezing Logan’s hand to prevent him from running off again.

“How’s Emily doing?” Becky asked.

“Last I checked, she was ahead. But this guy keeps racing off on me, so I haven’t had a chance to watch as much as I’d like,” Jaime said.

“Her game has really been coming along. I know Sarah’s been pleased with her,” Becky said.

“That’s good to hear. Emily works really hard,” Jaime said.

“It helps that she has such dedicated parents. Both Mark and Libby are very supportive, which is nice to see. Sometimes, once there’s a divorce, the parents aren’t so good about putting their child’s interests ahead of their own grievances,” Becky said.

Jaime nodded. Libby frequently got under Mark’s skin. He was always much happier communicating with her via text messaging or email rather than talking to her on the phone. But, it was true, both Mark and Libby worked hard to keep any differences they might have hidden from Emily.

“And I know that Emily must appreciate having you and her little brother and sister out cheering her on today,” Becky continued, smiling at Jaime.

Jaime felt instantly contrite for her earlier irritation with
Mark over his insistence that the whole family attend the tournament that day. That was the whole point, to cheer Emily on. And of course it would make Emily feel good to know that they were all there for her.

“I’m going to try to catch the end of the match,” Jaime said. She looked down at Logan. “Come on, buddy. We’re going to go cheer your big sister on.”

“Have fun,” Becky said with a wave.

Jaime picked up Logan and set him on her hip—which he normally hated, but was now sufficiently tired that he didn’t fight her—and backtracked to Emily’s court. She didn’t join Mark on the bleachers, but instead stood to one side, swaying gently to soothe Logan. This had an almost magical effect on him. The head resting on her shoulder instantly grew heavy, and his thumb disappeared into his mouth.

Emily’s opponent served a ball to her, and Emily crushed it back with a stinging forehand. The other girl just barely got to it, popping it up over the net. Emily smashed an overhead past her. The crowd cheered. Jaime wanted to cheer, too, but was afraid she’d wake the now dozing Logan, so instead she raised one hand in a fist pump, before looking over at Mark to see if he was pleased.

Ava was snuggled up on Mark’s lap. She was awake, but rubbing her eyes and looked like she might doze off at any moment. But Mark wasn’t looking back at Jaime, or even out at Emily. Instead, he was leaning toward Sarah, listening intently to whatever she was saying. Sarah was gazing back up at him, her eyes bright, her young face animated. As she spoke she reached out and lightly touched Mark’s arm.

Jaime felt a knife-sharp flash of realization, followed by an even deeper throb of anger.

Sarah
.

Was it possible Mark was having an affair with Emily’s tennis coach?
Jaime wondered, before quickly realizing that it was a stupid question—of course, it was possible. Anything was possible. Sarah was pretty—young and fit, with shiny dark hair that fell down her toned back.

The far more important question for Jaime to consider:
Was it true?

COOP SAT IN THE SMALL, cramped editing studio, going over footage of migrating gray seals.

In the three weeks that had passed since the last meeting of the dinner party club, Coop had put Audrey firmly out of mind. She clearly had issues of her own that she was dealing with. It wasn’t anything for him to worry about.

His cellphone rang.

He clicked the answer button. “This is Coop.”

“Hey, Coop, it’s Julia Britton. You called last week? I was out of town and only just got the message.”

“Hey, Julia. Thanks for calling me back,” Coop said.

“I have to say, I was surprised to get your phone call,” Julia said.

“Why’s that?”

Julia let out a short bark of laughter. “Are you serious? The last time I saw you, you promised me you’d call me the next day.”

Coop’s heart sank, and he rested his head on his hand, the palm spread out over his forehead. “Did I call you?”

“No. You didn’t.”

Damn
. He had been afraid of that. But at this point, it was hardly surprising. He’d decided to disprove Audrey’s accusations by calling old girlfriends—or, at least, women he had
gone out with—for reassurance that he was really a good guy. Gallant, thoughtful, a good time. Instead, he found himself hitting up against a wall of seriously pissed-off women, most of whom relished the opportunity to tell him off. Apparently, the majority of them also thought that he was selfish and egotistical, not that he’d been given much of a chance to talk about it in-depth with any of them. After he’d been called a bastard four times and a prick twice, he’d given up. Unfortunately, he’d left a few messages—for Julia and others—and was still having to deal with the returned calls.

“I’m sorry,” Coop said automatically. He tried to remember how many times he and Julia had gone out. Three? Four?

“You should be,” Julia said. “I thought we had a nice time together.”