The Smart One (15 page)

She started to cry. “I’m an awful person.”

I rubbed her back. “You’re just confused.”

“I don’t know what to do,” she said.

“Yes you do.” I released her and put the drawing in her hand.

She stared at it. “I screwed up.”

The back door opened. “Mom?” Sophie called. “Dylan spilled Gatorade.”

“I’ll be right there,” she said.

“Make this better,” I said to her. “Promise me you won’t sleep with this guy.”

She folded Dylan’s picture into neat squares and nodded, then kissed me on the cheek and walked toward the house.

“I think this table is drafty. Don’t you think this table is drafty?”

So spoketh Clare’s friend Jade, just as the six of us had settled into our chairs at a fancy seafood restaurant on the North Shore. She had straight pitch-black hair that was so shiny she could have starred in a Pantene commercial. I didn’t know human hair could glow like that without special lighting.

“Seems fine to me,” Leo said.

“I’m right under the air-conditioning vent,” Jade said. “And that table has a better view of the water.” She waved a slender but well-toned arm at the hostess who had seated us. “Excuse me!” She was so loud other diners turned to stare. “Do you think we could switch to that table?”

The hostess came back, and the lot of us picked up our things and moved to the table Jade preferred.

“I’m much more comfortable,” Jade said as she settled into her seat. “Much.”

I sensed that the final “much” was to quiet any objections over the switch, as if the degree of Jade’s comfort was the determining factor in any decision.

Leo leaned into me and whispered, “This one’s a
hoot
.”

“So what do you do, Leo?” Jade asked as she touched her necklace, ostensibly making sure it was where it was supposed to be. I gathered, though, that the gesture was designed to ensure that her diamonds escaped no one’s notice.

“I’m a contractor,” he said. “I’m remodeling Clare and Marc’s master bathroom.”

I expected a disdainful reaction from Jade, but instead she gasped dramatically, her kohl-lined eyes widening as her hand went to her heart like she had to stop it from beating right out of her chest.

“A contractor! I had no idea!”

I glanced at Clare to try to get an idea as to why Jade would act like meeting a contractor in the flesh was more shocking than discovering a long, lost twin. Clare closed her eyes and gently shook her head. She seemed to know what was coming.

“Randall and I just bought a massive old house in Upper Brookville,” Jade continued, “and we’re renovating every inch of it. Don’t even
ask
what we’re going through.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Leo said.

Clare and I exchanged subtle smiles. Of course, it went right by dear Jade.

“I ordered granite countertops for the kitchen,” she said, “and
three times
they came in wrong. Three times!”

“Bummer,” Leo said. “Can you pass the rolls?”

“And we’re still waiting for the marble tiles for the floor in the butler’s pantry. It’s been…I don’t know. How long ago did we order that, Randall?”

Randall shrugged. “A month ago?”

She tsked and waved him away with her hand. “More like four months ago.” She leaned in conspiratorially toward Leo. “He doesn’t remember
any
thing.”

A waitress approached to take our order for drinks. All the requests were pretty straightforward until she got to Jade,
who asked for a Grey Goose Seabreeze, “but tart, with extra grapefruit juice, and a lime not a lemon, in a martini glass with no ice.”

Leo and I both glanced at Clare, who seemed pained by Jade’s display.

“You should stop by and see the house sometime,” Jade said to Leo. “And you too, Bev. You’ll just die when you see what’s going on there. We were hoping to move in this September, but I honestly don’t think there’s a
chance
it’ll be ready.”

“So you’re homeless?” Leo said. Proud of himself, he rocked back on his chair, balancing it on the two back legs.

Jade laughed like Leo’s remark was the funniest thing she’d heard in decades. “Oh, I like him!” she said.

Poor Clare looked like Jade was making her more miserable by the moment, so I tried to think of a way to steer the conversation in another direction.

“Speaking of homeless,” I said, “have you ever heard of Goode Earth Habitats? Leo does a lot of volunteer work for them.”

“Whereabouts?” Randall asked Leo.

“I’ve been helping out in New Orleans,” he answered, “but the organization is national. They’re even going to be doing some work in the Bronx soon.”

“What was the name of that charity we worked for last year, Clare?” Jade said. “Harvest something?”

“It was two years ago,” Clare answered.

“Was it? Well, it sure was a thankless task, wasn’t it? Remember how they left our names out of the newsletter?”

“Did they?”

“You don’t remember that? You were more upset than
I
was.”

“Tell me more about Goode Earth Habitats,” Clare said to Leo. “Can anyone get involved?”

“They’re always looking for volunteers,” Leo said. “If you have time to pitch in, I’m sure they’d be thrilled to have you.”

Jade laughed again. “Like she has time in her schedule to build houses! Between the kids and the house and the PTA, she barely has time to return a phone call. Clare, I don’t know
why
you insist on doing the laundry yourself. That’s why you have a housekeeper.”

Marc put his arm around Clare. “She’s very particular about laundry.”

Clare reached for the bread basket, took a roll, and slathered it with butter. A bad sign.

A short time later the waitress came with our drinks. I noticed immediately that Jade’s drink was in a highball glass, and I was curious to see how she would handle it. I rooted for her to make a show of accepting it graciously, even if it meant listening to her brag about how magnanimous she was. But no, not a chance. Jade looked down at the glass set in front of her and held a pointed finger high above it, as if she didn’t want to get close.

“What is
that
?” she asked.

“Seabreeze,” the waitress said. “Didn’t you ask for a Seabreeze?”

“In a
martini
glass,” Jade said.

“Oh, right. I’m terribly sorry.” The waitress picked up the glass. “I’ll be right back.”

She wasn’t even out of earshot when Jade leaned in toward the table and said in a stage whisper, “What an
idiot
.”

I cringed. “I’m sure it was an honest mistake.”

Jade rolled her eyes. “Honest but stupid.”

“Easy, tiger,” Randall said, patting her hand.

“Oh, you’re right,” Jade said. “I’m just pissy because of all the mistakes I have to deal with every single day on the new house.” She turned back to Leo. “Would you believe that they
actually put in a
door
where we asked for a window? I mean, have you
ever
? They can’t get a single thing right if I’m not there watching over their shoulders. Tell me, how could something like that happen? How could a contractor put in a door where there was supposed to be a window?”

“Sounds like a crossed wire,” Leo said. “It happens.”

“But why does it have to happen to
me
?” Jade said. “And every single
day
.”

“Maybe a black cat crossed your path,” he answered.

“I
do
seem to have bad luck,” Jade said.

“Perhaps it’s your karma,” Clare offered.

Whoa.
I hadn’t expected my nonconfrontational sister to say what most of us were thinking. And while I was delighted by the remark and curious as hell to hear Jade’s reaction, I was concerned for my normally charming sister. I hoped she had kept the promise she made to me in her backyard and was able to move on. I glanced at Marc, who seemed as relaxed as ever.

“My karma?” Jade said. “What does that mean, Clare?” She turned to her husband. “What does she mean?”

“Nothing,” Clare said. “I didn’t mean anything. Excuse me. I have to use the ladies’ room.”

Clare grabbed her purse and headed toward the back of the restaurant.

Jade watched her leave, staring at Clare’s handbag. Either she was too dim to be offended, or so distracted by accessories that it overshadowed everything else. She gasped. “That’s the new Fendi! My God, it’s stunning.” She turned to me. “I don’t know if you know this, Bev, but your sister has
exquisite
taste. In
every
thing. Everyone else I know uses a professional decorator, but your sister does it all herself and her home is just
lovely
. You wouldn’t even know it’s not professionally done unless you had a trained eye. And even then. Even then you might not know. That’s how good Clare is.”

“And she’s broadening her horizons these days with an American Lit class,” I said. “Are you a big reader, Jade?”

“With my schedule? You’ve got to be kidding. Only you single gals with no kids have time to read.”

How sensitive. How very, very sensitive to rub in the fact that I was the only woman at the table who wasn’t married with children. As if being single at thirty-five with no prospects for having a family was exactly where I wanted to be.

The waitress brought back Jade’s drink in a martini glass and set it in front of her. “
Ah,
that’s better,” Jade said. She picked it up and watched as her bracelets slid down her elegant wrist. For a moment, Jade seemed lost in reverie, like an artist admiring a landscape, only she was gazing upon her own delicately manicured fingers holding the smartly shaped glass of pinkish liquid. She closed her eyes and took a sip.
“Mm,”
she said. “Perfect.”

Leo picked up his beer and took a gulp. “So what do you do, Randall?” he asked.

“
Uh…
I’m in finance.”

“Stocks?” Leo asked.

“I’m involved in several ventures,” Randall said.

“He started out as a stockbroker,” Jade said. “But now my man’s a tycoon. I love that word,
tycoon
.” She laughed as if she made a hilarious joke. Her husband seemed irritated. He took a breadstick from the basket in the center of the table and snapped it in half.

“I’m not a tycoon,” he said.

“Fine,” she said to Leo and me, contorting her face into a clown’s version of sarcasm, “he’s not a tycoon.”

Randall asked Marc a question about the scotch he was drinking, and Jade excused herself to the ladies’ room. Leo leaned into me and whispered, “I thought Randall looked familiar, but now I realize where I know him from. He headed
the only brokerage on Long Island sleazier than Parker Jameson. He was indicted, Bev. Spent a couple months in jail and was fined half a million dollars.”

“Are you serious?”

“As a felony.”

“He doesn’t look like he’s suffering now.”

“Nope. He lost his license, but I’m sure he’s found other ways to rip people off. And you want to know something else? Princess Jade wasn’t always dripping with diamonds. From what I heard, she used to be his manicurist.”

“He had a manicurist?”

Leo gave me a look that said,
You have to ask?

A few minutes later Jade returned, jangling her bracelets and trying very hard to make her expensive breasts bounce as she took her seat.

“Where on earth is your sister?” Jade asked.

“She wasn’t in the ladies’ room?”

“No.”

Marc was surprised. “Maybe I should look for her,” he said, starting to rise.

“I’ll go,” I said. “She probably just stepped outside to use her cell phone to call the sitter. I’ll be right back.”

I stepped out the front door of the restaurant into the warm night and smelled the breeze off the Long Island Sound. I looked to the left and right and didn’t see Clare. Then I headed around back to the parking lot, and found her sitting on the hood of her car, her shawl under her butt.

“Hey,” I said as I approached.

She got up off her shawl and unfolded it so that it was big enough for both of us to sit on, then parked herself on top of it again. Even depressed, Clare didn’t want to dirty her clothes.

“You okay?” I asked.

She shook her head.

I sat next to her and put my hand on her back and waited for her to say something, but she was silent.

“Jade’s a piece of work,” I said.

Clare shrugged and stared off into the distance.

“She’s an asshole and a show-off,” I said. “Such a tiny speck of a person she has to make a big show to feel like she exists.”

Clare exhaled through her nose. “It’s not her.”

“Is it…Hammerman?”

She shrugged.

“Talk to me,” I said.

Clare lay back on the car so that she was facing the sky. I did the same. In that remote section of the North Shore, there was little ambient light, and stars dotted the black ether like someone had poked holes in the sky with darts. The night was quiet except for the buzz of cicadas and the occasional car
whooshing
past.

“Thing is,” Clare explained, “Jade has so much, and yet she’s always miserable. She complains about everything.”

“Petty,” I offered. “Ungrateful.”

“But am I really that different?”

“Oh, c’mon, Clare, you’re nothing like Jade.”

“Aren’t I? Look at me, Bev. I have everything Jade has, and yet I don’t appreciate it. I just feel…empty.”

“You’re still upset about hearing a woman’s voice in that hotel room.”

“Of course. It’s all pieces of the same puzzle—the same blank puzzle. Put them together and what have you got? Nothing. Just a boring, shallow middle-aged woman who used to be pretty.”

“Oh, honey. Are you back on that?”

“Pretty is all I ever had, Bev. Even if you’re right that I haven’t completely lost it, so what? It’s only a matter of time.”

“You’re wrong.”

“I’m right. Every day it’s another wrinkle. Every month it’s another pound.”

“I mean about pretty being all you have, Clare. It’s simply not true. You’re generous, compassionate, honest, and clearly not a shallow twit like that Jade. You think she would ever take a literature class to improve herself? Trust me, when Jade feels empty, she doesn’t go to college, she goes to Saks.”

“You think too highly of me.”

“No way. You’re my sister. I’m probably more critical of you than I am of anyone.”

I expected a smile, but her face was immobile.

“Really, Clare, give yourself some credit. How many women in your position are trying to expand their minds?”

“I’m not sure my motives for taking that class are so admirable.”

“What do mean?”

“Nothing.”

Clare stared straight up into the sky, and in the moonlight her profile looked milky white against the darkness, colorless yet beautiful, like some glamorous old movie still of Ingrid Bergman.