When We Fall (9 page)

“W
hat is going on in here?”
Charlie burst through the door whispering urgently and gesturing frantically. Charlotte flinched, sighting the pulsing blue veins threatening to rupture his temples.

“I'm
trying
to get everything together, okay? I don't understand why this turkey isn't done yet.” She checked on the twenty-pound bird again, despite the fact that every recipe she'd read online—and she'd pored over at least three dozen, panicked at the prospect of a dreadful Thanksgiving—had strongly recommended
not
opening the oven door unless absolutely necessary.
Define absolutely necessary,
she thought, standing in the middle of the kitchen helplessly and questioning why oh why she'd ever dreamed she could manage it all herself. In years past, she'd ensured that Maria, Janna, or Layla, or some combination of the three, had been in place to help her. Unfortunately, “the help”—as Charlie referred to them—were all with their own families tonight.

When each of them had approached her to request the
day off, she'd thought,
Why not?
Certainly they could organize everything for her in the days leading up to the main event and all she'd have to do was implement their handwritten instructions, which she had. I mean, honestly, how hard could it be to place an already stuffed turkey in the oven and wait for the timer to pop? Beyond that, she'd just have to heat up the side dishes and desserts. It wasn't rocket science. She'd gone to an Ivy League school, for God's sake.

Only now, in the heat of the moment, Charlotte wasn't sure if she'd ever felt more defeated. Elizabeth, Nick, and Gia were already seated at the table. Charlie was rushing in and out of both rooms, clearly irritated. Gia was whining. Elizabeth was whining. Nick was on his fourth beer. She was on her third glass of wine. And her blood pressure was about to shoot through the facade of their “perfect” existence.

“I knew this was going to happen.” Charlie sighed, massaging his brow with the tips of his fingers.

“Thank you, that's very helpful.” Charlotte's eyes stung as she willed herself not to cry. That would come later. With any luck, much later.

“
Helpful?
Do you know what's not
helpful
? Leaving me out there for an hour to entertain your sister, who's so goddamn rude to me in my own house that it's taking all my willpower not to kick her out. And, you know, Nick and I have so much in common. So that's going swimmingly. But the best part is that Gia has now taken to throwing all the gourds on the floor, so she can watch them smash to pieces. I'm literally wrestling them out of her hands.”

“Charlie, what do you want me to do here? I told you I'm trying. If you'd like to take over, be my guest.” Charlotte
darted from here to there and back again, pulling things from the refrigerator and alternately trying to translate Janna's extensive, though barely legible, notes. The last thing she needed was to have to placate him.

“No, I don't want to take over. I work hard enough during the week, thank you.”

“And I don't?” She regretted the question immediately. She knew the answer. His answer.

Unless you went to an office every morning and didn't return home until the evening, in Charlie's opinion, you didn't have a
real
job. It didn't matter if you cared for six kids with no help. Or if you sat on the board of ten different charitable organizations, devoting your time to those less fortunate. Or, even if, like Charlotte, you had only one very obstinate child who sucked the life out of you when your ungrateful sister wasn't doing the same
and
you took care of everything for the house
and
you were on the planning committees for two annual galas, one to raise money for children with cancer and the other to secure funds for the Wincourt school system. So what if she had help? Who wouldn't if they could? There was plenty of “work” to go around.

“I didn't say that.” He exhaled. “This is why I told you not to take on everything yourself.”

“I don't want to get into this now.”

“Then you shouldn't have started it.”

“I didn't start it. You're the one who came in here, remember?”

“Because there's no dinner on the table!” He flapped his arms in the air. “Jesus, Charlotte, the kitchen looks like the entire supermarket exploded in here, there are three starving
people out there who'd probably rather order a pizza, and we've barely seen a morsel of food save for the bread basket and hunk of cheese Gia's plowing through.”

“I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry.” She turned away just as hot, salty tears welled in her eyes and began streaming down their familiar path. She hated that he had this kind of power over her. Some days it felt like too much to handle. And then, once in a blue moon, he'd do something nice. Never a grand gesture, but something, and she'd tell herself that
that
was the real Charlie. The Charlie she'd once been desperately in love with and, below the surface, hoped she still was.

“Don't do this. Come on.” He walked toward her, cupped his hands over her shoulders, and turned her in his direction. “Crying is only going to make it worse.”

“I can't help it, okay? I'm upset.”

“About what?”

“About this! I'm ruining everything and you're yelling at me.”

“I did not yell.” His hands fell to his sides, balling into fists, and he backed away. If there was one thing Charlie hated more than anything else, it was feeling like a bully.

After a particularly hellacious fight they'd had a year ago—one in which Charlie had really dug into her, calling her pathetic, among other character-assassinating adjectives, and telling her to shut up when she'd tried to come back at him—Charlotte had made the near-fatal-to-their-marriage mistake of calling him verbally abusive. In an instant, he'd packed an overnight bag and stormed out the door, declaring that he wanted a divorce and that he'd return when he damn well pleased. Charlotte, in turn, had run to her
bedroom, locked the door, and hidden under the covers, sobbing and texting him pleading messages to come home. Perhaps she was pathetic after all.

“Fine. I'm sorry. It's me. It's my fault.”
Isn't it always?
Because why would Charlie ever be wrong? Why would he ever apologize? Or, at the very least, take ownership of his mistakes, admit that maybe, just maybe, at some point in time, he'd played some small role in the unraveling of their relationship.

In the end, Charlotte was always the one to express regret. How many times had she gone so far as to solicit forgiveness when she'd done nothing more than sit silently while he'd berated her about this or that? She'd learned her lesson through experience. If she fought back, things escalated. If she spoke to him the way he spoke to her, all hell broke loose. Eventually, she'd realized it wasn't worth it. She could stay or go. She'd thought about the latter. She'd thought hard about it when things got really bad. But she always landed at the same conclusion. She'd be alone without Charlie. Even worse, Gia would have to grow up with divorced parents living in separate households. And likely spend years in therapy righting the wrong they'd inflicted on her.

•   •   •

Thirty
minutes and a vat of burned stuffing later, Charlotte stumbled into the dining room wearing a stained apron and a taut smile. She'd chugged half a bottle of red cooking wine to lull her anxiety, on top of the three glasses of white she'd downed in quick succession earlier in the evening. At the time it'd seemed like a good idea—a little liquid courage to cue her inner resourcefulness and to ease the added
tension from bickering with Charlie. Now, as she teetered on the four-inch heels she'd slipped back into before hoisting the platter of carved turkey into her jittery arms, it was clear to everyone but her and Gia that she was trashed.

“Let me take that from you.” Charlie rushed over and grabbed the platter from Charlotte, setting it down in the center of the table and then steering her to her seat.

“We thought you drowned in a pot of gravy,” Elizabeth teased.

“Wouldn't you like that?” Charlotte slurred in return.

“Hey, say it, don't spray it.” Elizabeth brushed Charlotte's spit off her shoulder while Gia giggled at the expression.

“What happened here?” Charlie was staring at the mangled turkey.

“I carved it.” Charlotte smiled woozily and nearly fell off her chair.

“Whoa, there.” Nick caught her and propped her back up. “How much did you drink, little lady?”

“Just a glass or two . . .” Charlotte started counting on her fingers. “Or was it three?” Her eyes widened suddenly. “I forgot the rest of the food!” She hiccupped. “Oops, 'scuse me!”

“Don't go anywhere. I'll get it.” Charlie shot up from his chair before Charlotte could attempt to make a move. “Can you help me, please?” He gave Elizabeth a stern look.

“Sure, put the guests to work.” She rolled her eyes and followed Charlie into the kitchen. They reappeared seconds later.

“Uh, Charlotte, I don't see anything else but some blackened stuffing.” Charlie was visibly bemused.

“Huh.” She twisted up her face. “It's hard to remember what I did with it.”

“Okay, I think we've all had enough. How does pizza sound?”

“Pizza!” Gia cheered.

“We're gonna blow this joint. We have pizza in the hood too.” Elizabeth signaled to Nick. “Let's go.” He followed obediently. “Thanks for, uh, everything.” She walked past Charlotte, ruffling her sister's hair. “Good luck dealing with three sheets to the wind over here.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Charlie frowned. “You're a big help, as always.” He muttered under his breath as the front door slammed behind them, and then turned to Gia. “It's time for bed.”

“You said we were getting
pizza
!” she wailed, folding her chubby arms across her chest.

“There's no possible way you could be hungry, Gia. I watched you eat six rolls and a block of cheese.” He pointed up the stairs, leaving Charlotte sitting silently, staring at nothing, while he tucked his daughter in and read her a story. When Charlie crept out of her room and walked back downstairs, he found Charlotte in the same place he'd left her.

“That was a complete disaster.” She spoke softly, her eyes fixed in front of her.

“I wouldn't say it was a success.” He piled the clean plates into a stack.

“Do you hate me?” Involuntarily, tears started tumbling down her cheeks again, but she still couldn't look at him.

“Of course not.” He sighed. “I'm worried about you.”

“You are?” She turned to face him with a glimmer of hope in her eyes.

“You didn't need to take this on by yourself. You could have asked someone to help you.”

“If I can't pull together a simple family dinner . . .” She trailed off, unable to formulate a cohesive thought.

“Thanksgiving isn't a simple dinner, Charlotte. For example, Elizabeth might have lifted a finger, or even Nick. It really burns me how unappreciative they are. You do more for them than anyone.” He shook his head.

“I know.”

“Let's get you to bed, okay?”

“Okay.” Charlotte nodded vaguely as Charlie lifted her into his arms and carried her up the stairs. She nuzzled her head into the side of his neck, finally allowing her heavy eyelids to surrender, and whispered, “I love you.”

He exhaled and kissed her clammy forehead. “I love you too.”

T
he holiday season had whirred past in a fluster of food comas and flickering lights. Since childhood, Allison had relished the tradition and ceremony of it all, from her father's boisterous turkey call as he carved the Thanksgiving bird with the precision that only a surgeon's hands could achieve, to the tearing, shredding, and discarding of red, green, gold, and silver wrapping paper on Christmas morning. The first December after Jack had died, her mother had procured a modest tree, setting it up next to the couch in Allison's living room and draping it in white lights only and no more than a dozen ornaments judiciously scattered. It didn't feel right, she'd said, to overembellish, and everyone had agreed. Allison had no memory of that day—the pot roast her mother had since told her she'd cooked, or receiving the heart-shaped locket carrying a photo of Logan, with the inscription
For My Precious Girl.
Love, Daddy
,
which her father had steadily clasped around her neck.

This year, Allison had been invited to two New Year's Eve
parties, one at the Wincourt Country Club, hosted by her parents' billionaire friends the Browns. Everyone knew Harold Brown had made his money in vodka and strip clubs. And the other was at Charlie and Charlotte's—their annual End-of-Year Extravaganza, as she'd referred to it. Allison had tactfully declined both, opting instead to clink glasses of sparkling apple cider with Logan while he fell asleep in her arms, struggling to keep his eyes open long enough to watch the ball drop in Times Square—a battle he'd unwittingly lost. Two days later, they'd driven her parents to LaGuardia Airport, where they'd reluctantly waved good-bye from the curb, her mother reminding her she'd be home for three days in just a few weeks. Before long, Allison was on her way to meet Charlotte for their girls' getaway, a cocktail of mixed emotions hissing from within.

“I can't believe it's taken me this long to do something like this.” Allison lay back on a cushy chaise lounge in the Serenity Room at Canyon Ranch with a mud mask hardening on her face and thin slices of cucumber shielding her eyes from the temperate mood lighting.

“Me neither.” Charlotte was reclining next to her with a thick layer of some gooey seaweed concoction smeared across her forehead, cheeks, chin, and nose. The aesthetician had sworn it would decrease the appearance of fine lines and possibly—depending on her skin's natural elasticity—even some of the deeper creases. Allison had watched as Charlotte had fallen hook, line, and sinker for her sales pitch. She didn't say as much, but she wondered, as she had so many times before, why someone as attractive as Charlotte was so
observably insecure. “You've really never left Logan for even a night?”

“Nope.” Allison shook her head, not that Charlotte could see her. “Honestly, I had no place to go.”

After saying yes to the trip, Allison had driven straight home and immediately regretted it, vowing to call Charlotte first thing in the morning and graciously back out. Her mistake, or so she'd thought in the moment, had been telling her mother, who'd been adamant about her taking the time for herself, to relax. “This is precisely what the doctor ordered,” she'd said. “I don't want to hear another word about you not going. I only wish we could be here for Logan.” She'd offered
again
to delay their departure for California or stay behind and meet Allison's father there after her friend Loretta's surgery, but Allison had,
again
, insisted that they keep their plans, especially since they had nonrefundable tickets. Not surprisingly, Logan had been thrilled at the prospect of staying with Charlie and Gia. Allison knew in her heart that her sweet little boy craved the attention of a male role model and that, while his grandfather was a more than suitable placeholder, he was undeniably much older than the dads in Logan's class. She wasn't sure whose smile had been wider when she'd dropped him off at Charlotte's house the previous morning—Logan's or Charlie's. Charlie seemed to need her son in the same way Logan needed him.

When Charlotte had first described Canyon Ranch, calling it a “healthy-living facility,” Allison had been wary. It wasn't that she had anything against being healthy, but she certainly didn't need to lose weight or want to spend her
first vacation in more than a decade working out and worrying about eradicating her cellulite, what little there was of it. “Just look at the website,” Charlotte had urged, sensing her apprehension. “I guarantee you won't be disappointed.”

Touché. Canyon Ranch, it turned out, was way more than grass smoothies for breakfast, wrinkle shrinking for lunch, and dimple zapping for dinner. Way more. On their website, they called it “a unique spa vacation experience,” and even that hardly did it justice. The sprawling property, which was located in the bountiful Berkshires, in the heart of western Massachusetts, centered around a dramatically renovated mansion, which—their tour guide had informed them—had once been a private home and then a seminary and boarding school after that. Although that was hard to imagine now.

Beyond the streaming list of spa treatments, which ran the gamut from massages to facials to full-body wraps promising you'd not only feel lighter, but actually shed a pound or two (at least!), there was Pilates and Gyrotonics, dancing and yoga, biking and hiking, and skiing and snowshoeing, not to mention the saunas, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, state-of-the-art cardio and weight rooms, exercise studios, and indoor tennis, racquetball, squash, and basketball courts. An extensive and expert staff was on hand to cater to your every whim—they'd even called Allison in advance of the visit to prebook services and learn more about her likes and dislikes in the way of, well, everything. Meals were prepared by their accomplished chefs and were billed as nutritious and delicious, which instantly made Allison regret the comfort food she normally fed her body. There was something for
everyone and far too much to conquer in one visit. It was no wonder Charlotte returned year after year.

“I find it hard to believe that
you
had no social invitations. You're
gorgeous
.” Charlotte flattered her for what felt like the zillionth time, not that it was tiresome to be continually praised.

“I suppose I didn't really put myself out there, you know, after Jack died. And then it kind of became the status quo.” Allison stretched her mouth open to loosen the mask, which she could feel cracking on her skin. “The idea of doing anything but having dinner with my little man and curling up on the couch to watch TV before reading him to sleep seemed impossible.” She paused. “No, that's not the right word. Maybe more like uncomfortable.”

“I can understand that.”

“I guess somewhere deep down, I felt like the last thing Logan needed was to watch me walk out the door and wonder whether that would be the last time he'd ever see me.” Charlotte didn't say anything. “Sorry to be a downer.”

“No, no, I'm glad you're talking about it.”

Allison smiled to herself. Charlotte, despite her sometimes pretentious posture, was actually very easy to confide in, and there was something about her, though Allison couldn't identify it, that made Allison want to reveal otherwise suppressed elements of her life and how those elements had shaped her into the person she was today. In the past—with other women she'd met through Logan's nursery school or kiddie classes—it had always felt like a risk to divulge too much—anything, really. A risk she hadn't been willing to take for fear of being spurned.

“So you never thought about dating at all?”

“Of course I thought about it. It would have been hard not to, especially with my mom nudging every month or so after the first couple of years had passed. She was as gentle as one could be about it, but still.”

“Yeah.” Charlotte was quiet for a moment. “How long did it . . .”

“Did it what?”

“Take you to get over him?”

“I haven't.”

“Really?”

“Not entirely. And I probably never will. I know this sounds so cheesy, but Jack was the one for me. As much as I hate to say it, he was my soul mate. I couldn't see beyond him. I still can't.”

“Wow.” Allison wondered if Charlotte was calculating how long it would take her to get over Charlie, which, from the sound of it, wasn't eleven years.

“I still write to him.” Her sudden admission surprised even her.

“What do you mean?” Charlotte was intrigued.

“I write him letters in my journal. At first it was every night, sometimes twice a day, if I was really down. When my therapist suggested it, I thought it was a ridiculous idea, but honestly, it really helped. In many ways it saved me.”

“So you have a whole journal of letters to him?”

“Not exactly. I write about lots of stuff. Sometimes I even sketch things when I'm inspired. But the letters were what helped keep me sane from the start.”

Allison thought back to the last note she'd written to Jack. She'd confided in him that packing up her apartment in
Manhattan alone had been draining. She'd said that her parents had offered to help but that she'd wanted to do it herself. There'd been so much of his stuff,
their
stuff. For starters, the cheesy ivory leather wedding album with the tacky gold trim Jack
had
to have, because he thought it looked more official than the modern, stylish options. And the scrapbook Allison had made him for his twenty-first birthday, which had reminded her of his perilous penchant for Sour Patch Kids. Perilous because he used to eat so many of them at once that the sides of his tongue would become raw from the sugar. She'd also had a good laugh over finding the certificate for the star Jack had “purchased” and named after her. She'd reminded him how she'd thought it was
so
romantic at the time. (But seriously, what a racket!) Allison had even come across old photos of them from Camp Tawana, cringing at her larger-than-life eighties hairdo, which had been frozen in time thanks to Aqua Net.

Finally, she'd reiterated to him what she wrote so often: that wherever he was, she hoped it was nice there. That she hoped they had ice hockey on TV all the time for him. And corn muffins. He'd loved corn muffins, toasted with butter. She'd made one for him every morning for about a month after he was gone. Just in case he came home.

“And then you never stopped?” Charlotte probed, puncturing Allison's reverie.

“Never stopped. As I said, it's become more infrequent over time, but I still need it. I know this may seem strange, but it's kind of like a drug, and it lifts me up faster than any real drug would. Well, maybe not, but I'm not willing to be one of those people who walks around in a permanent haze.”

“So you never took anything?”

“Oh no, I took everything under the sun the first year. Prozac, Valium, Zoloft, Ativan, Xanax. It was necessary, or so the psychiatrist in my therapist's office said, but I didn't feel right when I was on them. The misery felt better. It was authentic, ya know? At some point, I didn't want to numb the pain. I wanted to wade through it to the other side.”

“You make it sound so easy.” Charlotte sat up, removing the cucumber slices from her eyes, and Allison did the same, each of them giggling at the other's plastered face.

“Ha! If only you'd seen me then, in the same pair of ratty, stained, smelly pajamas for weeks on end, unwashed hair, and if you think I'm skinny now . . .”

“There's a diet I haven't tried.” Charlotte's hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my God. I didn't mean that how it sounded. I'm so sorry. I . . .”

“Don't apologize. It was exactly the right thing to say to lighten the mood!” Allison laughed. “Now, should we get someone to wash this crap off and sneak out for some ice cream? Yes, I'm well aware it's, like, thirty degrees!”

“I can't imagine anything better.” Charlotte smiled. “And I know just the place.”

•   •   •

Later
that evening, they were reclining once again, only this time on the king-sized bed in their shared suite. Sabrina had canceled her room, oblivious to the fact that Allison was planning to go in her place, a fact that Charlotte had deliberately failed to convey until Sabrina had practically dragged the information out of her. Despite her wealth of outward confidence, to know Sabrina was to realize that, underneath,
she was no less insecure than everyone else. She was just more adept at obscuring it with bravado.

“Why did you let me eat so much?” Charlotte sighed, rubbing her belly in a circular motion.

“Seriously? You had a salad.” Allison arched one of her meticulously groomed eyebrows, which Svetlana—a robust blond woman of Slavic descent—had skillfully waxed and plucked that morning in one of the spa's many treatment rooms smelling of hibiscus and vanilla extract.

“Yeah, with a shovel of bacon bits on top.”

“I'm pretty sure that wasn't bacon. I don't think they do fried pork here.”

“That doesn't make me feel better.” Charlotte propped herself up against a heap of pillows. “Plus, you're forgetting the predinner dessert.” They'd driven into town at around four o'clock to hit the Scoop, formerly Bev's, on Church Street in Lenox, which Charlotte had insisted was home to the best hand-churned ice cream on the planet.

“Don't you mean frozen yogurt?” Allison had lapped up a double cone of mint chip and butter pecan, while Charlotte had watched enviously, taking microscopic bites from her kiddie cup of sugar-free, fat-free,
taste-free
swirl.

“It's all the same.” She moaned. “And it all goes straight to my butt and thighs.”

“Oh, please. You really shouldn't be so down on yourself.”

“Says the woman with the size-zero figure.”

“Size two.”