Summertime Guests Page 12

  Marilyn’s bright blue eyes, heavily lined in makeup, stare back at her expectantly. Undoubtedly Marilyn was a beauty back in the day and is doing everything she can to ensure that her looks persist well into her sixties. Her dyed chestnut hair is immaculately styled—Riley knows she gets it washed and blown out twice a week at a salon. In private, she and Tom have discussed whether Marilyn might have had a face-lift last summer, since her expression seems to have shifted to one of permanent surprise.

  “We’re fine, Marilyn,” Riley says evenly now, invoking her mother-in-law’s first name as she’d been instructed to do the first time they met. Riley hopes her voice carries an edge to it. Not that her mother-in-law would notice. “And so is Tom. Work has been a little busy lately, that’s all. Thanks for your concern, though.”

  Marilyn smiles, then fiddles with the clasp on her purse. Riley momentarily considers the possibility that her mother-in-law might try to pay her off, get her to call off the entire wedding. She’s well aware she’s nothing like the poster girl Marilyn had in mind for her son. “Well, that’s precisely why you two should let me do most of the heavy lifting with this wedding. Now that I’m retired, I have all this spare time on my hands. Whereas you two are already incredibly busy.” She gestures to the empty store as if to emphasize her point, but instead it comes off as a pointed rejoinder, the implication being that Riley has next to nothing to do. Why Riley won’t handle her bridal duties with the aplomb and dispatch Marilyn would expect from her future daughter-in-law is clearly driving her bananas.

  When the doorbell chimes again, Riley spies a regular customer and relief washes over her. “Professor Halston, hello, there! What can I help you with today?”

  Marilyn’s impeccable brows arch in her forehead before she says quietly, “We’ll discuss this later, dear.” She winks at Riley, though Riley has no idea what’s implied by it. On the way out, Marilyn points to a tub of roses sitting by the door. “By the way, those yellow roses would be divine for your wedding, don’t you think?”

  Professor Halston waits for the door to close. “A friend of yours?” he inquires.

  “Future mother-in-law.”

  “Ah,” he says, his eyes twinkling. “The dynamic relationship between daughters and their mothers-in-law. It’s a feud dating back centuries, you know.”

  Riley grins ruefully. “Why am I not surprised?”

  “I could write an entire book about it,” he exclaims. “Perhaps I will!”

  She lets out a small moan. “Let me know if you need more material. Now,” she asks, “what can I help you with?”

  * * *

  Not until after Professor Halston has left the store with a bouquet of gorgeous periwinkle asters does Riley get a chance to text Tom.

  Surprise visit from your mom at the store today. She’s worried about you. Thinks you’re stressed out. Ha!

  A few minutes later, her phone pings with a response.

  Sorry about that. I’ll talk to her.

  Riley feels a pinch of satisfaction. At least Tom is taking her side on this one. She hopes Marilyn will listen. Otherwise, the next twelve months are going to be unbearable. As in, she-might-have-to-flee-the-country unbearable.

  FIFTEEN

  On Thursday morning, the 10th, Claire wakes up with a start and grabs her cell phone from the bedside table. Ten fifteen. A fog envelops her mind, still caught in a dream. She was dreaming about Walt and his spiders. Or at least, that’s how she’d come to think of them: Walt’s spiders. He’d hated the things, had waged his own private war with an extended family that had taken up residence in their home. Various dusters and sprays were involved. And then, just when they thought the house was rid of them once and for all, the cobwebs swept away, the little guys would reappear, their webs spun in the deep of the night while she and Walt slept. Claire could cohabit amicably enough with spiders (mice were a different story), but Walt couldn’t abide them.

  When the store traps failed, he’d read up on the problem, learning that jars of peppermint oil left around the house could also serve as traps. Apparently spiders didn’t like the smell...or maybe it was the taste. She can’t recall exactly. Walt’s spiders, however, didn’t seem to mind the peppermint oil one bit. Sometimes she’d imagine them at night, backstroking through the bowls of oil scattered about the house, climbing out and dusting themselves off before heading out to cast another web. Undeterred by Walt’s latest battle plan.

  In the dream, he’d been cursing another gigantic web that had appeared overnight above the fireplace mantel. “The damn things won’t leave us alone,” he’d said, and Claire had suggested maybe they should think about moving. In real life, he’d sprayed a homemade potion—half vinegar, half water—along the house’s perimeter, squirting the floorboards and the corners. (Every so often, when Claire bends down to tie a shoe or dust under the radiators, a whiff of vinegar will still waft over her.) When the vinegar concoction turned out to be a bust, he’d invested in eucalyptus shrubs, yet another supposed spider deterrent, and so now, every evening when she cleans the dishes, her hands soaking in warm, soapy water, Claire gazes out on the line of eucalyptus bushes hemming in the backyard—and thinks of Walt. Sometimes it seems he placed them there not so much to keep the spiders out but to keep her memory of him alive, as if he’d known all along what was coming.

  He would have liked the Seafarer, she thinks, and a pinch of loneliness grabs her as she pulls back the curtains to the balcony window. Maybe not the balcony (he’d been deathly afraid of heights) but the ambience of the place, the sense of history. He would have liked that Churchill stayed here, maybe would have enjoyed a glass of scotch at the same bar. He would have loved the cherry bookcases lining the tavern, filled with histories of the Middle East and Africa, an entire shelf of Peterson Field Guides.

  He would have also been able to adjust the hotel’s room temperature without having to call the front desk every day like Claire has had to do. She goes to fiddle with the thermostat now, but she can’t seem to get the air conditioner to kick back on. Walt had been good that way, when it came to the more mechanical, scientific things. One day in January, she’d come home from work complaining that the defroster in her car was broken; she’d had to swipe at the front window constantly on her drive home, the heat cranked. But when she’d explained the problem to Walt, certain she had to bring the car in for maintenance, he’d smiled knowingly. “It’s because of the temperature differential,” he explained patiently. “The outside temperature is so cold, and you probably had the heat blasting, so all it does is fog the windows. It’s better to start out with a cool temperature inside if you want your windows to clear.” And Claire remembers thinking how useful it was to have someone around who knew such things, who could explain them to her without making her feel like a complete fool. Despite all his faults, Walt had been good this way.

  She gives up on the thermostat and goes to slide open the balcony door. As soon as she steps out, the sea air grabs her, and the bright sun glances off the harbor in shards of light that cause her to squint. She stretches her arms above her head and watches the people down below, who remind her of tiny ants scurrying about. Her body is craving caffeine, but before grabbing a coffee, she makes herself recite the first US presidents aloud, her one daily ritual that has become as natural as showering each morning. The first five are easy enough: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe. There’s a certain ring to them that rattles easily off the tongue. If pressed, she could probably remember a few others, like Lincoln and Cleveland (the only president to serve two nonconsecutive terms) and Teddy Roosevelt. Taft is in there somewhere, she knows; then there’s Wilson and FDR, the war presidents. After that, there’s a mix of Bushes and Reagan. Clinton and Obama. She refuses to acknowledge that other guy. And Biden.

  At her doctor’s suggestion, she has been performing these mental gymnastics every morning for the last several months. “It’s never t
oo early to start doing crossword puzzles or word searches to keep your mind sharp,” he’d told her a few visits ago. If ever she can’t recall the first five presidents, she’ll ring him for some more of those memory pills.

  She heads back inside to shower, then downs her medley of old-lady medication. There’s one for vitamin D, another for calcium, two different capsules for omega-3 and a probiotic. A B12 pill. Two for blood pressure and cholesterol. From the looks of her dispenser, which tidily divides her daily medications for the week into a.m. and p.m. boxes, she could be a drug dealer. Nonetheless, the pill box provides solid evidence that she’s taking charge of her health, determined to do whatever she must to keep her wits about her now that she’s all alone.

  When she types in her password on her phone, it dings with a calendar reminder, Dinner with Marty. 6 p.m. @ Bricco and Claire has to sit down for a second, catch her breath.

  Perhaps that’s why Walt came to her in a dream this morning, she thinks. Maybe somewhere in the ether, he knows what she’s up to, trying to drum up a romance with her old boyfriend. But she understands that’s ridiculous. Would Walt even care? Here she’s imagining him being upset or jealous, when honestly, she can’t say how he’d feel about her dating another man. They’d never discussed it. It hadn’t seemed important, and Claire, for some reason, always assumed she’d be the first to go. If Walt wanted to fall in love with someone after she left this earth, she’d always figured more power to him.

  But now it’s she who’s in this predicament. Because for the past seven or so months, Claire has been imagining those very words—Dinner with Marty—in her calendar, even penned them in pencil in her planner, as if by writing them they might come true. Dinner with Marty.

  “Why don’t you leave Dad, if you don’t love him anymore?” Amber had demanded one Christmas years ago when she was home from college for winter break and newly in love herself. Claire had gazed into the eyes of her nineteen-year-old daughter, who, at the time, was taking courses on feminism and participating in sit-ins on campus. She debated how best to explain to her that it wasn’t as simple as packing a bag, wasn’t as easy as announcing you were through. That marriage wasn’t only about the first blush of romance, that heady, fizzy feeling of infatuation. That there were other matters to consider. Companionship, for one. Family. That love matured in funny, unexpected ways.

  Or, that her dad had looked good on paper when Claire married him. He was handsome, smart, self-assured and also, as Claire would discover over the years, emotionally reserved. Though she wouldn’t say she’d been fooled by Walt exactly—she’d chosen him fair and square—she had been surprised by the turns in their marriage, the aloofness that had settled in after a few years, as if Walt could have married anyone so long as she made the meals and watched the kids while he worked. The exact life she’d been trying so hard to avoid with Marty.

  Claire had shrugged. “It’s not that easy, honey,” she’d said. “Your father and I made a commitment to each other. We’ve been through a lot together.” Then she added, “Besides, I didn’t exactly imagine spending my twilight years all by myself.” She’d been afraid to give voice to her fear of how lonely she’d be without someone else around. The thought of so much quiet in the house, especially with both kids gone, would have been unnerving.

  But Martin, she thinks now. It’s almost impossible to believe they’ll see each other tonight. After all this time. She feels like stepping back out onto the balcony and shouting his name for all the world to hear. Martin, Martin! I get to see Martin Campbell tonight! Claire knows that if he’d wanted to find her, he could have reached out easily enough. With her byline plastered weekly on the Providence Dealer, she’s a simple target, and at times, a certain disappointment that he hadn’t tried to find her swooped over her. But now all of that can be remedied. After tonight, there’ll be no more wondering. She’ll find out what, precisely, he has been up to these past thirty years. And if, by chance, he’s spent nearly as much time thinking about her as she has of him.

  She dresses hurriedly, grabs her purse and makes sure to snatch the room key off the bedside table before heading for the elevator (she’d somehow managed to misplace it last night and embarrassingly had to request an extra from the front desk). Downstairs the lobby already hums with activity. In the concierge line, Claire waits to book a massage and then schedules an appointment for highlights at a nearby salon for later this afternoon. Exiting the hotel, she follows the main stretch of sidewalk on Seaport Boulevard across the bridge and over to Atlantic Avenue. Everyone seems to be walking with such purpose this morning—or maybe it’s Claire, projecting her anticipation for tonight onto them. As she strides past one of the new luxury hotels (an article she’d read recently described it as an architectural giraffe, which seems even more appropriate now that she’s next to it), something catches her eye through a window.

  When she stops to look more closely, she sees it’s the hotel gym. High-tech treadmills and elliptical machines are lined up in a tidy row, and on one treadmill an older man—probably in his early seventies, gray hair and glasses, dressed in a blue sweatshirt and baggy gray pants—stands behind an elderly woman. The woman walks with slow, deliberate steps while the man straddles either side of the machine, his feet firmly planted. Spread like a butterfly, his hands hover behind her back, ready to catch her, should she slip.

  The tender image stops Claire. This, she thinks, is what love looks like. Standing behind your sweetheart on the treadmill to catch her if she falls.

  Would Walt, she wonders, have done the same for her? Maybe out of obligation. What if it had become difficult for her to walk? Would Walt have patiently stood behind her while she logged miles of physical therapy? Patiently is probably too much to ask, but maybe out of a sense of duty he would have. Would she have done the same for him? The question lingers in her mind as she ducks into a Starbucks and orders a cup of coffee with frothed milk. The New York Times and the Boston Globe wink at her from the newspaper stand, but Claire resists picking up either one. She’s promised herself she won’t check the news for a week. While she waits, she plants herself on a stool by the window, and her phone rings with an incoming call. Amber.

  “Good morning, honey,” she answers. “Are you at work?”

  “Hi, Mom. Yup, checking folks in.” Every Thursday and Friday morning, Amber mans the front desk at the Providence YMCA. One benefit: Fiona can play in the Y’s daycare for free while Amber scans members’ cards. Still, Claire hopes once Fiona gets a bit older, Amber will be able to put her master’s degree in anthropology to better use. “And now I’m checking in on you,” Amber says. “How’s it going?”

  “Wonderful. I’m having the most fabulous time. It’s a beautiful day here, and I’m about to take a walk along the Rose Kennedy Greenway. Yesterday, I went to the MFA. And later today, I’ve got a massage and hair appointment booked.”

  “Wow, that does sound pretty great.” There’s some noise on Amber’s end, and Claire can hear the beeping of the scanner. For a split second, she almost divulges her plans for tonight. Martin’s name has come up enough times over the years that the kids like to tease her about the fish that got away. But if they knew how much Claire’s mind has drifted to him over the last year, now that Walt is gone, they might be shocked. No, it’s best not to get into it, she decides.

  “And how’s my precious granddaughter?” she asks instead.

  “Fighting a little summer cold, but otherwise, she’s good.”

  “Tell her that her nana misses her.”

  “I will. We miss you.”

  “Well, only a couple more days till I’m back in your hair.”

  “Ha,” says Amber.

  “Ha back,” says Claire. Her name is called for pickup. “Well, I’ll let you go. Talk to you tomorrow?”

  “You bet. Bye, Mom.”

  Claire collects her coffee and heads out, past Nebo and Rowes Wharf, the coffee
warming her hands. Isn’t it funny, she thinks, how daughters check in on their mothers, but sons rarely do? She hasn’t heard from Ben since she left Providence on Monday afternoon. He’d come over Sunday night for dinner, hugged her goodbye and told her to call if she needed anything. Boys were funny that way. Men, too, as if whatever protective, worry gene women possessed hadn’t been passed along to them.

  A trolley car passes by and hoots its horn, causing Claire to jump. Years ago she and Walt had signed the family up for a trolley tour. It had been surprisingly educational. Their driver was flush with arcane knowledge, explaining such things as why the Beacon Hill brownstones had purple windows (precious glass imported from Europe had unexpectedly turned violet from the sun). The thought of that long-ago trip conjures up Walt, jarring in its immediacy, as if he’s ambling along right beside her, commenting on the people, the sky, the rash of new buildings that have gone up since they last visited Boston. His image is so close, Claire can almost detect the scent of his cologne. Old Spice. She tries to shake it off.

  But the thought prompts another memory, unbidden. There’d been that one year, when Amber had been in fourth grade and Ben in kindergarten, when Walt had seemed interested in her again. By then, Claire was back to working at the paper, Walt’s hours at the firm had settled into a more reasonable schedule, and he actually made it home for dinner most nights. Claire remembers it distinctly because it was the year the Hillers moved into the neighborhood.

  Originally from Manhattan, the Hillers were a nice enough couple. Their daughter was Amber’s age, and their son one year younger than Ben. Like so many friendships those days, theirs was born of convenience—adults craving grown-up company when the weeks were mostly consumed by work and children. Claire had liked Trevor and Angie immediately, a breath of fresh air in their insular neighborhood. The Hillers listened to NPR, discussed politics and were always dropping off ripened tomatoes or fat zucchini from their garden. Like Claire, Angie worked outside the home in an administrative position at Brown University; their kids all went to the same after-school program at the elementary school down the block.