Elin Hilderbrand - Here’s to Us

“Scarlett…,” Buck said.

“I bled him dry, Buck,” Scarlett said. “I treated him horribly. I was having an affair with Bo Tanner, and I’m pretty sure Deacon knew it, and that did contribute to my uncle pulling his money out. So really, all of this is my fault.”

“You didn’t know he was going to die,” Buck said. “None of us did. You think there aren’t things I would have done differently?”

“You didn’t need to do anything differently,” Scarlett said. “He loved you. You two were Oscar and Felix.”

Buck smiled. “I would have watched him more closely. I would have negotiated better on his behalf. I would have pushed for merchandising. Gosh, there are a lot of things I would have done differently. I would have made him quit smoking.”

“At least he knew you loved him,” Scarlett said. “I can’t say the same.”

“Scarlett, come on…”

“Buck,” she said, and she gazed off in the distance. “I think I’d like another minute alone out here.”

“He knew you loved him, Scarlett.”

“Please,” she said.

Buck stepped inside the screen door and nearly ran smack into… Joel Tersigni, who was standing in the kitchen, downing a bottle of orange Gatorade.

Joel Tersigni?

Buck opened his mouth to speak, but Joel stuck out his hand first and said, “Buck, man, how you doing? This weekend couldn’t have been easy.”

Buck shook Joel’s hand and watched as Angie approached with a shy expression on her face. Then Buck remembered that Angie was involved with this creep. If Joel’s wife caught wind of this, there would be death threats. Because when it rained, it poured! Deacon wouldn’t have liked Angie being involved with Joel. Nope, not one bit.

“Good to see you,” Buck said to Joel. It was a total lie. Buck couldn’t believe Angie had invited him here.

“Good morning,” Belinda sang out, coming down the stairs wearing a leopard-print sheath dress, looking as though she were about to go out shopping on Rodeo Drive. She eyed Joel Tersigni. “Who is this?”

“Mom,” Angie said, “this is Joel. Joel, my mother, Belinda Rowe.”

Joel took Belinda’s hand reverently, as if she were the queen mother. “Pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”

“‘Ma’am’?” Belinda said. “I’m hardly older than you are.”

“He’s only forty, Mom,” Angie said.

“Only forty?” Belinda said. “That’s fifteen years older than you.”

“Fourteen,” Angie said.

“She always was a hair splitter,” Belinda said to Joel.

Laurel entered the kitchen, followed by Hayes.

“Who wants avocado toast?” Laurel asked.

“I’ll have some,” Hayes said. “I’m starving.” He eyeballed Belinda. “I had a rough night.”

Scarlett stepped in off the porch.

“Do you want avocado toast, Scarlett?” Laurel asked. “It’s vegan.”

“No, thank you,” she said. “I have my breakfast upstairs.”

And with that, she flew from the kitchen, her kimono waving out behind her like a red flag.

She would not let herself get swept away.

But it was tough.

Whether or not she had admitted it to herself, she was lonely, probably because her standards were so high-and, let’s face it, St. Ann’s Avenue in the Bronx wasn’t a great place to meet eligible men. But John Buckley met her standards, every single one of them, and the best thing was, he already knew her. There would be a discovery period, she assumed-what she liked, what he liked, where those likes intersected-but they had thirty years of friendship to build on. What a relief! Laurel was fifty-four years old, and the biggest deterrent to starting a new relationship at her age was all the explaining that would have to be done with a new suitor.

She wouldn’t let herself get swept away, however. If being married to Deacon Thorpe had taught her anything, it was that the people you cared about the most would hurt you the worst, no matter how pure their intentions at the beginning. Laurel would not fall too hard or too fast. True, Buck had spent eight hours making love to Laurel the night before-kissing her eyelids, rubbing her hip bone, tucking the sheet up over her shoulder when they finally tried for sleep-but that didn’t mean she could trust him. The only person she could trust was herself.

When Buck went downstairs to make coffee, Laurel tried to go back to sleep, but she was too dialed up, and so she picked up her novel, Euphoria-“euphoria” had a brand-new meaning now-but she couldn’t concentrate and barely made it through one chapter. She decided to make the very messy bed and then head downstairs to resume her role as den mother.

She was surprised to find nearly everyone in the house awake. Hayes trailed Laurel down the stairs, and in the kitchen they found Belinda, Buck, Angie, and a man Laurel immediately thought of as Tall, Dark, and Handsome, introduced to her as Joel Tersigni, the dining room manager at the Board Room. This, then, was Angie’s boyfriend, the married boyfriend.

Laurel reached across the counter and said, “I’m Laurel Thorpe. Wife number one.”

“I’m sorry for the intrusion,” Joel said.

“No need to be sorry,” Laurel said, but her smile felt forced. She had to admit, she had preferred it when it was just family. But now that there was a stranger among them, maybe everyone would be a little more careful before speaking.

There was a knock at the front door. Laurel strode down the hallway to see a cute young guy in a brown uniform standing on the porch. UPS. He was holding a package about the size of a bread box.

“Delivery for Laurel Thorpe?” he said.

“That’s me,” she said. She wondered what on earth it could be. Thinking about St. Ann’s Avenue and her clients’ rent made Laurel worry that her assistant, Sophie, had shipped her a stack of files. She took the package, signed the electronic receipt, and then it dawned on her: These were the ashes. This box, handed over like a sweater from J. Crew, was what was left of Deacon.

Naturally, Scarlett chose this moment to descend the stairs, holding a purple can of Skinny4Life. She had changed into white shorts and a skimpy red tank top that showed how painfully thin she was. With her shorn head, she looked like a teenage boy.

“What’s that?” she asked.

While Laurel was thinking of what to say, Scarlett figured it out.

“Let me?” she said.

Laurel handed her the box, thinking, Be careful with it! Scarlett had been so uneven since her arrival that Laurel could easily imagine Scarlett flushing the ashes down the toilet.

But Scarlett balanced her can on the newel post of the banister and cradled the box like a days-old infant-then she kissed it, leaving behind red lip prints. She handed the box back to Laurel and headed to the kitchen.

She loved him, Laurel thought.

Laurel stared at the box. Scarlett’s handing it back had seemed symbolic. Laurel would be Deacon’s keeper in the end, it seemed.

Joel Tersigni came down the stairs wearing a pair of green and black board shorts.

“Going for a swim?” Laurel asked.

“In a minute,” Joel said. “I want to catch up with Scarlett. Pay my respects.”

“Of course,” Laurel said. Joel seemed cordial enough, maybe a bit practiced, maybe a bit insincere in the manner of Eddie Haskell, or maybe Laurel was just looking for flaws. It was Joel’s job to be smooth and polished. Laurel could see how Angie would have fallen for the guy; he seemed like a professional heartbreaker.

All men cheat. That what they do.

Laurel took the opportunity to go upstairs and find Angie and Hayes. Angie was in her room, straightening up, and Hayes was sitting on the side of his bed, staring at his hands.

“Come into my room,” Laurel said. “Both of you.”

They obediently followed Laurel into her room, where she shut the door. She held out the box. “The ashes came.”

“Oh,” Hayes said, backing up as if she were holding a box of rattlesnakes. “Whoa.”

Laurel used a pen from the nightstand to slice open the top of the box. There were several layers of bubble wrap to cut through, but swaddled in the center was a plastic urn about the size of a pineapple.

Plastic? Laurel thought. She had heard the word “urn” and thought it would be ceramic or, because Deacon was a chef, perhaps cast iron. She smiled, thinking of Deacon’s ashes being held in a Le Creuset urn; that would have been fitting.

Angie lifted the urn, opened it, peered inside. “Is this happening?” she said. She seemed to genuinely be asking. “Every time I think I’ve wrapped my mind around it, it hits me again like it’s the first time. He’s dead.” Angie shook the urn. “This is him.”

Laurel thought back to the very first time she had set eyes on Deacon Thorpe. He had always believed it was at lunch in the cafeteria, but the truth was, Laurel had seen Deacon first thing that morning, getting off the school bus. Word had gone around among the girls of Laurel’s class that there was a new boy coming, a boy from New York City, and Laurel had held out hope for someone interesting. When she’d seen Deacon, her heart had broken a little. Even way back then, she had had a tender spot for the marginalized. She had then sought him out at lunch, assuming he would be eating alone.

She had wanted, so badly, to save him.

You promised to take me for a swim,” Ellery said. She stood in a pink lamé bikini in the door of Angie’s bedroom, where Angie was starting to straighten up so that she could eventually pack. At the same time, she was trying to collect her wits. The ashes had messed with her head.

“I will,” Angie said.

“I want to go now,” Ellery said.

“I hate to say this,” Angie said, “but you sound like a brat. And we both know you’re not a brat. Who’s the only brat in this family?”

“Hayes,” Ellery said.

Angie smiled and held out her arms. “Come here.”

Ellery hugged Angie, and Angie inhaled the sweet smell of her hair, which was slipping out of its braids.

Angie had initially resented Ellery’s existence in the world, much as she resented Mary and Laura’s presence. Angie didn’t understand why both of her parents had to go and have other children. Wasn’t Angie enough? Angie’s relationship with Mary and Laura was pretty much nonexistent; she had last seen them a year and a half earlier, at Thanksgiving, and her preeminent emotion then had been bemusement. Both girls looked exactly like Bob, and they were quiet and horsey like Bob; it was as if Belinda had never been part of the equation. But because Ellery lived in New York, and because Deacon had encouraged Angie to make an effort to spend time with her sister, Angie and Ellery now had a close relationship. Angie was seventeen years older, so there were times when Angie felt like Ellery’s mother or her aunt instead of her sister.

Angie had expected Ellery to cry and carry on about Deacon’s death far more than she had, but what Angie realized was that nine-year-old children were too young to process the concept of “gone forever.” Ellery and Scarlett had been away in Savannah for nearly two months; probably, in some part of her imagination, Ellery believed that when she finally got back to New York and the apartment on Hudson Street, Deacon would be there.

“Let’s go get Joel,” Angie said. “He’ll want to swim, too.”

“I didn’t know Joel was coming here,” Ellery said.

“No, me neither,” Angie said.

When Angie and Ellery went out on the deck, Angie found Joel standing behind Scarlett’s chair, massaging her shoulders. Scarlett lolled her head back and groaned with delight, saying, “Oh God, don’t stop. That feels so good.”

Angie was hit by a wave of disgusting, ugly jealousy, the likes of which she had never experienced, even when thinking about Joel with Dory.

“You have magic hands,” Scarlett said. “I didn’t realize how tight I was.”

“You’ve been through a lot,” Joel said. He continued to knead her shoulders and upper arms. “You’re in knots.” He took a deep inhalation. “Are you wearing Chanel, by any chance? That is my favorite scent on a woman.”

“We’re ready to go swimming!” Angie said.

Scarlett’s eyes popped open. “Baby, you look edible in that bikini. Honestly, I could eat you!”

Angie rolled her eyes. Scarlett constantly announced how edible Ellery looked, as though Ellery were a cookie, or a muffin, which was all tied in with her deep-seated fear of and desire for food-or so Angie and Deacon had surmised on one of their Tuesday-night dinners.

“Joel?” Angie said. “Are you coming with us?”

“Can you believe Joel is here?” Scarlett said. Years in New York had sanded away Scarlett’s Southern drawl, but when she wanted something, she turned it on heavy and sweet, just like her namesake from Gone with the Wind. “Here” became “he-ah.” Angie watched a dopey expression cross Joel’s face.