Elin Hilderbrand - Silver Girl

Dan knocked again. Connie hurried to the front door and nearly turned her ankle. Stupid shoes.

She opened the door and there was Dan, showered and handsome in a white shirt and jeans, which was Connie’s favorite outfit on any man. He was holding a bakery box in one hand and a large paper bag that contained the lobsters in the other hand. He held out the bakery box.

“For dessert,” he said.

Connie took the box. It was a blueberry pie.

“Oh!” she said. She looked at Dan, thinking, This is incredible, the man read my mind. It was more than a lucky guess; it had to be fate. They were simpatico. Dan knew that a lobster dinner needed blueberry pie. “Thank you!”

She took a stutter step backward and nearly lost her balance, but Dan grabbed her arm. She said, “Whoa, geez, these shoes. I’d better take them off before I break my neck. Come in, hello.” She moved in to kiss him, hoping for a kiss like the one he’d given her that morning, but this kiss was perfunctory and dry. He seemed somewhat less enchanted by her than when he’d arrived to pick them up for the boat trip. Quite possibly, Connie thought, he didn’t even want to be here. Quite possibly, he’d only come out of a sense of obligation, because he had the lobsters.

As Connie headed back into the kitchen, she tried to figure out what she’d done that day to put him off. Maybe he’d decided he just didn’t like her. She liked him; she liked that he was prompt. She liked that he had brought blueberry pie.

She said, “Can I get you a drink?”

He said, “Sure. Do you have any beer?”

Beer again. Connie hadn’t thought about beer. She checked the fridge and found two green bottles of Heineken in the back, thank God, bought by one of her houseguests, probably Toby, before he quit for good. Toby used to drink beer even after his first try at rehab, because he claimed beer wasn’t alcohol. Drinking beer was like drinking juice, Toby said. It was like drinking milk. Toby was an alcoholic, as purely and classically as their mother, Veronica, had been, but he’d beaten it now. He was sober. Connie pulled a beer out, opened it, poured it into a glass and watched it foam all over her counter.

Dan was out on the deck with Meredith, admiring the water. Meredith pointed out Harold’s dark head. She said something and Dan laughed. Connie wondered again if Dan liked Meredith. Maybe they would be a better couple. But that was silly. Connie was glad to see Meredith outside on the deck. She hadn’t ventured out to the deck since the photograph. Connie supposed she felt safer with Dan around. A man.

Connie joined them outside. She handed Dan his beer, and the three of them did a cheers.

“Thank you for a perfect day,” Meredith said.

Connie took a breath to chime in but she couldn’t think of what to add, so she just smiled. At Merion Mercy Academy, it had been popular to practice walking with a textbook balanced on one’s head to promote good posture. Connie felt like she had a book balanced on her head now, one that was in danger of sliding off and hitting the ground. Or maybe it was her head that was threatening to fall off.

Dan said, “Well, thank you for joining me. It wouldn’t have been much fun alone.”

Connie nodded. Yep. She realized she was still holding her gin and tonic. She thought she had switched to wine. Meredith’s wine glass was empty; she needed a refill. Connie would fetch the bottle.

Dan said, “I think the highlight was watching you dive!”

Connie nodded. Yep. Great watching Meredith dive. Meredith was a fantastic diver-champion, had been.

Meredith said, “That was fun! Of course, I used to be much better.”

“When you were younger,” Connie said. Her voice sounded funny to her own ears. Had those words made sense? Meredith and Dan were both looking at her now. “I used to go to all of Meredith’s meets. Every one, every meet, every single meet.”

They were still looking at her. Okay, what? She didn’t want to know. She wanted to go get the bottle of wine. She would pour her gin and tonic down the sink. She picked up a cracker and cut a messy piece of Brie. Food! Connie devoured it. She’d had nothing to eat since the half of the half sandwich on the boat.

Dan said, “Do you need help with the lobsters?”

“No, no,” Connie said, her mouth still full. She made some hand motions indicating I’ve got it, I’ll go in now and take care of things, you two stay here.

The two pots on the stove were at such a rolling boil that their lids chattered. The bag with the lobsters was on the counter. Connie didn’t want to do the lobsters, she realized. Wolf had always done the lobsters, and last summer, Toby had done them. Wolf, Toby, Freddy Delinn. How long would the lobsters take? Should she get Dan or just drop them in herself? She needed to clarify the butter. Meredith and Dan looked happy out on the deck; they were talking. They were enjoying their cocktail hour. So what if Connie was slaving in the hot kitchen? So what if Meredith was a great diver? Graceful and all that? Sexually limber. Who had said that? Connie took off her shoes. Ahhh, now that was a good idea. Wine. Connie poured herself a glass of wine and she should refill Meredith’s glass also. She would, as soon as she was done with the butter. She went to pour her gin and tonic down the drain, but there was only a scant inch left, so she drank it.

She put the butter in the pan and turned on the burner.

Late for my own funeral, Veronica used to say. Veronica had died of cirrhosis of the liver. This had surprised no one. And then, at her funeral, something had happened between Meredith and Toby; Connie was sure of it.

Toby, Wolf, Freddy Delinn, Dan. Danforth Flynn, that was a nice name.

The butter was melting and Connie decided she would just do it: She dumped the lobsters into the boiling water. One, two, three. She secured the lid. There was a barely discernible high-pitched noise: the lobsters screaming. But no, that was a myth. It was the sound of air escaping the shells, or something.

Wine for Meredith. The butter was melting. What about the corn? The corn would only take five minutes.

And then Connie remembered her cell phone. She hadn’t checked her cell phone since early that morning, before Dan arrived. What if Ashlyn had called?

Connie hurried up to her bedroom to grab her phone. Danforth Flynn, Freddy Delinn, Wolf, Toby. Her phone showed no missed calls. No missed call from Ashlyn. Never a call from her headstrong daughter, but why not?

Connie checked her texts: there was one unread text, which probably meant her cell-phone carrier had sent her a reminder that her bill was overdue. Connie held her arm straight out so she could read the display. The text was from Toby. It said: Sold the boat to the man from Nantucket. Will be on island in 3 weeks, OK?

Toby would be on island in three weeks? The man from Nantucket? Who was that? It was a joke, but Connie had forgotten the punch line. Toby was coming in three weeks! Her handsome, funny-fun-fun brother! Sold the boat? That just wasn’t possible, unless he was buying a bigger boat or a faster boat.

Connie pushed the buttons that would reply to Toby. She had never really gotten the hang of texting, but maybe she should, maybe if she texted Ashlyn, Ashlyn would respond.

OK? he asked. Connie punched in: OK! Then she remembered about Meredith. She couldn’t let him walk into that surprise party unwarned. What she wanted to say was You won’t believe this but Meredith Delinn called me up and asked me to throw her a lifeline, and I did, and guess what? It’s been great. Except for the paint on the house. And the slashed tires. But that was far too long for a text, especially when Connie couldn’t see the buttons clearly. While she was getting Meredith’s glasses replaced, she should have picked up a pair for herself. Connie left the text at OK! But then she thought to add LOL! which her friend Lizbet had told her meant “laugh out loud.”

Connie sent the text. Then she hurried downstairs. She had a lot of pots on the stove.

The kitchen was hot. Connie rescued the butter from the stove. She dropped the corn into the second steaming pot and turned off the heat under the lobsters. She drizzled the dressing over the greens and tossed them. She poured the butter into a small ceramic pitcher. Her bare feet felt good against the cool floor. She had to pour Meredith more wine.

She hadn’t lost anything, she reminded herself. There was no Ashlyn now, but there had been no Ashlyn before. She would try texting.

“Okay, we’re ready!” Connie said.

Why was the kitchen so hot? The oven was on, that was why. But Connie had forgotten to put in the potatoes. Goddamn it-there they sat on the counter, in plain sight. She’d just overlooked them. Laugh out loud, she thought. But tears sprung to her eyes.

Meredith came in from the deck and said, “What can we do to help?”

Connie dissolved in sobs.

Meredith said, “Connie, what’s wrong?” She sounded genuinely alarmed. But she wouldn’t understand. Meredith, quite famously, had made it through a national crisis without shedding a single tear.

“I forgot to put in the potatoes,” Connie said.

Connie recalled only snippets of dinner. She allowed Dan to lead her to her chair, and he cracked open her lobster and pulled the meat from it, as though she were a child. Her corn lay on her plate untouched. Her shoulders caved in, like her bones were melting, and Meredith rose and brought her a sweater. There was bright banter between Dan and Meredith, on what topic, Connie couldn’t tell. The salad was weepy with dressing. Connie could only manage one bite.

“Eat!” Meredith implored her.

In the place where Connie expected to find her wine was a glass of ice water with a slice of lemon. She drank it gratefully, remembering how they used to pull this very same trick with her own mother and how Veronica usually fell for it, but one time spit the water all over the table and demanded her gin. Connie’s eyes were closing, her head bobbed forward like it used to sometimes in the movie theater, when Wolf took her to the long, harrowing art-house films he liked. She was hoping that either Meredith or Dan would have the foresight to put the blueberry pie in the oven to warm it up, though she was doubtful about this. She was the only one who thought of such things. But she was far too tired to stand up and tend to it herself.

Ashlyn didn’t realize how cruel she was being. She wouldn’t understand until she had children of her own. She may not have any children of her own, ever. And whereas this would be a shame, it would also be a blessing. Wolf, Toby, Freddy Delinn, Danforth Flynn. Connie’s head fell forward to her plate, but she snapped it up again, alert and conscious. She stared at Meredith. Did Meredith know what Freddy had said and done to Connie in Cap d’Antibes? Certainly not. That man told her nothing.

Connie felt a pressure in her armpits. She felt herself being lifted. She was in Dan’s arms. She could smell him; she could feel the weave of his white shirt. Linen. Who ironed for him, she wondered, now that his wife was dead? She was floating, much the way she’d been floating in the water today.

She heard the words “a lot to drink.”

Meredith said, “And she barely ate anything.”

She landed in softness, too novel yet to be familiar. Her bed, as lovely and luxurious as a bed in a five-star hotel. She felt a kiss on her cheek, but the kiss was feminine. It was Meredith.

Connie’s eyes fluttered open. It was still light outside. There was something Connie wanted to tell Meredith, but Connie couldn’t stay awake another second.

She said, “Wolf’s dead.” The words sounded funny, garbled. Had they made sense?

Meredith said, “I know, honey. I’m sorry.”

When Meredith awoke the morning after the boat ride, her body ached. Specifically, her torso: the spaces between her ribs were stretched and sore.

The diving.

Meredith felt guilty even thinking it, but yesterday had been a good day. Was this possible, really, considering her current circumstances? Certainly not. But yes. Yes. It had been a day when Meredith had been present in every moment. She had thoughts about Freddy but those thoughts had been intentional; they hadn’t sneaked up on her. She had thought about the boys, too, but the day had been so brilliant in its every aspect that Meredith’s thoughts about Leo were more optimistic than usual. She wondered what Leo and Carver were doing and decided that they were most likely enjoying the weather and not wasting their precious hours thinking about Deacon Rapp.