An Invincible Summer (Wyndham Beach) Page 16

  “Ready to see the kitchen?” Barbara touched Maggie on the shoulder.

  “What?” Maggie blinked and the tableau faded into the all-white room. “Oh, yes.”

  She followed the Realtor past the staircase that still retained its original oak glory. It and the floor were the only touches of natural wood left that Maggie could see.

  “Now, are you ready for this?” Barbara stood in the kitchen doorway, one arm extended like a TV shopping host displaying her next item. “This is all new. The addition is only four years old, all the latest technology, top-of-the-line appliances. What do you think?”

  “I think it’s . . . white.” Maggie felt like she’d stumbled into a snow globe. Everything in the room was blindingly white.

  “Absolutely on trend, every inch of it.” Barbara was positively glowing. “A true gourmet chef’s dream. I’d kill for a kitchen like this in my house. The owners sank a fortune into it.” She ran a possessive hand along the counter covering the island.

  “Granite?” Maggie asked to have something to say.

  Barbara shook her head. “So last year. This is quartz. Much trendier. Easier to care for with the look of marble.” She lowered her voice. “Those beams overhead? Planed from a tree in the backyard that came down in a storm a few years back.”

  Maggie went to the french doors that opened to the yard and peered out. Gone were her mother’s flower beds and the vegetable garden she’d planted every summer, and there was no trace of the ageless peonies she’d prized. Maggie fought a wave of nausea. This might not have been as good an idea as she’d first thought.

  “Wait till you see the master bedroom.”

  Maggie started to follow Barbara from the room when the Realtor stopped and said, “Oh, the dining room. It’s this way.”

  The door to the dining room had been moved when the addition was built. Maggie felt even more disoriented approaching the room from a different direction. It pained her to see that her mother’s beautiful wallpaper had been stripped off, and the gorgeous crystal chandelier that had hung over the dining room table for three generations was gone, replaced by a chrome-and-glass fixture that took Maggie’s breath away with its starkness.

  “I know, right?” Barbara apparently noticed Maggie’s reaction and had mistaken shock for awe. “That fixture is to die for.”

  Maggie bit her bottom lip. “I’d have expected a house of this age and style to have a more classic fixture.”

  “They said there had been an old chandelier there but, of course, during the remodeling, it had to go. It was so yesterday.”

  “Any idea what they did with it?” Maggie asked.

  Barbara shook her head. “My guess would be that they sold it to a dealer, but I don’t really know.”

  Maggie left the room and headed for the staircase, her head pounding.

  “Now get ready for the most amazing master suite. Honestly, it has everything.” Barbara went up the steps ahead of Maggie and proceeded to the end of the hall when she reached the second floor. “This is truly to die for. If you’re looking for luxury, look no further.” She opened the bedroom door with a grand sweeping motion and stepped in.

  For a moment, Maggie felt lost as she tried to remember the exact layout of the second floor.

  “This is of course all new,” Barbara was saying. “The original bedrooms are across the hall and next door to this one.”

  Maggie wandered from the bedroom with its contemporary furnishings—all white to match the walls—into the bath with its overload of chrome. But the layout was actually functional, with the soaking tub and the large glass shower. The double vanity held a surprise: the bowls of the twin sinks were embellished with flowers that seemed almost incongruous with the starkness of the rest of the house, but they were lovely. Along one wall was a gas fireplace, which Maggie had to admit made the room pretty much perfect. Painting the walls a pretty color—palest blue or sea glass green, maybe—would elevate the room to perfection.

  “Aren’t you blown away?” Barbara asked anxiously, as if just realizing her would-be buyer had been mostly silent.

  “That would be one way to describe it.” Maggie paused at the wall of windows that looked out on the bay. At least they’d kept the view.

  “It’s beautiful, right? Like a painting.”

  Maggie nodded and left the master suite and stepped into the hall. She opened the door to what had been her parents’ room and what was now apparently home to two boys. The bunk beds in the corner were built to look like a pirate ship, and the interior wall had been painted—hallelujah!—navy blue. She took a few steps across the hall to her old room, which was now an office with a chrome-and-glass desk and a white fuzzy rug on the refinished heart pine floor. She paused at Sarah’s old room before stepping inside to find a nicely appointed guest room with a colorful quilt on the bed.

  “Seen enough?” Barbara poked her head into the room.

  “I think so.” Maggie left the room without a backward glance and went directly downstairs.

  “I’m sure you’re overwhelmed,” Barbara was saying as she followed in Maggie’s wake. “There’s so much to see here. If you’d like to take a minute to . . .” Her phone rang. “Oh, let me take this. I’ll just be a moment.”

  Maggie went into the kitchen and tried to conjure up a memory that would reassure her that this was in fact the house in which she’d grown up. Closing her eyes, she breathed in, her senses searching for a familiar scent. Vanilla and cinnamon, the staples of her mother’s basic cookie recipe. Her mother’s stuffing for the turkey on Thanksgiving morning, sage and onion and celery. She wanted to be able to see herself and Sarah, their elbows leaning on the kitchen table, watching their mother roll out cookie dough until she had it exactly the way she wanted it. The memories remained even if the room had been transformed.

  And everywhere she felt the ghosts of everyone who’d lived in this house watching anxiously from the shadows. For the first time in her life, she understood the meaning of something her grandmother Lloyd used to say: Sad ties you to a place as sure as happy.

  Maggie turned the car around at the end of the street and headed for the center of town, her head still reeling from the house tour. It was strange that while everything had changed, the feelings that had been conjured up had been the same. Somehow the innate warmth that had defined her home still lived below the stark white surface. It had tugged at her with every step she’d taken inside those walls. It had been a somewhat surreal experience. On the one hand, she’d been saddened to see how the owners had tried to transform the house, but on the other, it retained its warmth and welcome.

  She slowed as she approached Front Street and found a spot in the public lot across the street from the bakery. When she pushed open the pastry shop door, her senses were overcome by so many delectable aromas that she couldn’t decide which of the glass display cases to look into first.

  “Oh my God,” she muttered as she wandered from one case to the next, four in all. Cakes, pies, and cupcakes, of course, but fancy fruit tarts, napoleons, colorful macarons, and some of the most intricately decorated cookies and sugary small bites she’d ever seen. It took her a while, but she finally made a selection. While she waited for her order, she helped herself to a cup of complimentary coffee, then went to the counter to pay for her goodies.

  “Guess you still have that sweet tooth.”

  The voice went through her like the sharp jab of a knife.

  Without turning around, she merely nodded and replied, “Guess so.”

  “How was your weekend at Liddy’s? I heard you were back for a few days.”

  Maggie turned and faced Brett. “Oh, I guess you heard that from your wife. I ran into her at the art center on Sunday.”

  “Yeah, she told me.” Brett took her by the arm and tried to lead her a few steps away from the counter, but she didn’t budge. “You look great, Maggie.”

  “Thanks. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to . . .” She started to turn back to the c
ounter to pick up her package, but he took her arm a second time. His touch was light, and no pressure was exerted, but his hand on her arm felt like a vise. “Let go, Brett.”

  He dropped his hand.

  “Maggie, I need to talk to you.” He lowered his voice. “It’s important.”

  “I doubt it.” She didn’t want to hear his declaration of love, didn’t want to hear from his lips that he’d always loved her, only her. It had been hard enough hearing it from Kayla.

  “You don’t understand,” he insisted quietly.

  “I understand plenty, thank you. I need to go.” The last thing she needed was to deal with Brett, coming on the heels of witnessing what she considered a desecration of her family’s ancestral home and the emotions that had been stirred up—her sister’s death, her parents’ divorce, her father’s abandonment of her and her mother. Brett was part of everything that had been churned up in her life that morning. She already knew what he was going to say—Thanks, Kayla—and she couldn’t bear it. Her heart couldn’t take one more look back right at that moment.

  “There’s something you need to know, Mags.”

  “I’m going to say this one more time.” She looked into his eyes and ignored that she saw anything that would make the past disappear. “I don’t have anything to say to you, and I don’t want to hear anything you have to say. Now—”

  “Maggie, please.”

  She grabbed her box of pastries off the counter and headed for the door as an elderly gentleman was preparing to open it to come in. He held the door for her, and she smiled a thank-you.

  Maggie checked traffic both ways, then crossed to the parking lot, refusing to look back at the shop. She could feel Brett’s eyes on her as she walked to her car on shaking legs. She’d been thrown off-kilter by what she was certain would have been Brett’s declaration of undying love. She’d wanted to cover her ears rather than hear that from him now, after they’d been apart for so long and she’d taught herself to live with the aftermath of their relationship. She’d had more than she could handle already that morning, and she couldn’t get out of town fast enough.

  She sighed with relief when she reached Route 6, determined to put as many miles behind her as quickly as she could. But the farther she drove, the closer she felt the ghosts that had watched her from the shadows in the house on Cottage Street. She had the feeling they’d followed her and were crowded shoulder to shoulder in the back seat. The more she glanced into the rearview mirror, the larger the past loomed, the good and the bad.

  Kayla’s words were in her head. Seeing Brett, walking the floors of her childhood home, had taken her back to the time when she’d believed she knew where her life was headed. College in September. After graduation, she’d marry Brett and they’d live together in whichever city’s football team drafted him—there was never a doubt in anyone’s mind, least of all hers, that he’d play professionally. She’d teach for two years—three at the most—and then they’d start their family. After football, they’d move back to Wyndham Beach, and they would assuredly live happily ever after.

  It had never occurred to her that anything could happen that would change what she’d been so sure of, that there could be forces in the universe that could misdirect everything in the blink of an eye.

  She’d moved to Seattle with Brett after college graduation, but she’d been unable to shake off the pain of a life-changing decision she’d been forced to make, the stress of keeping a secret that was eating her alive. She was unable to forgive him for not understanding her grief, unable to go through with a wedding to a man who’d seemed to close his eyes to her devastation. In the end, the only thing she could do was leave Brett and the dreams they’d shared to find her own way.

  Her solitary journey had taken her to Philadelphia and a man who’d loved her and who’d offered her a life, a family, a home. She’d loved Art in her own way, maybe not with the passion she’d felt for Brett but with a steadiness and a resolve to never let him know he’d been second in her heart. She’d taken one last look over her shoulder at the life she could have had before she moved on and said I do.

  Sad ties you to a place as sure as happy.

  “Amen, Nana,” she said aloud. “Amen.”

  As sure as happy. She had to admit there’d been equal measures of both, and it was the happy that sat on the shoulders of the ghosts in the back seat, begging her to take a good long look—and she’d do that. But not today. Today had been about nostalgia and feeling the losses that had marked her life. There would be other days to remember the joy and the laughter that house—that family—had once known. There was much to remember. But not today.

  Chapter Ten

  GRACE

  Grace read the online news article for the third time before getting up from her desk to close her office door.

  This had to be a mistake. Please let this be a mistake.

  Someone had left a column printed out from Philly News and Views Online and left it smack in the middle of her desk. The gossip site item was dated yesterday, and the section circled in red made her blood run cold.

  Rumor has it that the online blog known as TheLast2No—a private members-only spot where women go to bitch about their lyin’, cheatin’ ex-partners—was set up by a well-known Center City attorney who was dumped by her husband who’d been having an affair with one of their paralegals. The attorney, who identifies herself on the site as Annie Boleyn (cute, no?), was reportedly devastated to have been—yes, I’ll say it—the last to know, and obviously had not taken the news of the affair well. It’s been said that the spurned attorney had continued to pretend all was fine with her marriage for several months after the husband left seeking greener—read younger—pastures, but everyone in the firm knew otherwise. Talk about a fall from grace! It’s only a matter of time before Annie Boleyn is unmasked and the entire legal community will know what a desperate woman looks like. Next time—and there probably will be a next time—skip the humiliation and #justletgo.

  Grace felt sick, a wave of nausea overtaking her. She closed her eyes and tried to will it away. How, she wondered, had anyone found out? She hadn’t told anyone—not one person!—about TheLast2No. Who could have figured it out? And who had given—she checked the byline—Amy Spinelli the news?

  She was sure by this time tomorrow her name would be out there in connection with the blog. “Talk about a fall from grace!” Seriously? Could it have been more obvious? Combined with the other information in the piece, it was clear as glass that she was Annie Boleyn, that TheLast2No was her blog, and that she was the desperate woman who hadn’t seen what everyone else in her office had known. Amy Spinelli might just as well have written “Grace Flynn” in parentheses after “a well-known Center City attorney who was dumped by her husband who’d been having an affair with one of their paralegals.”

  Grace held her head in her hands but wouldn’t let the tears fall. She couldn’t take any more humiliation. She just didn’t have the strength.

  Closing her laptop and packing it with a few files in her tote bag, she cleared her desk, turned out the light, and, closing the door behind her, walked to the elevator with her head high. In the parking garage, she loaded her bag into the back seat, started the car, and drove off as if nothing were wrong. She made it all the way to Spruce Street before she let the tears fall.

  She’d thought her humiliation had been complete before, thought she’d managed to salvage a certain amount of dignity by ignoring the happy couple in the office and going about her business. Apparently, someone was determined to ensure that she wasn’t going to be able to maintain whatever pride she still had.

  Without thinking about where she was headed, she found herself on the Schuylkill Expressway headed for Bryn Mawr.

  Once in her mother’s driveway, she broke down and sobbed for twenty minutes. Finally, hiccuping and blotchy faced, she got out of the car and started toward the front door.

  “Gracie? That you?” her mother called from the top of the dri
veway. Maggie wore old jeans with dirty knees, one of Art’s old Penn State sweatshirts, and sunglasses. “I was just trying to take advantage of this beautiful weather to get a jump on my garden. Whoever heard of sixty-five sunny degrees in February?”

  Grace walked up the drive slowly. Now that she was here, what could she possibly say to her mother to prepare her for the embarrassment headed their way?

  “I thought I’d . . .” Maggie paused. “Grace? Are you all right?”

  Grace shook her head. “No, Mom. I’m not all right . . .”

  Forty minutes later, the dam having burst, Grace had told her mother everything, from Zach admitting he was in love with someone else to the humiliation she’d suffered at Zach’s and Amber’s hands to setting up the blog and letting her feelings rip.

  “It felt like such a safe place to unload it all. It made me feel like I had some control over one small part of my life when everything else was out of control.” Grace sat at the kitchen table, the picture of total dejection. “I could talk about how devastated I’d been when Zach left me and how horrified I was when I found out he and Amber were a couple. I had no idea, Mom. But apparently everyone else in the office knew. I made a total fool out of myself.”

  “Sweetheart, why didn’t you tell me? Why did you hide all this . . . this pain? And for the love of all that’s holy, why didn’t you tell me about Zach and Amber?”

  “I didn’t want you to know what a failure I was at marriage. You and Dad had such a perfect life together, and that’s what I wanted. It was just too hard to admit I’d failed.”

  “Grace, you didn’t fail. Zach failed. Look, your dad and I had a great marriage, but it wasn’t perfect. We had our challenges, just like everyone does.” Maggie sighed. “I just wish you’d talked to me about it.”

  “I just couldn’t face you. I was afraid you’d think I was flat-out stupid for the way I handled it. Mom, I pretended we were still together weeks after he moved out, but everyone knew we weren’t—but I didn’t know that—so I looked like a lying fool. And I did everything I could possibly think of to win him back. There was nothing I wouldn’t have done, like, I had no pride left whatsoever. When I found out everyone had known not only about him leaving, but about his relationship with Amber, I just wanted to die.” Grace grabbed a tissue from the box her mother offered her. “I was so hurt. I had to go in there every day and face him, with her. Everyone knew he’d dumped me for her.”