Barefoot Girls (6 page)

“So, fine…you need time,” he said and sighed. “Maybe I do, too. I mean, don’t think I didn’t notice you avoiding the subject of our wedding for the last three months. Maybe we rushed into this too quickly.”

A falling feeling swept through Hannah. She had destroyed it all! “So, so you don’t want to get married anymore?” Her voice was so small, she could barely hear herself.

There was a pause. Hannah looked over at him and saw that he was looking down, shaking his head slowly. “No, I didn’t say that.”

She waited for him to elaborate. The room had grown horribly quiet.

“What then? I don’t understand. I mean, can’t I tell you I’m scared?” The tears that had been welling in her eyes fell now, dripping down her cheeks.

Daniel looked up at her and softened, wrapping his arms around her. “Of course you can.”

Crying now, unable to hold back, Hannah choked out, “Do you want your ring back? I understand, I do.”

Daniel shook his head and hugged her tighter. “No, never,” he said and loudly swallowed. “I want you to be my wife.”

Slowly, Hannah’s tears abated. She put her ring back on and it felt good, better than it had ever felt before. Daniel saw her put it back on and squeezed her tight, pulling her down to the bed. She reached for the lamp and switched it off.

He kissed her and his mouth felt wonderful and warm, welcoming. She kissed him back and felt herself melting as their hands searched and then hungrily touched each other, stroking and then reaching for their most sensitive areas. They came together with perfect knowledge and deft skill, growing hot, sheets thrown back. Then they were pressing into each other deeply, both crying a little and then laughing before finding their release.

As they fell back asleep, tumbled in each other’s arms, morning light slowly stole under the pulled shades in the bedroom, sifting onto the floor and walls and revealing everything.

The next day, wearing her ring for his sake, she drove Daniel to the train station, kissing him over and over to soften the fact that she wouldn’t plan their next visit. She just couldn’t think that far ahead all of the sudden. A subtle darkness seemed to be closing in on her, filled with seething invisible things she feared seeing.

She didn’t tell him about something she’d realized the night before: something that all the kisses and hugs and love he could possibly give her would not erase the knowledge of. She knew he was going to leave her, and that by leaving her, it would be the last straw. She would die if she was left again.

Her certainty that she would be abandoned by him felt as solid and immovable as a mountain within her, and no matter how much her psyche tried to weave and dodge, she could feel the blow coming.

Chapter 2

Keeley, feeling exuberant from her run in Central Park, bounded out of the elevator that opened into the foyer of her apartment with Ben and stopped to smell the roses - literally. Huge English tea roses, heady with scent, filled a silver bowl that sat on the cherry-wood table she and Ben had selected in an antiques shop in Paris last May. The table sat in the center of the foyer, highlighted by a stream of sunlight from the overhead skylight, and the pink flowers seemed to glow hotly in the light.

“Ahhh, now that’s a rose!” Keeley said, closing her eyes and breathing in deeply again, the rich sweetness of it something she could practically taste. She took one last whiff and picked up the folded cotton towel she had left for herself on the table, using it to blot her moist face and neck.

There was nothing like a run to cleanse her of bad feelings, especially on a gorgeous late September day in New York when the heavy moist air of the summer had left for good and was replaced by a crisp freshness that made living in the city almost bearable again. She felt good finally, her daughter’s betrayal still stinging, but pushed to the corner this morning. She would leave it there and just enjoy this happy alive feeling, her “blue-sky” as she liked to call it.

Looking around the huge foyer of the apartment, once again she was struck by her bizarre situation and felt the same mix of jingly-jangly happiness and disbelief she’d felt the first time she’d seen it. What was she doing here? How had this happened to her?

Ben, of course. Big Ben, her savior, her biggest fan – except for the Barefooters. Well, the Barefooters loved her, but they didn’t worship her. Ben worshipped her and Keeley reveled in it. She
had
to be worshipped. Her daughter had worshipped her once...

Keeley shook her head. “No, I will not think about that person today!” she said, and reached for the mail that Maria, their housekeeper, had brought in with her that morning and put in the tray they kept on the foyer table for mail. Next to it was a smaller tray for Ben’s change, which he hated to keep in his pockets, and keys. A place for everything and everything in its place: that was Ben.

Keeley had never been organized and found it impossible to follow his lead. She always forgot to use the tray, throwing her keys and purses down without thought in her rush to the next thing, and then spending frantic minutes tearing around the apartment searching for them later, always running late.

“Why don’t you use the tray, and that shelf I put in the hall closet for your purses?” Ben would ask, checking his watch again and trying to keep any strain out of his voice that would only make her panic more. Keeley thought of that shelf for her purses and smiled. That was Ben for you, always trying to help.

“Junk, junk, Ben, junk. Hello, a letter,” Keeley murmured, going through the mail. Then she saw the return address. Hannah.

Not again. What did she want now?

Keeley felt her blue-sky deflating. “Damn it!” She used the letter opener that was also kept in the mail tray and stabbed at the envelope, ripping it open. “What, Hannah? What do you want?”

September 28, 2010

Dear Mom,

I don’t know what to do. All I do is make a mess. The question has become: what am I doing getting married? Won’t I just make a mess of that, too?

I’m putting my marriage to Daniel on hold until I can figure out if what’s wrong with me is repairable, or if it runs to the core of who I am. Do I even know how to love? You always knew how, even if you made mistakes you knew the essence of it.

Right now I’m certain that Daniel doesn’t know me at all, and when he does, he’ll leave.

Please wish me well – your good thoughts always seem to make things better. I’d sign this letter “love”, but what do I know?

Hannah

Keeley read the letter through again. “Shit! Shit! Shitty shit!”

Her daughter’s novel, still unread, sat on her bedside table. Keeley had never been a reader or a writer, though she had fantasies of writing a memoir: bestselling, of course. Now Keeley couldn’t bring herself to read Hannah’s book, ever since that jagged-toothed bitch at the
Fairfield Tribune
wrote that awful point-and-sneer review and made it impossible to even look at it. “Alcoholic” was overstating it – she simply adored her wine and margaritas like many people did. “Abuse and neglect” was another thing altogether. No one had been more loved and coddled than her daughter, the Barefooter’s own baby girl. If only Keeley had enjoyed such a blessed and cushy childhood.

And now Hannah, lower lip stuck out, was throwing everything away, turning her nose up at God’s generosity. True love, the rarest and most sought-after version known as “romantic”, had alighted in her lucky daughter’s life and she didn’t appreciate it.

Keeley had met Daniel this summer at Captain’s, seen him with Hannah. She had seen the softest happiest Hannah she’d witnessed in years, thick fortress walls that seemed a part of her reserved daughter washed away. She had seen his patience with her daughter, his relentless love for her, the kind Hannah needed. All of the Barefooters had fallen for Daniel, especially when he climbed into the clam bed with Pam and willingly learned how to clam with his toes, wiggling them around in the slimy mud bottom. When he loaded Pam’s bucket within minutes, Pam had lifted the loaded bucket up high in the air and yelled out, grinning, “We’ve got a winner here, folks!”

Reading through the letter again she found the line and read it out loud. “‘Do I even know how to love?’" Then she laughed a bitter barking laugh. “Do any of us know how?”

Letter in hand, Keeley strode through the living room to the nearest phone in the library. Although fancy leather-bound books lined the walls and there were several comfortable wing chairs with standing lamps next to them perfect for an afternoon reading session, neither Keeley nor Ben were readers. There was, however, a beautiful antique bar cart that was fully stocked next to a wet bar in one corner of the room, as well as a chaise lounge with a pile of the fluffy gossip magazines Keeley adored on the table next to it, so the room was well-used anyway.

Keeley picked up the phone and pressed the first of three programmed speed dial numbers that connected her to her life-long lifelines.

Three hours later, when she pulled into the gravel driveway at Pam’s beach house in Westport, she saw that the others were already there, their cars filling the driveway. She honked her code - three short, one long - from Captain’s, killed the engine of Ben’s Jaguar, and leapt out of the car, grabbing the letter and her purse before striding up the crushed-shell path to the front door.  Pam flung the door open before Keeley was halfway there.

“Key, baby, you didn’t need to honk. We knew you were here from the sound of the shredding gravel going on out here. ‘You go way too fast, someday soon you’re going to crash,’” she sang with her deep voice, resurrecting one of their favorite eighties songs.

Pam enfolded Keeley in her arms that had always been strong and muscular from swimming and had grown beefier over the years from her love of carbs and cheese and chocolate chip cookies.

Keeley breathed in the salty-sweet smell of her friend, her ultimate security blanket. “I know, I know. I couldn’t wait to get here. ”

Pam tightened her hug. “It’s going to be okay. Everything’s going to be fine,” she said, her voice gentle.

Keeley didn’t respond; just let Pam’s words caress her.

Pam released her and said, “Come on, we’re out on the deck. Want a Mean Green?”

“Do you need to ask?”

“Let’s get you set up and then we’ll take a look at that letter.”

Pam led the way into her huge bright kitchen, custom-made to her homey sunlit sensibilities. When she and Jacob had moved into the charming little beachfront house, she had torn down all of the walls that separated the many tiny rooms, making room for one large kitchen-slash-den and installing skylights, huge windows, and sliding glass doors to bring in the sunshine she craved. The result was a brilliantly lit space decorated in shades of sand and grass and driftwood, everything functional and sensual to the touch.

Keeley felt herself relax; she loved being at Pam’s. It was a refuge: that house and her friend. Amy and Zooey always welcomed her in their homes as well, but it was different when there were husbands and multiple children involved. The loud clatter of three young boys and at least one dog at Amy’s was far from restful. Zooey’s latest husband, Neil, was so obviously resentful and petulant when she or any of the Barefooters visited, it wasn’t any fun. But at Pam’s there no husband and only one older child, sweet-n-skinny eleven-year-old Jacob, who, if he wasn’t playing baseball after school, was usually ensconced in his room with his Xbox, the sound of video-game explosions and gunfire muffled by his bedroom door. At Pam’s there was also always something good to eat and drink, lots of laughs, big hugs, and every comfort she could ask for.

A pitcher of Mean Greens and some salt-rimmed glasses sat on the kitchen’s island. Mean Greens were the Barefooter’s specialty – a powerful margarita made of top-shelf tequila, Grand Marnier, fresh lime juice, a dusting of lime zest, a splash of homemade lemonade for sweetness, and two secret ingredients that would go to the grave with the four women. Pam poured Keeley a glass, handed it to her, and they went together to the wall of sliding glass doors that opened onto the deck.

Pam slid the door open for Keeley, letting her step onto the large back deck where Zooey sat on a chair with her legs crossed next to Amy, who was sitting cross-legged on the chaise next to her and pointing at the ground while describing something to her. The sea breeze blew Keeley’s hair back and carried with it the sweet and funky scent-cocktail of sea wrack, salt water, and sun-heated creosote from the deck. Home, that’s what it was: this scent, this soft moist breeze, these women, were home. God, she missed them so much - even after less than a month.

“There she is!” Zo said, a grin spreading across her face as she unfolded her long frame from the chair and walked over to hug Keeley, her thin arms wrapping around her. “Now we can put a stop to the madness about that stupid review.”

“What madness? It’s-mmph?” Keeley said, her mouth being blocked by Zo’s bony and perfumed Calvin Klein-clad shoulder. Of the four, Zo with her height, her slim figure, and her money, easily won the best-dressed award. An inveterate shopper as well as globe trotter, she took the stores by storm in every city she visited and her look was effortless European chic. It was a look Keeley was never able to pull off: a tall Audrey Hepburn.