Family Ties (11 page)

Annie had a headache when she woke up the next day. Ted and Katie were both already out, and neither had left her a note about their plans. She knew that at their age, they didn’t owe her explanations about where they went, and she had no right to ask. Thinking about both of them, Annie made herself a cup of tea and went out for a walk. Whitney called on her cell phone, and she told her about the argument with Katie the night before.

“She’s got to defend the relationship, no matter what she really thinks. She can’t admit to you that you’re right or that she may have questions about it herself. None of us want to admit that we’re not sure of what we’re doing. It’s easier for her to attack you. And saying what you think isn’t such a bad thing. Katie knows that your heart is in the right place. Now just back off and see what she does. And have a little fun yourself for a change. Are you coming to New Year’s Eve? It might do you good to get out of the house for a night.”

“I don’t want to ditch them on New Year’s Eve.”

“Hello? Are you kidding? We’ve been over this before. They’re going to ditch you. They’re grown up. They’ve got their own plans. And I want to introduce you to Fred’s friend. He’s a terrific guy.” As Whitney said it, Annie remembered Katie’s comment of the night before, that she lived like a nun. She was forty-two, not ninety-five. Maybe Katie and Whitney were right. At least she had to try. She didn’t want to die alone, and if she had another forty or fifty years ahead of her, a little companionship might be nice.

“Okay. I’ll come,” Annie said, as though she had just agreed to have her liver pulled out through her nose.

“Great!” Whitney sounded thrilled. “You can spend the night. You shouldn’t drive back alone. Think of it, this may be the beginning of a hot romance and a whole new life for you. You’re going to love this guy.” It had been years since Annie had agreed to a blind date, long enough to forget how disappointing they were. But at least it was something to do on New Year’s Eve. And Whitney was right. The kids probably had their own plans.

Annie didn’t see Ted or Katie until the following day, and she mentioned to them both that she was going to Whitney and Fred’s on New Year’s Eve. Had they objected, she would have canceled, but as Whitney had predicted, they both said they had plans with friends. Annie didn’t say another word to Katie about Paul. She had said enough, and Katie was still angry at her when Annie left for New Jersey on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve.

Chapter 9

A
nnie arrived at Whitney and Fred’s house in Far Hills at six o’clock. There had been very little traffic, and she made good time. She had brought a simple black evening dress and hung it in the backseat. Their three boys were playing basketball in the backyard when she arrived. They were fourteen, sixteen, and seventeen, and all three of them looked like Fred, with freckles and red hair. They were all sports nuts like their father, and their oldest son was currently applying to college. He wanted to go to Duke and do pre-med, like his father. The boys waved to her when she arrived.

Fred was an orthopedic surgeon and had done well. He wasn’t a man whom Annie would have chosen, but Whitney was happy and had a good life with him. He had a big ego and had always been impressed with himself, but he was a good father and husband, a good provider, and a responsible person. Annie had always respected him for that.

As she walked into their house after Whitney hugged her, Annie saw that the dining table was beautifully set with gleaming silver and crystal, and there were white flowers and silver streamers everywhere. The evening looked more elaborate than she’d expected.

“How many people are you having?” Annie asked, feeling nervous. She knew that most of their friends were married and were part of a tight circle of people who lived in Far Hills, and many of them were physicians like Fred. She always felt a little strange in their midst, like an outsider or some kind of freak. She tried not to think of it now.

“We’re having twenty-four,” Whitney said as she helped carry Annie’s things to her room. It was a beautiful guest room, and Whitney had thought of every detail. “How was Katie when you left?”

“Still pissed. I’ve hardly seen her for the past few days. She said she had plans with friends. I didn’t ask, but it’s probably Paul.”

“She’ll be fine,” Whitney said. “Take a day off. Have some fun yourself tonight. The guests are coming at seven. We’ll sit down to dinner at eight or eight-thirty.” It didn’t give Annie much time to get dressed. And she sank into the tub a few minutes after Whitney left the room. She had promised herself she was going to make an effort and get into the spirit of the evening.

Annie blew her hair dry and did it in a French twist. She put her makeup on carefully and stepped into the black dress. And she wore a pair of high-heeled sandals with feathers on them that Lizzie had bought her in Paris. And she put on diamond earrings that she had bought herself. She checked herself in the mirror before she left her room and decided that her fashionable niece Lizzie would approve. And she carried a small black satin clutch. Annie looked sleek and sophisticated as she left her room, just as the first guests arrived and walked into the living room. They were a couple she had met before. He was an orthopedic surgeon like Fred, and his wife was a friend of Whitney’s with kids the same age, and Annie remembered that they always drank a little too much.

The couple looked Annie over as she walked in, and the wife had the smug, condescending look that some married women give single ones, as though they feel sorry for them. Annie wouldn’t have traded her own life for hers, but she chatted amiably with them, as other guests continued to arrive. By eight o’clock everyone was there. People arrived promptly in the suburbs, unlike big cities where everyone was late. And she hadn’t figured out which one her blind date was yet. All the men in the room had paunches and looked middle-aged, and most of the women were slightly overweight. Whitney was too, although she was as tall as Annie and carried it well. Annie always suspected that the excess weight was because most of the women drank a little too much wine. Annie had a better figure than anyone in the room. And she was intrigued to discover that the women ignored her, and the men stood in clumps with each other, discussing business or medicine. The men acted as though the women didn’t exist, and the women didn’t seem to care and talked about shopping, tennis, or their kids.

“Did you see him?” Whitney asked as she stopped to chat with Annie for a minute, then drifted away again. She was busy with her guests. She had introduced Annie to a few people, all of them couples. And Annie had figured out that she and her blind date were probably the only single people in the room. But she hadn’t spotted him yet. All she knew from Whitney was that he was fifty-two, a surgeon, drove a Porsche, and was divorced. It would have been hard to identify him from that description unless she’d seen him get out of his car alone.

The women in the room were wearing cocktail dresses or evening gowns, and the men were in black tie, but no one looked really chic, and they seemed a little overdressed. It was five minutes before they sat down to dinner when Whitney brought him over to meet her and introduced her to Bob Graham, the man she was dying for Annie to meet, and as she saw him, Annie’s heart sank. He looked like every bad blind date she’d ever had, and he looked her over like a piece of meat. He told her immediately that he was a surgeon and specialized in heart-lung transplants, and he looked as though he expected applause. He looked moderately athletic but still had a paunch and several chins. And he’d had very bad hair plugs done the year before when he got divorced. Annie would have preferred it if he were bald, and she tried to remind herself to be a good sport and give the poor guy a chance. What if he were the nicest man on the planet and had bad hair plugs? It would be worth putting up with his hair if he were a wonderful human being, and maybe he was. Or fascinating. Or funny. Or extremely smart. Anything was possible. She saw him staring at her diamond earrings, and he cut to the chase.

“You’re divorced?” Alone at her age, he assumed she was.

“No. I’ve never been married,” she said, smiling at him, wondering if that made her sound racy or like a loser.

“Nice earrings. Your ex-boyfriend must have been a generous guy.” She was startled by the comment and had never had a boyfriend who bought her anything other than meals or a scarf.

“I bought them myself,” she said, smiling at him, as Whitney herded them into the dining room like sheep, and the heart-lung surgeon sat down next to her. He ignored her completely for the first half of dinner, while he discussed his most recent surgery and hospital politics with two men across the table. And the man on her left had his back turned to her and was in earnest conversation with the woman on his other side. They had reached the dessert course when the heart-lung man turned to her again, as though he had just remembered she was there. She expected him to ask what she did for a living, since she had listened to him discuss his own work all night.

“I’m building a house in the Cayman Islands,” he said, totally out of context. “I’ve got a ranch in Montana, and I needed someplace in a tax haven. I keep my boat there now. Ever been to St. Barts?”

“No, I haven’t,” she said, smiling at him. “I hear it’s lovely.”

“I just sold a house there. I made double my money in two years.” She wasn’t sure what to say to that, and she was fascinated by the fact that he still hadn’t asked her what she did or anything about herself. It was all about him. “I just got back from safari in Kenya with my kids. We were there over Christmas. We went to Zimbabwe last year. I liked Kenya a lot better.” He made conversation easy, there was none. He asked no questions, didn’t care about her opinions, her life experience, her holidays, or her job. “I got some fantastic photographs while we were there.” He also wasn’t interested in world events, only his own, and Annie listened to him in amazement.

Whitney beamed at her from across the table. She looked as though she had had a lot to drink, and so had everyone else. The dinner had been excellent, provided by the best caterer in Far Hills, but no one seemed to care. All they talked about was the wines. Fred had brought out his best and knew a lot about wine. And so did Bob. He told Annie then about the wine cellars he had at his house and how well stocked they were with the best French wines. Then he told her about his boat and how big it was. He said he had some great art on the boat, and then he commented that he’d given some of it to his ex-wife. By the time they left the table after dinner, Annie had never opened her mouth. The man to her left apologized for not speaking to her as they stood up, and Bob drifted off to talk to Fred and several of their colleagues without a word to her.

She felt like the invisible person in the room. The women were afraid of her because she was thinner, better dressed, and prettier than they were, and the men didn’t care. Bob Graham could have talked to himself in the mirror all night and had just as much fun. She suspected he probably normally dated younger women who were impressed by his money, his boat, or his Porsche. She was impressed by none of it, and all she wanted to do was go home. And she was stuck there for the night. She was sorry she had come. Sitting home alone would have been better, but now she had to put a good face on it, for Whitney’s sake if nothing else.

“Isn’t he great?” Whitney whispered to her as she drifted past her on the way to talk to the women she played tennis with every day. She and Whitney had been friends for years, and Annie loved talking to her, but when she saw her here, she realized how little they had in common, and how different their lives were. Whitney had never worked since she married Fred twenty years before, right out of college. She already had two babies when Annie inherited Jane’s family, and Whitney had given her invaluable support and advice. What they shared was history but not much else. And Annie hated their friends. She always forgot how much until she visited her in New Jersey, which she didn’t do very often. Most of the time they saw each other in the city when Whitney came in to go shopping, and she was okay one on one. But here, in her natural habitat, with these smug, self-satisfied, pompous people, Annie wanted to scream and run out of the room. The best part of the evening so far had been the food.

Everyone continued drinking until midnight, and Fred counted down, and then everyone screamed and blew little horns that Whitney had produced right before midnight. And then they all kissed, wished each other Happy New Year, and twenty minutes later they all went home. Whitney was totally drunk by then, and Fred went up to bed without saying goodnight to either of them.

“Bob said you were great,” Whitney assured her, slurring her words, and Annie hated seeing her like that. She wanted her to be better than this, to be different, but she wasn’t. She was one of them. And the fabulous blind date had been another bad joke. Annie had forgotten, since the last one, just how bad blind dates could be. She always swore she wouldn’t do it again, but Whitney had pushed her, and after what Katie had said, she thought she should at least try again.

When Whitney went out to the kitchen to pay the caterers, Annie slipped quietly into her room, took off her clothes and makeup, slid into bed, and turned off the light. And all she wanted was, not a man, but to turn the clock back to when her nieces and nephew were young. They had had such happy times, drinking ginger ale, and staying up till midnight on New Year’s Eve, and falling asleep with all three of them in her bed. Those were the New Years she missed. Not dates like Bob Graham. As she drifted off to sleep, she wished she were at home. She was much lonelier here, with Whitney and her friends, than she would have been alone.

Ted’s New Year’s Eve with Pattie was tender and sweet. They cooked dinner at her apartment, and she had dropped the kids off at their father’s, who had just gotten back to town. They toasted each other with champagne, and their lovemaking was alternately wild and gentle, and at midnight they turned on the TV and watched the ball in Times Square come down, and then they made love again. It was a silly, funny evening, full of the passion he had discovered with her in the past month. And she startled him by asking him if he would ever move in with her.