Elin Hilderbrand - Summer People

“You’re changing the subject, Mom,” Winnie said.

“What subject is that?”

“The subject of David,” Winnie said. “I think we should talk about it.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“He likes you.”

“He’s an old friend. I’ve known David since I was sixteen years old.”

“If you want to date him, I think it’s okay,” Winnie said. “You don’t have to keep blowing him off because of us.”

Garrett gagged on his food, sending a shower of corn kernels across the table.

“Spare me,” Winnie said to Garrett. “It’s okay for you to be happy with Piper, but it’s not okay for Mom to be happy?”

Garrett reddened. “These are personal matters,” he said. “Family matters.”

“Oh, what?” Winnie said. “Now you’re going to blast me for bringing this up in front of Marcus? You suck. You really suck.”

“I love you, too,” Garrett said.

“I’ll leave,” Marcus said. “I can eat outside.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Beth said. “This summer, you’re part of the family. You’re going to have to tolerate our squabbles.”

“I like David,” Marcus said. “He seems straight up and down. But he’s not Arch. Arch was one in a million.”

Everyone at the table was silent at those words. Beth put a finger under her nose. Don’t cry, she told herself.

“Thank you for saying that, Marcus,” she said. “That means a lot.”

Marcus shrugged and dug meat out of a lobster claw. “It’s true,” he said. “Arch will never be replaced. He died trying to save my mother.”

“Arch’s death had nothing to do with your mother,” Beth said. “It was an accident.”

“He wouldn’t have been on that plane if it weren’t for my mother,” Marcus said.

“That’s true,” Garrett said. He looked defiantly around the table. “I mean, no one can really deny that.”

Winnie glared at Garrett, then rolled the ear of corn away from her on the plate. “Let’s get back to the subject at hand. We won’t think you’re trying to replace Daddy if you want to date David, Mom.”

“I will not be dating David,” Beth said. Her voice sounded unusually firm. She wanted to set the record straight, for the kids and for herself. “We’re just friends. But thank you for your permission. It’s nice to know you realize I’m a person, too. I get lonely, too. In fact, sometimes it’s very lonely being the mom.”

“But you have us,” Winnie said.

Beth tried to smile. “Of course,” she said. “I have you.”

Beth sat on the wicker sofa drinking wine long after the kids went to bed, thinking about how unfair it was that David Ronan should reappear to haunt her this summer, which was already so painful. She couldn’t believe she had gone to his house. She had signed her name as “Elizabeth Ronan. ” Beth cringed, thinking that in a million years she would never have the guts to admit that one to Kara Schau, much less anyone else.

She didn’t want to waste her time thinking about David Ronan. She should be thinking of Arch, remembering him. Remembering what was the freshest in her mind-their last day together. It was early March, not a romantic time of the year in anyone’s book, but Arch had called mid-morning from the office.

“Lunch at Le Refuge?” he said. “I can get out of here in ten minutes and meet you at quarter to one if traffic’s not too bad.”

“Sure,” she said. “What’s the occasion?”

“I have to go to Albany in the morning,” Arch said.

“For how long?”

“Just the day,” Arch said. “But for a good reason. Alex Benson has agreed to meet with me about Connie.”

Alex Benson was an old law school friend of Arch’s. He was close to the governor, politically and personally, and Beth knew Arch had been trying for months to set up this meeting. “Anything promising?” she asked.

“Oh, who knows,” Arch said. “To be honest, honey, the most promising thing in my life right now is our lunch date. I’ll see you in a little while.”

Beth could remember thinking, as she hung up the phone, that she wished Constance Tyler’s trial would start and finish, if only because the gravity of it sapped Arch of his usual sunny disposition. Since Arch had started working on the case, he’d become preoccupied, and less tolerant of frivolity. He’d snapped at Winnie the week before for complaining about her SAT prep course.

“Thank God you don’t have any real problems,” Arch said. “You could be sitting on Riker’s Island facing lethal injection or life in prison.”

He was impossible now, too, at cocktail parties. He took legal research to the gym and read on the StairMaster.

Taking on the case and taking it on for free made Arch feel righteous. He earned lots of money defending corporate Manhattan against charges of fraud, false advertising, sexual harassment, and general bad faith, but with the Constance Tyler case he felt he was helping someone who needed help. He knew she was guilty, but he was so opposed to the death penalty that to be able to fight it and win just once would make his career worthwhile. His partners at the law firm frowned on all the time the case was eating up, and the enormous expense, but this didn’t phase Arch in the slightest. He brought in twice as much business as any other part-ner-he’d earned the right to take this case, a point he made quietly at the monthly partners’ meeting. Constance Tyler was his top priority, period. At times, Beth actually felt jealous of Connie, so thoroughly did she consume Arch’s thoughts.

At lunch, Arch was in a surprisingly good mood. He arrived before Beth and was waiting at their favorite table with a bouquet of flame-colored roses.

“Look at you,” Beth said. “Look what you’ve done.”

“Orange roses,” he said, presenting them to her. “They seemed right somehow for a dreary day in March.” He kissed her. “I love dating my wife.”

“This is a great surprise,” Beth said. “I was just at home thinking about how I might clean out the china cabinet.”

“Let the china cabinet go uncleaned!” he said. He called the waiter over and ordered a bottle of Sancerre. “I’m not going back to the office today.”

“You’re not?”

“No, I’m not. Once the trial starts next week I’m going to be slammed. So today I’m going to have a long, leisurely, wine-soaked lunch with my wife and then I’m going to walk her home in the rain and spend the afternoon in bed with her.”

What Beth remembered now was how fortunate she felt that afternoon. They drank not one, but two bottles of wine, they ate goat cheese and wild mushrooms and garlic-studded lamb and lemon tart. They talked about all of the things they never had time to talk about at home-trips they wanted to take once the kids went to college, the books they were reading, current events. After Arch paid the bill, Beth floated to the door inhaling the scent of her roses. She was certainly the luckiest woman on earth.

They walked home in the cold drizzle, giggling and falling against each other. Arch pulled Beth past their apartment building, up to Madison Avenue.

“I want to buy shoes,” he said.

They went into Giovanni Bellini’s, which was hushed and smelled of expensive leather. The sumptuous pairs of handcrafted loafers were lined up on the shelves. The first pair Arch reached for were an outlandish electric blue.

“To go with my seersucker suit,” he said. To the salesman, whose mouth was a grim line, he said, “Ten and a half, por favor. Oops, wait a minute, that’s Spanish. Beth, how do you say ‘please’ in Italian?”