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  ‘So…’ She tries desperately to think of something to say, so unused to being on a date, and so unused to being in the company of someone so intimidatingly handsome. ‘How do you like living here so far?’

  Steve laughs. ‘It’s… different. I knew what I was getting into on some level. I moved from an incredibly vibrant place with a thriving social scene, where couples and singles all mixed, and I knew that Highfield was going to be much more like a suburb… I guess I didn’t anticipate how hard it would be to meet people.’

  ‘It must be,’ Kit says. ‘I made all my friends here while I was married, and most of them through the children. We’d meet at the playground, or in playgroups, in pre-school. I can’t even imagine how hard it must be.’

  ‘It is, but I like that I’m working out here, rather than in Manhattan. It’s beginning to feel more like home, the more familiar it becomes, and that would never happen if I were getting on a train every morning and coming back late at night.’

  ‘That’s what my husband did,’ Kit says and laughs. ‘As soon as we divorced he started spending more and more time in the city. I’m not sure he ever thought of Highfield as home, but he has to be here now when he has the kids.’

  Steve looks at her intently. ‘It must have been lonely, when you were married, with your husband gone all the time.’

  Kit smiles ruefully. ‘It was, and it wasn’t. It was in the beginning, of course, and then I got used to it, and resented him for coming home and trying to take charge, when he hadn’t been there all week and had no idea how anything was run.’

  ‘So the moral of the story is, if I fall in love with you, I’d better make damn sure not to get a job in New York City?’ Steve laughs, and Kit finds herself blushing furiously, not knowing what to say, where to look.

  Did he really just say that, she thinks. And should I be pleased? Or scared?

  By the time they have shared a melted-chocolate pudding, Kit is neither pleased nor scared. She is relaxed and happy, and – wonder of wonders – allowing herself to be gently flirted with, and flirting a little in return.

  Alice comes over and says hello, then turns, so that Steve cannot see her, and winks at Kit, giving her a swoony look as she places her hand over her heart. Alice thinks he is handsome too, thinks Kit. And he is with me!

  Weaving through the restaurant out to her car, Kit stops several times to say quick hellos to people she knows. ‘This is Steve,’ she says proudly, noticing how all the women look at him appraisingly, appreciatively.

  ‘You look great!’ people tell her and, for once, she believes them. She feels great tonight. She had forgotten what it was like to feel like this.

  In the car park, Steve walks her to her car, and suddenly she feels slightly nauseous with nerves. Is he going to kiss her? Is she ready for this? Part of her wants him to, has spent the better part of this evening trying not to gaze at his lips, trying not to imagine what it would feel like, but she has not kissed anyone other than Adam for almost twenty years.

  She is not ready for it.

  ‘Can I call you?’ Steve says, holding the door of her car open as she climbs in.

  ‘I’d like that,’ she says.

  He leans down and kisses her on the cheek.

  ‘Thank you for a great night,’ he says, gently closing the door.

  Kit drives off smiling, and smiles all the way home. It couldn’t have been more perfect if she had scripted it herself.

  ‘Hello?’ The lights are blazing and there is the sound of laughter from the kitchen. Male laughter. Is she imagining it? ‘Edie? Tory?’

  Edie and Tory both look up, as does Adam. They are sitting around the kitchen table playing Life.

  ‘Oh.’ Kit is stunned to see Adam there. Looking so comfortable in her home. She is not annoyed, but surprised. Not sure how she should react.

  ‘Dad called,’ Tory is keen to explain. ‘And when I said you were out he asked if he could come over. Is that okay?’ she adds quickly.

  Kit rearranges her features. ‘Of course it is,’ she lies. For on one hand, it is. This is the father of her children: there is a part of her that always wants him to be welcomed, that wants them to be able to co-parent effectively; but there is a part of her that wants to say no. Wants to shut him out altogether so she can move on, not have these moments when she has flashes of times they were happy, times when they were a family, a family that worked.

  And more, she wants to have been asked permission. Wants to have been given an opportunity to say no. For this is what Adam always did: take charge. It is not his place to do that any more.

  She takes a deep breath and places her clutch bag on the counter.

  ‘So, what are you doing?’

  ‘Playing Life. It’s so funny!’ Tory babbles, gazing adoringly at her father, who looks utterly relaxed, legs sprawled out under the kitchen table, a bottle of Budweiser in front of him.

  ‘I’d better go.’ He stands, reaching down to give Tory a hug. ‘Edie? It’s been a pleasure,’ he says. ‘Goodbye.’ And Edie watches him with evident delight as Kit walks him to the door.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says to her, as they reach the front door. ‘I didn’t think. Tory asked me over and I wasn’t doing anything, and I just wanted to see the kids. I should have checked with you.’

  ‘You’re right,’ she says, softening immediately, for it is so unlike Adam to ever say sorry. ‘But it’s okay. It looks like you had fun.’

  ‘We did. And I put Buckley to bed. He was thrilled. You look like you had fun too.’

  Kit smiles. ‘I did.’

  ‘I can tell. You’re glowing.’ And with a sad look on his face, Adam walks away from the house.

  Kit watches him until he reaches the car, then softly closes the door. At times like this she honestly has no idea why their marriage didn’t work.

  8

  Charlie ushers Emma into the car to take her to pre-school, and climbs into the driver’s seat.

  ‘Shit!’ she says loudly, jumping out and feeling her wet bottom. ‘I don’t believe it!’ She notices that, once again, Amanda has left the window open all night, and the summer rainstorm has soaked her seat.

  ‘Mommy?’ Emma’s little four-year-old voice says loudly from the back as she wriggles herself into her car seat. ‘What does ship mean?’

  ‘You know, Ems,’ Charlie forces her voice to sound normal, ‘ships are like big boats, they sail on the ocean.’

  ‘Why did you say “ship”?’

  Charlie’s heart sinks as she realizes Emma is not going to let this one go easily, for her daughter is nothing if not persistent. She thinks this must be what they mean by second-child syndrome: Paige was always so easy, then along came Emma who, from day one, was stubborn, strong-willed and determined to have her way.

  ‘I just thought that we ought to go for a cruise one day and… and I should start looking for a ship.’

  There’s a pause.

  ‘What kind of a ship?’

  Oh God. Charlie just doesn’t have the patience for this today. Goddamned Amanda. Goddamned nannies. Thank heavens Emma will be in kindergarten next year and hopefully she won’t need anyone by then.

  Not that she needs anyone now, some would argue. She didn’t work for years after Paige was born, but once Paige was in school she started her floral design company, initially just doing flowers for friends, and parties that friends held, but word quickly got out, and now she finds she has orders to fill almost every day.

  Keith’s career, his job on Wall Street, seems to be going from strength to strength, and it’s true, she doesn’t need to work, could do as most of her friends do – hit the gym after putting the kids on the bus, meet friends for lunch, fill the afternoon with charity meetings – but she likes being defined as something other than a mother, likes having a different role in life.

  She doesn’t have a store. For a while she thought about getting one, but the only place it would make sense, in terms of passing trade, would be on Main Street, a
nd the rents are now so ridiculously high, all the independent stores are being forced to close their doors, the ubiquitous chain stores the only ones who can continue to afford to be there.

  There are vacant spots by the marina, but the prices are too high there, and after a while she realized that even if, financially, it made sense to have a retail space, it would also mean taking the business a whole lot more seriously. It would mean accepting every order, no matter how much she didn’t want to do it; it would mean actively shopping for new clients; and worst of all, it would mean getting up at four in the morning every day to make it to the big wholesale flower markets in the city, to ensure she got the biggest and the best.

  Not that she doesn’t go to the markets now, but it’s leisurely, at her own pace and time, to fill orders as they come in.

  A couple of years ago she and Keith converted an old, falling-down barn in their yard, into a workspace. It isn’t fancy. It has brushed concrete floors and countertops, industrial track lighting, but there is a large refrigerated room to keep the flowers cool and fresh, shelves and shelves of vases of assorted sizes and shapes, and her tools of the trade neatly assembled, rolls of brown paper, spools of raffia.

  A large cork notice board fills two walls – one has orders pinned all over it, various reminders, and the other is filled with pictures that inspire her: hand-tied bunches of peonies and lilacs, elegant gardens with clipped boxwood hedges, photographs cut from magazines of brides holding gorgeous bunches of hydrangeas.

  In one corner is a wrought-iron café table with four chairs. They had been driving through Easton one Sunday, taking Paige, when she was around eight, to feed the animals at Silverman’s Farm, when they passed a tag sale.

  ‘Stop!’ Charlie had yelled, and Keith, who didn’t seem to have reflexes half as quick as hers, drove half a mile down the road before safely executing a U-turn and going back to the tag sale.

  She had seen the table and chairs, then black, had bought them for twenty dollars, brought them home, spray-painted them white, and this was now her meeting area, her portfolio on an old whitewashed pine sideboard next to it, a stack of photographs to provide her clients with inspiration.

  Not that Charlie needs to impress. The only flower stores in town specialize in what Charlie has come to think of as ‘petrol station specials’ – straggly bunches of gerbera daisies, chrysanthemums, cheap imported roses and sprays of gypsophila, all filled in with bunches of green, and in the most garish colours you can imagine: purple with yellow with orange with red, all in the same bunch.

  Charlie is careful with her colours, careful to put together only flowers of the same tone. She may put purple with lilac and pink, but they will all be of the same family, will all complement one another.

  She has banished ribbons from her workshop – if you want ribbons, she tells people, perhaps you ought to try one of the florists in town.

  She ties her bunches with brown paper and raffia, displays her arrangements in simple frosted-glass cubed vases of varying shapes and sizes.

  She can go bigger – for a wedding late last summer, a local girl marrying a Scot, she had antique Chinese rice carriers in the centre of each table, filled to bursting with spiky pink heather, a hint of sphagnum moss drifting over the edges. They adored it.

  Her workshop has become her refuge, the place where she is Charlie again. Not a wife. Not a mother. Not someone who spends all her time looking after other people, but an independent woman who loves her job.

  And because she is so fulfilled by her work, she finds she is a better mother. She is more able to be present, to relax and be there for her children because she has had that time for herself.

  The pre-school part of Highfield Academy is from nine until twelve. No extended-day options available, which, had Charlie known that at the time, would have precluded her from even putting Emma in, but it seemed so much easier to have her in the pre-school attached to the elementary school she would be attending.

  However, the thought of spending every afternoon hustling Emma from playdate to playdate, or to music classes, or gym classes, or the museum, or the aquarium, filled her with horror.

  She had already done it with Paige. She devoted herself to Paige for years, and vividly remembers the mind-numbing hours of sitting there watching Paige amuse herself, sinking into a coma of boredom, wondering whether she, Charlie, would ever have a life again.

  And the playdates: sitting in mock-cheerful playrooms above garages that had been turned into fully-equipped wonderlands, complete with enough plastic toys, indoor swing sets, Little Tikes climbing equipment that would put, and did put, their pre-school to shame.

  Forcing conversations with women she barely knew, trying to find some common ground other than they both had daughters the same age, knowing, by the end of that first playdate, whether you would become friends, or whether this was not an experience you would ever be repeating.

  At least she and the other mothers were the same age then. Now, with Emma being almost ten years younger, Charlie has discovered that the mothers of the children Emma is in pre-school with are also ten years younger.

  They remind her of herself when she moved here with Paige, standing outside the classroom waiting for the doors to open every day, more small talk. But this time she isn’t invited to playdates, isn’t included in the mommy and me groups, not least, she suspects, because she is older.

  She isn’t in workout gear when she goes to collect Emma, hasn’t turned up to the school fund-raiser (because she felt so out of place), has little in common with the other women, so when, a few months ago, she heard of a fantastic Brazilian babysitter who was looking for a job, she almost sank to her knees in gratitude.

  No more waiting outside the classroom for Emma! No more feeling like an old woman who doesn’t fit in. No more forcing a smile on her face as the other mothers chatter about shared group playdates, to which Charlie hasn’t been invited. Not that she would have necessarily wanted to go, but how awkward she feels, standing there, leaning against the wall, knowing that she isn’t wanted.

  Her life, these past six months, has been glorious. She still takes Emma to school every day, but drops her off in the car park, and the teachers, waiting with sign-in sheets, escort her into the building. Now she can get away with a friendly wave and smile at the young mothers, all waiting in line in their SUVs to drop their children, while Amanda is at home, cleaning up the breakfast mess.

  And now Amanda is the one who waits outside the classroom door, Amanda is the one who takes Emma to her classes, to the museum, to playdates, bringing her home every day at around three. Amanda is the one who will collect Paige from school on days she has activities, who will sit and chat to other nannies while Paige hits softball.

  And then it is Charlie’s turn, and Amanda goes off to study, for she is at school in the mornings.

  But there have been a few hiccups with Amanda. Nothing serious, but one of the other mothers phoned her the other day to say that Amanda was always late, and that Emma was often the last one in the class to be picked up, and her little face was so sad.

  It was sod’s law that it was this mother who should be the one to be there when Amanda was late. She was one of the ubermothers – a different breed to the wealthy women in town. She didn’t have a nanny, claiming she would never bestow the care of her children to another; however, it was her financial situation that prevented her from having any childcare. She was from the Bronx, and although she had pulled herself up by her bootstraps, she could never get as high as she thought was her due. She couldn’t have kept up with the chattering classes even if she wanted to (which she desperately did): she simply didn’t have the means.

  She was a gossipy, unpleasant busybody of a mother who stuck her nose into everyone’s business, who judged all the other mothers as being inferior to her, and the fact that it was this woman who rang Charlie was irritating as hell.

  Charlie knew that Amanda wasn’t always as punctual as Charlie would have lik
ed, and she sat her down and sternly told her it was unacceptable. That was at the point when Amanda actually listened to her instead of arguing back, and as far as Charlie knows, it didn’t happen again.

  Then there is the issue of the locked doors. Amanda has a busier social life than Charlie has ever had, and as a consequence is always the last one in the house.

  ‘You must lock the back door,’ Charlie has said, repeatedly, only to come down most mornings and find the door unlocked.

  So it is mostly little things that bother her: climbing into the car to find there is no petrol. Nothing. Barely enough to get to the petrol station, and Amanda was the last one to drive it, not thinking of filling the tank for the next person.

  Leaving the car window open so the rain soaks the seats, or leaving the sun roof open to do the same.

  Helping herself to a healthy wedge of fruit pie that was sitting, perfect, in the fridge, waiting to be served at a dinner party that night.

  But there are more pros than cons, Charlie has to concede. If only she’d remember to put up the goddamned car window.

  *

  ‘Hey!’ Tracy looks up from the desk at the front of the yoga centre, hesitates for just a split second before running over to give Kit the requisite hug.

  ‘How was the date?’

  ‘It was good.’ Kit is cautious, waiting to see if Tracy volunteers that she was giving Robert a private class last night. ‘How was your evening?’

  Tracy nudges her. ‘I don’t wanna talk about me! I want to hear about that cute guy! Did you have fun? Did he charm your socks off?’

  Kit woke this morning bubbling with excitement and a slow smile spreads on her face. She has left three messages for Charlie, enormously frustrated that she can’t get hold of her, and has been dying to talk to someone.

  Tracy doesn’t feel like her natural first choice, not after she knows Tracy has kept something from her, but she wants to share, needs to share, and although she’s trying to stay calm, she feels like squealing with happiness.