Mitzi buttons her blouse and sits up. “I should go,” she says. “I need lunch. I haven’t eaten all day.”
Kelley swings his feet to the floor. The sex has left him light-headed; it’s been a while. “Come to the kitchen,” he says. “I’ll make you lunch.”
“You don’t have to,” she says.
“I want to,” he says.
It’s both comfortable and awkward, having Mitzi back in their kitchen. She leans against the counter with her arms folded across her chest while Kelley makes ham and Swiss sandwiches on Something Natural pumpernickel bread—lettuce and tomato for Kelley, just lettuce for Mitzi, spicy mustard for Kelley, a ludicrous amount of mayo for Mitzi.
He says, “Do you eat potato chips these days?”
“Bring on the potato chips,” she says.
“How about some lemon-ginger tea?”
“I’d love some,” she says.
He still has the box of tea bags, even though a thousand times this year he has looked at it and thought, Throw it out. It’s Mitzi’s tea.
He puts the kettle on.
“There’s something I’ve been wanting to do all day,” he says.
“Oh yeah?” she says. “Something other than what we just did?”
He pulls a pack of cards from the utility drawer. “I’ve been wanting to play cribbage,” he says. “Will you play with me?”
“I’d love to,” she says.
AVA
There’s a knock at the front door of the inn. It’s the delivery man from Flowers on Chestnut with a delectable holiday arrangement: fat red roses, white amaryllis, pine cones, holly berries, and evergreen branches.
“Oh!” Ava says. “Thank you!” She accepts the flowers and checks for a card. Sometimes flowers arrive for guests of the inn, but Ava figures these are probably in honor of Genevieve’s baptism.
The card has Ava’s name on it.
Scott, of course.
Ava carries the flowers to her bedroom. The more generous thing would be to leave the flowers on the coffee table for everyone at the inn to enjoy, but they’re so gorgeous and they have such a deep, rich fir smell that Ava wants them for herself. They’re from her boyfriend, the kindest, most thoughtful man in the world, who wanted Ava to know he was thinking of her, despite being at the bedside of Roxanne Oliveria.
The flowers also help banish any lingering thoughts she has about Nathaniel. In the two years of their dating, Nathaniel never once gave Ava flowers—not on her birthday, not on Valentine’s Day, not on their anniversary.
Once in her room with the door closed and the flowers placed on her dresser where they are reflected in her mirror, Ava opens the card. Her mirror already holds half a dozen flowers cards from Scott—Happy one week of dating, Happy Last Day of School, To the most beautiful music teacher in the world, I love you, Ava.
This card says: I can’t stop thinking about you. Nathaniel.
Ava falls back onto her bed.
“No way,” she says.
MITZI
For an hour or two, she feels like any other living, breathing woman.
It has been so long, nearly a year.
She and Kelley finish their game of cribbage—Kelley wins, as he always does—and Mitzi spins her mug on the table. There’s half an inch of cold tea in the bottom; she doesn’t want to finish it because she doesn’t want the afternoon to end.
“I should go,” she says. “George will be wondering where I am.”
“Will he?” Kelley asks.
Mitzi checks her cell phone. There aren’t any texts from George, no missed calls. Could he still be with that woman? Has Mitzi really been thrown over for a carbon copy of George’s ex-wife?
Maybe she has. She finds she doesn’t care. Being with Kelley has set her free in a way. She is free from carrying the burden of Bart by herself. Kelley shares it with her. Even though they haven’t specifically talked about Mitzi’s recurring nightmares—ISIS, the beheadings, the pilot on fire in the cage, her baby boy, their baby boy being the next victim—she feels lighter with Kelley next to her.
“Truthfully?” she says. “I don’t want to go back.”
Kelley nods slowly. She can see his mind at work, and she knows she’s being unfair. Kelley is a man whose feelings she hurt, whose heart she broke, whose pride she wounded. That she is unhappy with George now only means she has received her just deserts.
He says, “Would you be interested in going to the Festival of Trees party at the Whaling Museum with me tonight? Ava has an extra ticket. Scott got caught off-island.”
“Oh, I couldn’t,” Mitzi says.
“Why not?” Kelley says. “We don’t have to stay long. We can go, take a gander at the trees, enjoy a few appetizers, and then I’ll drop you back off at the hotel.”
“I don’t have anything to wear,” Mitzi says. “I brought a dress for the baptism tomorrow, that’s it. And…” She checks the clock. It’s quarter after four. “It’s too late to go out and get something now.”
At that second, there’s a trill of famous laughter. Margaret and Drake walk into the kitchen, bringing with them the chill and cheer of a good afternoon spent in town. Drake brandishes a bottle of champagne.
“We’ve come in search of flutes,” Margaret says. “The kind one drinks from.” She sees Mitzi and Kelley at the table, and the playing cards scattered about, and her face takes on a composed expression of neutrality. “Hello again, Mitzi.”
“Margaret,” Mitzi says.
“Hello, Mitzi,” Drake says.
Mitzi casts her eyes down. She can’t believe what an incredible ass she made of herself the night before; she practically poured herself into Drake’s lap.
“Margaret!” Kelley says, in that way he has, as if Margaret is the answer to the world’s problems. “I’m going to bring Mitzi to the party at the Whaling Museum tonight as my date. But she’s wardrobe-challenged. Do you have anything she might borrow? You two are about the same size.”
“You know Margaret,” Drake says. “She packs three outfits for every event.”
“That I do,” Margaret says. She smiles at Mitzi. “Are you sure you want to borrow something of mine? I know that, in the past, you haven’t cared for my taste in clothes.”
Mitzi knows she deserves this jab—and worse. For a period of eighteen months or so, Mitzi wrote a blog that criticized each and every one of the outfits Margaret wore on the air. It was, by anyone’s standards, a stupid and cruel pastime. But it was the only way Mitzi could find to exorcise her mighty envy of this woman.
“I’d love to borrow a dress,” Mitzi says. In all honesty, she believes Margaret to have impeccable taste. “And shoes, if you have a spare pair?”
“Ha!” Drake says. “She brought seven pairs of heels.”
Margaret swats Drake. “Come to my room,” she says. “What size shoe?”
“Seven and a half,” Mitzi says.
“Well,” Margaret says to Kelley, “at least you’re consistent.”
Margaret has brought the equivalent of half of Mitzi’s closet in Lenox, only far, far more glamorous. Donna Karan, Diane von Furstenberg, Helmut Lang, Roberto Cavalli—every piece Margaret shows to Mitzi makes her swoon a little more than the last. Room 10 has been transformed from the room that Mitzi dutifully cleaned each day—and, incidentally, the room where she had perennially conducted her Christmas affair with George—to something out of one of Mitzi’s childhood princess dreams.
Drake pops the champagne and hands both Margaret and Mitzi a flute. Mitzi realizes she is a party crasher here. Certainly Drake and Margaret wanted to drink this bottle of Krug (a champagne so fabulous Mitzi has never actually tasted it) themselves as they made love and then showered and dressed for the party. Instead, Margaret puts on some music—the Vienna Boys Choir—and she and Drake sit in matching armchairs with the champagne like judges on America’s Next Top Model while Mitzi takes four dresses into the bathroom.
Before she closes the door, she says to Margaret, “Which one were you planning on wearing?”