Surfside Sisters
Nancy Thayer
The JetBlue Airbus A320 hummed as it approached LaGuardia Airport. Keely Green checked that her seatbelt was fastened (it was), closed her eyes, and let her mind roam back to the moments she’d loved best on her latest book tour. She didn’t know how it could be—it had to be through the magic of books—that the women she met at her talks in libraries and halls and homes were women whom she’d met for the first time and yet seemed already to be her dear and closest friends. She could tell them everything.
Well, almost everything.
She didn’t tell them that she spent most of her life in isolation, joined only to her computer as she wrote and revised her books. She didn’t tell them she woke up, made a big cup of coffee, and sat at her desk for four hours every morning, never dressing or even brushing her teeth until she’d finished writing.
She didn’t tell them that the man she loved didn’t love her.
She didn’t tell them that she was lonely.
She would never tell them that.
The plane landed with a roar and a thud. Everyone in the cabin sighed in relief and began gathering their possessions. Keely was in no hurry. She’d flown first-class, because, damn it, after all her years of riding the gasoline-smelling, lurching, coughing dinosaur of a bus from Hyannis to Boston, she could afford to travel in comfort. She had only her purse and her computer with her. Making so many stops, she’d had to pack a wardrobe for various climates, so she’d checked her luggage. In a kind of fugue state, she strode down the wide corridors toward the baggage claim, waited while the conveyor belt began to roll, lifted off her suitcase, and headed for the taxi stand.
Outside, the October weather was surprisingly mild. She stood in line, waiting for a taxi, and scrolled through her messages on her cellphone. Her agent’s assistant, Fiona, wanted Keely to attend an art opening tonight. Keely hesitated before answering. It had been a busy month, and she was dreaming of a hot bath, her soft bed, and Jamie Brenner’s new novel. But she knew it was important to be seen, both professionally and personally. She’d moved to New York last summer, when she sold her first novel. In so many ways, her life had changed completely. She’d made friends in the city, she’d even dated, but she hadn’t experienced the slightest blip of electricity with any of the men she’d met, and she was longing for one small shock, a charge that reminded her she was not just a fortunate writer, but also a real and sensual woman.
Tonight she was too tired for any kind of shock. Tomorrow night she was going to a concert at Lincoln Center with Erica Reynaud, another transplant from Nantucket. Saturday she was having lunch with her British agent who was here for only a few days, and Saturday night she had plans to join Fiona at a party in Brooklyn.
The area she was renting in was lovely, old brick and brownstone buildings with small gardens facing the street. She felt safe here, and she needed that, because even though Nantucket and Manhattan were more or less the same size, Nantucket had no buildings higher than three stories and no alleys or back streets she couldn’t walk through safely in the middle of the night. Manhattan was different. The pace, the lights, the voices, the horns, the sheer enormity of it all—it was a lot to take in. Did she feel at home here? Some people, like her friend Erica, knew they were at home the moment they set foot in this electric city. Keely didn’t feel that way yet.
She sighed as she unlocked her thousand locks and let herself into her apartment. Its bland, impersonal furnishings were a relief. Everything was exactly as she’d left it…piles of pages for her new novel rising from what could serve as a dining table but worked perfectly as a desk in this two-room apartment. Breton crackers and peanut butter for dinner or breakfast and apples in the refrigerator crisper. She’d lived for days on less when she was in the heat of writing. Tomorrow she’d do a proper shopping.
Tonight she dropped her laptop on the table, wheeled her suitcase into her room, opened it, and groaned. The weight of the last month when she’d flown from city to city settled on her. She collapsed on her bed, removed her high heels, and rubbed her aching feet. Some women had Botox shot into the soles of their feet to numb them so there would be less pain.
Keely’s cure was a long, soaking, very hot bath. She felt her muscles melt and her mind empty. Wrapped in her silk kimono, she took a glass of sparkling Perrier water and settled on the sofa. She turned on the television. CNN’s Erin Burnett was on, so it was only the beginning of the evening. Keely spent a while thinking that if all the female anchors didn’t have each hair so exquisitely in place, they’d have more gravitas, and then she chided herself for criticizing Erin or any female reporter, and then she wondered when Anderson Cooper would come on because she had a massive crush on him even if he was gay, and then she fell asleep.
She woke at five in the morning with the television still on, displaying an ad for Cialis. She clicked the remote control off, turned over, and went back to sleep.
She woke again at nine, and she was starving. She made coffee, which helped, although she didn’t have any fresh milk. She fixed herself two whole wheat crackers with peanut butter and smiled, because that had been one of her favorite breakfasts when she was a kid. When she was a kid, she’d dreamed of becoming a writer. And so had her best friend, Isabelle.
Keely missed Isabelle.
She missed walking in sandals. She missed walking in sand.