The High Season(69)

    Adeline was speaking in a totally reasonable tone of voice. Mike was gazing at her as though she was wise and good.

“What are you saying?” Ruthie asked. There was something underneath this, something she wasn’t getting.

“That you’d get the asking price, and you’d get it all,” Mike said. “It would be part of the settlement.”

“Of course I’ll have the place in the city during the winter,” Adeline went on, “but we’ll spend more time here, weekends and some holidays and so on. After the renovations.”

“Renovations.”

“There are improvements that can be made. Things I would want. I always think ten years ahead. We want this to be a family house, for Jem to return to as an adult. Possibly with her own family, grandchildren…”

“Stop.” Ruthie almost strangled on the word. “Stop talking about my grandchildren or I swear to God you’ll have to hide the fucking knives.”

Silence descended. Adeline took a sip of water.

“I’m not your enemy,” she said. “I just happened to fall in love with your ex-husband. It happens every day. If you want to play the victim that’s your choice.”

“I’m not playing.” Ruthie turned to Mike. “This is it, this is what you want? This woman? You let her tell me this, that you’re getting married? Don’t you see it? Don’t you see how controlling she is? Don’t you see how she’s taking everything away? Don’t you see she’s buying us?”

Mike slammed both hands on the countertop. “She’s saving us!” he shouted. “She’s saving me. That’s what love does, it saves you!”

    “Because she’s rich?”

“No. Because she’s kind.”

“Michael,” Adeline said.

Mike turned his back and walked to the window. He stared out, his back implacable.

“The offer is made,” Adeline said. “All you have to do is take your time and think it through. You just lost your job. It’s going to take a while to get on your feet. If you sold the house to me, you’d buy time.”

“How great for you. You can buy anything, even time. You bought my husband. But you can’t buy me.”

“It’s a house, Ruthie. It’s not you.”

“Or my child.”

Adeline flushed. “All right,” she said. “There are other houses. But I’m not going away. We’re going to be family, whether you like it or not.”

Ruthie stood in the middle of the living room, her room, her view, her home. Her memories, one after another, like a pocketful of stones.

Her gaze traveled out to the yard, to the storage shed. She wondered, for the first time in her life, if derangement came about not because you didn’t know what you were doing, but because you knew exactly what you were doing, and you didn’t care.





41


    From: Catha Lugner

To: Doe Callender (bcc) +15 more Subject: mandatory all-staff meeting There will be an all-staff meeting tomorrow in the main conference room at 10am. Thank you in advance for your enthusiastic attendance! Let’s impact the future! CSL



“Hey.”

Doe looked up. Annie stood hesitantly in the doorway. There were splashes of red on her thighs and cheeks from sunburn. She hadn’t seen much of Annie this summer. Lark had taken over her nights. Sometimes she’d pass Annie on her bike, riding home from the farm stand. Last summer they’d shucked corn together, paper bags between their knees. Last summer she’d been welcome at the family table.

“Hey, dude. Enter.”

Annie came in with a show of reluctance. Her hair was red and curly and barely tamed in a ponytail. Pretty green eyes, freckles, the shoulder-hunch of the bullied.

    “How’s life?” Doe asked.

“Sucks to be me, basically,” Annie said. “Used to it, though.”

Doe nodded. “I had a crap fifteenth summer, too.”

“Why?”

Doe searched for the way to wrap the truth in a lie. “My mom. She decided to let me down on a regular basis. I was supposed to go to…” an art program in Savannah “Europe that summer, everything was all arranged, and she…” cashed in my tuition and spent it on cocaine “decided I needed tutoring instead, so I had to stay home, and…” she got this new boyfriend who hit on me “my best friend decided to let me know that she’d been waiting for me to go to tell me she was fucking my boyfriend.” Truth at last! If Doe ended up at a truth, it made her feel better.

“Wow,” Annie said. “Harsh.”

“How about you?”

“I had a fight with my mom.”

“Yeah. I remember those days. You’ll make up, your mom is cool.”

“She sucks.”

“Okay,” Doe said, silently agreeing. “What else with you? How’s the job?”

“Job is okay, I like making money. But, I don’t know, I’m becoming friends with Jem again, kinda. Proximity friendship. We used to be friends in elementary school, along with this girl Olivia? But then, you know, high school. There’s this girl, Meret?”

“You told me. The queen of Teenworld, right?”