Friday Mornings at Nine (19 page)

Tamara held up her hands. “Yeah, yeah, I asked. It just seems way heavy handed in some spots. The whole crashing of symbols with the thunder and raining part. And going all Edgar Allan Poe with that madness-inducing heartbeat. The rest is just incomprehensible to me.” She shrugged. “How d’you crack the lyrics anyway?”

Jennifer gave a small smile. “I Googled them.”

“Figures.” Tamara played with her stirring stick and stared into space. She hadn’t thought to Google anything. Not even Aaron. She might just have to do that.

Jennifer didn’t mention that she’d also read about the song on Wikipedia. That singer Stevie Nicks wrote it in ten minutes during a time in the band’s history when she and guitarist Lindsey Buckingham were breaking up after eight years together. Vocalist and keyboard player Christine McVie was separating from her husband, bass player John McVie, and the band’s drummer, Mick Fleetwood, was getting a divorce. Clearly, this was a group of people who knew something about deteriorating relationships.

But it did no good to try to explain this to friends who didn’t want to listen. Tamara was showing no interest in hearing any more about the music, and Bridget, while feigning attentiveness, pretty evidently had her mind elsewhere, too. Jennifer was just about to excuse herself for yoga—which she
should
go to, even though she really didn’t want to—when a force she was incapable of circumventing burst into the Indigo Moon and rushed their table.

“Oh! I spotted you three from the window and
had
to say hi,” Leah Wiener said, with more energy and exuberance than should be allowed in a woman pushing retirement age. “I
just
sent out the invites last night.” Her eyes crinkled everywhere as she beamed enthusiastically at them. “You know it’s that time of year again. Kip and I hope you and the hubbies can all come to the party.” She whipped out her BlackBerry, punched something into it and announced, “Saturday the thirtieth. From nine in the evening until the Witching Hour. Mark your calendars! We’ll mingle and catch up for a bit and then, at midnight, we’ll have some tasty pumpkin cake and do a beheading, okay?”

Bridget sucked in some air and kind of nodded.

Jennifer blanched.

“Sounds…un-missable,” Tamara said for all of them. “As always.”

“Yeah,” Bridget echoed faintly.

“Great,” Leah enthused. “Then I’ll put down six yeses. No need to RSVP again. Just show up with your darling hubsters at nine o’clock sharp.” She whirled around and took a flurry of steps toward the door. Halted. Shot a look at them over her shoulder. “And, oh, it’s a fairy-tale theme. Don’t forget to wear costumes!” She cackled gleefully and waved goodbye.

“Oh, my God,” Tamara muttered when Leah was out of view. “I’m so sorry. I couldn’t think of a single excuse with her standing right there.”

“Don’t feel bad,” Bridget said. “I couldn’t either.”

Leah and Kip Wiener were the town’s most avid Halloween aficionados, as well as bigwigs on the public library’s board of trustees. They knew
everyone
in at least three counties, put up more house lights in the month of October than some entire neighborhoods at Christmas and had roped Bridget, Jennifer and Tamara into years of library fund-raisers. Their annual adults-only “Hallowiener Party”—a “reward” for their scores of fund-raising volunteers—had become a Glendale Grove tradition and one that inspired weeks of post-event gossip. Although it puzzled Bridget exceedingly how a woman as sweet and grandmothery as Leah could host such horrifically gory gatherings.

Last year, Leah, Kip and a few of their friends performed a midnight reenactment of the movie
Saw,
followed by “refreshments” of bloodred fruit punch and ax-shaped sugar cookies decorated with real razor blades. She couldn’t imagine what this year’s party would have in store.

“She isn’t someone you can say no to,” Jennifer commented, thankful that Michael had experienced being cornered by Leah or Kip more than once in the past and wouldn’t hold her assumed acceptance of the invitation against her.

Bridget and Tamara nodded and, if in nothing else, the three women were united in their dread of this particular event. The last of Jennifer’s motivation to attend yoga fled, despite how much she could have used help with her breathing. She drained the final drops of her beverage and grimaced at her friends, thankful in a small way not to have to discuss relationships—broken or otherwise—for the remainder of their morning together. “Guess we’d better coordinate our costumes, huh?” she murmured.

Tamara flagged down their waitress. “We’re gonna need more coffee,” she informed the young woman.

“And more muffins,” Bridget added.

Thursday, October 21 & Friday, October 22

B
ridget, who’d foolishly dismissed Dr. Luke’s idea of her son having a food allergy because Evan wasn’t the kind of kid who’d had a reaction to any food in his life, now studied the contents of her refrigerator, hunting for glutens—hidden or obvious.

A wheat allergy, Evan’s pediatrician had suggested, when she pulled him out of school early and took him in to be examined this afternoon. And possibly rice, barley and other grains. “Test Evan for a reaction to glutens first,” Dr. Statenbach suggested when her son’s blood work showed signs of anemia. “It’s possible it’s an intolerance or a mild allergy. Or, it’s possible it’s celiac disease.”

The word “disease” didn’t sit well in Bridget’s gut. It created an intense and immediate pang of terror, actually. But, in the brochure the nurse had so helpfully handed to Bridget on the way out of the doctor’s office, the various symptoms of celiac disease
did
seem to mirror those she’d been noticing in her son. Symptoms that had finally gotten her to call for a doctor’s appointment. The list included: abdominal cramping, bloating, irritability, decreased appetite, various bowel ailments, vomiting, anemia, fatigue and even depression. Now that she thought about it, Evan hadn’t gained any weight in a few months. Odd for a growing six-year-old boy. She should’ve guessed something medical was wrong sooner.

She sighed and snatched a gluten-loaded loaf of Hearth & Harvest from the middle shelf. For eight weeks, there would be no wheat, farina, durum, matzo, semolina, rye, barley, spelt, udon noodles or modified food starch for her son. She didn’t think she’d have to worry about rooting out couscous or bulgur—both were off limits, too, but neither item was on Evan’s dietary radar. Breakfast cereals were another matter, though. So were biscuits and pastas. Coming up with meals for Evan without these would be a culinary challenge she wasn’t sure even she was prepared to handle.

Cassandra’s dark head appeared over the top of the fridge door. “Hey, Mom. Can you take Emily and I to the mall tonight? Her mom said it’s okay with her.”

Bridget stood up and stared blankly at her daughter.

“Mom. I
said
can you—”

“It’s ‘Emily and me,’” Bridget replied. “And, no, I cannot.”

Cassandra huffed and crossed her wiry arms in front of her still-flat chest, dramatic as always. “Why? Can you give me one good reason why we can’t
ever
do what
I
want to do?”

Bridget didn’t know what came over her, she just knew she was sick of having to explain herself to everyone. Almost without thinking, she shut the fridge door and lobbed the loaf of bread at her surprised daughter, who caught it with an expression of shock.

“Nice catch, kiddo.”

“Uh, Mom. Why’d you—”

“Find the ‘Ingredients’ section of the label,” Bridget commanded.

Her daughter tentatively twisted the package in her hands, scanning for the list. “Yeah, okay. So what?”

Bridget strode briskly over to the pantry and swiped a soup can from the middle shelf, but she didn’t hand it to her daughter yet. “Now, read it. See if you can find any of these words on the bread’s plastic wrapper.” She pointed to the kitchen counter where the celiac disease brochure lay open and the gluten dangers highlighted.

Cassandra studied the paper and then, the bread loaf. “Oh, yeah. There’s like three of them on here.”

Bridget grinned at her eldest child. “Thanks. Put it on the counter and check this one, too.” She tossed her the soup. Cassandra caught it, a hint of pride registering on her face this time, and, predictably, she found glutens.

“But why are we doing this?”

Bridget and Evan had returned from the doctor’s office just fifteen minutes before her other two children had gotten off the bus, and Bridget hadn’t had a chance to explain the situation to her daughter. Keaton was outside playing some version of football with his buddy Josh, and Evan was napping after his stressful afternoon at the doctor’s office. Bridget decided to level with Cassandra. “Because these are all foods Evan can’t eat for a while. And maybe never again.”

Her daughter’s eyes widened. “Whoa. That sucks!”

“It does,” she agreed. “Why don’t you grab a black marker and put a note or something on everything Evan should avoid, okay?”

Cassandra no longer seemed so preoccupied with the mall. Thank God for small blessings. “Okay. What should I write?”

Bridget leaned over and kissed her daughter’s forehead. “I’ll let you decide that. Just nothing that’ll make your brother feel bad if he sees it.”

Cassandra bit her lip, a behavior she seemed to have inherited from her mother, Bridget realized ruefully. “Thanks, Mom.”

“For what? You’re helping
me.
”

“For trusting me,” her nearly teenage daughter said. “For knowing I could do it myself.”

And in that instant, Bridget realized that was the truth. She kept forgetting how Cassandra was growing up. How her little girl was more than capable of helping. Soon she wouldn’t need Bridget at all. Time…it just went by too fast, didn’t it?

“Sorry to have been so distracted lately,” she told her daughter. “It’s been, well, an adjustment going back to work, and these past several weeks with Evan being sick a lot have been pretty hard, too.”

Bridget thought of Dr. Luke and the couple of times she’d seen him since their lunch date. He’d been just that little bit warmer, just that dash more conspiratorial, at the dental office. Not enough to ring any bells of impropriety, but enough so Candy could pick up on it and make a joke or two. Just this morning, Candy had said that Dr. Luke considered Bridget “his most favorite person” in the building on account of their “shared gourmet sensibilities.” Dr. Nina, on the other hand, had returned this week from her month-long sabbatical and didn’t seem to care about Bridget at all or, indeed, notice much of anything. She’d been acting withdrawn and, in Bridget’s opinion, thankfully inattentive.

Of course, next week was a new week. Who knew what lay ahead?

Cassandra, busy deciphering the ingredients on a box of Hamburger Helper, didn’t immediately reply to Bridget’s meager apology. After another few minutes, however, her daughter commented, “You like working there, though. A lot. Don’t you?”

“Yes, absolutely.” Bridget raised herself on tiptoe so she could better search through one of the higher kitchen cabinets. “I like the people at the dental office—” Well, most of them, she added to herself. “And the work environment is very pleasant. I think people should try to find jobs where their skills are appreciated and where they feel comfortable.”

Bridget enjoyed a few moments of basking in the pride of her parenting and getting to speak in the blissfully nonconfrontational manner of a woman to a young friend, as opposed to a harried mom to a quarrelsome daughter.

Then, in a burst of insightfulness not entirely foreign to prepubescent girls (but always disconcerting when it happened), Cassandra glanced up from her box and said, “Yeah. I can tell. You look different on the days you go to work. Like Emily does when we’re in math with Adam—her crush. So”—she speared Bridget with a laser look—“is there someone at the dentist’s office that you think is cute?”

The following morning, Tamara winced when Jennifer told her the news: Bridget’s youngest son was still sick with stomach ailments and the doctor said he might have, as Bridget described it, “a condition.” She’d called Jennifer last night and told her she wouldn’t be meeting them for coffee. She wanted to keep Evan home from school until Monday “to watch him and to try out some new meal ideas.” She sounded very shaken.

“I always hated those days,” Tamara said, unable to keep the note of wistfulness from her voice alongside the orchestration of sympathy. “Not only did it throw off the whole week’s schedule, but you couldn’t help but be constantly anxious.”

Jennifer nodded. “It’s really hard when they’re sick.” She thought about Bridget’s son Evan and knew how fretful his mother was about “his possible disease.” She knew Bridget had been up with him for multiple nights in the past few weeks, not knowing if his stomach pains were due to the flu, to food poisoning or, since he was a worrier like Bridget, to a tendency for a stomach ulcer. Or something worse. Jennifer could understand why Bridget would be very concerned, even if celiac disease was a more manageable issue than many other potential disorders.

Jennifer and Tamara each sent Evan good-health wishes in silence and, then, due to their mutual fidgetiness and proximity to a number of Glendale Grove gossips (the Indigo Moon Café was unusually crowded that morning), they decided to grab coffee to go and walk off some of their residual nervous energy.

Tamara zipped up her brown leather jacket and turned to Jennifer, who blew on her latte but was otherwise silent for their first several yards. “So, c’mon, what’s the story with you? You seemed to have a lot on your mind when I called. What’s been happening?”

Jennifer understood, logically, why one-on-one discussions resulted in greater disclosure on her part, despite her resistance to them. There was neither the danger nor the protection that came from getting lost in the crowd (something that happened even with a trio, since she could easily sit back and let the other two interact). Tamara had called her a few days ago to check up on her and find out how the Homecoming Dance went but, with the other family members at home, she’d been cryptic on the phone and, besides, she hadn’t yet processed everything well enough to discuss it. No such excuses anymore.

“It was kind of a disaster,” she admitted.

Tamara’s eyes widened. “Did Veronica have a terrible time? Did the first guy she was supposed to go with cause a huge scene at the dance? Or did the second guy try to maul her or something?”

Jennifer, well accustomed to Tamara’s dramatic side, didn’t physically roll her eyes, but she thought about it. “No, none of the above. At least, not that I know about.” She paused on the sidewalk and took a cautious sip of coffee. “Michael and I had a big fight about it. I really didn’t like the way he handled the night.”

“Like a yelling and screaming kind of fight? Throwing vases and stuff?”

This time Jennifer did, actually, roll her eyes. She snickered, too. “In all the years you’ve known me, when have I ever yelled at anyone or thrown anything? And you know Michael, too. Does he come across as a screamer to you?”

Tamara smirked and waggled her eyebrows. “You tell me, honey.”

Jennifer laughed. “No. And he’s not that kind of screamer either.” She drank more coffee. “We have quiet fights. Battles of will. But this laissez-faire way he has of parenting is really starting to bug me.”

Tamara shrugged. “That’s pretty common among guys, though. Not all of them, maybe, but Jon was really hands-off with Benji in most areas. He always left the details to me. And he’s not nearly as laid-back a person as Michael is.”

“True, but it’s the
reasons
he’s giving for being hands-off that are annoying me. Because he’s a high-school teacher. Because he sees teens all the time. Because he knows himself and, thus, projects that knowledge onto Veronica and this situation. What he’s missing is that she’s
my
daughter. That if she’s even kind of like me, it doesn’t matter what
other
teens would do. It’s what
she
would do.” Exhausted from this rant, she paused again for more coffee.

Tamara paused, too. “What does Michael say when you tell him that?”

“He fucking laughs it off.”

Her friend laughed aloud. “Sorry. You just sounded so much like me for a second there.”

Jennifer grimaced and they resumed walking. “Michael said that Veronica’s extroversion makes her act differently than I would have in a similar situation. That she needs to control her behavior in class, of course, and that he’ll talk to her social studies teacher and the principal, if it ever comes to that, and work with them on any problem. As if I didn’t handle things well enough during the conference, but his buddy-buddy high-school teacher self would just smooth everything over perfectly.”

Jennifer squeezed her fists. “Michael says I have to trust Veronica’s judgment, of which, I must say, she hasn’t shown much since this school year started. And, even though I said I was only going to go to the dance for twenty minutes to take a quick look at this new boy, this
older
boy, Erick, and that a lot of parents peek in on the kids without being obvious—he refused to let me go. He insisted on dropping off Veronica and picking her up himself. He told me not to
interfere
so much. That I’d be doing damage to her. That she wouldn’t trust us if she felt checked-up on. Then he went into the kitchen and somehow managed to break the opening lever on the dishwasher, so we need to get
that
fixed now.”

“Sounds frustrating,” Tamara said, her mind drifting momentarily to Aaron and that tool-belt-wearing, handyman fantasy she had involving him. She pulled herself back to reality.

“Yes, but I’m not wrong, am I? You’re an extrovert. Just because someone is talkative, it doesn’t mean they’re wise.”

Tamara stopped and stared at her. “Nice.”

Jennifer sighed. “Oh, c’mon. You know what I
mean
. I’m just saying emotional maturity isn’t tied to verbal openness. Just because Veronica’s more popular and chatty than I ever was, it doesn’t mean she’s capable of making better decisions. She’s just more apt to talk about them. And not, incidentally, with
us.
”

Tamara grinned. “Her best friends have probably gotten an earful, though.”

Jennifer nodded.

“No,” Tamara said. “I don’t think you’re wrong. You and Michael just see Veronica’s behavior differently. Maybe you’re both projecting your personalities on her, and she’s actually someone else entirely. Someone neither of you can fully recognize.” As Jennifer considered this, Tamara—wanting to take advantage of her friend’s unusual loquaciousness—couldn’t help but bring up another point of some personal concern. After her friend had had another minute or two to reflect on the topic of her daughter, Tamara initiated a related discussion—that of their husbands.