Wellesley Wives (New England Trilogy) (9 page)

The Sunday paper continued to dwell on the state of the U.S. economy, which really was depressing. Could they not find something happy to write about? she wondered as she searched for the fashion and lifestyle supplements.

In the travel section, an article on Ireland and Dublin caught her eye. She’d never visited, which was odd because the shopping was supposed to be terrific and, of course, Popsy was originally from the area and often mentioned it with fondness. Surely that alone was reason enough to go.

She took a drink of coffee and settled down to learn all about Popsy’s hometown. By the time she got to the end of the article, Sandra decided it was definitely worth a visit. It had all the big stores that London and New York had, but in a more compact city.

The photographs of the area in autumn were breathtaking. Old cobbled streets were flanked by impressive Victorian houses, still in perfect condition and being used as homes and offices. Alongside this enviable old world, the Irish had built a magnificent new financial district similar to Boston’s glass monoliths. Dublin had the best of the old world and the new. It was a beautiful city.

Of course, there was also the famous Irish hospitality. The people were quite literally like no others. The article said researchers had found the Irish to be the happiest people on earth and most likely to laugh.

Why was that? she wondered.

She envied them. Why had she never managed to visit?

She was sold. But then she thought about Jack. He wouldn’t be happy to drop everything and go on a shopping trip.

Was it her imagination or was he becoming more grouchy? More difficult to please? She’d only broached the subject of babies with him once, and he almost hit the roof. He’d been furious with her—really angry.

“We had a deal!” he’d shouted as he stormed around the room. “You knew full well coming into this marriage that I didn’t want any more children. I can barely keep up with the three I have.”

Thinking back on it now, Sandra felt sad. She did know that was how he felt, but she’d changed her mind. It wasn’t supposed to happen, but life had a funny way of changing people, and now all Sandra really wanted was to start a family before it was too late. If it wasn’t already too late.

She felt that old familiar panic rising again. If she didn’t have a baby, what was life all about? There had to be more to it than shopping and running. It was all right for Jack. He had three kids already, but those girls didn’t want anything to do with Sandra, so that left her out in the cold with no children to care for.

Surely Jack was the one being unreasonable. If he truly loved her, he would give her this one precious gift. She wouldn’t expect him to do anything. She would do it all. In fact, they wouldn’t even have to move.

A million times in her mind, Sandra had renovated the second bedroom into a nursery. In her imagination, it was always yellow because she didn’t know whether she wanted a boy or a girl. She just wanted a baby—one for herself. Was that so awful?

Her mood plummeted and she tried to focus on the paper again. Dublin. How had Dublin set her off on her baby fantasy? Sandra took another bite of her toast, but it had gone cold now. The sugar-hit from the marmalade hadn’t helped her headache, so she decided she needed something stronger and headed out to the medicine cabinet in the kitchen for some painkillers. She kept them in the press under the cutlery drawer.

I’ll have to move them, she decided, thinking about how easily a toddler could get to the colorful bottles of medication.

“Stop!” she yelled. She didn’t need to childproof the apartment because there were no children in it, or any coming anytime soon.

After tossing two large pills into her mouth, she took a large gulp of water to wash them down then went back into her bedroom. There was no point in putting it off. She really needed to get to the gym. Running was the only way she knew to rid herself of a hangover. Plus, it might get babies out of her head.

Catching a glimpse of herself in the hall mirror, she realized she looked a bit green, too. She definitely wasn’t able to drink as much as she once could. Popsy may have thought Sandra was still young, but she didn’t feel it. At forty-five, she couldn’t party as hard as she used to. She’d felt a big change between twenty-five and thirty-five. It never occurred to her that she would drop another gear from thirty-five to forty-five. What would fifty-five bring?

The fact that her skin had an olive tone made her look even greener. Sandra had Italian blood, so her complexion was usually enviable, but not this morning. With long, dark, poker-straight hair and her tanned skin, Sandra knew she was attractive. And she’d managed to keep her figure so fit that she would pass for a woman ten years her junior.

She put it all down to the gym and weight training, but women in their social circle were a lot less forgiving. Sandra had heard the rumors flying around. People wondering how much work she’d had done, but everything was achieved in the gym with the small exception of her bust. That she had bought from a particularly good plastic surgeon in Boston. As she’d worked the weight off the rest of her body, it had come off her breasts, too. She didn’t even tell Jack until after the fact, but he was suitably impressed with the result and not upset by her secrecy.

The biggest advantage of Sandra’s running addiction was her rock-hard figure. Even at forty-five, she had a body that a twenty-something would be proud of. When people asked her how she kept such a perfect figure, she would simply smile and say: I run. But that never seemed to be a good enough answer. They would often ask her if she had a special diet. Any allergies? Perhaps she was a non-drinker.

It always amused her that people wouldn’t accept the genuine reason and would go looking for other magic solutions. She would shake her head, losing patience. “No, I eat everything, and I like my wine, too, but I do run—every day.”

Inevitably, they would look at her in bewilderment as if they were missing something. Only once had she gotten confrontational about it. Sandra had been at a lunch in the city with a few other ladies when a young, precocious girl came up to her. She was wearing the same dress, only a few sizes bigger.

“Where do you get off wearing that dress?” she’d asked.

In her defense, it was a pretty daring dress—a black mini. It was figure-hugging with a deep V-neck that flashed a lot of cleavage at the front and an even deeper one at the back. But what the heck? She could carry it off.

“What did you say?” Sandra asked without a smile.

“Look, we have the same dress only you’re so . . . so—
skinny
.” She spat the word out like it was an insult. “I mean, you’re probably older than my mom and still you’re wearing dresses like that. Did you have your tummy stapled or something?”

Sandra laughed because the poor kid was just looking for advice, but she’d wrapped it up in a boxing glove. She stood and pulled the girl over to a private corner while Popsy and their friends talked amongst themselves.

“Look, honey, I’m not sure I’m old enough to be your mom. But leaving that aside for the minute, if you’re asking me how I look like this, I run. That’s all you need to do. Just take up running.”

“Oh, I’m not built for running,” the girl explained. “My legs go everywhere. I’m good at walking, but it’s never made me look like that.” She gave Sandra the up-down stare.

“You ask me how I do it. I tell you how. Then you don’t believe me, so I can’t help you.” Sandra went to sit down.

“I’ve jogged a bit,” the younger girl said.

But this is the point where Sandra snapped. She turned. “That’s bull,” she said, making the girl blink in surprise.

“Huh?”

“I said bull. You don’t have the body of a jogger. You have the body of a walker. I have the body of a woman who runs ten miles a day, six to seven days a week. You want to look like me? Do what I do. There’s no silver bullet, no magic answer. Just get off your ass and run, and as for your legs going everywhere, that happens to most people. Get on a treadmill and they can’t go too far astray. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to my friends.”

The young girl just walked away. When Sandra returned, the ladies at the table gave Sandra a discreet round of applause.

“You sure put that kid back in her place,” one of them said.

“Yes, well, they think they can have it all. I swear I’m sick of it. They think they can eat and drink like sailors and look like super models. If you want something, no matter what it is, you have to work for it.” She tried to calm herself down. “Why can’t they see that?”

Sandra realized she should take her own advice. If she wanted a baby, she would have to work harder to get it—only not in the gym, but in the bedroom. It was a lot more difficult than it sounded. She was desperately trying to figure out the best time of the month and had even started using the over-the-counter ovulation kits. They didn’t seem to be working, and on top of that, she’d have to engineer a way to seduce her husband. That was not as easy as it once had been.

Jack often worked late, and she was asleep before he even got home. Sometimes he would even turn her down for sex. This was new and it shocked her. He’d always been game for a bit of romance, but in the last few months, he didn’t seem too interested.

Was it because he was getting old? Or was he losing interest in her? Sandra didn’t know, but it did seem that forces were conspiring against her.

Getting Jack to—what was it Popsy had called it the night before?
Skydive
. Getting Jack to skydive her—or should that be skydive
with
her?—either way it wouldn’t be as easy as it had been a decade ago. Most importantly, every month counted at this stage. She wasn’t even sure if she was still ovulating regularly.

Popsy’s story about the sting of the dying bee had given her solace. Maybe she would produce twins. Who knew what the future could hold?

As she picked up the paper from her bed, she saw the photograph of Dublin on the cover of the travel section and decided that what she needed was a weekend away—a girls’ weekend—and nobody was better to get away with than Popsy.

She was always fun and such a terrific listener. Popsy might even have some suggestions on how to put the pep back into Jack’s step. She and Peter seemed to be very much in love after all these years. They had two amazing daughters, too. Now Rosie was happily married with a beautiful little girl, and it was probably only a matter of time before their daughter Lily fell into the arms of some lucky guy.

She decided to book flights and accommodations in some plush hotel and give it to her best friend as a belated birthday present. What a nice surprise that would be. It would also give Jack a little time to miss her. When she returned, he would be eager to welcome her home and into their bed.

Delighted with her new plan, Sandra left their penthouse apartment and headed to the hotel’s gym. She smiled at her reflection in the elevator mirror and whispered, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

Chapter 8 

Lunch

“Out of sight, out of mind.” Popsy sighed, thinking about her hometown.

    By mid-morning she, too, had seen the Sunday papers, and the feature on Dublin caught her eye. She hadn’t thought about Dublin in so long.

Originally from Ireland, Popsy had come to Boston College for a sabbatical year. That’s when she’d met Peter and that’s when she fell in love. Peter was a force of nature. He’d swept her along with him in his adventure through life, and she had loved every minute of it. Thirty years married this Christmas. Maybe a vacation back home would be a nice way to celebrate. Naturally, early in her marriage, she’d gone back often, but because she was an only child and both her parents had passed away, she hadn’t returned. There was always so much to do in the U.S., so many places to see. Of course, she also had their winter residence in Palm Beach.

According to the piece, her old neighborhood was now ranked as one of the top ten cities in the world to visit. There was amazing history, scenery, and shopping—the new religion.

Having finished the article and her mid-morning coffee, Popsy set about getting sorted for her family lunch. There was no time to dawdle over the Sunday paper, she decided. She had her family coming to visit.

Popsy knew that today’s lunch was meant to mark her birthday, but Wednesday was Halloween, so she decided to give it a seasonal theme, too. She had pumpkins for outside the door and a friendly looking scarecrow for the center of the garden. She tried to convince herself she’d bought all these decorations for Natasha, but the truth was that she loved tinkering around in the yard, and any excuse was good enough to get out and decorate.

Popsy had bought bales of hay for the front steps to give it a sort of harvest festival feel. On top of these, she placed a second scarecrow, this time a girlie one in a pink checked shirt and blue denim dungarees. Beside her she placed a very realistic-looking toy crow. Standing back a few yards, she was delighted with the result. It looked like a stage setting for
Fiddler on The Roof
. She giggled. It was all very country, very fall, a little over-the-top, and definitely not anywhere near as stylish as Jenny Lennox’s exquisite pyracantha urns.

“Oh, what the heck,” she said. She dressed the entire yard with her darling granddaughter in mind. It would make a perfect Halloween play area for her, Popsy decided, utterly contented.

Lunch was an ambitious affair: beef wellington, roast potatoes, red cabbage in a sweet balsamic vinegar reduction, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream for dessert. Her family wouldn’t like that she’d gone to so much trouble, but her excuse was that she had all the time in the world. Unlike Rosie, she didn’t have to run after little people anymore and, of course, Lily worked so hard.

No, Popsy’s life was much easier and a good deal more pleasant, yet Jack’s words still haunted her. While she’d been perplexed the previous night, now she was just plain annoyed.

“Why the hell do I need to watch my back?” she asked their black cat, Tiger. “My life is fine.” Tiger purred in agreement.