Chapter Fifty-One Kiersten
Chapter Fifty-One
Kiersten
At five o’clock Kiersten waved as the last family herded their face-painted children out of the cul-de-sac. Then she rallied her flagging energy for the Harvest Festival potluck, the last event of this wonderful, exhausting day.
During a brief lull in early afternoon, she’d stood outside her garage and taken in the scene around her.
She’d watched her younger boys make change at their tepid chocolate stand, all by themselves, while her older sons patiently helped little kids at the bouncy house.
She’d seen Garrett laughing at something Piper’s husband said as they worked together to manage the hayrides. She’d watched Guinevere and Caitlin giggle together as they painted faces under the tutelage of Valentina’s artistic sister, Alessandra.
She’d watched Reggie and Valentina line dance in front of the stage, encouraging others to do the same, looking like Fred and Ginger in fleece zip ups.
And she’d witness Rosamund’s smiles and flushed cheeks as she and Miles worked together in pinata management beneath the giant sweet gum tree in her front yard.
Now they all gathered together at a long table running down the center of Beaverbrook Lane, draped in burlap and decorated with pumpkins and mums.
The camera man walked the length of the street, shooting video of the spread while Aspen placed a pumpkin pie on the table.
“Time to eat, everyone,” she called. She’d changed outfits again and now wore cowboy boots and a knee-length ivory dress trimmed with lace.
If Kiersten had worn this, she knew she would have looked like an extra from Little House on the Prairie.
But Aspen somehow managed to look both hip and vintage at the same time.
Aspen looked into the camera and began to speak.
“Family. Community. Abundance. We have it all, right here in our beautiful neighborhood on the shores of the Potomac River.” She spread her arms, and the camera panned the street around her, taking in the tastefully decorated porches, the straw bales, and finally, the river sparkling in the distance.
Then she rang a cowbell, summoning her neighbors to the table filled with food.
“Can we eat now?” Johnny asked impatiently.
Kiersten planted a kiss on top of his head. “Yes, honey, we can eat.”
“Can I interest anyone in some spotted dick?” Miles asked with a jovial grin, raising his dessert in the air and making everyone smile.
When the kids were settled, Kiersten sat down between Chip and Trey Davis and across from Rosamund in the only empty chair left at the table.
Trey’s little girls sat beside him in matching pinafores as their mother directed them to smile into the video camera.
“Would either of you like some macaroni hotdish?” Kiersten asked, raising her contribution to the Harvest Festival potluck into the air.
“Hotdish?” Chip raised his eyebrows, like she was offering a Pyrex baking dish filled with anthrax. “No thanks.”
“Your loss,” she said cheerfully, trying not to take this rejection of food from her native land personally.
“Trey? How about you?” she asked, turning to his son. “Tomato soup. Macaroni. Ground beef. Corn. All mixed together. Nectar of the gods.”
“No thanks.” He held up his hands, as though defending his pristine body from the frightening ingredients in her casserole. “I’m on a keto diet right now. But I’ll have one of those celery sticks.”
She manufactured a bright smile to show there were no hard feelings, even though, deep down, there were, and passed him the veggie tray. Then she piled a generous helping of hotdish onto her own plate.
“Aspen did a wonderful thing for our neighborhood today,” she said after swallowing a bite.
Delicious. She resisted the urge to moan with pleasure, just to give them an idea of what they were missing.
Chip swallowed a gulp of lemonade and gave her a bemused smile. “My daughter-in-law excels at making things look pretty on camera. My wife had a knack for this kind of thing too.”
“I don’t think I’ve met her,” Kiersten said.
Chip lowered his eyes. “She passed away a few years ago, unfortunately. Right before Trey and Aspen got married.”
“Heart attack,” Trey said. “Everyone thinks heart disease only impacts men, but it actually claims thousands of women each year.”
He rattled off some statistics, sounding a little bit like an infomercial for the American Heart Association. “I’m so sorry to hear that,” she murmured.
Chip shrugged. “We’re adapting. My mother has sort of stepped in and become a grandmother to these little girls. They call her Great-Grammy.”
“We miss having grandparents next door,” Kiersten said.
“Yeah, I’m sure everything is pretty different out here on the East Coast,” Chip said. Then he frowned and leaned in closer. “You should keep your wits about you. This neighborhood isn’t as safe as it looks.”
“What do you mean?”
“New people moving in and out all the time. It’s transient now,” he said, waving his hand scornfully. “Not like it used to be.”
She refrained from pointing out that she was one of those transient new people.
“Well, everyone has made us feel very welcome,” she said stiffly. He had a Get Off My Lawn vibe that she found off putting.
“So how did the whole Instagram thing take off?” she asked, trying to bring the conversation back to a lighter subject.
Trey dipped another celery stick into a bowl of hummus. “Aspen worked in social media marketing before we got married. She wanted to keep working, and I wanted her to stay home and focus on our family.”
Kiersten shifted in her seat. I’ll bet you did.
“Daddy, will you cut my hot dog for me?”
“Mommy will be back in a minute,” Trey said, glancing at his daughter.
Women’s work, apparently. Kiersten crumpled her hands into fists. What if she choked?
“I can do it.” She reached over and cut the hot dogs into safe bite-size pieces.
“Thanks,” he said, munching on a celery stick. “Anyway, after Aspen quit working, she asked me if she could post a few videos, talking about homeschooling and baking with Grammy’s recipes.”
Kiersten’s eyebrows rose, and she forced her face back into a more neutral expression. Aspen had to ask her husband for permission to post videos?
“I said sure, go ahead. I didn’t think it would lead to anything,” Trey added.
“And he was wrong about that,” his father said with a look Kiersten couldn’t read. There was an undercurrent here, a tone she couldn’t identify.
“Yeah. I was wrong,” Trey admitted, an edge to his voice. “I had no idea it would be come this huge thing. Our timing was perfect. The whole trad wife movement started trending just as we began adopting Grammy’s lifestyle and recipes. So basically, we got lucky.”
“Or you have a really smart wife who understands how social media works,” Kiersten said, pushing her plate away.
“It’s not like she’s the primary breadwinner or anything.
” Trey’s words had a defensive tinge. “There’s not actually a whole lot of money in being an influencer at our level.
The money comes when you parlay your followers into something else, like a TV deal.
We get a lot of free stuff, but the property-development and real estate company where I work with my dad and grandfather are still our primary source of income. ”
“Until this HGTV deal goes through,” his father said. “That’s the big payoff. Then your wife will bring home the bacon.”
Trey narrowed his eyes. “I’m the one negotiating that deal.”
Chip clapped a hand on his son’s shoulder. “I know you are, son. And you’re doing a helluva job. And when the deal goes through, we’ve got big plans for that money, don’t we?”
“We do,” his son said. “Lots of changes coming when that money hits our account.”
“What kinds of changes?” Kiersten asked.
A secretive look crossed his face. “We can’t discuss details yet.”
“By the way,” Chip interrupted, abruptly changing the subject, “this morning Aspen told me you found some old diaries in your basement?”
“I did.” Kiersten wiped her mouth on a lace napkin that seemed far too nice to actually use.
“They belonged to a woman who lived here on Beaverbrook Lane in 1965, but I don’t know her full name.
And I was wondering if your parents would be willing to take a look and see if they can figure out who they belong to. ”
“I’m sure they’d be happy to help,” Chip said.
“Great. I would have asked sooner, but I know your mother is recovering from cataract surgery.”
He nodded. “She had both eyes done last week. But she’s feeling much better now. Why don’t you come over tomorrow after lunch and they can take a look?”
“That would be great. Thank you so—”
A vigorous clanking interrupted their conversation. Aspen stood at the head of the table, next to Richard and Margaret Davis, ringing the cowbell. She set it on the table as silence fell over the cul-de-sac.
Chip and Trey pushed their chairs away from the table. “Excuse us,” Chip said. “Time for a little presentation.”
Trey looked at his daughters. “Girls, you need to help Mommy, remember?”
They scampered to the far end of the table, where they stood beside their mother.
Aspen stepped back, allowing her husband and father-in-law to stand beside Margaret and Richard in the place of honor at the head of the table. Trey put his arm around Aspen and pulled her close. She rested her head against his shoulder, while their little girls stood beside them.
“What an extraordinarily picturesque family,” Rosamund whispered.
Kiersten nodded, examining the three men at the head of the table. It was remarkable, almost like looking at photographs of one man over the span of a lifetime.
Richard Davis represented the final phase, his face creased and spotted with age, likely in his eighties, but retaining a full head of white hair and a pleasant smile, still handsome in a Lion in Winter sort of way.
It was easy to imagine him as the charming politician he’d allegedly been sixty years ago.
His son, Chip, stood to his right. He looked like central casting’s version of the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, managing to preserve his good looks as he entered his early sixties.
She wondered if he used Botox. His jawline had blurred, and there was a hint of gray at his temples.
But otherwise he remained tall and vigorous, obviously still in excellent shape.
And then Trey. Mid-thirties. Strikingly handsome. Dark hair neatly parted on the side. Preppy. Perfect. Ken to Aspen’s Barbie.
She chewed her lower lip as she examined them.
But that was too glib. There were depths here, beneath the surface.
Trey was smart, ambitious. And given what she’d accomplished thus far in her young life, so was Aspen.
It was a mistake to assume they were shallow and unintelligent just because they were both so good looking.
Chip raised a mason jar filled with iced tea. “I’d like to propose a toast to an extraordinary couple. My parents, Margaret and Richard Davis, who’ve been married for fifty-nine years, all of those years happy, and spent here on Beaverbrook Lane.”
Everyone raised their mason jars in the air.
“Let’s drink a toast to strong marriages, strong families, strong communities, and wonderful neighbors. Here’s to another fifty-nine years of happy families on Beaverbrook Lane.”
Everyone raised their glasses and drank, including the kids.
She glanced at her boys, their young faces glowing.
They obviously felt very mature and dignified being included in a real toast. Caitlin grinned at Matthew and threw her arm around Guinevere.
Her little sisters gleefully clunked their plastic cups together.
Aspen handed her daughters two small bouquets of flowers, which they presented to their great-grandmother. Margaret bent in her chair so the little girls could kiss her wrinkled cheeks as the photographer leaned in close to snap pictures.
Kiersten’s eyes began to sting, and she brushed away a tear, surprised by the genuine emotions generated by an event created by an influencer.
“Happy?”
She glanced up at her husband, who slipped into the empty seat beside her. He smiled, taking her hand.
She looked around at her neighbors and nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
Down the table, Piper caught her eye and grinned.
When they first moved here, she didn’t know a single person. And now, just a few months later, she had friends.
Not acquaintances. Not internet friends. But real friends. Three a.m. friends, the kind of people you could call in the middle of the night, and they’d be there.
“You did a great thing today,” Garrett said, leaning over to kiss her cheek.
“So did you. How did it feel to be back on a tractor?”
“Good. Normal.” He looked out across the cul-de-sac. “But this . . . this community that you’ve created for us, for our kids. This feels good and normal too. It feels . . .” He paused.
She looked into his eyes and smiled. “It feels like home.”