Chapter 6
Present Day
When Hilary returned home after her first day of filming, she was surprised to find Stella parked in the driveway. Stella leaned against the side of her car, wearing a stylish pair of sunglasses and a sundress, watching as Hilary snuck up the winding driveway to the gate. Isabella had had the gate installed when she’d purchased the place in preparation for teeming paparazzi. It had been a long time since the gate was necessary. Nobody cared about Isabella Helin’s fifty-five-year-old daughter.
What was Stella doing here?
“Hey, stranger,” Stella said as Hilary lowered her car window.
“Hey!” Hilary’s voice wavered. “Have you been waiting long?”
“I just stopped by to see if you were home,” Stella said.
This wasn’t necessarily strange. Even early on in their twenty-year-old friendship, they’d made spontaneous house calls, always eager to lend an ear or make a cup of tea. But now that Hilary was trying to hide her newly returned to career (and her newly returned to friendship with Rodrick), house calls weren’t as simple. Stella was pretty good at reading minds. She knew something was amiss.
“I have to run pretty soon,” Hilary said, “but do you want to come in for a bit? I have tea, coffee, or wine.”
Stella followed Hilary into the house, watching her like a cat. In the kitchen, Hilary chatted easily about the weather, local politics, and the other Salt Sisters, pouring them small glasses of wine. She hoped the alcohol would calm her nerves before her dinner with Rodrick later that evening. The idea of it nearly brought her to her knees. Would talking to Stella about it relieve the tension? She wasn’t sure. She was pretty sure Stella would say simply, “What has gotten into you? Don’t you remember what he did?”
“Hilary.” Stella interrupted her reverie. “What has gotten into you?”
Hilary’s laughter was sparkling and strange. “What do you mean?”
“You look frantic,” Stella said warily. “Like something bad happened, and you’re keeping it from me.”
Hilary handed her a glass of wine. “Everything is just the same as ever.”
Stella sipped her wine, her eyes in slits. She didn’t believe her. “I’ve missed you lately. You’ve felt distant. I don’t know.”
“I’m sorry about that. I think I’ve been distracted.” Hilary’s head throbbed, and she poured herself a glass of water. “Have you seen the other girls lately?”
Stella said she had. She’d spent the afternoon shopping with Nora, the morning gardening with Katrina, last weekend hiking with Robby, and on and on. Hilary normally enjoyed these activities with the Salt Sisters before she’d dropped back into the black hole of Hollywood.
“But we’ve missed you,” Stella went on, her voice harsh. “I keep having nightmares that you’re trying to get away from us.”
Hilary bit her lip. After a long pause, she said, “Don’t tell the other girls this.”
Stella’s eyes sparkled. There was nothing women liked more than being brought in on a secret. Hilary knew that. She also remembered her mother, manipulating so many others by sharing specific secrets at specific times.
“I took a gig in costuming,” she said. “I’m working on that film set downtown.”
Stella gasped and set her wine down. “You are? Hilary! That’s incredible!”
Hilary blushed. “It’s been so much work. I feel crazy.”
“But this must be your first gig, in what? Twenty years?”
“I haven’t worked in costuming since before we formed the Salt Sisters, no.”
With Rodrick now ten minutes down the road and a sewing kit in her bag, her last film didn’t feel like it’d been twenty years ago. Maybe a month or two. Time was a strange thing.
“You must be so excited!”
Hilary laughed just as her phone lit up with a text from Rodrick. She dropped it back in her purse before Stella had a chance to read who it was from.
“I just haven’t wanted to talk about it,” Hilary said. “I was worried I would jinx it. That, and I don’t love talking about my Hollywood roots. You know that.”
Stella nodded. “I won’t share this with the other girls. You can tell them when you’re ready.”
“I appreciate that, Stell,” Hilary said, raising her glass. “Thank you for always being there for me.”
Even as she said it, she wondered when was the last time she was fully honest with anyone? When was the last time she asked for help?
After forty-five minutes of conversation (which felt more like a performance for Hilary), Hilary confessed she had to run because she had a meeting with a costuming department member soon. Stella hopped to it, respecting the time constraints of the film industry.
“You’ll let me know if you need anything?” she said as she stepped into the dying light of the evening.
“Anything at all.”
Hilary drove to Rodrick’s rental twenty minutes later. She had the windows down, and the radio up, and her heart rammed against her rib cage like a baseball in a batting cage. When she pulled into the driveway and cut the engine, she spread her hands across the steering wheel and peered up at the beautiful home, which was less than half the size of Isabella Helin’s place (Hilary’s, now). It lacked a gate and sat on a nice stretch of beach that ran on the backside of the property. Perhaps, all those years ago, when Rodrick had suggested they buy their own place on Nantucket, he’d imagined a home like this.
As Hilary stepped out of the Porsche, the front door opened, and Rodrick stepped onto the front porch. There was no mistaking that he’d gotten older and somehow more handsome. Hilary’s anxiety spilled through her veins. With his hands in his jean’s pockets, he gazed down at her with soft adoration as though they’d been married all this time, and he’d just been waiting for her to come home.
“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” Rodrick said as she approached.
“Is that a line from Casablanca?”
Rodrick laughed, and Hilary’s heart skipped a beat. She loved making him laugh.
When she reached him, they hugged, and he kissed her cheek the way the French do. He smelled the same, like sandalwood and the soap he always used, and there were deeper lines around his eyes and mouth. But there was no mistaking it. This was the only man she’d ever loved.
“Come in,” he said, ushering her inside. “It isn’t much, especially compared to your place. I know that.”
“It’s beautiful,” Hilary said. “It looks like it was recently redone?”
“Good eye,” Rodrick said as he guided her to the large kitchen in the back and opened the fridge. “I got your favorite bottles of wine. And I thought I’d make us a fresh pasta?”
Hilary felt shattered at how ordinary it all was. How easily this life fit back on her shoulders. Why had they thrown it all away? She could imagine picking up where she’d left off, doing Rodrick’s laundry, massaging his aching back, scrubbing the dishes. Performing the monotony of everyday life alongside him.
A jagged thought assaulted her. What about his wife? She saw no sign of her, not in the kitchen, nor the foyer, nor the back porch. Rodrick’s left hand sported no wedding ring, either. She filled her lungs with air.
It didn’t necessarily mean anything. People took off their wedding rings all the time.
Hilary sat on the veranda overlooking the sound and sipped her glass of wine. It was more expensive than she ordinarily went for these days, proof of Rodrick’s continued allegiance with the Hollywood elite. Or, he just wanted to impress her.
“How was the first day?” Rodrick asked.
Hilary spoke poetically about the day on set. She took extra care to say how pleased she was that someone like Marty Zhang was given a chance to direct. “The world has changed a great deal in twenty years.”
“It really has.”
Hilary smiled, feeling clumsy and inarticulate. She prayed she wouldn’t drop her glass of wine.
“At the same time,” Rodrick said, “it feels like I just saw you a few days ago rather than many years ago.” He paused. “Do you know what I mean?”
Hilary dropped her chin, unable to affirm aloud.
“Everything changed. But you and me, we’re the same,” he went on, “plus or minus a few laugh lines.”
Hilary laughed softly and pleaded with herself not to cry. It was too early for that.
After their first glass of wine, Rodrick led her into the kitchen to make pasta with fresh tomatoes, fresh pesto, and freshly ground parmesan. It was the perfect meal on such a beautiful evening, the temperature just dipping below seventy degrees, her chest warm from wine. She watched Rodrick’s knife flash over the tomatoes easily and remembered hundreds of thousands of nights just like this. He told a story about getting funding for this particular film, including a conversation with another producer who’d said, “A Nantucket period piece? Are you out of your mind?” Of this, Rodrick added, “But I’ve always had that story in my head. All those springs and summers we spent here stayed with me.”
Hilary felt the sorrow within the script. She wondered if it was Rodrick’s way of telling her just how sorry he was about how things had gone.
They ate on the veranda, wrapping pasta around and around their forks as the sun dropped into the ocean. When Hilary started shivering, Rodrick hurried inside to find an old sweatshirt of his—University of Michigan, where he’d gone for a few semesters before running off to LA to make it in the movie business. Hilary snuck her arms into the sleeves and pulled it over her head, disappearing for a few seconds before adjusting the sweatshirt over her torso. When she emerged, she found Rodrick smiling at her, halfway to a laugh.
“What?” she asked, blushing.
“Sorry,” Rodrick said. “I just remembered how cute you always looked in my sweatshirts.”
“Maybe when I was twenty-three. Not now.”
Rodrick shook his head. “You’re even cuter now.”
Hilary dropped her gaze to the pasta and stabbed a fork through a tomato. The silence grew taut over them.
It occurred to her that if Rodrick was still married, she needed to know about it. She couldn’t bear the idea of being Rodrick’s mistress. It was too pathetic. And it could ruin her newly rediscovered professional career.
And so, she blurted, “Are you still married to what’s-her-name? Connie?”
Rodrick looked immediately deflated. He set down his fork and folded his hands. In the distance, there was the sound of a howling dog.
Hilary fought the urge to tell him to forget her question. She bit her tongue.
“I’m separated,” Rodrick said finally.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
Rodrick sighed. “It was a long time coming. It’s for the best. Really.”
Hilary didn’t know what to say after that. She ate another forkful of pasta. As she chewed, a series of images filled her mind’s eye—all of them from twenty years ago, from the most horrific time of her life. No longer hungry, she pressed a linen napkin over her mouth and considered running off the porch, down the beach, and out of sight. Anything to get away from this man who knew too much.
But when she returned her gaze to his, she was flooded with warmth. What a mess this was.
“I’m so pleased you’re working on the film, Hilary,” Rodrick said.
“Me too.”
“And I’m so pleased we can spend some real time together again. I’ve thought of you so often over the years. You’ve kept yourself out of the public eye, of course. And off social media! So it’s never been easy to keep track of you.”
Hilary had done this on purpose.
“I would really like to get to know you again. If you let me,” Rodrick went on.
Hilary’s heartbeat filled her ears. How many times had she dreamed of Rodrick saying something like that? More times than she’d like to admit.
“You’ll be here all summer,” Hilary said quietly. “We have time.”
Rodrick’s face was illuminated. He reached across the table and took her hand. Hilary flinched but didn’t pull it back.
Had Rodrick held Connie’s hand like this? Over the table? Had he comforted her when he’d left her? Had he told her they could remain friends?
After a long and tense pause, Rodrick said, “We need to talk about her, you know.”
Hilary flinched and pulled back her hand. She couldn’t believe he’d already gone there. They’d just reunited two hours ago.
“That was quick,” she said flatly.
Rodrick raised his hands. His eyes glinted. “I know you don’t want to. I know it’s terrifying.”
“You’re right. I don’t want to.” Hilary’s cheeks were aflame.
“But Hilary, it’s important.”
Hilary stood on shaking legs and tossed her napkin to the table. Feeling regal, like Isabella Helin in one of her earlier films, Hilary said, “I thought it was clear that that part of our lives was over.”
When Rodrick didn’t have an answer, Hilary turned on her heel, strung her purse over her shoulder, and walked back through the house. She didn’t dare breathe until she’d started the engine and ducked back into the dark night.
“Such a drama queen,” people had said of Isabella Helin. “But she’s made her money off it, hasn’t she?”
Hilary had never considered herself a drama queen. But halfway back to her house, as tears streamed down her cheeks, she burst into a spontaneous scream. It rattled through her chest and vibrated down her legs. It was meant to feel cathartic, but it just exhausted her.
That night, she dreamed of her own loneliness and woke up upon a wet pillow. It was time for another day of work.