Chapter Thirteen
That night Willa dropped off dinner. She had been doing so once a week since Helen died and still managed to be less annoying
about it than Whit’s sister had been, with her equally sympathy-driven phone calls. Actually, Willa’s gesture was not annoying
at all, owing to her frank, no-nonsense way and the fact that she removed all opportunities for resistance from Whit. She
informed him that a weekly dinner was just something he would to have to get used to until she stopped enjoying cooking or
the two of them had a dramatic falling-out.
Now her drop-offs served as weekly check-ins, away from Carafe and the threat of Ian Hoult bursting through the door, looking
bedraggled and put upon by all his literary and commercial success.
“Hi,” she said now as she walked into the kitchen where Whit was washing dishes. She never knocked. “Ramen tonight—homemade
and, it must be said, very good.”
She placed a large Dutch oven on the counter, then dug through the tote on her shoulder to retrieve four brown orbs.
“Soft-boiled eggs. Just made, still warm, I don’t know how she does it. Peel them, cut them in half, and place them elegantly
in each bowl of soup. Perfect for posting photos of your meals online, if you’re into that sort of thing.”
Whit must have made a face because she laughed and held up a hand.
“Which, I know you’re not. I’m just saying, it’s going to be a picture-perfect meal, and you’re welcome.”
Whit finished drying his hands and felt his face fall into a look of genuine gratitude.
“Thank you, Willa, as always.”
She held up her hand again. “Tsh.”
“Willa!” Annie said from the doorway.
Willa turned and lowered herself so the eight-year-old could embrace her.
“You act like you’re surprised to see me.”
“No,” Annie said, giving her another squeeze, “just happy.”
Willa stood up, keeping a hand on Annie’s shoulder.
“Stay close,” she said, “because your dad still has not RSVPed to our Halloween party this weekend, and I need you to help
me guilt him into going.”
Annie looked horrified. “We’re not going?”
Whit laughed, rubbing his forehead with a sink-warm hand. “Who said that?”
Annie looked at Willa, then back to Whit and waited. “We are going?”
He shrugged. Parties had always exhausted him. Now there was an added layer of discomfort from being out of practice, thanks
to a year of social avoidance. But Willa’s plan was working, of course. He wouldn’t say no to Annie, not on Halloween.
“Sure,” he said. “But I am not wearing a costume.”
“I’m afraid costumes are required for entry when it comes to adults,” Willa said. She turned to Annie. “You wear whatever you want. And there will be kids from school there, so bring a friend if you like.”
She looked pointedly at Whit. “Same goes for you. I heard you had a friend with you at pickup recently.”
Whit almost growled.
“If you say you heard that from Noel, I swear to God I’ll—”
“I heard that from Noel.”
Now he did growl.
“And I told him to stop talking nonsense. But . . .”
She faded out, and Whit shook his head, pressing both hands against his suddenly hot ears.
“No buts.”
“I’m just saying, Merritt sounds like a nice friend, and Adrienne and I would love to meet her.”
“Willa—”
“Really, I’m not saying anything, just that you should invite her. Shouldn’t he, Annie?”
“Oh,” she said, joining Willa in the Looking at Whit Intently Club. “Yeah, probably.”
What was Annie thinking?
Willa gave him a wicked smile from above his daughter’s head. He supposed that was settled then, too.
When Willa was gone, he sent Merritt a text.
Would you be interested in coming to a Halloween party with my writing group friend this weekend? Costumes, I regret to inform
you, are required.
Merritt texted back almost immediately.
Oh, fun! I think I should be free. I’ll check and get back to you.
Well. He’d better start figuring out what to wear.
When Whit’s text came through, Merritt was lying on top of her bed with her jeans still on, scrolling through her socials
on her phone. This was dangerous business.
Two of the bookish accounts she followed had posted about Serious Games, earning an immediate, knee-jerk block.
She had then gone back and unblocked them, on the off chance that these posters had seen some deep flaw in the book—she was begging for just one person to find some deep flaw—but no, they too were fawning about its smart critique of sexual politics and power dynamics in modern academia.
Then Whit had texted, saving her from herself.
Sure! she had typed, before immediately deleting it in favor of Oh, sounds fun. Maybe! But then that sounded too cavalier.
Let me check my schedule.
Too uninterested.
I think I should be free! I’ll check and get back to you!
Did she sound like a seventeen-year-old? So many exclamation marks.
I think I should be free. I’ll check and get back to you.
Now that sounded like a man writing an email that did not need to be a reply-all.
Oh, fun! I think I should be free. I’ll check and get back to you.
What—seriously what was wrong with her?
She sent it, and then waited an hour, hoping to give the appearance that her social calendar was not depressingly vacant,
before texting to say she’d be there.
“It’s not a date,” she had told herself, out loud as she lay in bed that night. But even her own voice had sounded unconvinced.
Now, two days later, she was walking from her mother’s house toward the home of the Barrett-Linds, which was located on Cork
Street, like Goodenough Books and Carafe but on the other side of the village green. It was the residential side, made up
of large, mostly whitewashed Victorians as well as traditional New England saltbox colonials.
As usual, Merritt was enjoying her walk, with the autumnal trees and autumnal breeze and the seemingly endless series of pumpkins: squat ones in muted oranges and whites that looked as if they’d been sat on, zucchini-ish oblongs that curved at the end like swans’ necks, the bright bursts of almost sensually vivid red pumpkins, and the occasional verrucose gray oval ones.
She carried a bottle of wine in one hand and had to hold her top hat to her head with the other because the breeze was picking up.
But she didn’t mind. In fact, Merritt felt especially at home beneath her indigo coat, in her sheer black cape and bell sleeves.
She was proud of her costume, which was fun but not too over the top.
She had spent the day trying to guess what the vibe would be, hating herself a little bit for caring and for continually thinking the word vibe, and eventually she decided on something that could be dressed down if the party turned out to be more of a masquerade-mask-slash-animal-ears-and-a-T-shirt
event.
She arrived at the house that both the map on her phone and the collection of parked cars confirmed to be Willa’s. It was
one of the white Victorians—a Queen Anne, she thought—with a wraparound porch, a balcony above, and a pencil-shaped tower
at one corner. Merritt opened the low wrought-iron gate and walked up the red-brick path to a porch lit by two fire lanterns.
She stood there for a moment. Merritt never felt nervous about social gatherings—being good at parties was secretly a point
of pride for her. She liked to say that she had an introvert’s brain in an extrovert’s body, which wasn’t exactly what she
meant (what kind of body would that be?), but it made sense enough to her.
Why, then, did she feel a tremble in her throat? Why was the thought of meeting Whit’s friends and their kids and whoever
else might be here making her wish she’d said no to his text?
She knew why.
The door opened, exhaling a wave of mulling spices and citrus. It revealed a Black woman, shorter than Merritt and dressed
in a baggy white wind-suit with three-quarter sleeves and a red stripe across the chest. In an arch over her short, curly
hair was a thick white headband that covered both ears, except for a silver cross earring dangling from her right side.
“Whitney Houston at the Super Bowl,” Merritt gushed, thrilled by the choice.
The woman’s face broke into a brilliant smile.
“Yes!”
“Incredible,” Merritt said, pulling her coat open slightly. “I’m—”
“Stevie Nicks?”
“Yes!”
Oh, she liked this woman.
“Two icons.”
Merritt smiled. “Great minds.”
“You look wonderful. Merritt?”
She nodded.
“I’m Willa. So glad you could make it.”
“Thanks for having me,” Merritt said, holding up the wine.
“Too kind.” Willa took the bottle in two hands and nodded Merritt inside, closing the door behind her.
“I’m a big fan of your mom, by the way.”
“Oh, me too,” Merritt said. It was her usual joke response, because most people in this town seemed to love Kathleen Pryor.
Merritt looked around at the narrow, wood-floored entryway wallpapered in a blue William Morris pattern that she recognized
from her undergraduate art history class. One child was chasing another up the stairs leading to the second story, and in
the rooms beyond, she heard jazz standards and the jovial voices of a party in full swing. Candles were lit here and there,
and the house was pleasantly warm, in contrast to the bluster outside. Willa’s hand at her elbow offered its own warmth.
“Let me take your coat.”
“Great, thanks,” Merritt said, shrugging it off. She was trying to look furtively into the dining room and study on either
side of her, listening for Whit’s familiar voice, but apparently not furtively enough.
“Whit and Annie aren’t here yet,” Willa explained as she folded Merritt’s coat over itself, “but if you’ll let me put this
away, I’ll introduce you to Adrienne, and to Albie, if he hasn’t run off too far with his friends.”