Chapter 8 #3
She nodded her agreement. “It’s for the best. This way we don’t have to pay a keeper to watch that property over the summer anyway.”
“Silver linings,” Wes managed, though inside he was devastated.
He hadn’t seen his parents be affectionate with each other in years, but he assumed that was just a habit, the cool monied distance between an older couple.
Marble countertops and polished rims on your car and not touching each other: that was older couplehood, wasn’t it?
And then he thought about the blush in Gary’s cheeks last night in the hallway and couldn’t stop his frown.
Passion wasn’t time-stamped, and he supposed he wanted his mother to have …
privacy. He wanted his mother to have privacy and the space to figure it out herself.
If the story didn’t get out to the press, she’d be able to do that.
Most outlets were too busy interrogating the love lives of twenty-year-old celebrities to worry about media moguls in their early seventies.
Maureen stepped out of the dressing room and turned toward a three-way mirror.
The dress she had put on was stunning but simple: a cap-sleeved floral silk number that cut off at the knees.
He probably shouldn’t have noticed the way it nipped in at her waist in the right places, accentuating her hips.
He definitely shouldn’t have noticed the way it curved around her breasts, the front of the dress high necked so they were fully covered but somehow still emphasized.
It was almost like writing subtext. Hemingway’s iceberg principle of a book, except with breasts and hips and …
He cleared his throat. “That’s beautiful.”
She turned, seeming surprised that he and his mother were watching. “It’s on sale,” she said. “I mean, really on sale.”
“You must be from the Midwest,” Ulla said. “I had a roommate in college who always had to make that disclaimer about something nice. She was from Indiana.”
“Iowa.” Mo blushed, the little bit of her chest that was showing turning pink as a sunburn. She ran a self-conscious hand down the front of the dress. “I don’t really need it.”
“We barely need anything in this life,” Ulla countered. “But sometimes I think about beautiful things as helping me to understand the next life. Just a little flavor.”
That made Mo laugh. “You think heaven has tailored pleats like this?”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it.” Ulla laughed.
“Your sister is getting married, right? There’s always a need for something fantastic for weddings,” Wes said. He couldn’t imagine anyone else in that dress, and he had a good imagination. So good it was having trouble not imagining her out of it as well.
She seemed surprised he remembered. “You’re right. Okay.” Wes caught her glance down at the price tag, then out the window.
“Let me get it,” Ulla said.
“No,” Maureen said, her voice suddenly solid. The blush crept higher up her chest into her cheeks. “I mean, no thank you.”
Ulla paused. “As a gift for putting up with Wes this weekend,” she said, making her voice light.
Maureen’s finger twisted in the hem of the dress. “How about this,” she said, “I will pay you back once I get my book advance for the adaptation.”
“That’s presumptuous,” Wes said.
Ulla clapped. “Perfect,” she said, and placed the dress gently on top of the pile.
Mo walked out of the store with a dress bag over her arm.
Ulla kissed her son’s cheek and gave Maureen a pat on the arm as they walked toward their respective cars.
Her social schedule called her away to a boat party.
“It’s awfully early in the season to be out on the water,” she said, “but needs must.”
Again with the idea of needs, thrown about so carelessly.
What did anyone need, really, besides the basics?
But Wes couldn’t imagine his mother without the lifestyle she lived, the smell of her perfume and the way her clothes were perfectly pressed.
He couldn’t imagine his mother without his father, perhaps the ultimate accessory—a seventy-year-old version of Ken, with a tennis racket and sports car.
Mo and Wes watched Ulla drive away and turned to one another, their two-ness suddenly more intimate after being observed by a parent.
He had never been a teen under his parents’ roof for any stretch of time, what with boarding school and summer camp every year from ten to eighteen, but he had noticed his mother watching him watching Maureen, though.
Embarrassing. He hoped Maureen hadn’t noticed.
They walked for a while longer, comparing the window displays at the various stores.
Downtown Greenwich had a collaged feel—a mixture of upscale brands and local boutiques, antique stores, and restaurants.
A gardener watered a basket of just-blossoming flowers hanging from a hook on the streetlight.
Greenwich was careful and curated, like arranged flowers that depended on daily watering.
Maureen reminded him of wildflowers. He scarcely had time to wonder where that thought had come from before he almost smacked into her back.
She had stopped in front of an expansive glass window.
It was a gelato place that Wes had overindulged at on more than one occasion. “What’s your favorite gelato?” he asked.
Mo scrunched her nose again, even more evident under the overlarge sunglasses she had pulled from her purse. The morning sun had risen higher in the sky. “I hate the texture of gelato. I just like ice cream.”
“Heathen.”
“But for ice cream flavors, I like pistachio.”
He shook his head, hard. “No, pistachio gelato is much better. That’s my choice. Always.” Her pace quickened, though he didn’t think she noticed that it had. He hustled to keep up. “Gelato has less fat in it.”
“I don’t worry about fat when I’m eating ice cream,” she shot back. “Do I need to?”
God, she did not need to. He had schooled himself into thinking about it for years in the cookbook business—low-fat everything had been the trend for so long.
He also knew he wasn’t skinny, and never had been.
He was fine with his body, and he was more than fine with hers, not that hers was his business.
He leaned toward full flavor and full fat when he cooked for himself and loved dating people who did the same.
Not that he was thinking about dates. “Because gelato is served a little warmer, it numbs your tongue less.”
“I like cold ice cream. That’s literally the point of ice cream.”
“The point is that because your tongue is not numb, you can taste everything. All the pistachio deliciousness. It’s all there.
And listen, it’s okay for you to be wrong sometimes, Mo.
” He had meant the last statement as a friendly barb but realized the moment it was out of his mouth that he’d made a mistake.
She stopped then and turned around. “How did you know my nickname?”
A couple that had been walking behind them veered around her stopped position.
Wes steered Mo to the edge of the sidewalk, in front of Diane’s Books.
He realized it was the first time he had said “Mo” aloud and not Maureen.
He didn’t want her to suspect he knew anything about her.
God, especially not about him having a Google alert on her name.
“Lucky guess. I had a friend named Maureen that I called Mo.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, looking more closely at him. She bit her lip, a lip she had obviously already been gnawing on because it looked pink and plump. Don’t look at her lips, Wes. Rule one. “You’ve read my stuff.” Her tone was certain.
“What?”
“You laughed at me for following you on LinkedIn, but you’ve read my short stories! I sometimes publish under the name Mo Denton. You’ve read my work.”
He absolutely had. He had, in fact, read through all the ones he could find last night in bed when he couldn’t sleep.
She had a short story in Alaska Quarterly last year, and one in Ploughshares .
She had an achingly perfect flash fiction in Split Lip ’s print edition, and she had posted on Threads about a close call with The New Yorker .
With her talent, and a little luck, she would be in it someday, he was sure.
“I liked what you read this morning. Where have you been published?”
She raised an eyebrow and kept walking. “Fine. Never mind. But realize that I won’t be bulldozed over about my ice cream opinions.”
“Why do I feel like challenging someone from the Midwest on their dairy choices is a battle I can’t win,” he mused aloud.
“Get used to losing, Wesley Spencer. I intend to pay your mother back for that dress.”
With that jab, their route circled back to the car, and having wasted all the time they could that morning, they headed back to the Hill.
Lunch loomed, then dinner with more of the family, and he would have to pretend he hadn’t seen Mo in the dress she carried over her arm.
He had to pretend because if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to scrounge up the competitive spirit to fight for his book articulately.
Get used to losing, she had said. Seeing her in the dress, seeing her expression soften this morning as they shared a joke, made him want to roll over on his back and expose his soft parts to her like any beta male in a wolf pack.
She could go for his throat if he thought about those lips too hard.
God, he wanted her to go for his throat.
He needed to get back on his game.