Chapter 5
Chapter Five
A fter the soul-affirming evening with Dorothy, Marc was waiting up for Aria and Hilary back at the house, wearing a loose black T-shirt and a pair of pajama pants and watching a television show.
He popped up to kiss Hilary and smile at Aria, offering them bowls of pistachio-flavored ice cream, a brand he’d bought special on his way home from dinner with a guy friend.
Aria, who’d grown more and more reticent on the drive home, declined and went upstairs, closing her bedroom door behind her. Hilary’s heart shook with sorrow.
“More for us then,” Marc said sadly. “I was hoping ice cream might cheer her up.”
“I don’t know if anything will,” Hilary said, kissing the back of his shoulder. “But thanks for trying.” She took a breath. “You’re a good dad.”
It was something she said often these days, a reminder that their parenting days weren’t exactly over even though Aria was twenty-three years old.
Hilary watched as Marc spooned two bowls of ice cream and recounted what Dorothy Wagner had said, in loose terms. She was starting to get a sense of what Dorothy wanted her new home to look like, and was beginning to understand the strategy that such a big job required.
“But it’s remarkable,” she said to Marc, sliding a spoon over the first mound of ice cream.
“She doesn’t really talk like she’s been hiding herself away.
She’s with it in almost every sense. Like, she’s been watching everything about the world from the privacy of her home.
She probably knows more about politics and the social sphere than I do.
But she’s been learning everything from that house. ”
“Do you think she’ll tell you why she stopped going out in public?” Marc asked, his own spoon frozen above his dessert.
“Maybe.” Hilary’s heart pounded with a mix of excitement and fear. “You know how these jobs always go. I always get too close to the people behind them. They always tell me things.” Sometimes it felt like too much, like Hilary had to carry tremendous secrets because her clients relied on her.
Marc touched her shoulder lovingly. “It’s the reason you’re so good at what you do. You dig into the heart of what your clients really want, and you always break your own heart when you have to leave them.”
“But maybe this time I won’t have to leave Dorothy,” Hilary suggested, brightening.
“Not really. She lives down the road. I mean, maybe she’d agree to having my mother over?
Perhaps we can pull her out of her shell a little bit?
” Hilary imagined a year from now, Dorothy Wagner at the Coleman House, those twenty-five years of solitude just a memory.
Maybe she could save her.
Marc kissed her forehead. “Don’t rush into anything. Maybe Dorothy’s more nervous about this than she’s letting on.”
Hilary knew that Marc was right. As she ate the ice cream slowly, she asked him about his day, wondering how this new formation of living on the East Coast but working on the West was shaking out for Marc. It was then that his face shifted, offering shades of gray.
“I might have to go out to San Francisco for a week or so,” he said, groaning. “There’s an issue with Calvin. I need to get in a room with him. Figure out what’s really wrong.”
As of several months ago after the retirement of the previous CEO, Calvin had been named the brand-new CEO, set to stage the best and brightest path for the company.
Marc was the CFO. Because Calvin’s vision for the future of the company didn’t align with the previous CEO’s, Marc was struggling, trying to dodge and weave to make Calvin happy.
“And Calvin is never happy. It’s like a rule he has,” Marc said, shaking his head. “He always strives to be better, which means that better is never good enough.”
Hilary ached to learn that Marc might leave but knew how essential his career was for his happiness. “Let me know what you need from me,” Hilary said. “It was our deal, remember? When you moved out here, we said you should go to the West Coast whenever you’re needed.”
They had an easy life, a beautiful one. They could pick up and go at a moment’s notice. They could run all over the world.
But that night, Marc was up late, performing rituals of West Coast time, popping in and out of video calls with members of the staff, Calvin and otherwise.
By morning, he had his bags packed and announced he was off to the airport.
He was wearing a cool travel outfit: black jeans and a black button-down.
Hilary felt his leaving like a Band-Aid being ripped off.
“The sooner I deal with this, the better off we’ll all be,” Marc said, kissing her gently in the soft light of the morning. “I don’t want to curse this house with any of my stupid disagreements with Calvin. I want the first months of our marriage to be easy breezy and stress-free.”
Hilary guessed that meant keeping most of his stress on the West Coast.
Hilary searched his face. How was it possible that only recently they’d been in the South of France, drinking champagne in the sunshine, kissing and swimming in the sea?
“I hate how addicted I am to you now,” she said after a dramatic pause, then laughed at herself.
She’d spent twenty-plus years without Marc at her side, and now, she could hardly sleep if he wasn’t in bed with her.
Marc kissed her again. “Right back at you, baby. Keep the light on for me.”
Hilary walked him to the door and watched as he backed his Mercedes-Benz out of the driveway and buzzed out of sight.
That’s when she smelled the coffee, the good beans, already prepared in the pot, waiting for her.
She poured and sat at the kitchen table, her heart pounding.
She had a list of things to do for Dorothy Wagner’s place today, logistic calls she had to make to get the ball rolling on the redesign.
She also wanted to swing by again and take a number of measurements, a task that required Aria beside her.
She thought of Aria, upstairs, with a broken heart.
That was all it took to kick-start Hilary’s day.
Slowly and methodically, she cracked eggs and poured flour and grated cheeses and made several French galettes, cheesy and peppery and tangy from the good olive oil they’d brought back from France.
She was sure that the smell would draw her daughter down from her bedroom.
When it didn’t, she hurried upstairs and knocked on the door, her ear pressed against the wood, listening for her daughter’s movements.
Just last night with Dorothy Wagner, they’d laughed and cracked jokes about men and relationships, and she’d thought, this is what Aria needs!
This kind of gossip and laughter is how she’ll get through!
But the voice that cracked a “ come in ” sounded like an older woman’s. Hilary furrowed her brow and opened the door to find her daughter’s face red and swollen, her bedding rumpled up and some of it on the floor, as though she’d spent all night tossing and kicking. Hilary tried to hide her alarm.
“I made breakfast,” Hilary said.
Aria groaned into her hands.
“What was that?” Hilary asked.
Aria dropped her hands to her sides. “I said thank you.” But she seemed unable to look at Hilary.
“Honey…” Hilary was at a loss. Never in her life had she seen her daughter like this.
Aria gave her a look that meant she didn’t want to hear her mother’s advice, not now.
“You should eat something,” Hilary said finally. And then she added, “Your father had to go on a business trip. He left this morning.”
Aria blinked. “Back to San Francisco?”
Hilary nodded, trying to keep her face serene. “He’s having all that trouble with the CEO.”
Aria was quiet for a moment. After that, she said, “I guess it’s just us again. The Coleman girls.”
Hilary felt it like a stab in her gut, then fixed her face into a smile. “It’ll be fun. Just like old times.”
That afternoon at Dorothy Wagner’s place, Hilary and Aria worked diligently, measuring rooms, jotting down notes, and taking stock of how the light came in through first the east windows, then the west. Dorothy watched them for a little while, seeming to delight in how professional they were.
She insisted on serving them a beautiful Nicoise salad lunch and demanded more details of Hilary’s honeymoon in the South of France, which was where that particular salad recipe hailed from.
Aria spoke sparingly and took frequent breaks to go to the bathroom. Hilary guessed she was crying in there.
When Dorothy suggested that they have another gossip round, presumably to bash Thaddeus, Aria said she didn’t feel like it.
When it neared five o’clock, Hilary recounted everything else they needed to do that day, watching Aria’s face for signs she could manage it.
But that’s when, out of nowhere, Aria burst to her feet and scrambled down the hallway, either about to throw up or ready for another round of sobbing. Hilary’s shoulders fell forward.
With Marc gone and Aria brokenhearted, everything felt heavy.
“You know,” Dorothy said, her voice reticent and crackly, “I don’t think Aria should be here.”
Hilary smarted with surprise. “Oh! She’ll be fine, Mrs. Wagner,” she said hurriedly, trying to fix her face and cursing the fact that Aria couldn’t hold it together for the client.
It was a brand-new problem. Hilary’s professionalism versus wanting to be a good mother to Aria. Motherhood always came first, of course.
But she’d never imagined Aria would act like this.
“It’s the hardest day,” Hilary said, hoping it was. “Thaddeus just left, and she’s trying to figure herself out. But I think by tomorrow, she’ll be right as rain.”
Dorothy sighed and gazed out the window. It was impossible to know what she was thinking about. Hilary had to guess it was her late husband. Perhaps she still felt an ache, a love for him that she couldn’t escape. Perhaps it haunted her, the way Thaddeus haunted Aria.
And then Dorothy said, “I have another property. Another property that I’d liked to have redesigned.”
Hilary hadn’t seen that coming. But who was she to ever turn down more work?
“That’s incredible,” Hilary said, preparing a stream of further questions, questions that she needed to record on her phone.
She needed to know if this other redesign should remain in line with what they were doing at the main house.
Where was the other property? Was there a relevant timeline for both?
Also, why on earth did a woman who never left her house have another property at all?
What question needed to be asked first?
“I think Aria should work on it,” Dorothy said, before Hilary had a chance to speak. “I think she should go there and throw herself into it and forget about this man.”
Hilary was surprised. More than that, she felt a hollowness in her chest at the prospect of Aria leaving her. First Marc, now this? Don’t be a baby, Hilary. It won’t be forever.
“Where is this other property?” Hilary asked.
Dorothy turned her head and looked her dead in the eye. “It’s the place where I once most felt like myself. The place where I found myself, so to speak.”
Hilary waited. There was an enormous mystery behind what Dorothy said. She was hinting at a dramatic past—one that might or might not be revealed.
“It’s in Manhattan,” she continued. “Greenwich Village.”
Hilary didn’t let her disappointment show on her face. “You have an apartment in Greenwich Village. That’s incredible. How long have you had it?”
Dorothy waved her hand. “Since the eighties. We got it first for my husband. He needed to spend more time in the city back then. The stock market was booming, and he needed to schmooze with city folks.”
“And you were here?” Hilary asked.
“During that time, yes,” Dorothy said. “But I used the apartment later on.”
Again, Hilary felt that exhilarating mystery. She took a breath.
“I think Aria should go to the city and see the apartment for herself,” Dorothy said again, her voice gaining confidence. “I have a feeling about that girl. She has a gorgeous eye for detail.”
“She does.” Hilary filled her lungs.
“She’ll go as soon as possible.” Dorothy threw up her hands. “I want work to begin immediately.” When she looked at Hilary, her eyes were like two black dots.
Suddenly, Aria returned to the parlor, wringing her hands and spinning apologies.
“Darling, don’t worry about any of that,” Dorothy said.
“But please. Sit down. I have a proposition for you. Before I say anything, I want to say that I think you should take it. I’ve seen what can happen when women let their hearts break beyond repair.
I’ve seen it happen to me, and I won’t let it happen to you. Do you understand?”