Chapter 6. Cait #2
As the conversation turned to arranging the pizza order, Cait snuck into her father’s office, hoping to check Luke’s email, but when her plan was derailed by Finn, who was using the computer to play Minecraft , she had a better idea.
“I’ll get the pizzas,” she said, returning to the kitchen. “And more wine, too.”
“You’ve been traveling all day,” her mother said.
“And I already bought plenty of wine,” Alice said.
Cait pointed to the bottle she’d been drinking. “Like this one?”
“You don’t like it?”
“It tastes like the sacramental wine at Saint Mary’s.”
Alice picked up Cait’s glass. “You don’t seem to mind too much.”
“You try it,” Cait said.
Alice hesitated, then swirled the wine in the glass and took a small taste. “It’s fine,” she said. “I know you have your wine hand-imported from the Italian Alps—”
“Loire Valley.”
Alice rolled her eyes and grabbed a notebook to take everyone’s requests for the pizza toppings.
“Are we going to have to feed that thing dinner, too?” Cait asked, pointing to the zit on Alice’s chin.
Alice flashed Cait a quick middle finger behind Nora’s back. “I assume you need a pie with that cashew goop they call vegan cheese?”
“I feel so seen,” Cait said, clutching her chest.
While Alice placed the order, Cait rushed to her bedroom to refresh her makeup, rinse with mouthwash, and slip into the blush La Perla bra and silk thong she’d recently bought at Harvey Nichols.
You never knew. She hoped Luke was actually home and didn’t have company.
She changed into her favorite jeans, a black low-cut silk blouse, and her cashmere camel jacket, and was halfway out the front door when Maggie appeared and said she would join her.
“You don’t have to,” Cait said.
Maggie buttoned her peacoat. “I know I don’t have to,” she said. She studied her more closely. “Why’d you get changed?”
“Seriously,” Cait said, jangling her keys. “I could use a minute to myself after this day.”
Maggie took her by the arm and led her outside into the cold, snowy night. “I need your advice on something.” She closed the door and hopped off the front steps.
“Where’s Isabel?” Cait remained on the porch, refusing to concede to the change of plans. “Go show off your sexy Scrabble skills.”
“We’ll play when I get back,” Maggie said. “She’s getting her nails painted by James.”
“She is?”
Maggie shrugged.
“I want to catch up,” Cait said. “I want to hear all about Isabel, but I just need—”
The door flung open, and Cait turned to find Poppy.
“Papa said I can come with you.”
Cait swallowed down a scream. “Darling,” she said. “Mummy’s going to be right back. Why don’t you have James paint your nails!”
Her father appeared in the foyer. “Ah, good,” he said. “You haven’t left.” He raised Poppy’s hands to slip her arms into her jacket.
Cait could cry. She unzipped Poppy’s jacket. “She’s going to stay here.”
Poppy jerked away. “I want to come with you,” she said. She tried to zip her jacket again, and when she couldn’t, Cait’s father knelt to help her.
“And your mother wants a house salad,” he said to Cait.
Cait reached for Poppy’s hand. “Got it.”
“Dressing on the side.”
“Yup,” Cait said. “They always drown it.”
He snapped his fingers. “Exactly.” He blew a kiss to Poppy, then closed the door.
Cait tossed the keys to Maggie. “You drive. I’m all turned around, and I’ll end up on the wrong side of the road.”
As Maggie crossed the causeway and entered town, Cait’s bitterness about her thwarted plans to pop over to Luke’s house turned to an unexpected nostalgia.
Christmas lights were already strung around the firehouse, and wreaths hung from the traffic lights along Main Street.
Kids smoked cigarettes outside O’Reilly’s, the bar they used to pack on the Wednesday night everyone returned home from college for Thanksgiving break.
The town was so small and yet a world wholly unto itself.
Cait pointed out different landmarks to Poppy—the park where she broke her arm in kindergarten, the diner where she had her first job as a waitress, Saint Mary’s school and church.
She had not been to Saint Mary’s since Topher’s funeral service, but she did not say this now to Poppy.
The twins knew she had a brother who’d died— he’s in heaven —but they didn’t know anything about the circumstances. Someday, she supposed.
The nostalgia turned, and Cait said, “I don’t know how Alice stayed here.”
Maggie stopped at a red light and leaned on the steering wheel. “Eh,” she said. “It’s kind of sweet.” Then she said, “And I don’t think she felt she had much choice.”
“Everyone has a choice,” Cait said, though she wasn’t sure she believed that herself.
What if Alice hadn’t moved back to Port Haven after Topher died?
Would Cait really have felt like she could move to another country?
She thought back to her parents at that time.
Her father with his vacant stare and her mother always sleeping and unable to eat.
What a relief it had been to have not only one but two reasons to run away to London—Bram!
A job that promised to pay off her law school loans and much more!
All the same, she couldn’t stand how Alice held this over her even now, as if Port Haven wasn’t exactly where Alice wanted to be.
After grabbing a case from the wine store, Maggie gave Poppy a handful of quarters to play Golden Tee at the pizzeria while she and Cait split a beer at a booth and waited for their number to be called.
Cait half followed Maggie’s story of how things had started with Isabel but was distracted by trying to figure out how to get in touch with Luke.
“ … And then she kissed me, or I kissed her, and we’ve been pretty much inseparable since.”
Cait looked up at her sister. “Well, she seems great to me. Smart. Hot. And”—she played a little drumroll with her pointer fingers on the tabletop—“gay!”
Maggie laughed. “She is—all of those things.” Then something seemed to shift. “Hey, do you know anything about employment law?”
“Why? What’s up?”
Maggie took a sip and handed the beer back to Cait. “Nothing,” she said. “I had a question about my contract, but what’s been going on with you these last few weeks? Why haven’t you returned any of my calls?”
Cait flicked her wrist. “Just busy,” she said.
She toyed with the idea of confiding in Maggie about reconnecting with Luke but decided against it. The last thing she wanted was to have to defend herself. Besides, who knew what would happen when she and Luke met up this weekend, assuming she could even get in touch with him.
“With work?” Maggie pushed. “How’s the partner thing?”
“That’s a whole other story,” Cait began, relieved when Poppy interrupted from across the room.
“Come watch me play,” Poppy said.
“I can see from here, darling.” Cait turned to Maggie. “Do you remember when you were a kid and thought adults wanted to watch every last thing you did?”
Maggie considered this. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt that way in my life.”
Cait questioned whether this was true but let it go. “How’s Mom being with Isabel?”
Maggie stuck out her tongue.
“That good?”
“Well, she’s expecting her to sleep in the cottage, if that tells you anything.”
“She made Bram do that when he visited before we were married,” Cait said. “And we were living together at that point.”
“Right,” Maggie said, smiling. “Once we get married, it’ll all be okay.”
Cait laughed.
“I need more coins,” Poppy called out.
Maggie searched her wallet for quarters, but then the teenager behind the counter called, “Order up for Alice Williams.” It had been almost fifteen years since her sister had changed her name in marriage, but Cait still couldn’t get used to it.
Alice was still “Alice Ryan” in Cait’s phone and always would be.
It took only one time for Kyle to mistakenly introduce Cait using Bram’s last name to learn that she, unlike her sister, was still very much a Ryan.
Cait stood and handed Maggie her Amex. “You pay,” she said. “I’m going to the bathroom.” Then she stopped. “Can I borrow your phone for a second?”
Maggie hesitated.
“Relax,” Cait said. “I’m not going to read your sexts to Isabel. I just need to check something.”
Maggie handed Cait her phone, and Cait snuck into the bathroom, where she was finally able to read the email from Luke.
call me when you’re settled. i may head into the city for thanksgiving with a friend. let me know your plans. i don’t want to make things awkward with your family, so you lead the way.
Heading to the city?
She didn’t have his cell phone number memorized, but miraculously—that’s how she felt, like it was a freaking miracle—she remembered the Larkins’ home number.
She tried twice, hanging up each time his mother’s voice boomed from the answering machine, giving her the chills. She finally conceded defeat and met Maggie and Poppy back in the car, but as they passed the road leading to the Larkins’ house, she told Maggie to take a left.
“Where are we going?”
“The long way.”
“But I’m hungry,” Poppy said.
The pizza did smell outrageously delicious. “It’ll just be a minute,” Cait said, quickly dabbing gloss on her lips. When they got to the house, she told Maggie to pull over, and then she honked the horn.
“What are you doing?” Maggie asked.
The lights were on, but the house looked empty.
Her mother had assumed Mrs. Larkin would move out after the lawsuit was settled, but she’d stayed until the very end.
Maybe she’d expected the Ryans to leave Port Haven.
Cait had once thought her parents should do exactly that.
Why would they want to stay when they were grist for the small town’s rumor mill—not only after Daniel’s accident and the lawsuit, but when Topher died?
But they, too, stayed, and she supposed now the town had moved on from both tragedies.
Cait leaned over and honked again.
Maggie jerked her hand away. “Stop it,” she said. “I’m going.”