A New Kind of Bliss (16 page)

“I can’t help noticing that you’ve been going out during the week and staying out really late, and I know you’re not with Aaron. Is everything all right between you two?”

“Everything’s fine,” I said easily. “So don’t you worry about anything. I’m just catching up with some of my old friends, and the best time to do it is during the week because on the weekends I’m with Aaron.”

“Oh! Well, yes, that makes sense. I, uh, thought you might be upset with him for leaving you alone on Saturday nights.”

“I’m not upset with him, Mom. I understand that his family has to come before me. Who am I to complain if he spends a day and a half each week with them? Besides, I
could
go with him if I wanted. I just chose not to. I don’t feel like being bothered with the attitude of his mother-in-law and his daughters.”

“Why are you letting them run you out of Sag Harbor? That’s not how I taught you, Emmie. You have a perfect right to be there.”

“I know I do, Mom. Maybe I should have stuck it out. It just didn’t seem worth the aggravation.”

“I hope you won’t mind my saying this,” she began.

That was a sure sign she was about to say something I’d mind.

“I don’t think Aaron is handling this very well. He should have talked to them, told them he won’t tolerate their being rude to you.”

“Technically, Mom, they haven’t been rude. They’ve just been…unwelcoming.”

“Oh, is
that
all,” she said with a snort.

“Mom, Aaron and I enjoy spending time together, but we’re not married, we’re not engaged, we’re not even in love.”
Or exclusive,
I thought, a picture of Teddy looming over me. I could almost feel his sweat dropping on me, and I bit the inside of my lower lip to force the image from my mind. “I don’t believe he should have to go through a lot of changes with his family to accommodate me.”

“All right, so it’s not serious between you two, which I can understand. You’ve only known each other two months. But what happens if you two
do
get serious? His family’s attitude can nip it before it even starts. If you ask me, he needs to take a more definitive stand than splitting his weekends in half.” She added, “Besides, I was in love with your father by our third date.”

When Mom threw out a hint, she didn’t mess around. But I did give her points for not saying, “What’s taking you and Aaron so damn long?”

“Doesn’t your stomach flutter when you see him, or your heart skip a beat?” she pressed.

It usually did, but I had concerns about Aaron that I wasn’t about to confide to anyone. Instead I said, “It’s too soon for all that. And I’m perfectly content just to spend Friday nights with him.”

The look on Mom’s face told me she didn’t believe one word of that. “Well, if you say so.”

I
went to the movies Saturday night with Marsha, and seeing all those couples holding hands or with their arms around each other made me lonesome for Aaron, who was away in Sag Harbor. I considered that maybe Mom was right. Aaron splitting his weekends, spending Friday nights with me and then driving out to the island after we had breakfast together Saturday morning, was nothing but a compromise and no more effective than the Missouri Compromise nearly two centuries ago. It did nothing to solve the long-term problem. Tensions among his daughters, mother-in-law, and me were going to keep rising until war broke out, just like those shots fired at Fort Sumter.

Aaron called Sunday night, like he usually did. He would always wish me good night and tell me he missed me. But this time he had a surprise for me. “I’m approaching the Whitestone Bridge.”

“Already? It’s only Sunday night.” Usually he left Sag Harbor at sunrise Monday morning and went straight to work.

“I decided to come in earlier. I know it’s late, but I was hoping you’d agree to meet me at the house. I really need to see you.”

My breath caught in my throat. Could Tanis have told him about seeing me with Teddy? I didn’t know if she had something else up her sleeve, and the possibility remained that she could have seen Teddy purchasing condoms at Hardy’s.

I decided it didn’t play out. First of all, Tanis was two states away in Oak Bluffs. Second of all, Aaron sounded eager to see me, not angry. “Is everything all right?” I asked.

“It will be once I see you. I want to tell you something, and I’d rather do it in person than on the phone. Plan on staying the night, huh?”

Curiosity won out. “Give me a minute to throw my clothes for tomorrow into a bag, and I’ll see you soon.”

Aaron’s Jag was in his driveway when I arrived, along with his seven-passenger SUV. He kept an older but good condition sedan in the garage of the house in Sag Harbor for Beverline to use while there, disconnecting the battery at the end of the summer.

I rang the doorbell and he answered it quickly, scooping me off my feet to give me a deep kiss. I let my overnight bag slide to the ground and wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist, holding on as he backed into the house and kicking my right foot out to slam the door shut behind us. A second later my back was against that same door.

“Wow!” I said breathily when he broke the kiss but continued to hold me upright by my hips. “What was that all about? Not that I’m complaining.”

“I missed you, Emily.”

“I missed you, too. I miss you every week when you go out to Long Island,” I said softly.

He leaned me against the wall where I could see Diana’s portrait through the arched doorway to the living room. Her eyes appeared to be fixated on me. I quickly looked away.

“That’s what I wanted to tell you,” Aaron said. “In a few weeks it’ll be our turn to spend the weekends out there.”

“What?”

“I put my foot down, Emily. I told Beverline and the girls that I didn’t like the way they were treating you. I wasn’t happy with the way they responded, so I told them I’m cutting their summer short.”

I drew in my breath. “You told them that?” Then I paused. “So what’d they say that you didn’t like?”

“Probably every nasty thing you can imagine them saying. ‘I don’t like her, Daddy.’ ‘She’s going to try to make you forget Mom.’ ‘She’s only with you because you’re rich.’”

“Hold up.” The first two statements fell under the umbrella of what I’d expected Beverline and the girls to say, but that third one made me see scarlet. My back straightened against the wall, and if I hadn’t needed to keep my arms around Aaron to keep my balance, I would have let go. But I did loosen my grip. “They think I’m a
gold digger?
”

He sighed. “Arden’s the one who said that. Trust me, Beverline put that idea in her head. She told me the night we got back from Indy that maybe bringing you to the house wasn’t such a good idea, because it might give you ‘ideas,’ as she put it.”

“Why, that—”

“I’m sorry, Emily. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you. I was really trying to give them time to get used to the idea of us seeing each other. But it doesn’t seem to be getting any better. A friend of mine asked if he could rent my house for the latter part of the season, the first of August through Labor Day weekend. At first I told him no, but I changed my mind. Fortunately, he’s still interested, so he and his family are going to live upstairs, and you and I will be downstairs.”

“In the
basement?
” What the hell was happening? I was sleeping on my mother’s couch at home, and now I’d be going out to Sag Harbor without Aaron’s family being there, and I’d have to sleep in the
basement?
Why did I always get the bag of potato chips with the crumbs? This had to be my punishment for losing my head with Teddy. On two separate occasions.

“The basement isn’t bad. I’ve made arrangements to have a kitchenette put in down there, with cabinets, cooktop, and a sink. And if you’re able to get some time off during the week we’ll stay upstairs, since Zach and his family will be out only from Friday through Sunday.”

I started to feel better. Aaron was spending a nice sum on a home improvement. Why shouldn’t he make some of it back by renting part of it?

I still couldn’t believe he’d actually taken this drastic step. “Aaron, you’re actually going to leave Beverline and the kids here at home while you and I go out to Sag Harbor every weekend?”

“Beverline, yes, and without a second thought. My kids, no. They’re going to spend the rest of the summer in Delaware with my mother. She lives fairly close to the beach.”

“That sounds nice, but something tells me they like the Hamptons better.”

“Billy can have fun wherever he is, but the girls do prefer Long Island. That’s Beverline’s doing. I’m sorry to say she’s turning Kirsten and Arden into little snobs. I used to have them split their summers, half in Sag Harbor, half in Dover. Then Kirsten said she didn’t want to leave her friends, so I changed it to a two-week visit to Dover in early August, then brought them back out to the island for the last weeks of the season.”

“Your house in Sag Harbor has four bedrooms. Isn’t there room for both grandmothers?”

“Unfortunately, my mother can’t stand Beverline.”

I could only shrug at that.
That makes two of us.

Still, I felt overjoyed that Aaron had taken a stand to be with me. Wait til I told Mom.

But not now. Aaron, still holding me up against the wall, began gyrating his groin toward mine. “Aren’t you proud of me?”

“I can do better than that,” I said, loving the feel of his hardened penis against the thin crotch of my shorts. “I’m…
aroused
.”

“We’ll take care of that right now.”

It wasn’t until an hour later that I remembered my overnight bag, still sitting outside the front door where I’d dropped it.

I drove to work the next day with a smile on my face. I didn’t even feel embarrassed when I ran into Teddy at work.

“You’re looking happy,” he remarked.

“I am. My boyfriend and I are back together,” I said. I was happy to share my good news with Teddy. It could only help get him off my back…and keep me out of his bedroom.

He scowled. “Glad to hear it.”

He sure didn’t
look
happy. For a moment I saw him as a ten-year-old who needed glasses. His expression was more in keeping with the appearance of the sky, which was darkening with some morning showers.

But I couldn’t worry about it. It had been a mistake to sleep with Teddy. I just wanted to put it behind me.

The rest of the summer breezed by. As Aaron stated, staying in the basement wasn’t half bad. These surroundings were much plainer than those in New Rochelle—it was, after all, a vacation house—but still quite comfortable, like a really nice hotel room. The microwave and mini-fridge that had been in the living room area were replaced by a full-size refrigerator, a stove with a microwave over it, a sink, and a small countertop with two burners, and oak cabinets.

We spent a minimum amount of time indoors anyway. I enjoyed spending afternoons lying on the sand at the beach, and we loved to relax in the hot tub at night with a bottle of wine. Sometimes we were joined by Aaron’s friends who rented the upstairs, Zach and Vivian Warner, after their kids went to sleep.

I really liked Zach and Vivian, but I still felt a little uncomfortable with some of the other neighbors, many of whom I suspected were gossiping about me and wondering about how I’d managed to snare the most eligible bachelor over age forty-five in the entire state, as well as Aaron’s having banished his children and mother-in-law to the hot city so he could spend weekends with me. Fortunately, Aaron introduced me to some pleasant people who seemed to accept me at face value without particular interest in the progression of our relationship. He invited an intimate group over to celebrate my forty-third birthday. Even Elias drove out with his latest squeeze, a Beyoncé blonde with a booty to match.

I felt a little guilty about leaving Mom, the one I’d come to Euliss to be with, all alone on the weekends, although she encouraged me to go. I knew she was hoping I’d marry Aaron, which would put me in Westchester permanently. If I knew her, she was expecting an engagement by Labor Day. I knew it would be useless for me to try to explain to her that things move more slowly nowadays than they did in the fifties, when she and Pop were courting, and that in the case of Aaron and me there was more to consider than the feelings of just two people. And she’d never understand that our sex life, oral sex or not, still left a lot to be desired.

Aaron and I planned an extra-long Labor Day weekend, and I asked him if it would be all right for Mom to join us. I wanted to make up my absence to her somehow. He agreed readily, giving me a rush of exhilaration when he took advantage of the opportunity to give me a kiss and squeeze my butt. I made yet another vow to make it work between us.

It seemed as if everybody Aaron knew was giving a barbecue or a party that weekend—we gave a party ourselves Saturday night—and Mom had the time of her life. Her visit was capped when she met the wife of Aaron’s friend Lucien Ballard. Thais Ballard had a leading part on one of the soap operas Mom never missed, under her maiden name, Thais Parker. My normally levelheaded mother just about lost it when Thais and Lucien walked into Aaron’s backyard.

I teased her about it after we got home Tuesday. Aaron dropped us off at noon and rushed right out, as his kids were returning from Delaware and he had to meet their train. I fixed lunch while Mom, sitting at the table, went through the few days’ mail that had accumulated. I don’t know what it is about older people never wanting to miss a day’s mail delivery. I usually only checked mine twice a week.

“Honestly, Mom, I half expected you to ask for Thais’s autograph,” I said as I moved the grilled cheese sandwiches I’d made from the skillet onto plates.

“Don’t be silly. What am I, some starstruck kid from Des Moines? What would I do with her autograph?” Her expression became serious as she read the letter in her hand.

“Is something wrong?” I asked as I set her plate in front of her, then sat down.

“We’ve got a problem, Emily.”

“What’s wrong?”

“My lease isn’t getting renewed. The building has been sold, and the new owners are going to convert the building back into a single-family house.”

“Oh, no! When’s your lease up, Mom?”

“January thirty-first.”

She wasn’t exaggerating. It was already September. February was just a few months away.

“I’m a little scared,” she continued. “Rents are so expensive. and I can’t get into senior citizen’s housing with you living with me.”

“Well, Mom, I’ll probably be back home by February.”

“Emmie, you can’t leave Aaron.”

“We both knew it was going to happen eventually.” I tried to sound matter-of-fact about it, but I suddenly found myself feeling nauseous.

“But if you leave now you’ll never get to find out what might have happened with you two. His wife, God rest her soul, has been gone long enough for him to fall in love with another woman. Why shouldn’t it be you?”

Why shouldn’t it?
“My biggest concern right now is you, Mom.”

“That’s sweet, but I’m not going to let you give up your future just so I can get into senior housing.” She twisted her bottom lip. “Not that I know what to do about it. It’ll cost a fortune for you and me to take out a lease on just a one-bed-room apartment.”

I felt her pain. The thought of packing up and moving to a new apartment where I still wouldn’t get to have a room of my own didn’t sit too well with me, either. And what about the cost? Mom had insisted I was not to help with the rent, saying that she’d paid it before I moved in with her and she’d continue to pay it after I left. Of course, she knew I still had a mortgage, utilities, and a storage unit to pay for each month. The proceeds from the short-term rentals of my condo helped with that. But the condo was empty more than it was occupied, and the management service took a commission.

Mom’s rent was pretty low, because she’d lived in this building for so many years, and the landlord could raise your rent only by so much each year. But the difference between what she paid now and the cost of a market-rate apartment would have to come out of my pocket.

I recalled Teddy saying his rent was going up to seventeen hundred dollars a month. I didn’t see how I could possibly swing that. Sonny and Cissy had already put out a total of fifteen hundred dollars to help me transition from Indy to Euliss, and while I doubted it caused either of them hardship, I also knew they would be glad when those three months were up. I only saw one possible solution.

“Mom…have you thought about moving in with Sonny or with Cissy? You know you’re always welcome at either one of their homes.”

“I don’t want to leave Euliss, Emmie,” she said in a near whine that sounded painful to my ears. “All my friends are here. I don’t want to go and die upstate or in Pittsburgh.”