Some Women (11 page)

“It was fine. My parents loved me, provided for me—you know, all that stuff.”

“But?”

“But nothing. Your mom is special, that's all. I can tell.”

“She definitely is,” Mackenzie agreed, full of pride.

“It feels good to be away from everything.” She pulled the navy wool blanket that was draped over the back of the sofa across her torso, nestling under it.

“Are you cold?”

“Nope, it just looked comfy.” Annabel gazed around the room. “That's what it is. Everything here is comfy. It's a house you want to live in. Do you know what I mean?”

“Sure.”

“I mean, if my kids spilled something on this rug, it probably wouldn't be the end of the world as we know it.”

“Ain't that the truth!”

“It's refreshing, is what it is.”

“You needed a break.” Mackenzie exhaled. “We both did.”

“And how.” Annabel stared out the window.

“It's not my intention to pry, but—if you feel comfortable talking about it—what happened between you and your husband? I mean, what impelled him to leave so abruptly?” she asked cautiously, well aware that despite the intimate situation Annabel had been unwillingly thrust into, they were still in the getting-to-know-each-other phase of friendship. Teetering on the line of what was appropriate to inquire about and what might cross it.

“You know, it's funny. I keep asking myself the same exact thing.”

“So you have no idea?”

“Well, I know he thinks I'm a miserable person.”

“What?” Mackenzie was incredulous. “How could anyone say that about you?”

“He thinks I like to control everything.”

“That I can see.” She scrunched her nose as she realized what she'd said. “Sorry.”

“It's okay. He's right. But what's so wrong with that? When you have kids, you'll understand.” Annabel shook her head. “Now I'm sorry; that was insensitive.”

“Not to worry. What say we give up on trying to tiptoe around two very unfortunate subjects?”

“Yes, please. I'm not particularly good at tiptoeing around things anyway, as you may have noticed.”

“So, you're controlling. And? That doesn't seem like a reason to give up on how many years of marriage?”

“Ten. And thank you. I said precisely that to Henry.” Annabel wrinkled her forehead. “That's why I'm sure there has to be more to it.”

“Like another woman.”

“Yup.”

“Seems like a logical conclusion.” Mackenzie hesitated. “Do you think Henry is the type to cheat?”

“Who knows?” She shrugged. “I didn't until he decided to up and leave; that I can tell you. Is there really a type anyway, beyond the obvious lechers?”

“I guess not.”

“What about Trevor?”

“What about him?”

“Do you think he'd ever be unfaithful?”

“Ha!” Mackenzie snorted. “Are you kidding? I once found an empty box of cookies hidden under a paper towel in our garbage can when he was trying to lose weight, and he couldn't even lie about that with a straight face. Believe me, it's not that I think my shit doesn't stink. He's just . . . a little immature in that way. He'd
be way too scared someone would find out. Plus his mother would throw a hissy fit if it ever leaked.”

“I'm sorry my mother-in-law isn't a high-powered publishing magnate, then.”

“Don't be. It comes with its own set of problems.”

“I have no doubt.”

“Hey, how about we abandon this uplifting conversation and I take you for a spin around Bowman? It won't be a long spin, but at least it'll get us out of the house.”

“That sounds fun. Let me go change.”

“Oh no, we're staying in our pajamas!”

“Can I wear my slippers too?”

“I wouldn't have it any other way.” Mackenzie smiled. The last thing she'd expected when she met Annabel was to be cruising around Georgia together in her dad's beat-up brown Oldsmobile. But somehow it felt right. Somehow she felt right. And she was beginning to think Annabel did too.

Annabel had awakened the day after Thanksgiving with a vaguely familiar feeling. One she hadn't been able to identify at first. She felt rested and refreshed, more so than she had in the past five years and possibly another five before that. Her stomach was pleasantly full, but not so full that the honeyed scent of Loretta's buttery biscuits wafting up the stairs and into the guest room couldn't lure her out of bed and down to the kitchen.

Her phone buzzed and she lifted it off the nightstand without the nagging urgency that typically compelled her to find out who it was at that very moment. And what they wanted from her. It was a text from Henry. A series of them, actually. The first had said “Happy Thanksgiving,” with a photo of Harper and Hudson wielding caveman-sized turkey legs and bearing wide satisfied grins. The next few had just been pictures of her boys.
Their boys
. There they were tumbling around with their cousins in the backyard—without
their winter coats on! There they were again tackling Henry to the ground in the middle of Lisa's living room floor, which was littered with a deluge of colorful plastic kid and dog toys. It was hard to distinguish between the two, save for the layer of saliva that would coat your palm if you dared to pick up one of Dusty's “chewies.” She'd unwittingly made that mistake more than once. Of course, the slick layer of spittle wasn't visible in a snapshot, thus leading Annabel to consider what else she'd missed. What else had her children experienced on the one and only holiday she'd ever spent without them? What had they eaten? What had they talked about? Had they missed her? Had they wondered why she wasn't there to share such a special day with them? If so, exactly what had Henry told them?

Annabel dialed his cell number. She needed to hear their voices. Only it went straight to voice mail.

This is Henry Ford. I'm unable to take your call right now. Please leave your name and number and I'll get back to you at my earliest convenience.

“Hi, um, it's me.” She cleared her throat. Surely he'd still know who
me
was. “It's Annabel. I'm here in Georgia. Really missing the boys. Can you give me a call when you have a chance? So I can talk to them. Please. Okay. Thanks.”

The formality of it felt so clumsy. Here was a man she'd seen naked. Wait—forget that. Here was a man who'd asked her to pop a pimple on his naked ass. A man who'd thrown up in her lap after a night of partying too hard with his college buddies. A man who'd gazed into her eyes and promised to love her always and forever. So much for that. Now they'd been relegated to—what? Acquaintances? It seemed preposterous, but she certainly wasn't about to
call Henry her
friend
. No. A friend was someone who gave you a heads-up before shattering your entire world into painful shards and leaving you in a state of agony and bewilderment. A friend was someone who accepted you for who you were, looked beyond your shortcomings, perhaps even loved you for your imperfections, and stuck by you. Or, at the very least, tried to work out the knots before becoming completely untied.

She pushed any thoughts of Henry from her mind, slid her legs over the side of the bed, slipped her feet into her fuzzy sheepskin slippers, and tracked the aroma of bacon and eggs right down to the kitchen, where Mackenzie was seated at the table with a full plate of food in front of her.

“Good morning, sleepyhead!” She smiled and patted the chair next to her, signaling Annabel to join her. “What can I get you?”

“Whatever you're having,” Annabel blurted, amazed by her eagerness to indulge. Again. At home she'd never allow herself to eat this way or this much. It was a daily battle—counting calories, offsetting those calories with enough physical exercise, all while making sure that everything she consumed had at least some nutritional value. Of course, living with five-year-old twin boys and a husband who liked to eat had made this mission more challenging than she would have liked. There were always bags of cheddar cheese Goldfish and packages of Oreos in the pantry. Not to mention those evil snack bars, which gave the impression of being healthful when they were actually little sticks of sugar dotted with barely-there nuggets of fruit. For a while she'd eaten at least three a day. Until she'd bothered to read the ingredients.

“That's what I like to hear.” Mackenzie stood up and made her way to the stove, where a collection of pans were warming. Pans
that had definitely been cleaned postdinner and were already being put to good use again this morning. Something that never happened in Annabel's home, and a foreign concept altogether to a girl who felt the same way about cooking as she did about scrubbing a public toilet with her toothbrush.

“Thank you. This looks unbelievable.” Mackenzie placed a large plate in front of her, which was overflowing with fluffy yellow eggs, crispy bacon, a cottony white biscuit, and a generous scoop of cheesy grits. The gluttony was simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating. But not in the same way as all those nights she'd submerged her face in a carton of Breyers mint chip and then castigated herself with a bout of self-loathing. No, this was very different. It was a decision. A decision she wouldn't regret, even on the heels of a southern Thanksgiving feast that could have put Paula Deen to shame. Not that Paula Deen needed any more shame.

It was hard to even recall each dish Mackenzie and her mother had turned out, all while refusing to let Annabel lift a finger, despite her repeated overtures. There'd been the twenty-pound deep-fried turkey—the main attraction, with its perfectly golden skin—silky-sweet corn bread pudding, spicy okra pickles, deviled eggs, buttermilk biscuits, green bean casserole, collards with onion and garlic, sausage stuffing, and the most delightfully pungent cranberry sauce that had ever crossed her lips. As if that hadn't been enough, Loretta had capped off the banquet with her award-winning pecan pie and a rustic peach cobbler topped with homemade vanilla ice cream. And she definitely did not have one of those fancy Cuisinart ice-cream makers from Williams-Sonoma.

Her instinct had been to call Henry as soon as she'd thanked Loretta profusely and resigned to her bedroom.
You would have
inhaled the sausage stuffing,
she'd imagined herself gushing.
Oh, and the corn bread pudding. Out. Of. This. World.
But she'd stopped herself, aware that the three glasses of red wine she'd imbibed had made her feel perilously bold.

“What should we do today?” Mackenzie tore her biscuit in half, releasing a rush of fragrant steam. “I warn you, the options are limited.”

“Honestly, I don't really care. Whatever you want.”

“Wow, relinquishing control, huh?” Mackenzie goaded, then snapped a piece of bacon between her front teeth.

“Imagine that.” Annabel laughed. “Maybe we should take a walk or something.”

“You mean, burn off some of the ninety zillion calories we've consumed in less than twenty-four hours?”

“I guess. That certainly couldn't hurt, but I was thinking more about breathing the fresh air. Clearing my head. You know?”

“I do know. And I think that sounds like an excellent idea.” Mackenzie swallowed a gulp of orange juice. “Are you sad about not being with your kids for the holiday?”

“I am.” Annabel nodded. “But, surprisingly, I'm more okay with it than I expected.”

“Are you sad about not being with Henry?”

“Same answer.” She nodded. “Though, I have to say, I thought it would be excruciating.” She paused to chew a mouthful of eggs and then turned toward Mackenzie, whose natural beauty took her breath away yet again. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For saving me from my own misery.”

“I'd say you saved yourself.”

“Maybe a little of both,” Annabel mused, as the cuckoo clock chimed from the other room. And then it struck her: that vaguely familiar feeling she'd awakened to had been contentment.

•   •   •

“Please tell me we're almost there and that I'm not truly in such awful shape,” Annabel panted, and then winced as droplets of sweat trickled from the nape of her neck down to the small of her back.

“Just a few more feet. You can do it. We're almost there,” Mackenzie encouraged, and Annabel noticed she wasn't even perspiring.

Somehow their plan to take a leisurely walk had translated into a two-and-a-half-mile hike up the Blue Ridge Railroad Historical Trail. There were three tunnels along the way, adding an intriguing element to the climb, though they tended to seep water, which Annabel wasn't a big fan of. Fortunately, Mackenzie had remembered to bring a flashlight, so they could at least see what was dripping on them.

“Can we please sit down now?” Annabel hadn't realized quite how clement it would still be at the end of November. She'd noticed online that it was a chilly thirty-five degrees back in Connecticut, which was a little over half the daytime temperature in Northern Georgia and the surrounding areas. As someone who detested cold weather and would be overjoyed to eschew winter altogether, it felt nice to spend a few days in such a moderate climate.

“You got it.” Mackenzie pointed to two big rocks. “How about there?”

“That's fine.” Annabel rested her hands on her knees, hunched her body, and inhaled and exhaled until she'd regained her
equilibrium. “Honestly, I'd sit on a bed of needles right now if it was the only option.”

“You did great!” Mackenzie smiled, her neat blond ponytail whooshing back and forth with her effortless movements.

“Are you kidding? I'm about to die.” She dropped herself onto the rock next to the one Mackenzie was already occupying. “Clearly, those exercise classes aren't doing the trick.”

“Sure they are. I bet you wouldn't have been able to do that a few months ago.” Mackenzie unzipped the backpack she'd lugged for the extent of the hike and handed Annabel a fresh bottle of water.

“I want a dancer's body like yours.” Annabel grimaced. “Unfortunately, that will so never be me.”

“Well, at least you have nice boobs. Flat as a board over here.” She raised her arm in the air with a flourish.

“Gee, thanks! Trust me, I'd trade a tight ass and chiseled abs for big breasts any day.”

“We always want what we can't have.” They sat quietly for a minute, allowing the late-morning sun to warm their bare skin.

“I wonder if that's how Henry felt.” Annabel's musing fractured the silence.

“How so?” Mackenzie pulled a bag full of nuts and raisins from her backpack and held it in front of Annabel.

“Thanks.” She scooped a handful into her palm. “What if Henry was just sick of the status quo? You know, boring old me. I mean, how many times can you see someone tweezing their eyebrows or suctioning their hips and thighs with a pair of control-top panty hose before there's the urge to look elsewhere? That's the thing about meeting someone new. Someone whose unattractive
habits are not part of the fabric of your daily life. Someone who doesn't fart in your presence or wake up next to you with frizzy hair and eye boogers.”

“Eye boogers?” Mackenzie laughed.

“The sleep stuff that gets stuck in the corner.”

“I get it. You're just funny.”

“Seriously, though. This woman he had dinner with . . . maybe she's the greener grass and I'm merely the muddy old sod. The miserable muddy old sod.”

“You are not a miserable muddy old sod. Stop it.” Mackenzie took a swig of water. “Did you ask Henry about it?”

“No way. How could I do that? Then he'd know I had someone following him.” Of course she'd wanted to. In fact, it had taken all of her willpower not to assault him with the third degree. Who the hell was this woman in the not-really-slutty red suit with shoulder-length black hair and simple features? And what did she want with Henry? More to the point, did she think she was going to sail in and take over Annabel's life, become a second mother to her children? Oh no, no, no.

“You could have said a friend had seen him. Or just asked what he'd done that night.”

“Nah, we're not really in that place right now. Not to mention that it would have seemed a little suspicious.” Annabel wiped her damp brow with the back of her hand. “I'm in this for the long haul. However long it takes to get to the bottom of it.”

“In that case, I have an idea.”

“I'm all ears.”

“Since you've been obsessing about Henry and who he's screwing around with,
if
he's actually screwing around with someone—”

“He is. I'm sure of it.”

“Okay. Why don't you let me and Piper pursue that while you concentrate on moving forward?”

“How am I supposed to move forward until I know why Henry left?”

“Think about it, Annabel. Does it actually matter why he left?”

“Fuck, yeah, it does!”

“I'm going to have to disagree with you there.” Mackenzie passed the bag of trail mix back to Annabel. “He's left. Right? He's said he's not coming back. So the writing is on the proverbial wall in big, bold font.”

“Really driving the point home, aren't you?”

“I'm sorry—as your friend, I think you need to hear this. More than that, I know it's for the best. For you.” She rested her hand on Annabel's back. “We will find out why he left. I promise you that. If you promise to let us do our thing while you work on
not
dwelling on Henry and what he's up to. You need to find something that makes you happy—for your own sake and no one else's. I'm not saying he's going to change his mind about leaving you. But if there's one thing I know, there's nothing more attractive to a man than an independent woman who doesn't nag him about every minor detail or fixate on what he is or isn't doing when she's not around.”

“You might be onto something,” Annabel relented. “It's not going to be easy, though.”