The Comfort of Lies (12 page)

Juliette’s skills baffled Caroline, who’d watched with awe as the popular girls in high school stood at the locker room mirror and with a few puffs and sprays transformed themselves into ideal American beauties. In contrast, Caroline’s clumsy attempts at using lipstick felt showy and garish. Her instinct was to wipe it off as quickly as possible. At her wedding, Peter’s mother and sisters had been determined to wrestle her into a Kabuki mask, but the moment she was alone,
she’d rubbed away most of what the makeup artist had smeared on her face. Her first kiss as a married woman was what she wanted: bare lips touching bare lips.

The door opened. Juliette slipped in. A black smock covered her silk shirt and slacks. “Savannah seems happy. Someone from the child care room will get you if there’s any problem, so not to worry.”

“Oh, she’ll be fine. Savannah’s quite placid with strangers.” Did that sound bizarre, as if she handed Savannah off to strangers regularly? “What I mean is, well, she’s an unusually self-assured child.”

“I’m sure that’s a credit to your good mothering.” Juliette held three protective smocks up to Caroline’s neck in succession. Pink followed by black and then navy blue. “First I judge which best flatters your complexion, so we can start you off with the right background.”

“Won’t the color thing throw off the effect? Make it seem better than it really is?”

Juliette laughed. “It’s all false here. Makeup’s an illusion, right? So we begin with the best canvas. Like you do when choosing your clothes, no?”

Given the choice, a white lab coat would be Caroline’s fashion choice. Otherwise Caroline stuck to the safe beige palette in which she’d been raised.

“Navy,” Juliette decided. Silken fabric billowed as she settled the blue cloth around Caroline. Juliette studied her in the mirror. “You should wear this color often.”

Caroline nodded as though she believed that wearing navy blue would make a difference in her life.

Juliette ran a finger down Caroline’s cheek. “You’re not wearing any makeup, are you?” Caroline shook her head no. Juliette poured a bit of oil on her fingers and spread it over Caroline’s face.

“I’m just giving you a quick cleansing. Later, we can schedule you for a facial if you’d like,” Juliette offered. “With Paloma. She’s our best. Don’t tell anyone I said so, though; I’m not supposed to have a favorite. She’ll give you a full skin diagnosis. But I’ll give you some instant gratification.”

Juliette’s sure fingers massaged oil into her face. Oh, Caroline
could lie there for years. Then the scientist in her took over. “Oil?” Caroline asked.

“Extra virgin olive oil purified by juliette&gwynne. Nothing is better. It cleans the skin, removes makeup, tones and conditions, and you simply rinse it off with tepid water. I could go on and on—but Paloma will say it all much better than I can.”

“Do you use it?” Caroline liked the idea of being purified, but she felt tired just imagining doing so much to her face each day and each night. Juliette pressed the oft-aching area over Caroline’s sinuses. That alone was worth the trip.

“There’s nothing we sell that I don’t use, or wouldn’t use, based on my skin type,” Juliette added. She wiped a warm washcloth over Caroline’s face. The slight scratch of the fabric sweeping away the oil felt brisk and wholesome.

“What do you use to wash your face?” Juliette asked.

Caroline smiled before giving her answer. “Ivory soap.”

Juliette chuckled. “99.44% pure, right?” After patting Caroline’s face clean, she assessed Caroline’s forehead, the sides of her nose, and her cheeks with confident fingers. “That’s why your skin is so dry.”

Juliette smoothed cream over Caroline’s face. “When we make your skin softer, you’ll look less lined.” Juliette’s eyes met Caroline’s in the mirror. “Cleaning with a better product, using proper moisturizer—all this will help. Add plumping ingredients to where you want to see plump. Paloma will give you the details.”

“Maybe she can fit me in as an emergency case,” Caroline joked.

Juliette chuckled and squeezed Caroline’s shoulder. “Not to worry. I’ll manage everything.”

Apparently Caroline’s humor was too dry for Juliette—had she thought Caroline serious? God knows, she barely had time for this morning’s visit. Did other women do this all the time?

As Juliette applied more layers of colors and creams than Caroline had ever dreamed of using, she startled at seeing herself become almost lovely through the miracle of cosmetic alchemy.

Juliette held up first one jar of color, then another. She striped
five different shades of foundation on Caroline’s jaw—foundation, something Caroline thought reserved for the aged—until one satisfied her. As she blended, she gently lectured Caroline about the importance of sunblock. Caroline the doctor, who knew the importance of using it, spent her life fighting Caroline the daughter, whose outdoorsy mother believed only sissies used sunblock.

“Look at this! Your eyes are your key feature, Caroline.” Juliette stepped away to admire the thin lines she’d just applied to Caroline’s lids. “Green eyes. So beautiful! Like Savannah. Her brown eyes are so incredibly dark! They’ll be her key feature, also. They’re remarkable. Does your husband have those dark eyes? My goodness—they look Italian or Greek.”

“Savannah’s adopted,” Caroline said.

“Oh. Close your eyes.” Juliette applied mascara. “Now open. I have a friend who adopted all of her children. Three boys.”

“How old are they?” Caroline thought she sounded too hungry for the information.

“They range from ten to about fifteen. Older than Savannah. My friend’s pretty active in all sorts of support groups.”

Caroline had never joined any adoption groups or participated in any counseling that might help her on the path to being a good adoptive mother. Beyond buying the right we-chose-you books for Savannah, she and Peter had done little to learn about being adoptive parents. Caroline knew they should participate in more structured learning, but he’d resisted, and she’d taken the easy way out by following his disinclination.

Peter swallowed Savannah into their family whole, as though by pretending that everything was peachy keen, he could make it so. Peter wanted Savannah to merge with her cousins and blend in with the family brood.

“Is it all okay? With your friend?” Caroline asked.

Juliette brushed a light coat of pink across Caroline’s cheeks. The effect was delicate and opalescent—like the inside of a shell. Dawn, Juliette called it. Then she tipped her head and stepped back as though weighing the choices she’d made in painting Caroline’s face.

“Sometimes she has problems,” Juliette said. “She gets angry when people say that adoption is as natural a process as giving birth and should be treated the same. She thinks that leaves no room for adoptive moms to talk about their problems.”

Caroline nodded, encouraging Juliette to keep talking.

“After her experience, I realized that biological mothers get more of a break than she did. We get to have postpartum blues and all that. You know. You’re a doctor.”

“A pathologist. I work with tissue samples more than people. I’m not sure I’ve really thought of it that way.” Caroline gripped the arms of the chair. “But you’re right.” Peter’s sisters complained about their children incessantly, but Caroline never dared join the discussion.

“Exactly. We act as though adoptive parents should be so grateful they have children at all, that they don’t deserve to complain.”

CHAPTER 10

Tia

Tia had less than ten minutes before Bobby arrived for their . . . Jesus, it was a date, wasn’t it, this Saturday night dinner Bobby had asked for, almost bribing her with promises of getting out to somewhere other than Southie or JP? She didn’t know why she’d agreed, or how his driving her home had allowed her to open the dreaded relationship door she’d considered shut and crosshatched with steel, but here she was.

It had been a long time since anyone had touched Tia. That was one reason she remembered pregnancy with warmth; despite her isolation, she’d never been alone.

The June night that Tia conceived Honor—and she knew it was that night—she’d worn a white linen dress made of fabric so soft and fine that the slightest breeze lifted the belled skirt. A wide red belt hugged her small waist. High-heeled sandals showed off her first-ever pedicure.

They’d walked down three steps to enter the hidden bar, stopping a moment to let their eyes adjust from the June dusk to the dim bar light. The location, a side street off Mass Ave in Cambridge, surprised Tia each time they arrived. Who expected a postage-stamp dance floor and middle-aged waitresses wearing black rayon skirts
and white blouses in a part of town usually known for poetry readings? Most of the drinkers were born-in-Cambridge townies. Tia recognized them; they carried the same working-class DNA as she and her Southie friends.

Patrons listened to long-forgotten songs and danced to the lush music that replicated the soundtrack of Tia’s childhood. On Sunday mornings, instead of going to church, Tia’s mother had played Herb Alpert. Al Green. Etta James. Frank Sinatra. Music that made Tia nostalgic for a past she’d never known; times that seemed more glamorous than her life would ever be.

Nathan had worn a pressed shirt. When she leaned against him, Tia tried not to think about who’d ironed it so stiff, and who’d made it smell of bleach and wholesome living.

After ordering drinks, Nathan stood and held out a hand. “Dance with me?” he’d asked, as though worried that she’d say no; as though he didn’t own her dances, her thoughts, and her future.

Nathan pressed her close as they danced. She smelled shampoo and aftershave, scents Tia loved because they were Nathan’s, and hated because Juliette undeniably chose both.

She’d let her friendships and hobbies fall away in pursuit of her Nathan obsession. To the world, Tia seemed devoted to her work, as though she were solely dedicated to the needy men and women in the nursing home where she’d then worked, as though crafts programs for the elderly were her only reason for existing.

Tia turned her head so that her cheek lay on the solid muscle of Nathan’s arm. He engulfed her. “Moon River” played, and then gave way to Sinatra singing “The Way You Look Tonight.” Nathan pulled her closer.

“I wish we could always be like this,” she whispered into his sleeve.

“I know.” Nathan pulled her in closer. “Me too.”

He’d lied, of course. If he’d wanted them to be together, he’d be here now. He’d have answered her letter. He’d have looked at Honor’s picture and recognized himself.

The downstairs doorbell rang.

Tia pushed the buzzer to give Bobby entry. As she waited for him to climb the winding stairs, she finished the glass of wine she’d poured, and then stuck the glass in the cabinet, unwashed, so he wouldn’t see either the dirty glass or a freshly washed one. After she swished mouthwash straight from the bottle.

The tentative sound of Bobby knocking bothered Tia. She’d said yes to him, so why did he tap at her door as though maybe she’d forgotten he was coming? If Nathan had brought out Tia’s softer side, she feared that Bobby might bring out the opposite.

Bobby wore a suit while Tia wore jeans and a simple silk shirt. Their clothes announced how much more this meant to him than it did to her. Tia hated the inequity, an elephant hulking in the room.

“Sorry.” Tia gestured at her outfit. “I thought we were going local.”

“No, no—it’s my fault. I didn’t tell you.” His cheeks blazed. Poor strawberry-blond Bobby and his telltale skin.

“Give me a minute. I’ll change.”

“No, no,” Bobby said. “You’re fine. I’ll take off my jacket.” He moved as though to shrug off his suit coat and tug off his tie.

Tia swore she saw the gears clicking in his head: Changing the night’s itinerary? Perhaps trying to think of a less fancy restaurant. She stilled him with a hand on his shoulder. “Stop. Give me five minutes.”

Tia ran to her bedroom and flipped through her wardrobe. She fingered the white conception dress buried deep in the back of her closet for a moment—still so beautiful, but unwearable, reeking of unrequited love. She chose a black shift and dressed it up with her mother’s only good pieces of jewelry, now Tia’s only treasures: the lover’s knot gold earrings that her father had bought her mother and a filigreed locket holding faded photos of her grandparents.

 • • • 

They sat in leather chairs studded with brass buttons. The Oak Room at Copley Plaza was a place for celebrations of high order: engagements, movie deals, dream job offers. Bobby made his intentions all too clear.

This room was as dim as the bar where she’d danced with Nathan, but Nathan’s bar held a yellowed darkness; here luminous rosiness warmed every corner. Chandeliers reflected ornate carved paneling and a tapestry of red-toned fabrics.

“I sold a condo today,” Bobby said. “Totally redone, a loft for an artist. Good light. Sold it for big money, especially for today’s market.”

“I thought the market was down,” Tia said.

“Southie’s still strong as fuck.” Bobby turned tomato again. “Excuse me.”

“Bobby. You don’t have to apologize for saying ‘fuck.’ ” She rolled her eyes in exaggerated impatience. “So why’s Southie still—”

“For one thing, the waterfront. It’s a limited resource.”

It was difficult for Tia to connect the real-estate-rich area Bobby described with the place where she’d come of age. “I suppose you’re right,” she said.

“There are incredible opportunities.” He started to put out his hand, as though to take hers, and then drew back. “You won’t believe this huge building deal—way upscale—that I’m putting together.”

“It just seems like they’re taking over everything,” she said.

“ ‘They?’ ” Bobby smiled. “Why are the ones who move away always the most nostalgic?”

“Nobody who grew up there can afford to buy a house.”

“What? The neighborhood’s supposed to cater to the laziest?”

“Not being able to afford half a million dollars for two bedrooms makes you lazy?”

The waiter interrupted with the drinks they’d ordered. Tia practically drained the glass with her first taste. She felt far too sober.