The Weekenders (52 page)

The coach was a deeply tanned twentysomething whose name tag said C
OACH
C
HASE
.

“Hi!” the coach said as she approached. “Do you have a tennis player in the family?”

“I do,” Riley said. “She's played mixed doubles at our club, and she's a pretty good singles player, too.”

“What's her ranking?” Coach Chase asked.

Riley smiled. “She's only twelve. I mean, she's ranked number one with her family…”

“Oh. That's nice. That is, nice that she's a recreational player. But my Woodchuck girls' team has taken the state title for the past four consecutive years. Two of my recent grads are sitting out their senior year of high school because they've gone pro.”

“Do you hold tryouts for the team?” Riley asked.

“Oh, sure,” the coach said. “And she's welcome to come out. But it's only fair to warn you that I've got my team pretty well set for this year. But, hey, tell her to come see Coach Chase. We can always use somebody to hit around with.”

Riley clenched and unclenched her fists to keep herself from hitting the coach's head.

*   *   *

Maggy was already in bed with the lights off. Riley climbed out of her work clothes and under the covers. She felt something squirming on the pillow next to her head.

“Is that Banksy?”

“Yes,” Maggy said.

“Can't he sleep in his crate?”

“No. He misses me when I'm gone at school all day.”

“Me, too,” Riley said. “Okay. Just this once, he can stay. But not on my pillow.” She scooted the dog gently onto the mattress between them.

“I met some of your teachers at back-to-school night,” Riley said.

“That's cool.”

“Hey, Maggy? How come you didn't tell me Annabelle goes to your school? And she's in your homeroom, and sits right in front of you.”

No answer.

Riley switched on the bedside lamp, and Maggy pulled the covers over her head. “
Mom
. I'm trying to sleep.”

“Talk to me, Margaret. Why didn't you say something?”

“Dad always says nobody likes a whiner.”

Yes, Riley thought, he always did say that, but he almost always used it when he was accusing a woman of voicing dissatisfaction.

“It's not necessarily whining to let your mother know you have a difficult situation in your life,” Riley said.

“What good would it do? Anyway, it's fine. She acts like I'm not even there.”

“Has Annabelle been mean to you again? Said anything about your dad, or the diabetes, or the shots, or anything like that? Tell me the truth, Mags.”

“It's fine. I don't care. I don't care about anybody at that school.”

Riley propped herself up on one elbow. “It's not fine. You're sad about school, and I'm sad about my job.”

“You are? Still?”

“Yeah,” Riley said. “I know I said it would get better, but I don't think it will. My boss doesn't like me very much, and the feeling is mutual.”

“Are you gonna quit?”

“I'm not sure what I'm going to do,” Riley said truthfully. “But I don't think I can keep doing a job that takes away my sense of self-respect.”

“Hey! I've got a great idea. If you quit your job, you can homeschool me. It would be awesome. You know, we could live on the island, and go to the beach every day.…”

“Whoa!” Riley laughed. “That's a pretty fantasy. But one, I have to work. And two, I'd be a lousy homeschool mother. I can't do math, and I don't know squat about chemistry or biology. And three, even homeschooled kids don't get to go to the beach all day. They have to sit in a classroom, and do homework, and, you know, actually take tests and learn. And, anyway, I thought you said all the kids on the island are stupid jerks.”

“I meant mostly Annabelle,” Maggy said. “Can I ask you something and you won't get mad?”

“You can ask, but I can't promise not to get mad,” Riley said. “I warn you, I've had a pretty crappy day.”

“Do you ever miss Dad?”

Riley had to think about that. Did she miss Wendell? Had her anger dissipated enough to allow her to be honest about her feelings for him?

“That's still complicated for me, Maggy,” she admitted. “I know you miss him terribly. I guess I miss some things. I miss the pancakes he'd make sometimes on Sunday nights. And I miss seeing you with him, and knowing how proud he was of you. I miss the three of us, piled in bed, watching movies, and drinking Diet Coke, and having burp contests.”

“Yeah, the burp contests were awesome,” Maggy said. “Dad could really belch, couldn't he?”

“If they had Olympic burping, he'd have been a gold medal contender,” Riley agreed. She rubbed her daughter's back. “Go to sleep now, baby. We'll figure it out somehow. Your PopPop used to say everything always looks better in the morning.”

*   *   *

But on Friday, things did not look rosy. The day started with a call from her real estate broker. She was sitting in her cubicle at the station, going over her notes for that day's show, whose guests included a Latin dance instructor, an author who'd self-published a book about colon cleansing, and the owner of a vinyl siding company.

“Riley,” her broker said. “I've been watching your new show. And I love your wardrobe. So eclectic and youthful!”

Riley looked down at that day's outfit, a purple silk dress with cascading tiers of gathered fabric that made her look like a human dust ruffle. “Thanks, Brenda. I've been meaning to call. You know, Monday is the closing. I've got my movers lined up, but I was wondering when I can do a walk-through of the house. Have you talked to the sellers lately?”

“We've had a little hitch, Riley. The thing is, the sellers have changed their minds. His new job fell through, and it turns out they hate the climate in South Florida. So they'd really like to give you your money back and void the contract.”

“No! They can't do that, Brenda. We have a contract. Just tell them no.”

“Hear me out, okay? They're proposing to return your down payment, plus an extra five thousand for inconveniencing you. How does that sound?”

“It sounds terrible. Maggy and I have been camped out in a hotel for a week, and we're sick of it. I've started my job, and I don't have any time to go house hunting. Just tell them no, Brenda.”

“I tried. I really did, but they just won't budge. I've never had this happen before.”

“But it's my house now. I signed a good-faith contract way back in May. You go back to them and tell them I'll sue if they don't get out of that house by Monday.”

“I'll tell them, but I don't think it'll make any difference. They clearly don't intend to move.”

“This is crazy!”

“Riley?” Jacy stood just outside her cubicle. “May I speak with you?”

“I have to go, Brenda. Monday. I want my house Monday.”

Riley threw her phone onto her desk. “What is it now, Jacy?”

“We've had a little scheduling snafu. The dance instructor injured his foot last night, so your tango lesson with him is off, and we have a five-minute slot to fill, and we don't have a backup guest. Instead, we thought we'd try something really radical. An on-air colon cleanse. Totes adorbs! Right?”

Riley held her breath until she thought she might black out. Then she exhaled deeply. “No. And by that, I mean hell, no.” She stood up, unzipped the purple dust ruffle dress, and let it fall to the floor. She was standing in the middle of the newsroom in her panties and bra, rediscovering the liberating sensation of knowing that once again her give-a-shit had got up and gone. She pulled a promotional WDHM T-shirt over her head and stepped into her own jeans.

Jacy gaped. “What are you doing?”

“I'm quitting. Right? Cleanse your own damn colon.”

*   *   *

The midmorning traffic on I-40 was light, and she made it to the Woodlawn School by eleven fifteen. She went directly to the Alexandra Winzeler Administration Building, filled out the necessary paperwork, secured a visitor's pass, and walked to the Susan B. Foster Dining Pavilion where she found a sad little girl with a long braid and blue-gray eyes sitting at a lunch table by herself.

“Mama! What are you doing here?”

Riley grabbed Maggy's backpack. “I'm busting you out of here, kid. Let's go.”

 

61

Maggy peered out the car window. “Where are we going?”

Riley smiled. She felt amazingly lighthearted. “What do you say we go back to the hotel, get Banksy, pack up our stuff, and blow this pop stand?”

“Are we moving into the new house now?”

For a moment, Riley's mood threatened to collapse. “It doesn't look like our new house is going to be our new house after all. The owners decided they want to keep it. And since I no longer have a job, I couldn't afford that house anyway.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? You're not upset about not moving into the new house?”

Maggy turned and studied her mother's face. “Are you?”

“I was, but now, I sort of don't care. It's, like, maybe it wasn't supposed to happen.”

“Yeah.” Maggy nodded her head. “I think that, too. You know what I wish? I wish we could go backward. I wish we could move back into our old house, and I could go to my old school. And, you know. Everything.”

“You know that's not really possible, Maggy. But I'll tell you what, we could go to lunch and maybe ride past the old house and check it out.”

“Sweet! Can we go to Snoopy's?”

Snoopy's was an old-style hot dog stand near the St. Mary's house. It had been Maggy's favorite dining spot since toddler days.

“Why not? It's lunchtime. You check your blood and take your shot, and I'll swing past the hotel and get Banksy.”

*   *   *

Riley slowed the car as they passed the old house on St. Mary's Street, and Maggy hung out the car window so she could get a look. “Look, Mr. Banks. There's our house.” She held the puppy up to the window.

“They painted it.” Maggy sounded stunned.

Sure enough, the blue-green spruce color the house had been for the past decade during the Griggs's ownership was now a bright goldenrod shade.

“Eeew. It looks like mustard,” Maggy said. “And look! They cut down my tree. And the swing is gone from the front porch. It looks terrible. Like it's naked or something.”

“It's their house now, sweetie,” Riley pointed out.

“Maybe I don't want to move back there after all.”

*   *   *

Maggy ordered the Snoopy's special—hot dog with chili, mustard, and onions, crinkle fries, and a Diet Coke. Riley had her usual, the chicken salad sandwich. They sat at one of the picnic tables and ate and burped, and Maggy snuck fries to Mr. Banks when she thought her mother wasn't looking. The late summer sun beat down on their heads, but Riley didn't care. She was savoring this illicit-feeling moment.

Maggy gave her mother a pleading look. “Do I have to go back to school now?”

“No. You're not going back to Woodlawn School, and I'm not going back to WDHM.”

“You mean, like, ever?”

“That's right.”

“Sweet!” Maggy's face was wreathed in the kind of smile that had been missing from her repertoire for months. She tapped the puppy's smushed nose. “High-five for no school, Banksy!”

“Hold on, missy. I didn't say you weren't going back to school at all. Just not that particular school.”

“Then, what are we going to do?”

“This is going to sound crazy, but I have absolutely no idea.”

“Where will we live? And where will I go to school? And you said you have to work, so where will you get a job?”

“The only thing I'm sure of is this: I'm done with television. The truth is, television has been done with me for a while, it just took me until this morning to figure that out.”

Maggy sucked loudly on her drink and waited.

One tiny idea had been floating around in Riley's imagination all day. The seed had been planted the night before, when Maggy shared her fantasy about moving back to the island and being homeschooled on the beach. Or maybe the idea had been there all along. Maybe it had germinated when Nate Milas asked her if she'd ever considered working in the family business.

She'd told him that had never been an option for her. But maybe, now that she'd slammed the door on being Riley from Raleigh, a new window was opening in her life. All she had to do was find the courage to crawl through it.

*   *   *

It took longer than Riley anticipated to reinvent herself.

She'd shared her scheme with only one other person—Parrish—strictly out of necessity, since it involved moving into her guest room with a daughter and dog in tow, for the duration.

“It's brilliant,” Parrish said, as they sat around in their pajamas in the den of her house in Country Club Estates.

It was, they agreed, just like old times living together at Chapel Hill. Except for a couple of fairly major exceptions.

“Except I don't have to worry about walking in on you and your squeeze du jour,” Riley said.

“And I don't have to get pissed about you borrowing my car, my clothes, or my Dooney and Bourke shoulder bag,” Parrish countered.

Riley had enlisted Parrish to expedite the refund of her down payment on the new house, plus an extra eight thousand she'd squeezed out of the sellers in return for Riley's signature on a “hold harmless” document.

“Not that I don't love having you and Maggy here,” Parrish said, late one night after a dinner of Red Dragon takeout, “but I still don't understand why you can't just go to Evelyn and tell her what you want to do.”

“It's simple. I want to have everything in place when I step off that ferry, because I don't want to run the risk of having Mama steamroll me into submission. And I can't live under her roof again.”