“Emotional turmoil,” said Catherine. “I prefer to think of myself as too cool for school. Keeping all of Dakota’s secrets. But apparently even I have an inner schoolmarm. Who knew?”
“Ah, Catherine,” said James, leaning over to give her a good-bye kiss on the cheek before he stood up. It was getting late and he had a big meeting in the morning to go over the latest developments with V hotels in Europe. “You’re always too quick to dismiss yourself. There’s always been more to you than you’ll admit.”
seventeen
Bridesmaids! She needed bridesmaids. Anita called Marty at the deli.
“I don’t have any attendants,” she told him, in the middle of the early-morning bagel-and-to-go-coffee rush.
“We have time, dear,” he said. “As of last night you still hadn’t decided whether our wedding was going to even be in this calendar year.” Marty cradled the phone between his neck and shoulder as he spread schmears of cream cheese on warm, crusty sesame bagels and wrapped them up in waxed paper. One after the other, as the businessmen and businesswomen stopped in on their way to the subway and work downtown, he fixed breakfast bagels. Many of his customers were regulars whose faces and orders he knew by heart. His favorite customer of all time, however, was having a panic attack on the phone.
“It’s all going to be fine,” he said, and he meant it. Because Marty had a plan. He’d asked Nathan to meet him at the deli that afternoon—and he was going to take care of that kid’s shenanigans once and for all. He felt somewhat sorry for the man, so caught up in ordering his mother about that their relationship had truly suffered. Plus, Anita had told Marty, Nathan had revealed to her that he was going through some marital problems. Apparently, he’d moved out of the house.
But Marty had tried to reach out to Nathan and been rebuffed repeatedly. He knew the guy thought he was a rube. And once he’d sorted Nathan out, then he was going to figure out how to deal with this Sarah business.
Anita wasn’t sleeping well, and she wasn’t eating very much, either. Initially, he’d been more than happy to blame Nathan, but then it became clear that just telling Marty about Sarah hadn’t been enough to relieve Anita’s burden.
“We used to knit mittens for the boys together,” she told Marty as she started on a pair. They were heading into a hot summer, he pointed out, with not much call for hand coverings.
“I’ll just save it until I see her again,” she’d said, but he found her sitting on the sofa after bedtime, working on the project.
“If only” had become a common refrain he heard from his almost-bride, along with “I just wish” and “One thing I’d change.” Age, which typically didn’t garner much notice from either of them, was suddenly felt keenly. Anita’s. Her sister’s. The sense of time running out was pervasive and crushing.
He would do anything for Anita, and if it took moving hell and earth to get her to pick a date and buy a dress, Marty Popper was up to the task. But he worried, very much, that Anita had pinned a lifetime’s worth of frustration to the belief that everyone would be all right once she found Sarah. And what would happen if she didn’t?
“Who would you like to ask?” He broached the subject gently.
“You know who,” said Anita. “My sister.” The very word—sister—implied a closeness, an unshakable connection. Was that true? Just because you share parents, by blood or by marriage, doesn’t mean your personalities will be complementary. That you’ll enjoy the same activities. Share the same politics. The easier thing with relatives, Anita understood, was to be familiar strangers. To know one another’s moods just by a look, to accept all the tiny peculiarities that make up a person’s habits, and yet even with all this secret knowledge to manage never to ask each other about hopes and dreams. To assume the very fact of being siblings negated the need to become true friends. This, Anita knew, had been one of her mistakes. One she wanted to fix.
“Okay,” said Marty. “We can say her name. It’s Sarah. And who else?”
“Dakota,” she said. “And Catherine. She’s stepped in to be my right hand with all the planning, and she’s really a very good friend. Yes, I think Catherine.”
“Perfect. So now all you have to do is ask her.”
“Do you think she’ll say yes?” asked Anita, giddy again. It had been like this for weeks, as her emotions bobbed up and down. Exhausting Marty. Exhausting herself. “I think I’ll call her right now.”
“It’s six forty-five in the morning, sweetie,” Marty pointed out. “She’s more likely to be enthusiastic if you wait until at least nine.”
Catherine was lying in bed wearing her buckwheat-pillow eyeshades, willing the day to turn back time and give her more snoozing minutes. When she was in her twenties, even after she realized that marrying Adam had been a huge mistake, she just had so much stamina. They went to galas and charity auctions and she’d be up with the dawn, ready to exercise and dole out a tiny amount of breakfast. Now, one late night and she was wiped out. Ready to sleep in, although it was technically a workday and she might consider putting in an appearance at The Phoenix. The extra summer help she’d hired could more than handle the two sides of the store, though, and that eased the pressure on Catherine considerably. She peeked out one eye from underneath the mask, looking around the bedroom that had once been Stan and Anita’s. With its taupe walls and its pencil-post bed that required tiny steps at the foot in order to climb into the luxurious Frette linens. Another reason to love Italy, she told herself. Buying up all the sheets.
She sat up on an elbow, uncertain. Catherine really wished James would let Dakota go to Italy. It would make it easier for her to tell everyone that’s why she wanted to go, as well. Instead of saying that she felt like she was caught in a life that was more of the same, day after day. Instead of saying she wanted to meet her phone crush, Marco, and see his family vineyard. That sounded like fun. Another anecdote in the annals of Catherine Anderson, dilettante and fly-by-night. Honestly, a person running a wineshop did not need to fly off and taste at the source. She was just doing what she always did: punctuating her life with splashes of excitement. Trying to give herself a jolt. The store. The wineshop. Travel. Cute boyfriends. A new house that needed refurbishing. The thriller novel for which she hadn’t written a word in weeks. So what next? Because, frankly, Catherine was running out of things to do.
And then Anita showed up at the door.
Catherine was still in her pajamas, her hair flat from sleep, when she heard the buzzer. She padded through the apartment in her bare feet to find an excited Anita, dressed in yet another light-colored linen suit, practically drowning under the weight of a binder.
“Here,” she said, thrusting the green book at Catherine as she marched in the door. Her eyes were shining. “Get up, sleepyhead.”
“It’s like, still . . . morning,” mumbled Catherine.
“I’m going to make us some good coffee this time,” said Anita. “Because now I have a plan.”
“You’ve picked a date?”
Anita laughed. “No,” she said. “But I’ve picked a bridesmaid.”
“Good,” said Catherine. “Dakota will do a great job.”
“Well, yes,” said Anita. “But I’d also like to ask someone else. Someone who’s been very patient with me. You.”
“Me?” repeated Catherine. “I’ve never been a bridesmaid before, you know.”
“Who cares?” said Anita. “This book has a fact sheet, and frankly, you have a lot of responsibilities ahead of you. For one thing, you’re supposed to be encouraging me to set a date.”
“’Cause I haven’t been doing that already?” asked Catherine aloud, though Anita was already banging away in the kitchen. Catherine practically crawled over to the door, she was moving so slowly, and peered at Anita bustling around.
“I’m your Georgia fill-in,” said Catherine matter-of-factly. “And I’m honored to do it.”
“Georgia what, dear?”
“I’m taking what would have been Georgia
’s place.”
Anita stopped her whirl of activity to gaze directly at Catherine. “No one will ever fill in for Georgia,” she said firmly as Catherine’s lip began to tremble. What a loser I am, Catherine thought to herself, to still burst into tears after all this time.
“If we were lucky enough to still have her physically in our lives, then I’d be lucky enough to have three beautiful girls standing up for me,” said Anita, discreetly looking away to pretend she didn’t notice Catherine was crying. “As the situation stands, I’ll just be able to have two. But what a pair you and Dakota will be.” She continued to make the coffee—a far better brew than Catherine had ever achieved—humming along to herself. Sometimes just taking one step in a direction—any direction—was enough to make things feel as though life was getting back on track.
There were a lot of changes going on all around, from Peri’s renovation of the shop to Darwin’s babies to Lucie’s career adventures to Dakota’s insistence that she was in love from a distance. Not to mention Anita’s wedding and Catherine’s . . . bridesmaiding. Everyone had something new and finally she did, too. She had her official proof that she was absolutely and forever a core member of the club.
The water was running and she was just about to step into the shower when the doorman buzzed.
“Nathan Lowenstein, ma’am,” he said.
“Uh, five minutes, thanks,” said Catherine, looking down at her naked body and rooting around to find something easy to pull on. Her eyes fell on the workout gear in her top drawer and in an instant, Catherine had jumped into yoga capris and a small T-shirt. She ran a brush through her hair and half jogged the several steps to the front door, realizing as she did so that she forgot to put on a bra. It was one thing when she was trying to flaunt. But Catherine did not appreciate being caught out without makeup or being fully dressed.
“Hello,” she said curtly when she answered the door. “You just missed your mother—she left about twenty minutes ago.”
“Too bad,” said Nathan. “But I really came by to see the apartment, like we talked about the other day at that party?”
“Right,” said Catherine. “Not a problem, but I thought you were going to call first.”
“Well, I was in the neighborhood, meeting up with Marty a bit later,” he said. Nathan leaned in the door frame, giving her a teasing, lopsided grin. “Aren’t you even going to invite me into my own home? Or, I mean, my childhood home.”
Catherine stepped back immediately and let him inside.
“You’ll find it’s very much the same,” she said. “Only a few things are mine. Otherwise, it’s entirely your mother’s taste.”
“I can see that,” said Nathan, easing off a light windbreaker and tossing it over the end of the sofa. He walked to the large windows overlooking the park. “What a view. Even better than I remember.”
He was wearing a polo shirt, Catherine noticed, and his arms were tanned and well toned. There was no mistaking the fact that Nathan was a look-alike for his father in the photos Anita had shared. He was a good-looking man. With a nice ass, Catherine thought, as she stared at his jeans-clad backside.
Nathan whirled around and clapped his hands together. “Ready to give me that tour you promised?” he asked.
“I, uh, I’m sure you can find your own way around,” said Catherine. “There’s coffee in the kitchen.”
“Okay, then,” he said. “I think I’ll take a look around. Where’s your bedroom?”
The secret to making things work out well, thought Nathan to himself as he made his way to the deli, was to always keep people guessing. That’s what he planned to do with Marty next. Catherine, on the other hand, had been easy. In fact, he quite liked her, which was something he hadn’t expected at all. Nathan had anticipated the apartment being redecorated, but to his surprise, much of the old style was intact. Even that long hickory dining table his mother had always fretted over. Catherine had simply been living there, as she explained to him, because she hadn’t been sure where to go next after her divorce and Anita didn’t want the apartment to sit empty.
She looked younger without any makeup on, he’d noticed, and she seemed almost shy without it. Her confidence mask.
He’d clearly interrupted her from her morning routine, which is what he’d intended, but he’d been pleasantly surprised to note—discreetly, of course—the way her clothes fit her body. Her obvious lack of underwear. He could never imagine Rhea coming to the door dressed that way, and it excited him. It hadn’t taken much to convince Catherine she should invite him and Anita and even his mother’s boyfriend to come over for a meal this week. “Do takeout,” he suggested, “it’ll be fun. Like old times for us.” He shook her hand when he left, then leaned in for a quick peck on the cheek, one hand on her shoulder. A little pushy, to be sure. But now he knew she definitely wasn’t wearing a bra.
eighteen
Marty drummed his fingers on a table in his deli as he waited for Nathan to make an appearance, a newspaper untouched at his side. They’d been scheduled to meet over forty-five minutes ago. So far Anita’s fifty-three-year-old son had managed to upset Anita with long discussions—in Marty and Anita’s own living room, no less—about why she was making a terrible mistake. He even played his trump card: invoking the name of Stan.
“Dad would be horrified if he knew you were marrying another man,” shouted Nathan. Marty hadn’t needed to eavesdrop to hear him, sitting in the bedroom pretending to watch television. He’d excused himself to give mother and son some privacy.
“I don’t think so, dear,” Anita had said, though Marty had to strain to hear her voice, which was quiet and thin. She hadn’t been sleeping well at all since she’d learned her oldest son was arriving. And he was, Nathan informed her, a proxy for all of his brothers.
“I know what Dad would have expected of you,” he said.
“Nathan,” she said. “You may not realize this but I knew your father a good deal better than you ever did, or will. We discussed all sorts of things, none of which are any of your business. And my marriage is the same: my business, not yours.”
Marty had half a mind to step into the living room and teach the punk kid a lesson. Who flies all that way just to aggravate their own mother? Marty had always looked after his parents, both of them, and he treated them with respect. It was impossible to believe that such a petulant man could be Anita’s son. She’d merely raised them, she had already explained to Marty; she couldn’t control them. And especially not now that the boys were middle-aged men.
Though one might expect that a middle-aged man with a successful business knew a thing or two about being punctual. Marty was just about ready to call it a day and head home—leaving one of his employees to manage the store—when a whistling Nathan sauntered in, carrying a windbreaker over his shoulder.
“Coffee, thanks,” he said to the employee behind the counter before turning toward Marty, sitting near the wall that was really a refrigerated glass case. “Oh, hey, Marty, I didn’t see you there,” he said, his tone indicating a complete lack of surprise. “Sorry to make you wait.”
Ah, so he wanted to play games. Not a problem, thought Marty.
“We had a time to meet,” said Marty. “And it passed.” He stood up and started to leave the deli, waving a good-bye to his workers.
“Hey, hold up there, buddy,” said Nathan. “I have a few things I’d like to discuss with you.”
“Could have fooled me.”
“Look, we need to get a few things out there.” Nathan took a deep breath. “I don’t want to start off on the wrong foot. And I was more than happy to meet you here instead of some sort of neutral place. I don’t think we have to be adversaries.”
“Adversaries are people who are fighting over something, Nathan,” explained Marty. “You and I don’t have a fight. I have a relationship that makes you angry, but that’s not the same thing.”
“Please sit,” requested Nathan. “And I’ll do the same.”
&nbs
p; Marty pulled out a chair, and sat back.
“I’m glad we’re here,” Nathan began again. “Because we have some issues, if that word is okay with you.”
“I would agree with that,” said Marty. “But I think they’re more your issues than mine. You are Anita’s son, and she loves you and her grandkids very much. All of this commotion is very upsetting.”
“Yes,” said Nathan. “And she’s made it abundantly clear that she plans to marry you whether I approve or not.”
“Yes,” said Marty. “I know.”
“So I think there’s a certain matter, then, a protection we need to discuss.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
“As you know, my mother is a woman of substance,” Nathan said. “Significant substance.”
“Yes, she’s a truly quality person,” said Marty amiably. “But let’s get down to brass tacks, shall we?” He reached underneath the newspaper and brought forth a thick envelope.
“A prenup,” said Marty, tossing the envelope to Nathan across the small table.
“Exactly,” said Nathan. “Though I wouldn’t have expected you to be so accommodating. Our lawyers could have put this together.”
“Not at all,” said Marty. “I preferred to have my own lawyer do it. A man’s got to look after himself. And one never knows what could happen.”
“Right.” Nathan spoke slowly, as though not quite comprehending. He opened the envelope.
“You get your mother to sign that and we’ll all be squared away,” continued Marty. “After all, what with this building and the few brownstones I’ve picked up when the market’s been low, I have a nice little chunk of Manhattan. And I’d hate to see any sort of confusion if something should happen to me.”
“What?” Nathan made a face. “Are you asking my mother to sign a prenup to protect you? Like she’s some sort of gold digger?”
“Who talks about their mother like that?” said Marty, shuddering. “I never suggested any such thing. I merely said it is appropriate to protect oneself. You’ll see, if you check the papers, that your mother doesn’t get a penny should we divorce or if I die. And I think you’d agree that’s the best all around.”