“It’ll be the biggest thing we’ve done,” Cathy had insisted. No matter that they had to figure out how to get there and back, and not tell either of their parents.
“We’re old enough to know what we want,” she’d said.
Georgia agreed.
Bess and Tom Walker would not approve of the waste, and Georgia knew she’d have to lie and say she found the dress at the local shop, hoping her mother would be too busy or disinterested to question. But Cathy was adamant that no other girl have the same dress she was going to wear. The winter formal was the biggest night of the semester, she’d said, and she wanted to make sure everyone—especially the guys—noticed her.
Not that Georgia didn’t want to be noticed herself. But she had other things on her mind: She had her life all planned out, and nothing—and she meant nothing—was ever going to make her deviate from her schedule. College, New York, career. Maybe marriage and kids, someday, a long way away. But for now her goal was to leave this town far behind her. Cathy, for all you could say about her, felt exactly the same way. She was going to be a writer.
Oh, Georgia dated, for sure, but mostly it was the boys from the school paper, where she was the editor, and they spent as much time kissing as they did arguing over whether there would ever be a woman anchoring the evening news on her own. But Cathy was different, always preferring to be somebody’s girlfriend. Oh, she was smart, especially if you could get her away from boys long enough to actually get her to share the thoughts forming in her head. But mostly it was all about boys. She wasn’t any better hanging out at Georgia’s house, enjoying the puppy-dog way Georgia’s brother Donny made up excuses to sit on the beanbag in the rec room and pretend to chat with them. He’d even made Cathy a mix tape, spending hours choosing from his collection of records and cassettes of The Police and AC/DC and—just so she wouldn’t confuse his intentions—a ballad or two from Journey.
“You shouldn’t encourage him,” Georgia told her. “He’s two years younger than us. That’s gross.”
“Not when he’s twenty-eight and I’m thirty,” Cathy replied. “Then he’ll be sexy.”
“Still gross,” said Georgia. “You have nothing in common with Donny anyway. And it’s just plain weird.”
She didn’t say that she sometimes hung out with her brother in his room, listening to that collection of music on his stereo, or that he sometimes did her chores for her so she could spend more hours putting together the school paper. Instead, she made fun of the way he planted his own patch of garden, experimenting with new seeds and farm-fresh fertilizer. Even though, secretly, she thought it was kind of cool.
“Well, I don’t need to have anything in common with guys,” Cathy replied, as Georgia rolled her eyes. “I let my pretty smile do the talking.” She showed Georgia an article torn from the pages of a magazine that advised her to do just that.
Still, Cathy could write well, and she was fun. Plus, she really knew how to make a person look good, managing to find blue stockings and blue shoes and even blue mascara to match Georgia’s dress.
She liked the way she seemed different tonight, her eyes outlined in thickly glamorous eyeliner and her bangs finally—for once—staying high and in place. Note to self, thought Georgia, she ought to buy Cathy’s brand of hair spray.
The excitement of getting dressed up had seeped into her system, and she’d splurged on a set of brooches to share with Cathy. It was either butterflies or turtles; she leaned heavily in the direction of amphibians but figured that wouldn’t quite work with Cathy’s interpretation of elegance.
“What a great idea,” Cathy had said when Georgia showed her the pin. “No one will have them.”
Georgia liked that idea, of being separate and special.
“I heard once that if you look at something and think, I will always remember, then you will,” said Cathy. “We’re like princesses today.”
“We’ll always remember the fancy pins I bought out of a catalog?” Georgia looked doubtful. “And we’re hardly royalty.”
“Noooo,” said Cathy. “We’ll always remember the night we looked so beautiful and sophisticated. Your hair looks really awesome with all that crimping. And who knows where we’ll be in twenty years, right?”
“You’ll be living in the suburbs and driving a station wagon, and I’ll be editing The New York Times,” said Georgia. She suspected that most of their classmates were likely not moving too far from home, and sometimes she feared she would end up right back there. She loved Bess and Tom. But it was as though their values belonged to some other world. Georgia had places to go and choices to make, and she wasn’t about to let sentimentality get in her way. She made a goofy face; tonight was not the time for seriousness. “We might not even know each other,” she said, attempting a clumsy British accent. “We’ll be too famous.”
“Even then we’ll never not know each other, Georgia,” said Cathy, as she stood only inches from the bathroom mirror, reapplying shiny pearlized lip gloss. “It’s just something I know.”
“Well, I can tell you for a fact that I won’t wear panty hose.” She lifted her skirt high enough to show Cathy the run in her prized blue stockings.
“A cinch,” said Cathy, snapping open her purse to locate a bottle of nail polish. “Just put this on and let it dry.”
“Thanks,” said Georgia. “I’m glad you know what you’re doing.”
“Don’t I always?” Cathy said, tapping her head. “Stick with me, G. I know how it’s going to all turn out.”
chapter five
KC waved at Catherine as she crossed Broadway, walking swiftly against the light. She was mere inches from the yellow cabs zipping down the street but appeared to neither notice nor care.
“Hiya,” she said, puffs of cloudy breath escaping from her mouth. The thermometer had taken a dip that morning, and snow was expected. Accordingly, KC had wrapped herself in an oversized puffy black coat and a pink-and-lime striped snow cap with the flaps pulled down over her ears and a pom-pom flailing around on top.
“You look ridiculous,” said Catherine. “Did you make that hat?” Although KC had improved her knitting skills over the years, even making baby gifts for Darwin last year, she was hardly committed to the craft.
“You’re just jealous,” said KC.
“No, really,” said Catherine. “You look like a ten-year-old stuck in a fifty-three-year-old’s body. It’s disturbing.”
KC laughed. “I like it,” she said. “But mainly it keeps my ears warm. Who cares? I’m not like you, sacrificing myself to frostbite just to show off my new hairdo.”
Catherine instinctively put her hands to her head. “It’s just a bit of color.”
“Yes, you’re going blonder for winter,” said KC drily. “I can see that.” She headed into the movie theater where the two had purchased tickets to a foreign-language film. Getting together for a weekend outing was something the two single women enjoyed, each finding in the other a welcome partner to check out a new exhibit at the museum or luxuriate at the spa. This afternoon, Catherine had made the movie selection, and the women rode an escalator to the screens in the basement level.
“I should have known.” KC groaned as she looked at her ticket. “An Italian love story. What I could use is a good, bleak Swedish drama right about now.”
“But KC, December is special,” insisted Catherine, balancing her coat, gloves, and a small bag of popcorn without butter. “Now is when we feel love most of all.”
“Not everyone, bucko,” she said. “Did you read that in a greeting card?”
“Marco is coming in a few days earlier than planned,” admitted Catherine, who’d made sure to get the goose-down pillows she knew he liked for her bedroom. Although he’d be staying at the hotel with the family, she wanted him to feel right at home whenever they found a chance to sneak off to her Hudson Valley bungalow. She was eager to get physical, of course. But she was also as enthused to just be able to snuggle next to him, her feet in his lap, and have hi
m listen to every thought she’d had—about the holidays, about her hair, about the state of the world’s antiquities—since the last moment they’d spoken.
“That explains some of it,” said KC, considering and then rejecting malted milk balls. “I wouldn’t mind all this lovey-dovey agenda if it was Dakota: She’s young. But the three of you are Girls Gone Wild: Love-Sick Style. Peri is moping around that her eggs are cracking or some ridiculousness, Anita’s stuck on the wedding channel, and you keep mooning about like a puppy. And you want to know why?”
“I’m sure not,” said Catherine, running through in her mind all the things she needed to do before tomorrow.
“It’s the presents,” said KC, plopping herself down in her seat without even unzipping her coat. “You’ve been seduced by consumerism.”
“You’re going to sweat to death with the heat on,” observed Catherine. “There, that would be a different ending for you.”
KC continued talking as if she hadn’t heard a word.
“Everyone goes all shopping crazy in December, trying to find the just-right gifts for everyone, from people they like to people they work for to people they really, really hate. It’s insane. It’s shopping as punishment. Enforced, fakey frivolity.”
Catherine continued to listen as she piled up coat, hat, gloves.
“But all this shopping has made you think about wedding gifts, and that’s made you think about weddings. And there you go.”
“Love as commercial enterprise?”
“Pretty much,” announced KC, holding down Catherine’s seat so she could settle in.
“I like the season,” said Catherine. “That’s all. No psychological analysis required.”
What she liked, Catherine knew, was the possibility of reminding Marco just why he liked to be alone with her. Though she’d made certain when they talked last night to let him know she was all good with the status quo. No need for him to misunderstand her enthusiasm and think she wanted to take their commitment up a notch. He hadn’t even asked her to marry him and she’d already said no multiple times. After all, communication was a good thing, she’d learned.
“You didn’t used to like the season, Cat,” KC pointed out in a low voice. “You used to be just as indifferent as I am.”
“You call this indifferent? Whoa,” said Catherine. “I have a feeling something else is afoot. Does our dear KC finally wish to settle down again?”
“No, absolutely not,” she said, finally lifting off her earflaps and removing the hat to reveal her short, dyed red hair spiking up due to static cling. “All other months, I feel fine. I like my work, I like my apartment, I even like my friends. Present company excepted, of course.”
“Naturally,” said Catherine. “I am insufferable.”
“But then whammo, the holiday season explodes and all around it’s family this and family that,” said KC. “No one celebrates the singleton holiday. No one writes a song about eating Chinese food and catching up on old magazines on Christmas.”
“Uh, you’re Jewish,” pointed out Catherine, lifting a hand to smooth out KC’s hair and then reconsidering.
“Precisely my point!” shouted KC, getting shushed by other moviegoers even though the previews hadn’t even started. “Christmas isn’t even my holiday. And it still overshadows everything. It’s the soundtrack to the month of December, and sometimes, quite frankly, it can be a little much. Jingle schmingle.”
Catherine sat quietly for a moment, glancing at KC, who sat with her arms folded. Not so long ago, she wouldn’t have paid a great deal of attention to another person’s distress. Now she tried to listen to what was not being said.
“Do you think something will change with the club once Anita gets married?”
“Anita? No,” said KC. “She already has her rhythm with Marty, and it includes time for all of us. The rest of you? Well, you can see how hard it’s been for Darwin over the last year.”
“True,” said Catherine. “She’s hit-or-miss when we get together. Too much going on with the babies.”
“And that’s just the first wave. You’re all in it, so you can’t see,” insisted KC. “Changes are coming for the group. They’re already happening. I can feel it in my bones.”
“So, you’re psychic now? ’Cause, as you know, things have a way of being unpredictable.”
“It doesn’t take a crystal ball to see what’s going on,” said KC. “Already Lucie and Darwin live with their families out in the burbs. Peri is obsessed with that life, convinced it’s going to answer some deep questions within her.”
“Sometimes work doesn’t fill every need,” ventured Catherine, who figured KC would listen even less than Dakota on that subject.
“I’m not saying it has to,” KC said with impatience. Some moments Catherine chose to ignore what she knew all too well, she thought. “But there’s a lot of programming about what it means to be women, and not everyone is going to have that life. The absence of what you’re taught to want can make it hard. Even when you’re the one doing the choosing.”
Catherine looked—really looked—at KC. Full on.
“Is it difficult for you?”
“I got over that business a long time ago,” huffed KC. “I don’t want to be responsible for anyone but myself. But it’s as though we’ve been able to live in our own bubble, and now reality is closing in. Dakota is going to finish cooking school soon and get started on her knitting café. I’ll be like the old sofa from the 1960s that your parents couldn’t bear to throw away, the leftover furniture that doesn’t fit the decor. The single friend among all the couples.”
“Walker and Daughter isn’t going anywhere,” said Catherine. “And neither are any of us.”
“You don’t know what’s coming,” KC said as the lights went down, lowering her voice now. “Just when you think you do is when you’ll be surprised. My fear now is that I’m going to lose all of my friends soon, as they desperately reinvent themselves as Stepford wives.”
“No one other than Anita is getting married,” reassured Catherine. “I don’t even know if I’d want to get married again. Besides, I think the club can only handle one big event a year.”
“Don’t tell me you never fantasize about Marco and getting married and stomping on grapes together,” insisted KC, crunching on a generous helping of popcorn. “You’d get two free kids thrown in the deal. With accents.”
“Yeah, maybe, but I don’t know,” said Catherine, heat rushing to her face. Was she really so certain, she wondered? Because she had been dreaming about Marco often, and not just when she was sleeping. The point was that she thought about being with him, and almost as frequently she daydreamed about having tea parties with his daughter or playing video games with his son, Roberto. Even though she knew they were too old for that. She didn’t just imagine romantic dinners but also boisterous family gatherings where all would sit around the table late into the night, telling stories and joking with one another, Allegra nodding off as the hours wore on. Content simply to be together.
Catherine had purchased all sorts of clothes and books for Allegra, wrapping them herself in shiny gold paper imprinted with red Santas and then tearing it all off and bringing down her gifts to the specialty paper shop to have them professionally wrapped and bowed. She purchased tickets to The Nutcracker, not sure if she should suggest an outing with only Allegra or with the entire family. In the end, she bought ten tickets. Just in case.
She’d set up a system with Marco recently, that he’d call her phone and let it ring once, and then they’d chat over the Internet, able to see each other. Some days—just a few—she didn’t even touch up her makeup before switching on her computer to talk.
These were the things she liked about Marco: He liked to watch her eat, lots and lots of food. He didn’t think she was silly to pick up writing again after all this time, and then told her what he thought could be improved. (She’d been mad about that, at first.) He often told her she was beautiful and then would complimen
t her hands or her laugh. He once said he thought women looked better as they aged. He was smart. He talked about his first wife—Roberto and Allegra’s mother, Cecilia—in a natural way, as though she was still part of the family, just in some different place. He didn’t find it unusual that she did the same with Georgia.
“We shouldn’t forget these parts of our lives,” he often said. “We should celebrate our luck at having such wonderful people who have loved us.”
Not to mention that he liked to kiss for hours.
Of course, Marco had flaws, possessing a bit of a temper and being sulky when things didn’t go his way. But his moods passed quickly, and Catherine, he once pointed out, reacted in exactly the same way. They were simpatico, he said. And tremendously good-looking, he’d added with a wink.
But there were also the obvious problems, the main issue being that he lived with his family across the ocean in another country. And Catherine was finally comfortable with her independence; she had flirted with the idea of moving to Italy but held back, realizing she would once again be making sacrifices, would find herself on uneven footing.
“Oh,” she said now to her friend, “I don’t think it always works out quite so easily.”
“No,” agreed KC. “Real life never does.” She leaned over. “The holidays can make you feel left out. It’s the dirty secret of December. I just don’t want to be lost in the background, jumping up and down.”
“Don’t worry, KC, you’re too loud to ignore,” said Catherine, waving off the shushers behind her.
“Why do you think I make so much noise then?” KC replied.
It was very possible, Darwin realized as she graded student essays while the kids napped, to have too much togetherness. Not with her husband, Dan—she felt she saw even less of him as they juggled their work lives to ensure that someone was always around to look after the twins. No, with her very best friend, Lucie, whom she adored. Problem was, she couldn’t go a day, barely an hour, without running into her.