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Kate grabbed her arm and led her through the toy-strewn house. At the kitchen, Kate paused just long enough to pour two glasses of white wine and then they went outside to the chairs positioned in the grass. The quiet gurgling noise of the waves took Tully back more than twenty years, to those nights they used to sneak out and sit by the river, talking about boys and sharing smokes.
Tully sat down in one of the weathered Adirondack chairs and spread the knitted blanket over her. After all these years and no doubt countless washings, it still smelled of Mrs. M. s menthol cigarettes and perfume.
Kate drew up her blanketed knees and rested her chin on the bumpy summit, then looked at Tully. "Talk," she said.
"What should we talk about?"
"How long have we been best friends?"
"Since David Cassidy was groovy. "
"And you think I cant tell when somethings wrong?"
Tully sat back, sipping her wine. The truth was that she wanted to talk about this—it was, after all, part of the reason shed flown all the way across the country—and yet, now that she was here with her best friend again, she didnt know how to start. Worse than that, she felt like an idiot complaining about what was missing in her life. She had so much.
"I thought you were crazy to give up your career. For four years, every time I called you Marah was screaming in the background. I kept thinking Id kill myself if that were my life, but you sounded frustrated and pissed off and amazingly happy. I could never quite get it. "
"Someday youll know what its like. "
"No, I wont. Im almost forty, Kate. " She finally looked at Kate. "I guess I was the crazy one, wanting nothing but the career. "
"Its a hell of a career. "
"Yeah. But sometimes . . . its not enough. I know thats a greedy thing to say, but Im tired of working eighteen hours a day and coming home to an empty house. "
"You can change your life, you know. But you have to really want to. "
"Thank you, Obi-Wan. "
Kate stared out at the waves slapping the shore. "In the tabloids last week there was a sixty-year-old woman who gave birth. "
Tully laughed. "You are such a bitch. "
"I know. Now come on, poor little mega-rich girl, Ill show you to your room. "
"Im going to be sorry I complained, arent I?"
"Oh, yeah. "
They walked through the darkened house. At the guest bedroom door, Kate turned to her. "No more spoiling Marah, okay? She already thinks you hung the moon. "
"Come on, Katie. I made more than two million dollars last year, what am I supposed to do with it all?"
"Give it to charity. Just no more pink limos, okay?"
"You are no fun whatsoever, you know that?"
It wasnt until much later, when Tully lay on the bumpy, sagging mattress of the hide-a-bed, staring out the window at the Big Dipper, that she realized she hadnt asked Kate about her own life.
Kate stared at the calendar that hung on the wall by her refrigerator. It seemed impossible to believe that time was passing so quickly, but the proof was right there in front of her. It was November of 2002, and the past fourteen months had changed the world. In September of last year terrorists had flown airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing thousands. Another plane had been hijacked and ultimately crashed, leaving no survivors. Car and suicide bombers had become part of the nightly news; the search for weapons of mass destruction had begun. Words like Al-Qaeda and Taliban and Pakistan came up in every conversation, were repeated on every broadcast.
Fear changed everyone and everything, and yet, as always, life went on. Hour by hour, day by day, while politicians and military personnel were looking for bombs and terrorists, and while the Justice Department was tearing down Enrons papery walls, families went on with their ordinary lives. Kate continued to run her errands and raise her children and love her husband. If she held on to all of them a little more tightly and kept them closer to home, everyone understood: the world wasnt as safe as it had been before.
Now Thanksgiving was a week away and Christmas lurked just around the corner.
It was the holiday season, the time of year that turned women into card-carrying split personalities. Torn between the joy of the season and the amount of work that joy required, Kate often had trouble slowing down, remembering to savor the precious moments. There was baking to do—for the school parties, for the ballet bake sale, for donations at Helper House—and shopping, of course. As magical as Bainbridge Island was, when it came time to do serious gift-combing, one was reminded forcibly that this was a body of land surrounded by water. Thus, malls and department stores were far away. She felt like a mountain climber sometimes, setting out for a vertical ascent without oxygen; the summit was Nordstrom. When you had three kids, it took time to pick out their presents, and time was in short supply.
Now, as Kate sat in the drivers seat of her car, parked in the first position in the carpool lane, she began her Christmas list. Shed only gotten a few items down when the bell rang and kids poured out of the middle school.
