That Summer by Jennifer Weiner (read more books .txt) 📕

and inconstant; flighty things who could quit at any moment to have a baby. Older women were barely seen at all. “Ms. Starling is based in New York City,” read her bio. There were no details about where the other Diana had grown up, or any hobbies she had, or if she had a spouse or a family.

Daisy had continued her search on social media. The DS Consulting Twitter account specialized in bland retweets of Wall Street Journal and Business Today stories and Contact us today to see what we can do for your business! It also seemed to delete its tweets after six weeks, which didn’t give her much of a history to peruse. Diana Starling was on Instagram, but her account was private, the picture it displayed a version of the headshot on the corporate website. Same with Facebook. The only information Daisy was able to glean came from the misdirected emails, which suggested a life of revelry and glamorous destinations; parties and dinners and girls’ nights out, although the other Diana had been quick to assure her that this was not the case. I promise you, these are work obligations disguised as parties.

“Regional train one eighty-six making station stops in Trenton, Metro Park, Newark, and Penn Station, New York. All aboard!” called the conductor. Daisy brushed croissant crumbs off her top and got in line. When she boarded the train, she found two empty seats in the quiet car. An excellent sign. She sat, settling her purse in her lap and wondering if she would look hopelessly dowdy next to the other Diana. She’d blown out her hair, to the best of her abilities, and packed a black knit jersey tunic to wear over leggings and black boots, along with a necklace made of gumball-sized blue glass beads that the salesgirl at J.Crew told her was a statement piece. As a size fourteen, her options were limited, but even if they hadn’t been, fashion had never been her thing, and she was too old to reinvent herself as a fashionista.

“All tickets, please!” called the conductor. Daisy handed over her ticket, which the conductor scanned with some kind of chirping electronic device that looked like a phaser from Star Trek. It gave Daisy a pang, remembering how the conductors used to use a hole punch, leaving the car littered with tiny circles of paper. She had half a dozen paperbacks with old Amtrak tickets as bookmarks, relics of the trips she’d made to the city with her husband and her daughter. That made her feel even worse, realizing that she was now one of those annoying women, prattling on about how much better things used to be.

I’m getting old, she thought, and settled back with a sigh. She had a book, Alice Hoffman’s latest, and there was always her phone, with its games and social media apps and the entirety of the world’s collected knowledge. She could sort through her photos, which she’d been meaning to do forever; she could email the school’s decorating committee, which she had recently joined, to see if anyone had any great ideas for giving Melville’s all-purpose room the feel of a glamorous destination (their theme was “A Night at the Opera.” Hal’s single, non-helpful suggestion had been hiring a fat lady to sing).

But she didn’t want to read, or scroll through Facebook, and see all the other happy families, the other moms and dads and kids posing on their spring-break vacations. When she’d told Hal about her plans, he’d given her a distracted nod, and barely seemed to be listening. He’d been in a mood ever since their return trip from Emlen, and she wasn’t sure whether it had to do with his only child getting kicked out of the prep school he’d attended or if this was lingering sorrow over his classmate’s death.

Daisy shifted in her seat as the train rounded a curve. The night before she’d asked, one more time, if Beatrice wanted to come with her. She’d found her daughter sitting in the corner, in one of her long, drab dresses, knitting by the light of a candle on her dresser. She looked, Daisy thought, like an eighteenth-century consumptive.

“You sure you don’t want to come with me?” she’d asked.

“No, thanks,” Beatrice replied, shaking her head. She was murmuring knit one, purl two under her breath, and Daisy could tell she was annoyed at the interruption. The electric kettle they’d ordered her at school was steaming on her dresser, next to a biscuit tin and a box of PG Tips teabags. A tiny swashbuckling mouse was posed on Beatrice’s desk. It had a little silvery sword in its hand, clever black boots on its feet, and a black mask over its eyes.

“This is so realistic!” Daisy had marveled, picking it up for a closer look. “Is this real fur?”

“Well, yeah, it’s real fur. It’s a real mouse.”

Daisy, who’d assumed she’d been handling something made of wool, had screamed, and dropped the thing. Well, maybe she’d actually (unintentionally!) thrown it a little. And then she’d had to wrestle it away from Lester, who’d tried to eat it.

“Hey, I made that!” Beatrice said indignantly.

“Sorry,” Daisy said. Her voice sounded faint. “Are you… did it…”

“It’s from a pet store.”

“Was it…” She couldn’t think of how to ask if the mouse was dead or alive when Beatrice obtained it. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.

“Don’t worry. I’m being very sanitary.” Daisy looked down at her daughter’s desk. Once, there’d been a stack of vintage Nancy Drew books there, a collection Daisy had painstakingly assembled a book or two at a time. There’d been a pair of lamps with pink polka-dotted shades and a jewelry box that had once been Daisy’s, with a ballerina who spun to “The Blue Danube Waltz” when you lifted the lid. Now there were bags of cotton batting and cotton balls, loops of fine-gauge wire, scissors and pliers and scalpels, all lined up neatly in a row,