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

went to park it. Over the weekend, Hal had bought spotlights, which shone on the front of their house, illuminating the half-circle of the driveway and the path to the front door (and, Daisy privately thought, making the place look especially imposing). On Saturday, he’d installed the lights, and he’d spent Sunday pacing around the ground floor, frowning at a spot on the pale-gold and green oriental rug that Lester had scratched, rearranging the ornamental birch logs in the fireplace, and studying the one wall in the kitchen that Daisy had insisted on painting a moody shade of navy blue, a contrast to the rest of the walls, which were tastefully taupe. She’d wanted to hang colorful plates and pieces of pottery over the doors to the pantry, but Hal told her it was “too busy”; she’d wanted to keep her ceramic canisters of flour and sugar and beans on the counter, but he’d said it made the kitchen look cluttered; she’d wanted… God, the truth was that Daisy could barely remember what she’d wanted. Only that she’d liked color and coziness, like her navy-blue wall or her row of canisters, and Hal had not.

“Phil! Ellen!” she heard Hal say from the vicinity of the entryway, where there was a delicate pie-crust table (his choice) and, above it, a towering mirror with an ornate gold frame (hers). “Come on in and get comfortable.”

Thank God for name tags, Daisy thought, as her house filled up. She plotted a course from one end of the living room all the way to the staircase, stopping to introduce herself and welcome her guests to her home.

“This punch is delicious!” said a woman in a white hat embellished with pink flowers. Her nametag ID’ed her as Eleanor Crane. Her flushed cheeks suggested she was not on her first cup of punch. “What’s in it?”

“Muddled mint, bourbon, simple syrup…”

“Delicious!” Eleanor Crane repeated, before Daisy could complete the list of ingredients. Peering at Daisy, she said, “You give cooking lessons, right? You’ll have to teach me how to do it.”

“You can bid on me, if you’re interested.” Daisy nodded toward the sunroom. She and Hal had moved out all the furniture, massing Daisy’s plants in the corner, and set up tables for the auction items, displaying the prizes that were suitable for viewing, posting pictures of the ones that were not. Melville parents and alums had offered stays at vacation homes in Avalon, Ventnor, Martha’s Vineyard, and Jackson Hole; tickets to various concerts and sporting events, and various bespoke experiences with, or from, local luminaries (dinner for six with the Philadelphia Inquirer food critic; a night behind the scenes with a local TV weatherman; a chance to spend an afternoon with former governor Ed Rendell, or to have your name in a local novelist’s next work). There were restaurant gift certificates and boutique gift certificates, personal-trainer sessions and spa days. Daisy herself had donated a three-hour cooking lesson. The last time she’d checked, only one person had bid on her services, and, to make it worse, she’d recognized Hal’s handwriting.

“I’ll do that!” said Ellie. Daisy thanked her and moved on to the next group, realizing, as she listened in, that everyone had already made summer plans for their children. She’d heard about Mimi Simonton’s Shakespeare camp and Marta Wells’s lacrosse camp. She found out that Everly Broadnax would be playing tennis in Florida and Charlie O’Day would be doing a language-immersion program in Seville. She sipped her drink and smiled, drifting away before any of the Main Line mommies in their cocktail dresses or the dads in ties could ask how Beatrice was planning to spend her summer, before she’d be forced to say the words “taxidermied mice” out loud. “Beatrice goes to sailing camp near our home in Cape Cod,” was the line she planned on using. It sounded fancy as long as she didn’t mention that “sailing camp” wasn’t even a proper sleepaway camp, but instead just a day camp run out of a single cramped boathouse on Commercial Street, the same place Hal had gone when he’d been Bea’s age. She also left out the fact that Beatrice had only consented to go three days a week.

In spite of her best efforts, she found herself at Hal’s side, drawn into a conversation with the Byrnes. Mr. Byrne was compact and fit-looking, with silvery hair and a matching goatee. Mrs. Byrne’s short, sleeveless, shift-style silk dress revealed a body that suggested many hours spent in the spinning studio. They matched, Daisy thought, and looked at her husband, his body still trim, his hair still mostly dark, his face, with a few more lines and wrinkles and sunspots, still the same handsome, strong-looking face she’d fallen in love with. Did she match him? Probably not. Even in the same kind of dress that they wore (albeit in a larger size), even with her best grooming efforts, she knew she lacked the grace and confidence of these women. She looked, she thought, like she belonged somewhere else, with someone different.

She made herself pay attention to the conversation. The older Byrne boy, Daisy learned, had been accepted to Duke, “ED,” which, Daisy had learned, meant “early decision” and not “erectile dysfunction.” “So, thank goodness, our spring was pretty tranquil. Now we’re gearing up to go it again with Samantha.” Mrs. Byrne smiled charmingly at Hal and said, “You did your undergrad at Dartmouth, right?” When Hal acknowledged that this was so, she asked, “Did you like it? Did you feel like Hanover was too small-town?”

“I loved it,” Hal said, his voice hearty. “Best four years of my life, aside from prep school.”

“But I can’t imagine our daughter ending up there. Not unless she has a personality transplant between now and senior year!” Daisy could see her joke landing with a thud. Mr. Byrne chuckled politely. Mrs. Byrne tilted her head. Hal’s hand tightened on her arm. She could imagine what he was thinking: Why are you telling people