“Hey, ice cream or divorce, problems are problems.”
“You sound pretty put together to me,” Laura Jean said. “Maybe you’re being hard on yourself.”
“I can fake put-together when I’m meeting people. I just…are you sure you want to hear all this?”
“Absolutely! Feet first, deep end, remember? Let’s have it.”
“I guess I still haven’t figured out a way to sort through everything that happened. Most of ‘our’ friends sorta turned out to be ‘his,’ so there really hasn’t been anyone to talk to. Not like I’d have the time, either. I’ve been working double shifts at the hair salon to pay for an apartment that’s somehow both shitty and expensive.”
“Hmm.” Laura Jean tapped her beer bottle against her lips.
“I don’t feel like myself,” Francine said, with a sigh. “That’s why I came here. Ellie and I grew up in a place like this. I’m hoping a bit of relaxing nostalgia can help fix whatever’s broken. Two weeks of shady trees and friendly neighbors to help get my mind right. People seem nice enough so far.”
“Oh, everyone’s plenty nice, and half of them might even mean it.”
“And the other half?” Francine’s eyes flashed back to Pixie Cut, who was definitely staring at her over the rim of her red cocktail.
Laura Jean smirked. “The other half might be a little nervous at seeing a total babe dropped into a sea of bored husbands.”
“No, no, no. I’m no homewrecker. And thanks for calling me a total babe, but I don’t think you can legally use the term for someone fast approaching forty.”
“Hey! I’m in my forties, so watch it. And you’re a certifiable catch. Got a sort of…Phoebe Cates-all-grown-up thing going on, and it is working. I am worried about this change-your-life-in-two-weeks business, though. I’ve been trying to cut down on that rum raisin for a decade and counting. Why the harsh deadline?”
“It was hard enough getting just two weeks off from work. Plus, I don’t want to be the older sister crashing with the happy younger couple. It’s embarrassing. July fifth, Pete and Ellie are back from their trip, and I’m back to San Francisco.”
Laura Jean frowned, but breathed out resolutely. “Very well. I agree to your terms. My sympathetic ear and unparalleled matchmaking services are at your disposal. We’re gonna put what’s-his-name—”
“Ben.”
“—soon to be what’s-his-name once more, squarely in the rearview mirror where he belongs. I take payment in coffee and gossip. And rum raisin ice cream if you can find it. Summer 1989 is going to be the summer of Francine, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Unless it’s the butt of some dashing summer fling, of course.”
Francine smiled. “Thanks, Laura Jean.”
“Good. In the meantime, I’m gonna go check on my darling husband, wherever he is. Will you be all right on your own a sec?”
“I’ll try to stay out of trouble.”
Laura Jean squeezed her shoulder, then disappeared into the slow churn of polo shirts and perms.
Francine bit at the tiny splinter under her thumbnail as she gravitated toward the party’s makeshift bar: a card table hung with glittery letters that read, “Bon Voyage!”
An elderly man examining the bar’s spread of liquor bottles would’ve made a picture-perfect dictionary entry for “grandparent”: tortoiseshell spectacles, handsome blue blazer, and gray hair the papery texture of a hornet’s nest.
“Hi,” Francine said.
“How do you do?” he returned, with a distinct accent.
She pointed at him. “German?”
“I am Swiss. It is a common confusion.” He smiled. “My name is Roland Gerber. You are Ellie’s sister, yes?”
“Yes. Francine.”
Roland Gerber sized her up. “A fine, strong woman. I can see this plainly. Superior to that which you left behind, there is no doubt.”
Francine blushed and shook her head. “I probably I should’ve just saved Ellie some time and worn a neon ‘divorcée’ sign above my head.”
“Your sister asked us all to be especially considerate. Perhaps I wasn’t meant to disclose this. I’m normally a discreet confidant, but drinking causes me to act out of character.” He held up a half-empty bottle of apple schnapps as the culprit. “In any case, welcome to Hawthorn Woods, Francine. You belong already.”
“Thank you. Nice to meet you, Mr. Gerber.”
She bummed a cigarette from a nearby Carol and stood alone among the candles at the patio’s edge, watching fireflies bob weightlessly above the lawn. After a dry spell of quality meetings all night, she was feeling better, having gone two for two with a sincere Southern belle and a flattering Swiss expat. Maybe her luck was finally turning.
The orange tip of another cigarette joined hers in the fireflies’ galaxy of yellow.
The man sat in a lawn chair, watching the party closely as he smoked. Wonderfully messy spills of jet-black hair stopped just below his ears, where began one of the worst outfits Francine had ever seen. A cheap tweed jacket covered a pink dress shirt and a pencil-and-paper-patterned tie, the whole ensemble anchored with brown corduroys the man was probably regretting in the night’s heat. He was younger than the rest of the husbands, and without the gold stripe of a wedding band, maybe not a husband at all. His eyes were focused intently on the patio, like he was looking for someone in particular.
“Hey, everybody!” Ellie’s husband Pete stepped onto the back stoop, hands cupped around his salt-and-pepper mustache. “It’s getting kinda late, so I just wanted to say a few things real quick.”
After a few good-natured jeers, the party quieted down.
“First, thanks for welcoming Francine, who will be keeping an eye on the homestead in our absence.”
Embarrassingly marooned on the outskirts of the party, Francine gave a faux bow to the crowd’s applause.
“Total babe!” Laura Jean shouted.
Pete held out a hand for Ellie to join him on the stoop. “Four years ago, when Ellie and I got married, we couldn’t afford a honeymoon. Yes, we took a weekend up in that mecca of romance called Wisconsin, but Ellie’s always wanted to go to Paris, and I’ve always wanted to take her.”
Awws from the crowd.
“As excited as we are,” Ellie said, “travel is nothing without a good home to come back to. I’m sure by the end of the first day, we’ll be homesick for this special place and the special people in it.”
She put her arm around Pete’s waist, he put his around her shoulders. Treasured friends, gathered before them, a beautiful little house behind, a delayed honeymoon on the horizon.
A deep sting found Francine’s heart. This was what she’d wanted with Ben. A place to call home with someone she could count on. The inertia of a mature relationship unassailed by lies. A future that looked brighter than the past…
But she didn’t have any of that.
What she had was a rare, two-week opportunity to turn her life around. Fresh air and rosy memories to bounce her out of a rut that was starting to feel alarmingly familiar. Catharsis through nostalgia. Looking back to move forward. Whatever she called it, it had to work.