He decides then that he’ll make a point of discussing it with her over dinner tonight, assuming that he makes it home in time, and grabs his notebook for morning meeting. Of course, it’s Friday, which means they’re about to kick off the hotel’s busiest forty-eight hours. As he saunters down the hallway, he considers his pep talk for his various directors; maybe he’ll pull an inspirational quote from Charles de Gaulle or Charlemagne—something about fighting nobly to the very end or bucking up when the stakes are high—because one thing is for sure: they’ll need every ounce of energy and poise that they can muster for the weekend ahead.
Earlier that week
THREE
On Tuesday morning, June 8, Claire finds herself driving by the house of her boyfriend of thirty years ago. She’s on her third loop around, as ridiculous as it is, despite the fact that she’s starting to feel like a stalker and vaguely worries that a neighbor will see her and call the police. What she’s doing here, she can’t exactly say. Hoping to catch a glimpse of her former lover on his way out the door to work? Satisfying a morbid curiosity to see if he has aged well or merely somewhat well, like herself? Claire has already decided that if she spots him but he doesn’t recognize her, she’ll take it as a sign from the universe that she should keep on driving. Right back to the hotel. Maybe right back home to Providence. Her stomach is a mess, butterflies, or botherflies as her late husband, Walt, used to call them.
“Stop it,” she says aloud, scolding Walt for sneaking up on her, on this of all days. “You’re always getting in the way,” she tells him, though, to anyone else it would appear as if she’s talking to the glossy interior of her Subaru. “So can you please be quiet for once?”
She waits for a sign, maybe a bolt of lightning skewering the sky above, a flat tire, some indication of her late husband’s displeasure with her plan. But there’s nothing. Only the automatic sprinklers switching on in the yard at the adjacent house, the hum of the air conditioner and NPR on the car radio.
It was easy enough to find Marty’s home address, even though nearly three decades have passed since last they spoke. He’d skipped every one of their high-school reunions, to the point where Claire wondered if he were doing it to avoid her personally. Also he seems to be the one person on earth who lacks any social-media presence. Still, Claire, a journalist at the Providence Dealer, could have found him over the years if she’d really wanted to. She could have picked up the phone, tracked down an email address. But after all this time, something about calling Marty or emailing him out of the blue didn’t feel right. No, tracking him down in person, she’d decided, made the most sense.
Which is why she has driven the fifty-eight miles up to Boston and checked into the Seafarer Hotel for a week. She’s on a mission, even though it’s bizarre to think that Martin has been so close, only a stone’s throw away, all these years. She hadn’t allowed herself to search for him online until Walt passed away, almost a year ago now, because what was the point? Marty could have been in Seattle, or in Katmandu for that matter, and the result would have been the same. Getting together with him under any other circumstances would have felt like a betrayal, a mockery of her marriage. And Claire, for all her romantic notions, isn’t one to cross that line.
Martin, she thinks. The man has continued to take up space in her mind, like an old, comfortable recliner she can’t bring herself to throw out.
Claire’s children, Ben and Amber, didn’t like the idea of her driving up to Boston from Providence all by herself—in fact, they’d vehemently disapproved—even though they’ve no idea about the real reason for her trip. Claire promised them that she’d be absolutely fine. “Good grief,” she protested. “Just because I’m sixty-one doesn’t mean I’m helpless. Even a two-year-old could find her way to Boston with a GPS!”
But she understands they have other concerns on their minds.
Well, she’d made it to the hotel fine all by herself. Even managed to check herself in. And guess what? No one recognized her. Not one person asked her if she were Claire O’Dell from the Providence Dealer, the journalist who’d been asked to take an indefinite leave of absence. Providence news, it seems, doesn’t travel as swiftly or as easily to Boston as her children might believe. She even called Amber to tell her so, promptly after the cute bellboy deposited her suitcase on the bed. “People here could care less about my little debacle,” she said into the phone. “Like I told you, I could be anyone here.”
“Okay, Mom, but please promise me you’ll still be careful.”
“Cross my heart,” Claire said, running her finger in an invisible X across her chest. (Sometimes the speed with which their roles have reversed takes her breath away, her children now insisting she check in with them whenever she travels.) She appreciates their concern, but, really, what harm can one middle-aged woman do in the world? Or the world do to her, for that matter?
On her fourth loop, Claire pulls up across from Marty’s house on the other side of the street. It’s a modest gray Cape, two dormer windows on top, a two-car garage. In a few places, the paint shows signs of peeling, blanched wood poking out from behind it. Redbrick steps ascend to a blue front door with a Welcome sign. It’s a tidy enough house, Claire decides, possessing a certain amount of charm, even if a bit worn-looking. The small front yard appears well-tended, and beneath a wide picture window an avalanche of pink Cape roses tumbles to the ground. Attached to the house’s left side sits an odd little room capped by a sloping roof.
Marty could have done worse, Claire thinks. Though somehow, a part of her expected him to do better. Maybe one of those new minimansions that sits on two lots. Or a New England saltbox with a wide yard and breathtaking views of the sea. That her old boyfriend’s house is none of these deflates her spirits unexpectedly. Of course, thirty years ago, when she first imagined Marty’s house, his life, it included her. Marty’s home, their home together, would have reflected Claire’s own eclectic style. Rooms with high ceilings and sunlight spilling onto hardwood floors, hallways that ended in an inviting window seat, a wide front porch with a swing and maybe a rocking chair or two.
The driveway sits empty, the garden hose neatly coiled around its spin handle. When she’d searched for him online, she’d discovered that Marty’s wife, Audrey, had passed away three years ago. Claire met Audrey once during a chance encounter in Boston years ago, the streets gray and slushy with old snow. She and Walt had bumped into them at a Legal Sea Foods downtown, where both couples were waiting to be seated. “What are the odds?” they kidded loosely with each other, but when Marty introduced Audrey as his fiancée, Claire was struck speechless. Somehow, she’d always assumed Marty would seek out her approval before moving on to another woman, past their memories together.
That he was engaged to someone so slight, so waiflike and soft-spoken, someone so much the opposite of Claire, surprised her. During the entire meal, Claire kept snatching furtive glances at the lovebirds while she barely touched her own meal, flitting in and out of conversation with Walt. When Marty reached across the table to clasp Audrey’s hand, Claire quickly excused herself to the ladies’ room, tears stinging her eyes.