“Fine,” I say reluctantly. “I’ll drop it.”
“Thanks for understanding. I want everything to be as harmonious as possible this week.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just been so long since we’ve seen Blake and Wendy, and Nick’s been hard to pin down lately, too. Plus, since Marcus and I need to talk to Dad about work stuff, I want him in a good mood. He gets on edge if he thinks there’s any sibling friction.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll let it go. What are you planning to do for the rest of the morning?”
“Henry wants to swim now, so I told him I’d play lifeguard. You want to join us?”
“This afternoon, for sure. I should work on my play for a little bit now. And get a walk in before lunch.”
“See you later then,” he says. He plants a quick kiss on my lips and springs up from the couch.
As the door shuts behind him, I reflect that he’s probably right, that just as I thought earlier, this might be the last time we ever see Hannah. She’s not worth the mental energy I’m devoting to her.
I grab my laptop, wander outside, and settle at the table on the small patio. Though my play’s been accepted into the festival, I still have the opportunity to fiddle with it, and I need to make sure the dialogue is as strong as possible and do some work cementing the theme.
The stakes of the festival are high for me. After I arrived in the city straight out of college, I managed through a combination of luck and hard work to land some TV commercials, a bunch of under-five parts on television shows, two small roles in limited-run off-Broadway plays, and a ton of roles in off-off-Broadway productions. Those were held in so-called black box theaters—where the minuscule audiences are almost entirely composed of the casts’ blood relatives and friends, many of whom probably wish they were someplace else—but I was able to work pretty consistently and felt like I was on a bit of a roll.
But several years ago, it became clear, to my utter dismay, that my career was stalled. Yes, it’s a brutal business and I’d seen pals from college bag it altogether, but I also knew plenty of people who were working, especially with so many opportunities opening up in streaming. Was the problem because at twenty-nine I was no longer an ingenue? In my world you can never be sure. Rather than collapse into a heap on my apartment floor, however (which I was briefly tempted to do), I began seriously going after the voice-over work. And I also decided to start writing plays. If I can make some headway as a playwright, it will garner me respect and possibly jump-start my career.
I know my play’s amusing—the judges stressed that—but I want to guarantee it’s more than a sketch. A good play, even a short one, needs an arc with a central question at the core, and I feel I still need to crystalize my question.
But as hard as I try, I can’t seem to focus this morning. Because I’m having a hard time shaking my conversation with Gabe.
Maybe Hannah really didn’t steal the money and the necklace. But what if she did and stealing is a regular habit with her? What if she were to steal something from the house here, something of real value to the Keatons? I think of all the cherished items they’ve brought back from their travels, as well as the miniature sterling silver animals by a British artist Claire collects. And since the rooms have an enchanting, unfussy dishabille—cashmere throws tossed on sofas rather than folded neatly, books splayed on chair arms—it might be days before anyone noticed something was missing.
But above all, there’s Nick to consider. Even if this is a short-term thing for him, there’s still a chance he could end up hurt.
I get that Gabe, the perennial peacekeeper, doesn’t want any friction. He’s always been the one, for instance, to smooth over the occasional issues that arise between Marcus and Nick, and this is our hard-earned vacation week, after all.
But something just doesn’t feel right about Hannah. I know it. And I hate that I seem to be the only one who does.
4
Instead of trying to focus on my play any longer, I decide to head outside now and come back to it later in the day when my mind is clearer. I collect my hiking boots and lace them up, then leave the cottage, veering off the flagstone path and moving north across the expanse of sloping lawn. Eventually, it gives way to a wide grass path flanked and topped by rustic trellises and running through a lightly wooded area. Though I appreciate the manicured parts of the property, this is where the real magic happens for me. Relishing the stillness, I walk at a moderate pace, and after a couple of minutes I emerge from between the trellises into a meadow of riotously colored wildflowers. When she designed it, Claire meant for it to be a total surprise to the eye, and no matter how many times I come upon it, it always makes me smile.
I traipse through the meadow, admiring the endless mix of pink, red, blue, orange, and yellow. At the far side, a totally different meadow begins, this one consisting of various wild grasses, some of them really high. There’s a distinct path through it, but one Claire designed in an enchanting, serpentine way, so that when you meander along, you almost feel as if you’re in a maze.
Finally, I reach the far side and after tramping a bit farther come to the stream that gushes along the border of a heavily wooded area, a continuation of the woods behind our cottage. I hadn’t planned to be gone for too long, but I lower myself onto a rock beside the gurgling stream and savor the sound of it. There’s an old bird blind a few yards ahead of me and to the right of the stream. Sometimes Henry and I will brush away the cobwebs inside and sit for a while, watching and waiting. Or we’ll search the nearby area for deer antlers or abandoned box turtle shells. I’ve made many happy memories with him here.
But mostly I love this spot because it’s where Gabe proposed to me.
We’d met around six years ago in a wine bar in the city, where I’d gone with several nonactor friends to celebrate one girl’s acceptance to business school. The wine bar owner was Gabe’s client, I later learned, and he’d only stopped by that evening to say hello. My friends and I were clustered by the bar and Gabe was sitting on a stool behind me. At some point I turned, as if drawn by a force field, and when I met his gaze, I felt as if I’d been struck by the proverbial thunderbolt. Maybe it was those slate-blue eyes, or hawk nose, or fetching dark scruff, or the way he held his wineglass like such a pro. We chatted for a couple of minutes, exchanging first names and a little bit about our professional lives, and what was so special about the Bordeaux he was drinking—he had the bartender pour me a taste—but then my friends were dragging me off to another location, and I couldn’t think of a slick way to say, “Here’s my number.”
I went back to the wine bar twice, hoping he’d be there, but no such luck. Two weeks later, though, I spotted him in the audience at the tiny theater where I was performing in the play I’d mentioned to him. I was so stunned by the sight, I almost dropped a line, but managed to keep it together. And when I left the theater, he was waiting outside and invited me for a late pasta dinner.
That night I discovered there was even more to like than the blue eyes and hawk nose: his wit, his thoughtfulness, his straightforward style, his passion for his work, and his evident devotion to his toddler son. To say nothing of the fact that he’d remembered the name of the play I was in, tracked down a ticket, and actually showed up.