That Summer by Jennifer Weiner (free e reader txt) 📗

domain, which made everything that happened there Daisy’s job. Hal had his work, and Beatrice had school, and she had pots and pans to scrub, floors to sweep, countertops to wipe. A home to make, for the two of them.

“So, Nora leaves him in the end,” she said, as they walked down the stairs.

“What?”

“In the play. A Doll’s House.”

“That’s right.” Beatrice went to the sink. “She says she can’t be anyone’s wife or anyone’s mother until she knows who she is. She walks out of their house and closes the door behind. It’s this iconic moment. At least, that’s what our teacher said.”

“That’s very interesting.” Daisy’s voice was brittle. She bent over the dishwasher, feeling a great pressure on her chest, something bearing down on her, making it hard to breathe. “You’re growing up to be a very impressive young lady.”

Beatrice looked troubled. “Mom,” she said. “Why didn’t you finish college?”

Daisy thought she knew what Beatrice was fishing for: affirmation that her life would be fine with just a high-school diploma; permission to ignore Hal’s wishes. Even if Daisy agreed—and she wasn’t sure she did—she knew better than to say so. Hal would be furious.

“It was a long time ago,” she said. “And things were different.”

They finished cleaning the kitchen in silence. When Beatrice asked for permission to go back to her room and finish her homework, Daisy nodded. She turned off all the lights downstairs, making sure that the windows were latched and the doors were locked. In her bedroom, Hal had fallen asleep, with the television on and the remote on the bed beside him. Daisy turned off the TV. She put on her nightgown, washed her face, brushed her teeth, then went to the bed, where she lay on her back with her eyes open, as the clock ticked down the hours until morning.

Something is changing, she thought, as the sky beyond the window went from black to faintly gray. The house was quiet, except for Lester’s noisy snores and Hal’s quieter ones. Was it her? Was it Hal? Was it the world?

She lay awake on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, until it was six o’clock and her husband got up, quietly, to put on his running clothes, feigning sleep until she heard the front door open, and close. Then she lay there for another hour, wondering if she could continue to live like this, and, if not, what she was supposed to do next.

25 Beatrice

Normally, Beatrice hated it when her parents had dinner parties. She disliked the way they’d show her off, parading her around, introducing her to the guests, making her talk to strangers about her school or her soccer team or what books she was reading. She hated how her mom would get stressed and screechy, and how her dad would send Beatrice back upstairs to change her clothes if he disapproved of Beatrice’s outfit, saying, “You can express yourself three hundred and sixty days of the year, but for five days I get to pick.”

But what her mother had planned for Saturday night wasn’t exactly a dinner party; it was relatives: Beatrice’s grandfather and his lady friend, her grandmother and her grandma’s gentleman caller, her uncles Danny and Jesse, with just one new person coming over. And the new person was actually someone Beatrice liked—her mother’s new friend, Diana.

A few days after she’d cut school with Cade, she’d come home from school to find Diana and her mother cooking in the kitchen. They’d looked like birds: her mother, a plump brown wren, flitting and twittering around, picking up a pinch of this and a bit of that as she built her nest. Diana, meanwhile, looked like an eagle, imperious and watchful, hovering on the currents, peering at the scurrying rodents and rabbits below her, waiting to strike. Beatrice prepared for awkward questions about why she’d missed school and where she’d been, but instead, Diana looked her over appreciatively and said, “I love your hat. And your pin! It’s perfect.”

The hat had been a black cloche, with a tiny bit of veil over her left eye. The pin was one of Beatrice’s treasures, an Art Deco tiger, in a prowling pose, with bits of topaz for the eyes. She’d bought it for twenty dollars at a store on South Street.

“That is quite a look,” Diana had said. Beatrice knew when she was being humored, and could tell that Diana was sincere. “Are you interested in fashion as a career?”

Beatrice had shrugged. But then, instead of asking the predictable follow-up question—“Well, what are you interested in?”—which, of course, would segue into what most of her parents’ friends really wanted to know, which was “Where are you thinking about going to college?” Diana had said, “You’ll have to tell me where the good vintage stores in Philadelphia are.”

“Oh, Beatrice knows them all,” said her mother, who of course had to jump into every conversation to prove how well she knew her daughter, and how great a mother she was.

“Do you like vintage clothes?” Beatrice had asked Diana. Nothing from the other woman’s appearance hinted at her tastes inclining in that direction. Diana was wearing dark-rinse jeans, a silk blouse, and no accessories except for the gold cuff on her wrist and diamond stud earrings. Her shoes were plain velvet flats, but probably designer—Tory Burch or even Chanel.

“I like vintage textiles and prints. Vintage postcards,” Diana had answered. And she’d looked almost shy when she’d said, “I decoupage seashells with them. And I’ve been learning how to embroider.”

“Beatrice makes shadowboxes. And she does taxidermy!” said her mom, and actually managed to sound proud about it, even though Beatrice knew for a fact that she wasn’t proud, at all.

Ignoring her mother, Beatrice had asked Diana, “Do you have any pictures?”

Diana had pulled out her phone, flicked at her screen, and showed Beatrice a shot of six oyster shells, edged in gold, decoupaged with fleur-de-lis or patterns of lobsters