caroline
After that semester I spent in Peachtree Bluff after Dad died, I was at NYU summer school so fast it would have made your head spin. Back to my friends. Back to the not-so-fresh air, the crowds, the noise, the excitement, the center of the universe, basically. I didn’t even glance in the rearview mirror. (Well, I mean, the theoretical rearview mirror. As we’ve established, I didn’t drive.) I was so ready to get out of there. Ready for freedom. And my sisters would tell you that they were quite ready to get rid of me, too.
That first weekend back in New York, I realized that against all odds, I was starting to feel a little bit, well, family-sick. I wasn’t homesick. I mean, I was home. But I missed my sisters. So I picked up the phone, called my mom, and asked if they could come stay. She, of course, said yes, but she couldn’t talk Sloane into returning to New York. She wasn’t ready. Instead, Mom bought me a ticket back to Peachtree Bluff.
I didn’t and couldn’t, obviously, but it still made me happy at the end of the long weekend when Sloane and Emerson begged me to stay. I knew Mom wanted to beg me to stay, too, despite what a pill I had been, but that would have been bad parenting.
When I got home from our family weekend at the Cloister, I could tell that James wanted me to ask him to stay. But I didn’t. Because, yeah, we’d had a decent vacation, but that was a long, far cry from moving back in together. Surely he knew that.
When I walked into the main house, Vivi ran upstairs to see the boys. And it was like the jig was up. Mom, Grammy, Sandra, Emily, Emerson, Sloane, and Hummus were all sitting in the living room.
“We’re sorry,” Emily said, pointing at Sandra. “We know we aren’t family, but we’re dying over here.”
I laughed.
“Holy hell,” Sandra said, before anyone could say anything. She motioned for my hand. “That is the biggest rock I’ve ever seen. It’s gorgeous.”
Grammy shook her head. “Don’t let him buy you.”
“I’m not letting him buy me,” I said. “For him, it was a show of good faith that he’s in this even though he knows I may not be.”
Emerson motioned, her mouth open. “That is seriously insane. Like you shouldn’t wear it in public.”
“OK,” Mom said. “How did it go? Did you decide anything?”
I told them about the weekend, the dinner and the horseback riding, the fun family activities. I omitted the sex, although my sisters would weigh in on that later.
“I think,” I said, “that I’m going to give it another shot. Vivi, Preston, and I have a few more months in Peachtree, and I’ll try to make a decision one way or another before we go back to New York.” I sighed. “But I do believe he’s sorry, and I do believe he wants me back. So that’s good.”
“That’s big of you,” Sloane said.
“Yeah,” Emerson chimed in. “I’m shocked.”
“The long and short of it is that I don’t know what’s going to happen. So stay tuned . . .”
Mom shifted nervously on the couch.
“What?”
“You might be mad.”
I sat on the arm of Emerson’s chair. She handed me her wineglass, and I took a sip. I felt like I might need it.
“I ran into someone today,” Mom said. “And he’s coming to say hi to you at nine.”
I could feel the confusion on my face. “Who?”
“Peter,” she whispered.
My heart raced. “Peter Hoffman?”
She nodded. I laughed. Oh, my gosh. I’d had the hots for Peter Hoffman big-time. We’d had a fun Christmas break in Peachtree and one awkward hookup once I was at NYU. But I wouldn’t hold his nineteen-year-old hookup skills against him.
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly go out with him,” I said.
But two hours and two glasses of wine later, I was singing a different tune. When Peter Hoffman walked up onto the porch, as handsome and tall as I remembered him, and wrapped me in that big hug of his, I wondered why I had ever let him get away. Oh, that’s right, I thought, James.
“You look great,” he said.
“Likewise.”
I took in his perfectly fitted straight-legged pants—which I knew my mom would hate but I loved—and custom-made shirt and flashed him my most generous and beguiling smile. What am I doing? I told James we would try to work it out.
“Do you want to grab a drink and catch up?” he asked.
“It has been ages.”
I turned to Sloane and Emerson. Why not? I mean, we were only catching up. It wasn’t like we were procreating.
Plus, I should get to have a last hurrah before I made my final decision. On the walk to Full Moon, one of the nicest bars in town, I discovered that Peter was a literary agent in Greenwich, who commuted to the city. “Greenwich” to me equaled “married with kids.” So I could only assume that he was divorced.
But over drinks, I discovered that he had never married. He had dated two different women for three years each, the second of whom had been the reason for his move to Greenwich.
“But I could be persuaded to move back to Manhattan.” He winked at me.
Suddenly, I was on guard. Did that mean he wanted to move back to the city with me? This was moving a bit fast. My mind was racing, trying to change the subject. But I was suddenly completely blank.
“You ruined me for anyone else,” Peter said lightly, before I could start talking about the only topic I could think of: cheese.
I laughed. “Oh, Peter. That’s not true.”
He stopped and looked me dead in the face and said, “Yes, it is, Caroline. That night we had together was so magical, I couldn’t ever forget you. I still can’t, which is why I’m here. I’m hoping you’ll give me another shot.”
I looked down into my wine, my happy, fun buzz suddenly gone. “Oh, Peter,” I said. “That is incredibly nice of you to say.”
I had to think. And quickly. Peter was a nice guy. A cute guy. A fun guy. But that night was not magical, and he was certainly not worth ruining my kids’ lives over. But what do you say?
I put my hand over his gently. “Peter,” I said, “I really like you. But my life is complicated right now. I have a lot of decisions to make. But I promise you, if I decide against James, you will be the first person I call.”
That was probably true-ish. No, it wasn’t. I would not call him if James and I got a divorce. But that was a nice thing to say. Actually, a nice thing to say, the thing the old Caroline would say, was that I was not interested in dating him ever and that if James and I broke up, he had freaked me out so thoroughly that I would never go out with him, because I would be afraid he was trying to trap me into marriage.
But, see, the South had gotten the best of me. And now I was a nice girl who tried not to hurt people’s feelings. Well, mostly. I was getting ready to hurt Sloane’s. I’d held my tongue, because I knew she was having a hard time, but this sweatpants-and-beer-gut look was over. Tomorrow.
I thanked Peter and said I needed to get home to the baby, even though I had put him to bed and, because of Hummus’s magic, was assured he would sleep until seven a.m. I ran into Emerson and Sloane on the walk home.
How lucky. I’d been wanting some time with these girls all to myself. Sloane needed a boost. I could tell. Besides getting her into shape, I was going to get her out of the house more. Before I went back to New York, that is.
“So,” Sloane said, “how was the sex?”
I looked at her like she was nuts. “We just had a drink!”
“Noooo.” She laughed. “With James.”
“Oh,” I said. “The sex with James was great. The sex with James was never really the problem.”
Emerson winced. “Well, actually . . .”
I laughed. “OK. Yeah. The sex was the problem. Just not the sex with me.”
“I miss it so much,” Sloane said.
“I can’t imagine,” Emerson said. “I would die. Seriously.”
“You can’t even have phone sex,” I realized out loud, suddenly aware of how very grim my sister’s life was every other year. “That is horrible.”
“Yeah. But we have sex letters.”
Emerson and I both burst out laughing. “Excuse me? Sex letters?” I said.
“Oh, my God,” Emerson said. “You mean to tell me that when you’re up there every night demurely writing, those are sex letters?”
She nodded and giggled. That was the thing about Sloane. She always surprised you.
“What do you say in a sex letter?” I asked.
“Well, I’m not going to tell you,” she said. “But after a while, they can get stale, so I’ve serialized them.”
Emerson stopped in her tracks. “Serialized them? Like a novel? Like a slutty little novel?”
“Little Sloaney is a slut,” I said. Then I got serious. “Speaking of,” I said. “First thing in the morning, we are starting boot camp.”
Sloane groaned.
“I’m serious,” I said. “I love you, and I’m not going to watch you walk around here in sweatpants anymore.”
“I’ll be in charge of postworkout smoothies!” Emerson said gleefully.
“You should see these new Pilates moves I learned at the Cloister.”
“From the instructor or James?” Emerson asked.
We all laughed.
I knew already that we’d stay up too late, that we’d all hate ourselves when our alarms went off at six so we could work out before the babies got up. But this was the thing about sisters. No matter how much you laughed, no matter how many hours you talked, no matter how many months you got to spend together, it never seemed like quite enough.
AS PREDICTED, THE HANGOVER sisters—as an LA waiter had nicknamed us at a brunch nearly five years ago—did not exactly perform at their peak the next morning. We had barely made it over to Starlite Island on our paddleboards, but when we got there, it was so beautiful it was worth the effort.
We had decided to forgo towels or mats. There was nothing like being on the sand, feeling your hands and feet in it, getting it in your hair. We were beach girls. We had been raised like this. We waded through the chilly water and onto the island, sliding our paddleboards far enough up on the shore that they wouldn’t be carried out to sea.
“Oh, hey!” I said brightly. “We could do paddleboard yoga!”
Emerson looked like she was going to kill me.
“Or not,” I said.
We sat on the beach for a few minutes, the water lapping around our feet. I hugged my knees to my chest, looking back at the house, the one we’d been looking back at our whole lives. It was amazing how even though it was so close, when you got over here to Starlite, you felt so very far away.
Sloane leaned her head on my shoulder. “It hasn’t changed at all, has it?”
I shook my head.
“Exactly like when we were kids,” Emerson said.
It soothed me, that thought, that while the world seemed to be spinning too fast around me and I had lost my grip in so many ways, some things, the best things, stayed the same. Sloane took my hand, and I took Emerson’s. “It’s nice to know that all these years later, we’re still the Starlite Sisters.”
“The skinny Starlite Sisters,” Emerson said, groaning. “So get your tails up before I wimp out.”
We sort of half-assed our ab work and sipped sparkling water to settle our stomachs and hydrate us during the leg work.
I didn’t even yell. There was no energy for that. But the few people walking down the beach all had plenty of energy to stare at us as if we had grown extra limbs. It was exercise, people. Get a grip. If you did it, you would recognize the action.
“Ohhh,” I groaned, rolling over onto my back, the cool sand feeling soothing and refreshing.
Emerson sat up and leaned her head almost to the ground to sip her water through a blue-and-white-striped paper straw. My paddleboard had a cooler on it that I, very smartly, had stocked with hangover essentials to get us through. “I’m too weak to lift my can,” Emerson said.
“Why did we do this?” Sloane asked, groaning. “Why would I let you people talk me into this?”
I rolled onto my side and looked at her. “Because a few months from now, you need to be doing a little better than sex letters. Got it?”
Paddleboarding back home felt less taxing, since the breeze was so nice. So, no, we weren’t really paddling fast enough to get our heart rates up and call it cardio. But it was so peaceful early in the morning. It was like the whole world belonged to us.
As we pulled our paddleboards back up onto the dock, Sloane said, “Since we worked out this morning, can we drive out and get McDonald’s?”
Peachtree didn’t allow chains of any kind in its downtown, so you had to drive a few miles for fast food. I mean, other people did. I hadn’t had fast food since 1998.
Emerson looked at me warily. “Can we?”
I scoffed. “Emerson, I expect this from her. She’s one of them now.” By “one of them,” I meant a Southerner, of course. “But I expect more from you.”
Emerson flopped dramatically onto her mat. “Do you know how long it has been since I have had a cheeseburger? I mean, a real one with a bun, not a lettuce wrap? And cheese, and ketchup with sugar, and all that stuff?”
“You weaklings!” I chided. “When you all have mad cow disease from cows fed their friends as a snack, I will not take care of you.”
“But think about the fries,” Sloane said. “Do you remember them, Caroline? Thin and the right amount of crispy, with plenty of extra salt?”
I didn’t want to. But I remembered anyway. They were oh so delicious. And hot. My head was pounding, and my stomach rolled.
“And a Coke?” I whispered. “A real, sugary, delicious Coke?”
Sloane nodded. Emerson sighed with happiness.
“If either of you tells Vivi, I will deny this until the day I die. She has never had fast food, and if I have anything to say about it, she never will.”
Emerson laughed, and Sloane actually clapped. “Well, Caroline Beaumont,” Sloane said, “I never thought I’d see the day.”
“I’ll drive,” I said, suddenly able to taste the flavors combining. The cheese and mustard, the ketchup, pickles and onions, all on that fluffy bun. With gluten! And that skinny patty that wasn’t too overpowering. I couldn’t believe I was doing this. But, you know, when in Rome.
Before I could get into the car, I saw James walking up the driveway. Shit. How was I going to get out of this? He couldn’t very well know that I was getting fast food.
Before I could even say “Hi,” he said, “So I heard you were on a date last night?”
That he was asking it like a question boded well for me.
“Who told you that?”
“I’m sorry. You were out on a date, and the biggest issue to you is who told me?”
Sloane took a step toward James and said, “Excuse me. Did you forget the hell you’ve put my sister through the past few months? Were you around while Ladies Who Lunch was airing, while every idiot with a Twitter account was talking about her? And it sure as hell wasn’t her fault. Did that occur to you?”
The Pilates and hangover combination must have made Sloane strong.
“Well, I—I . . .” James stuttered. “I just heard at coffee that you were out with Peter Hoffman, and it made me jealous.”
I rolled my eyes. Those old men at the Palm House made the beauty-parlor women in Steel Magnolias look tight-lipped.
“Who cares, anyway?” Emerson said. “It’s just Peter the Panter. It was a drink. She doesn’t even like him.”
“Wait,” James said, laughing. “Peter Hoffman is Peter the Panter?”
Sloane burst out laughing. “Oh, my gosh. I had totally forgotten about that!”
We all cracked up, and I guessed our laughter must have driven Hummus downstairs.
“You are going to wake the children with all this noise,” she said.
I burst into tears. It was absurd. Very Emerson-like. But this was Hummus’s last day. She had been a savior. And now she was going to be gone. I hugged her, and she squeezed me to her ample chest.
“You are going to be fine, my sweet being. This isn’t good-bye. This is simply the beginning of a new chapter.”
I felt another sob in my throat. It was a new chapter where I was going to go back to being a real, full-time, on-my-own mother.
“I need to leave for the airport in twenty minutes,” she said, turning to walk back upstairs.
As if on cue, Preston started crying. “I’ll get him,” I said.
“Does this mean the adventure is off?” Emerson whined.
“No,” I said. “This means get Taylor and Adam and move Preston’s car seat into the minivan.”
“Where are you going?” James asked, following me up the steps.
“It’s sister stuff,” I said. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh.” He looked dejected. But really, it wasn’t my job to protect his feelings. That ship had kind of sailed.
I picked Preston up out of the crib, and James said, “I’ll get his bottle ready.”
I smiled. “Thanks.”
Vivi, bleary-eyed, walked into the room. “What is all the noise downstairs?”
“Say good-bye to Hummus,” I said, my voice catching in my throat again.
Vivi walked into the hall, where Hummus was rolling out her suitcase, and said, “’Bye, Hummus.” She squeezed her around her thick middle. I loved that woman. How could she leave me like this?
“’Bye, sweet being,” Hummus said to Vivi. Then she turned, blew me a kiss, and said, “Live your truth, Caroline.”
I was getting choked up again, and James looked like he might gag. “I guess I’ll take Hummus to the airport,” he said, handing me the bottle.
“That would be great.”
James put a manila envelope on the counter. “I didn’t want to,” he said. “But I drew up the papers. The ball is in your court now, Caroline. I’m not signing until you’re sure.”
It was like being punched in the gut. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. So I nodded.
Preston cooed, and I rubbed my finger across his forehead, my new diamond sparkling in the morning light. I sat down on the couch and said, “Good morning, baby boy.” As soon as he spotted the bottle, Preston started to cry. It was uncanny.
“I know,” I said, lowering the nipple to his mouth. “I feel the exact same way.”
“I’m hungry, too,” Vivi said.
The morning had started so well except for the whole hangover thing. And now this was always going to be the morning James gave me the divorce papers. Unless . . .
I had an idea. “Don’t worry about changing out of your pajamas,” I said. “Brush your teeth, and then go down to the van.” I grinned at her. “We’re going on a field trip.”
So yes, it wasn’t even eight in the morning. But I ordered six cheeseburger Happy Meals with Cokes all the same.
Then I turned back to Sloane. “Can Taylor eat a cheeseburger?”
“Yeah, he’s almost two,” she said. “Might as well indoctrinate him now.” We all laughed.
“Mom,” Vivi said. “Have you flipped your lid? You don’t let me eat this stuff.”
“I know,” I said. “That’s what makes it a fun field trip.” I winked at her.
“When God smiles, don’t ask questions,” Emerson said.
We all ate in silence, sitting in the parking lot.
“Mommy,” Adam said. “We’re having cheeseburgers for breakfast?”
“We sure are.”
After we finished our burgers, I drove through Krispy Kreme, and we each had a hot glazed doughnut for dessert. I hadn’t had fast food in nineteen years, gluten in six, or refined sugar in at least five.
I kind of hated myself when I was done, but, well, this was a day I knew my kid would never forget. She would always remember eating doughnuts and cheeseburgers in the back of a minivan with all the people she loved most in the world singing Meghan Trainor and Taylor Swift. So would I. And I had a feeling that ten years from now, this would stay with me, but those divorce papers wouldn’t.
It sort of made up for the fact that I’d had only one pound left to lose and now I was sure I had gained five in this one meal. I wanted to hate myself for it, but, you know, sometimes even uptight, regimented bitches like me deserve a break.
I did not want to weigh myself the next morning. There was no point in seeing the damage I had done. But because I am obsessive and like to punish myself, I did it anyway. I stepped on the scale, one eye closed, and held my breath for the bad news.
I had lost two pounds.
I had eaten doughnuts and McDonald’s, and I weighed one pound less than before I got pregnant with Preston. It was a moment that defied physics. It made me feel like anything was possible. If I could eat like crap and still lose weight, then maybe I could forgive James, too. Maybe we could move on and clean up the mess we had made out of our life together.
It wasn’t like me to be forgiving and pliable and sweet. It wasn’t like me at all. But it wasn’t like me to eat fast food, either, and that had turned out OK. I was thirty-four years old. And I decided that maybe it was time for me to start making some different decisions. Maybe it was time for me to try something new.