Chapter Twelve
Emma Lee Maxwell’s Facebook Update:
The greatest relationships are the ones you never expected to be in.
I am sitting in Call Me Darjeeling, listening to Miss Cole and William engage in the Great Nutella Debate Part II, when my phone chimes.
Text from Alexandria Armistead:
Cash has been acting strange.
Text to Alexandria Armistead:
Cash is strange. Don’t tell me you’re just noticing it.
Several minutes go by without a response from Lexi. I sip my tea, a house blend called Chai Love You, made with white chai tea, fresh strawberries, and a “loving dose of sugar,” and wait for Hayley Bartlett.
A stylish little British birdie named Miss Isabella whispered a few biographical details about Miss Hayley. Apparently, Hayley was raised by her grandparents and grew up working on their farm. She won a prize from the National Federation of Young Farmers’ Club when she was a teenager and used the money to open a small produce market on the edge of the village. She was born a month after Bingley Nickerson, though their social circles rarely intersected, what with Bingley having attended a posh boarding school and Hayley up to her elbows in soil.
I study William Curtis, in his buttoned-up navy peacoat, a heavy scarf wound several times around his neck. Would he be a good match for Isabella Nickerson? With messy, finger-combed brown hair, sunken cheeks, and a piercing gaze, he reminds me of the actor David Tennant. He’s handsome-ish. Stable. Local. He obviously cares deeply about the well-being of his friends and neighbors. Miss Isabella is a caretaker, too. So, they would have that in common. William appears younger than Miss Isabella by at least ten years, but hang-ups over age disparity are so last decade. Hollywood has made the May-December romance superhot. Look at Kate Beckinsale, caught smooching a steamy actor half her age. J.Lo bust a sexy move with her significantly younger backup dancer. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, the hottie who played Count Vronsky, Keira Knightley’s lover in Anna Karenina, married a woman old enough to be his mother.
William has a thick, hardback book tucked under his arm. Germs: The Biological Weapons Outside Your Front Door, Stay Inside, Stay Alive.
Then again, I reckon he might be too much of a homebody for a woman as worldly and sophisticated as Isabella Nickerson.
My phone chimes again.
Text from Alexandria Armistead:
I’m serious. Cash been distant ever since our engagement party. Maybe he’s changed his mind. Maybe he doesn’t want to marry me.
Text to Alexandria Armistead:
Cash talks slow, but that doesn’t mean he’s stupid, darlin’. He’s lucky to have a girl as smart, kind, and beautiful as you. If he forgets it, I’ll sure enough remind him. Chill, girl.
I read Lexi’s text again. Should I be more concerned about Cash? He was a major player in high school. Major. I always thought he just needed the right coach, a strong, confident woman who could whup his crazy ass into shape. Sure enough, Cash went to college, dated a few strong, confident women, and gave up his major player ways. Hmmm. I should send him a text just to be sure he hasn’t suited up and hit the playing field again.
I open my photos application and scroll through the pictures of the engagement party. Lexi, looking prettier than any old Disney Princess, leaning her head against Cash’s broad shoulder. Cash laughing with his best friends. Cash and Lexi dancing too close for Jesus; whenever we had dances with our brother school, Miss Belle would thrust her hands between dancing couples and say, Leave room for Jesus.
Instead of texting Cash, I write a second, more supportive message to Lexi, including a link to an article on theknot.com, “How to Deal with Pre-Wedding Jitters.” I sip my tea and think about the reasons Lexi Armistead and Cash Aiken make a mighty fine pairing.
I love my best friend something fierce. She is beautiful, compassionate, and generous. She has great taste in designer handbags and Disney heroes. She can be loads of fun—nobody brings the High School Musical heat to Kappa Kappa Karaoke Night better than Lex—but she also has this supersaaad side to her. Occasionally, she gets real blue and seems to disappear inside herself. She looks as fragile as the pale purple petals that used to tremble on the branches of the old crape myrtle outside my bedroom window, like the slightest breeze might sweep her away.
Lexi’s daddy was diagnosed with leukemia when she was nine-years-old, and it affected her something fierce. Most people die within months of being diagnosed with that terrible-awful disease, but Lexi’s daddy laid up in his bed for two years. Two long, agonizing years. Lexi said watching him suffer made her feel small and helpless. I think it’s why she decided to study nursing, because a part of her still feels small and helpless.
I thought Cash, with his sturdy, corn-bread-fed physique, and Southern boy sense of fun, would be a good match for my fragile friend. He has the body of a Clemson Tiger and the heart of a pussycat, big and strong, but gentle as all get-out. He graduated two years before us with a business degree and returned to help manage MeeMaw Creek, his family’s corporation. I know what you’re thinking. MeeMaw Creek sounds like a sparse patch of land with some tin-roofed shanties selling moonshine out of recycled Mason jars, but don’t let the name fool you. MeeMaw Creek happens to be the largest pastured pig farm in the South. When he was still a teenager, Cash’s daddy used his trust fund to purchase MeeMaw Creek Farm and every farm within a twenty-mile radius. MeeMaw Creek has the finest heritage hogs in the country, and Cash Aiken Senior is considered an expert on humane pig husbandry.
Cash worships Lexi. When they aren’t together, he sends her a wake-up text each morning: Have a good day, babydoll. I love you. When they are together, he gets up early, drives to the closest Starbucks, and returns with Lexi’s favorite: venti skinny vanilla latte with soy and an almond croissant. Lexi brings out Cash’s softer, sweeter side, and that big, old brawny boy makes my girl feel safe.
Isn’t it romantic when two halves come together to form a whole? You complete me. Remember that scene in Jerry Maguire? Tom Cruise barges into Renée Zellweger’s living room and declares, You complete me. Two halves coming together to form a whole.
“That was a deep sigh.” I look up to find Hayley standing on the other side of the table. She pulls a slouchy cap off her head, and her riotous blond curls fall around her shoulders. “Homesick already?”
“Hayley!” I jump up and give my new friend a hug. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
Hayley stands with her arms at her sides. I give her a quick squeeze and sit back down.
“Sorry,” she says, shrugging out of her coat. “I am complete rubbish at greetings. I become awkward and gangly. I don’t know what to do with my hands. Should I hug, shake hands, offer a solid fist bump?”
“I’m a hugger!”
“Yes, you are.” Hayley chuckles. “I will take a quick, enthusiastic American hug over the strangely cold, but too intimate French cheek kiss. Annalise is fond of the French greeting. Three bloody kisses every time I see her.”
Annalise Whittaker-Smith. Hayley’s beautiful half sister, who spent most of the dinner party flirting with Knightley and Brandon Nickerson. I thought I picked up some bad vibrations between the sisters.
“My sister is in the south of France. I can’t imagine Manderley greeting people with cheek kisses, though. She’s sweet but crazy shy.”
“Are you close to your sister?”
“Manderley? She is the best big sister ever. My momma died when I was a baby, so Manderley practically raised me.” I open my photos app, find the picture Manderley sent me last week of her standing on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival, and show it to Hayley. “What about Annalise? Are you two close?”
“Not at all.”
With her thick British accent, not at all sounds like one word, notall. Harriet stops arguing with William long enough to greet Hayley and take her tea order.
“I’ll have a cup of We’re a Perfect Matcha,” Hayley says.
“Sorry, love,” Harriet says. “We are out of matcha. I used the last of it to make matcha sugar cookies. How about a nice pot of I Love You Oolong Time and a matcha sugar cookie?”
“Lovely,” Hayley says.
Harriet returns with Hayley’s tea and cookies. She refreshes my teapot before resuming her debate with William.
“Ferrero lost more than three million dollars in class-action lawsuits in America,” William says.
“The Americans!” Harriet waves her hands. “The Americans are the most litigious people in the world, after the Germans.”
“Oi!” Hayley shouts. “American here.”
Harriet looks at me and her cheeks flush.
“Sorry, love. No offense.”
“None taken.” I smile. “For the record, I have never sued Starbucks for putting too much ice in my iced coffee or Subway for serving me an eleven-inch footlong”—I raise three fingers on my right hand as if making the Girl Scout promise—“and I promise I won’t bring a lawsuit against the tea shop if you serve me a Nutella muffin.” William frowns at me. “Though, as a rule, I prefer good old American peanut butter over carcinogenic hazelnut spread.”
“Well done, you,” Hayley whispers. “Being drawn into the Nutella Crisis could be disastrous. Neutrality is your best course.”
“The line has been drawn in the sand”—I lower my voice to a whisper—“but I shall not choose sides.”
Hayley laughs. My Aunt Patricia once said, Laughter is an elixir of beauty. It has the power to transform a plain girl into a pretty girl, and a pretty girl into a remarkable beauty. Hayley is one of those pretty girls who becomes beautiful when she laughs.
William tucks his book farther up under his arm and strides out of the tea shop, nodding as he passes our table. Harriet arrives to take our lunch order—bowls of pea soup made with organic veg from Hayley’s farm and grilled cheese sandwiches on fresh-baked brown bread. Hayley’s eyes shine with pride when Harriet tells me the bit about the vegetables being sourced from her farm. I wonder if she always wanted to be a farmer? Did she ever think about choosing an easier career, one not dominated by men? Does she always wear jeans and tees, even when she is working in her market? I wait until Harriet leaves before hitting Hayley with questions.
“Have you always wanted to be a farmer?”
“Farming is all I have ever known.”
“Is it your passion, though?”
“I know it’s not sexy”—she wraps her slender fingers around her teacup and smiles at me in a sweet, self-conscious sort of way, her bottom lip pulled tight over her straight white teeth—“but farming is in my blood. It is satisfying to spend my day engaged in work that is truly meaningful, work that sustains life. My sister and her lot spend their days selling a concept—and a vapid one at that—posing in designer clothes, beside luxury automobiles, holding overpriced handbags. They work at creating images of a lifestyle that is unobtainable for most people.”
Yikes! As Taylor Swift might say, We got some bad blood up in here, y’all.
“My sister Manderley works as an assistant to a playwright,” I say, keeping my tone light and upbeat so I don’t come off judgmental. “My other sister, Tara, is a trained chef but works as a reporter for a television station. She films segments about food and the hottest restaurants in Charleston. Some might say their work is meaningless and even a little vapid, but wouldn’t the world be a boring place without movie-script writers and handbag-hocking models? I think creating art, in any form or format, is meaningful work for some people, don’t you?”
“Bloody hell! First, I cock up the greeting and then I carry on about my sister like some mad, jealous cow. Maybe I should just bugger off.”
“Get out of here.”
Hayley gasps. She pushes to a stand and is about to snatch her hat off the table when I realize she thinks I want her to leave.
“I didn’t mean that literally, Hayley,” I say, reaching for her wrist. “Get out of here is American slang for you have to be kidding. I don’t really want you to bugger off.”
She sits back down, her back ramrod straight, her lips pressed together in a tense, tight slash.
“And you didn’t sound like a mad cow. A little judgy maybe, but not mad. Not crazy-eyes, foaming-at-the-mouth, tongue-lolling-out, stomping-hoof mad, anyway.”
I laugh, and she relaxes her posture.
“Sorry,” she says, brushing a curl out of her face. “I get a little defensive about my job.”
“Really?” I grin. “I hadn’t noticed.”
She laughs.
“What’s that about?”
“You mean you haven’t heard The Tragic Tale of Hayley Bartlett?”
“Nope.”
“Not even the Reader’s Digest version?”
“Not even the Reader’s Digest version.”
She draws a deep breath, wraps her hands around her teacup as if it is a talisman for summoning strength, then begins telling me her tale—the unabridged version. I wouldn’t call it a tragic tale, but it is saaad.
Annabelle, Hayley’s momma, got pregnant when she was a teenager and refused to name the baby daddy, which caused a bit of a scandal in Northam-on-the-Water. A few months after Hayley’s birth, Annabelle packed a bag and moved to London, leaving her baby, and the baby daddy gossip, behind. She worked as a successful model until she met and married Robin Whittaker-Smith III, heir of Whittaker-Smith Bespoke, a luxury tailor specializing in country clothing. Apparently, Whittaker-Smith Bespoke has been supplying made-to-order tweed garments for Britain’s blue bloods since 1873. Annabelle stopped modeling and started designing superchic tweed ware for a younger, hipper demographic. Today, Annabelle Whittaker-Smith’s brand, Cavalier, is popular with young aristocrats, socialites, and heiresses hoping to pull a Kate (marry way, way up the social ladder). Hayley calls them the Chestertons, because she says the people who buy Annabelle’s clothes always attend a champagne-fueled, fascinator-free social event called Chestertons Polo in the Park.
“Toffs who sip chilled Moët at four hundred pounds per glass and whinge about how much it costs to maintain their piles.”
“Whinge?”
“Moan,” she says, rolling her eyes.
“Piles?”
“Massive country estates.”
“Ah.”
“Polo and piles,” Hayley says, her tone tinged with bitterness. “Vapid toffs, the lot of them.”
Should I tell Hayley how I used to be part of the Charleston polo and piles set, how I faithfully attended the Whitney Turn Up, how I used to sip overpriced champagne and whinge about the challenges of living in a two-hundred-year-old plantation? I like Hayley. I don’t want her to think I am a vapid toff, but my daddy used to say, A true friend sees your rickety old fence but pays it no mind because she would rather admire the flowers you got growing in your garden. How will I know if Hayley is a true friend if I bring her around the back way, if I hide my rickety old fence?
“If you had known me in Charleston, you would have called me a toff.”
Hayley looks surprised by my admission.
“I lived a vapid life,” I say. “Designer bags and debutante balls.”
“Lived. Past tense. What made you change?”
“For reals?”
Hayley nods.
“I didn’t have a choice,” I say, looking her dead in the eye. “My daddy died owing a mess of back taxes, so the IRS yanked my silver spoon right out of my mouth. They froze Daddy’s accounts and seized his assets. They even repossessed my car! A humbling and humiliating experience.”
“I can imagine.”
“The thing is”—I tip my teacup to the side and pretend to study the soggy grounds clinging to the sides and bottom of the cup because what I am about to say is embarrassing—“that humbling, humiliating experience was the best thing my daddy could have left me, more valuable than some old plantation or luxury car, because it forced me to grow up, to take charge of my life. Suddenly, I couldn’t afford to treat my life like it was a big old pool party and I was just lounging on an inflatable pink flamingo, waiting for a breeze to push me from one side to the other.” I take a deep breath and look at Hayley. “I miss my daddy something fierce, Hayley, so I hope you don’t think I am cold or selfish when I say this, but I don’t think I would have had the compulsion to grow up if he hadn’t died.”
I said I was moving to Northam-on-the-Water so I could live rent-free in my aunt’s cottage, but I realize that was a whole lotta hogwash. I moved to Northam because it was the only way I could get off my pink flamingo pool float. Staying in Charleston and living with my sister would have been like floating on that flamingo and letting the breeze take me from one side of the pool to the other.
“I don’t think you sound cold or selfish.” She lets go of her teacup, and for a second I think she might reach over and pat my arm, but she shoves her hands in her pockets instead. “You might have run with a posh set, but you could not have been vapid, not truly, terminally vapid anyway. A vapid person would have used her loss and humiliation as an excuse to garner sympathy; you used it as an impetus for change and growth. Good on you.”
“Thank you!”
Harriet brings our soup and cheese sandwiches and we chat about slightly less serious matters, like the new Harry Styles album (love), our favorite Netflix binge-worthy programs (Peaky Blinders), the latest celeb scandals (looking at you, Kendall Jenner), and our predictions for the Prince Harry and Meghan Markle mash-up (Hayley thinks they will end up like Prince Andrew and Fergie, with Meghan caught by the paparazzi in a toe-sucking peccadillo, while I feel they will follow the Disney route, remaining faithfully and happily wed till death do they part). Harriet clears away our empty dishes and refills our teacups.
“Did you spend a lot of time in London when you were growing up?”
“Not at all.”
“Didn’t you visit your momma?”
Hayley’s face hardens. “Annabelle hid my existence from her husband and her new family. She sent money to my grandparents so they could buy birthday and Boxing Day gifts, but that was the extent of her involvement in my childhood. When I was fourteen, she suffered a pang of conscience and confessed her dirty little secret to Robin.”
“How did he react?”
She fiddles with the handle of the tiny silver spoon sticking out of the sugar bowl, toying with the brown lumps of demerara.
“He invited me to live with them, said he would buy me a car, send me to the best schools, but I didn’t want to leave my grandparents. The farm is my home. Robin asked me to be involved in Annalise’s life, but I was a moody, sullen teenager by then. The last thing I wanted was to play big sister to my mum’s beloved brat.”
Hayley looks as bruised as she sounds, just a big, old emotional sore, and I can’t stop myself from reaching out and grabbing her hand.
“Annabelle didn’t even name me. My grandparents named me after Hayley Mills, the actress.”
I think about my momma and try to imagine how I would have felt if she had up and left me. I only know my momma through memories—other people’s memories. Still, I take comfort in knowing my momma wanted me and only left me ’cuz the good Lord needed another angel in heaven. I reckon it hurts Hayley something fierce to know her momma couldn’t be bothered to give her firstborn a name, but she sure enough gave her secondborn a name. Annabelle. Annalise. Ouch. Annabelle was a model. Annalise is a model. Now I see why Hayley seems to reject anything associated with the fashion industry—from modeling to tinted moisturizer.
“I grew up with the stigma of being the unwanted child of Hester Prynne of Northam-on-the-Water.”
“Hester Prynne?”
“The Scarlet Letter?”
Sweet lawd have mercy! Another book I only pretended to read in freshman lit. I skimmed it. Honest I did. I remember it had a whole mess of Mensa vocabulary words like ignominious, physiognomies, and contumaciously. For real, y’all. Who—besides Neil deGrasse Tyson and Manderley Maxwell—uses the word contumaciously in everyday speech? Brainiacs, that’s who. Note to self: download The Scarlet Letter. Unabridged version, not CliffsNotes.
“Um, Literature has never really been my thing, so you’re going to have to explain the Hester Price reference.”
“Prynne,” Hayley says, smiling. “Hester Prynne, the protagonist of The Scarlet Letter, lives in a village in New England. She has an affair with a puritan minister and gets up the duff.”
“Up the duff?”
“Pregnant.”
Hayley tells me the rest of Hester’s sad, sordid story, peppering it with British slang and snarky editorial asides.
“Lawdy! I wish you would have been my freshman lit study buddy,” I say, laughing. “I might have enjoyed Orwell.”
“I have just had the most brilliant idea!”
“Ooo! Goody!” I clap my hands. “I love brilliant ideas.”
“I will entertain you with a Hayley Bartlett original retelling of any classic novel, if you teach me how to make my eyeliner flick up at the ends like yours.” She thrusts her hand at me. “Do we have a bargain?”
Hayley has this whole jeans-and-tee, I-don’t-care vibe going on, with her fresh-scrubbed face and unmanaged curls, but with a little help, a little of my help, she could be beautiful, as beautiful as her half sister. Her passion for her vocation and her commitment to excel in her field—pun accidental—reminds me of Kristen. Focused, driven women are so inspiring (and intimidating), aren’t they? They make me want to be more focused and more driven.
“It’s a deal,” I say, shaking Hayley’s hand. “When do you want to start?”
“Are you busy next Saturday night?”
“Nope.”
“Brilliant! I planted a mango tree in my greenhouse and the first fruit is ripe. Nigella has a mango margarita recipe that sounds scrummy. I will bring the fruit—”
“—and I will supply the tequila!”
I want to jump up and cheer, but I am afraid my American enthusiasm might be too much for my new friend, so I settle for softly clapping my hands and letting out a restrained and dignified squeal.