Noah was at his office. Alice was at day camp. Luke was trailing around behind Felicity as she performed her normal Monday tasks. Sweeping the kitchen floor. Making the beds. Doing the laundry. She wished Luke would play with his Legos, heaven knew he had enough, but Luke was a sociable kid and some days he couldn’t be happy without someone near. So she sang nonsense songs while she worked, children’s songs she’d learned when she was a child that were still sung by children.
“The ants go marching one by one, hoorah, hooray…”
She’d put in a load of children’s clothes—how many thousands of children’s socks did she wash in a week? She went into the master bathroom and hauled her clothes and Noah’s and their bedsheets and dumped them into her wicker laundry basket.
“The ants go marching two by two, hoorah, hooray…”
When her cell buzzed, she checked the caller ID. Noah! He almost never called her during the day.
Happily, she answered, “Hey, baby.”
“Felicity? This is Ingrid Black. Noah asked me to tell you that he left a folder on his desk in his house. He’d like you to bring it here right away.”
Felicity sank down onto the edge of the bathtub, breathless with shock. Why did Ingrid have Noah’s private phone? And who was she to speak to Felicity in such autocratic tones?
“Felicity, are you there?”
“Yes. Yes, I’m here,” Felicity answered faintly. All sorts of responses were swirling through her mind and she knew she’d better not say any of them. “I’ll bring the folder in. Can you tell me what it says, or what color, so I’m sure to bring—”
“It’s in his leather portfolio that he always carries. You don’t need to read anything on it, just pick it up and bring it to us.”
So now it was “bring it to us”?
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Felicity killed the call before Ingrid could say another word.
She found the leather folder in the middle of Noah’s desk. Because Ingrid had told her not to read anything, she took the time to read through some of the papers, which were filled with numbers and graphs and charts and seemed deathly boring.
“Come on, Luke, we’re going for a ride to Daddy’s office!” She took him out to his car seat, dropped her enormous bag and Noah’s folder on the passenger seat, and started the SUV.
Her phone buzzed again.
“Yes?” Felicity said warily.
Ingrid said, “Felicity, don’t worry about bringing it in to the building. I’ll be waiting at the door, watching for you. I’ll come out and get it.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Felicity said sweetly. “I’ll have Luke carry it in to Noah. Luke loves coming to his daddy’s office.” Once again she killed the connection.
Noah’s office was on a ring road off Route 128, eight lanes of frustrated drivers going eighty miles an hour. Felicity hated it, but put a happy DVD in for Luke and drove carefully in the slow lane. The trip there and back would use up the entire morning, so she decided to change her plans and stop by Suze’s house on the way home. Luke could play with Suze’s little girl, and Suze would love hearing about what a bossy cow Ingrid was.
She could have taken the circle drive that led to the front door of the old brick building that Noah and his partners had bought from a failed stationery supply company.
But if she did that, she guessed Ingrid would rush out and snatch the folder before Felicity could get Luke undone from his car seat. So she drove around the building and parked in a free space in the employees’ parking lot. She gave Luke the folder to carry as they went inside. Felicity knew the layout of the company because three years before—before Ingrid had even been hired—Noah and his partners, the twenty-year-old boy geniuses with prodigious chemistry skills and few hygienic abilities, had shown Felicity and his investors through the building, focusing on the labs, so spotlessly clean and sparkling with instruments that cost more than jewels.
Noah had been full of hope then. He had seemed younger. He had finished his Ph.D. at MIT, and with the help of friends, GoFundMe, and his parents’ money, had started his company Green Food. He was energetic and optimistic. These days he was simply exhausted, Felicity thought, dealing with reports and government-issued guidelines and the excruciatingly slow process of chemical trials.
Luke had been inside the building several times over the years, so when they arrived in the main hallway, Felicity squatted down at eye level with her son.
“Lukey, would you like to take this folder to your daddy’s office?”
Luke nodded, his entire chubby body jumping up and down with excitement.
“Off you go, then. Be careful. Don’t drop it. Do you remember where Daddy’s office is? Okay, sweetie—wait, no running!”
But Luke was already hurtling himself through the hall, carrying the folder in both hands. Felicity followed behind him. They rounded a corner and saw, a short distance away, Noah’s office. Its walls were glass, so Felicity could see Noah’s desk and computer and chairs, and no Noah. In front of his office, standing beside her desk like a guard to the inner sanctum, stood Ingrid.
Ingrid wore black. She always wore black, probably because she thought it made her look chic or professional. Or because she thought it hid her extra weight, Felicity thought uncharitably.
“Hi, Ingrid,” Felicity said. “We’ve brought Noah’s folder.”
Ingrid ignored Felicity and bent over to face Luke. She held out her hand for him to put the folder in. “Hi, Luke. Thank you for bringing the folder. Would you like a sugar doughnut?”
Luke froze. Felicity knew her son was weighing the pleasure of presenting the folder to his father against the pleasure of having a sugar doughnut—a treat not allowed at home.
“I have to give this to Daddy.” Luke clutched the folder to his chest.
“I’m sorry, sweetie,” Ingrid cooed, “but Daddy’s in a meeting. I’ll take it to him.” She reached out for it.
Luke took a few steps back. “It’s for Daddy.”
Go Luke! Felicity thought. “Hi, Ingrid,” Felicity said, “it’s so nice to see you again. Could you tell us what room my husband is in? I’m sure he’d be pleased to have his son bring him his folder. And I’ll tell Luke to be fast like the wind.”
Ingrid stood to face Felicity. “This is an important meeting. I really don’t think Noah would want to be interrupted.”
“It can’t be that important,” Felicity said. “Noah didn’t mention it this morning, and he had no trouble falling asleep last night. He always has to take an Ambien the night before an important meeting.” Subtext: I sleep with the man.
“Oh, dear,” Ingrid said, pretending to soften, but with a steely glint in her eyes giving her away, “all I can say is that he asked me expressly not to be disturbed.”
Felicity almost laughed, from nervous tension and from the absurdity of the situation. She felt like she and Ingrid were two stags clashing antlers, although wasn’t it the males who did that?
“Daddy!” Luke yelled and took off running down the hall.
Felicity turned to see Noah walking toward them.
“Luke! You brought me my folder! Thank you!” Noah lifted his son up in his arms and carried him toward Felicity and Ingrid. He stopped next to Felicity and kissed her cheek. “Thanks for driving out here, hon. I know it interrupts your day.”
“We’re glad to do it, aren’t we, Luke?” Felicity said, smiling.
“Ingrid’s going to give me a sugar doughnut!”
“What?” Noah asked.
“Ingrid kindly offered to give Luke a sugar doughnut,” Felicity said.
“I don’t think we have any doughnuts,” Noah told his son. “But we have bananas and apples. Want a banana?”
“I have a sugar doughnut in my bag,” Ingrid said.
“Well, then, I suppose…but you know how I feel about sugar, Ingrid.” Noah set his son on the floor. “I’ve got to get back to the meeting.” He walked off, carrying his folder.
“Here’s the doughnut, Luke,” Ingrid said, reaching into her bag and handing it toward the little boy.
Felicity intercepted it. “We’ll wait until he’s strapped into his car seat. Otherwise, you’ll have crumbs all over the floor. Luke, what do you say to Ingrid?”
“Thank you,” Luke said, not entirely convincingly because he didn’t have his hands on the doughnut yet.
Felicity did a one-arm pickup of Luke, tucked him onto her hip, and with the doughnut in the other hand, she headed back to the parking lot, smiling all the way.
Alison had never spent much time with Poppy before, and in all honesty, she never wanted to. She understood that David’s daughter’s arrogance and hard edge came from being the vice president of a large company. Jane was like that herself, often. But Alison needed to talk this over with someone before she called Poppy and discussed wedding gowns. Her daughters were busy with their own lives, plus it seemed unfair to Poppy to keep talking to Jane and Felicity about Poppy, and David would think they were ganging up against Poppy, which maybe they kind of were…so she asked her best friend, Margo, to meet her at Boston’s Legal Sea Foods for lunch.
Over white wine and wild-caught salmon, she explained the situation. She knew Margo would laugh. During the thirty years of their friendship, they’d seen each other through divorces, deaths, and rebelling—Margo had called them revolting—teenagers. This, a disagreement about gowns for Alison’s third wedding, seemed trivial in comparison.
“But it’s not trivial,” Alison insisted. “I don’t need Poppy to love me, but I’d like to think we could like each other. She’s a grown woman, she has children and a high-powered career. I can’t understand why she’s making such fuss about the length of her gown.”
“You know what people say,” Margo told her. “It’s never about the gown.”
“Well, what does that mean?”
“Think about it. Maybe Poppy will never be friendly. You’re taking her mother’s place.”
“Her mother died—”
“Still. Before you, Poppy was the number one female in her father’s life. Now she’s pushed back to number two. And not only does she have to share her father with you, you’re bringing along two pretty daughters.”
Alison shook her head. “I thought when David said he’d have Heather take care of everything that I could handle an exciting wedding. But I’m doing things all out of order. Now I’ve got to deal with Poppy about the gown, and we haven’t even approached the subject of flower girls and their dresses.”
“Well, there you are,” Margo said, lifting her hands. “Ask her about her daughter, if she’d like to be head flower girl and what the flower girls should wear. That will give her some control over the wedding, and she might be more reasonable about the gown.”
“Hm. But what will Felicity think about that?”
“Who’s the older of the two?”
“Daphne, Poppy’s daughter. She’s eight.”
“So there’s your reason—”
“But shouldn’t the bride get to choose the flower girls? Aren’t flower girls the bride’s attendants?”
“Well, right. But why not choose Daphne? That will make a kind of bridge between your family and David’s.”
“That’s an optimistic way to see it,” Alison said. “I’ll think about it.”
Poppy told Alison she was too busy for lunch, but if she could come to the Belmont park playground at five, Poppy would meet her there and they could talk while her children played.
Alison brought graham crackers and cartons of juice for everyone, and when Poppy said, “I’ll take those and give them to the kids later,” Alison smiled and let Poppy take them. She felt like a dog rolling over on her back, showing her vulnerable tummy.
They settled on a bench in the shade. For a few moments, they watched Daphne and Hunter run for the slides and monkey bars.
“Your children are adorable,” Alison said.
“Thanks.”
Alison dove right in. “I wanted to ask you, Poppy, whether you’d like to have Daphne be head flower girl for the wedding.”
Poppy didn’t gush or even smile. “Is that appropriate?”
“Appropriate?”
“Aren’t the flower girls part of the bride’s side?”
“Well, yes, I suppose, although I haven’t read a rule book. But you know, my wedding to David is more about a wonderful celebration. We can kind of throw the rule book away.” When Poppy didn’t respond, Alison continued, “And I’m hoping my grandchildren and David’s will become friends.”
Still watching her children, Poppy said, “That depends on how my father changes his will.”
Alison straightened her back. “I don’t understand.”
“Dad’s told us he’s changing his will. He wants to be certain that you’re taken care of in case he dies before you.” Poppy snapped her head around to glare at Alison. “And of course he will die before you, it’s a statistical reality that men die before women.”
“Poppy, believe me, I hope I die before David. I can’t imagine being happy without him. But also, David and I have never discussed his will.”
“I know. He said you’re all airy-fairy about money.”
“Your father said I’m ‘airy-fairy about money’?”
Poppy sighed loudly. “He might not have used those exact words, but he doesn’t think you care about money.”
“Well, I don’t! I mean, of course I do, but I’m perfectly fine financially and my needs are modest. Please don’t think I’m marrying your father for his money. I’ve never cared that much about wealth, and at my age, I’ve learned what’s important and it’s not money. I never imagined I’d meet such a wonderful man and fall so deeply in love. It’s almost miraculous that he feels the same way about me. Money simply doesn’t come into it.”
Poppy rolled her eyes. “So my father’s becoming as fiscally irresponsible as you. I think you should talk to him about all this.”
“I think you and Ethan and I should talk to David together.”
Poppy relaxed. “All right. We’ll do that.”
Alison played with her engagement ring and tried to gather her thoughts.
“Poppy, I really wanted to talk to you about your gown for the wedding.”
“Good. Dad told you why you need to wear a long gown?”
“No,” Alison responded calmly, “he told me why you want to wear a long gown. I’ve already chosen my gown and had it altered to fit. I’m sorry I didn’t speak with you about this before, but it was only a few weeks ago that I talked to my own daughters about their dresses. Everything’s happened so fast.”
“It sure has,” Poppy agreed sourly.
Not to be derailed, Alison continued, “So I’ve gone through some bridal magazines, and checked on some websites, and you know these days, anything goes.”
Alison reached into her bag and took out several bright pages torn from magazines. She tried to hand them to Poppy. Poppy didn’t take them.
“So…you see, on this page, the attendants are wearing four different lengths of dresses. And here, an attendant is wearing gorgeous palazzo pants. You could wear those with an expandable waistband so you’d be comfortable. And a beautiful tunic over them.”
Poppy actually turned her head and looked at the page. She took it in her hand. “You’re right. Something like this might work.”
Alison was so relieved to hear those words she nearly fell off the bench.
“But there’s another problem,” Poppy said.
Dear Lord, what now? Alison thought.
“I don’t want to wear pink. It doesn’t look good on me, not with my strawberry-blond hair.”
Alison was prepared for this. “Then don’t wear pink, Poppy. I mean, your father and your brother are wearing tuxes. You’re really an attendant for your father, so you could wear black.”
Poppy met Alison’s eyes, squinting as if to read her motives for this suggestion. “Hm,” Poppy said finally. “Yes. I think I’d like to wear black to your wedding.”