CHAPTER THREE

Juliet

On the day her father had his stroke, Juliet Elizabeth Frost was considering leaving her perfect life and becoming a smoke jumper in Montana—husband, children and job be damned.

The thing was, her life really was perfect. Excellent health, fabulous education, a career as an architect that earned her a ridiculous salary. She had a husband who loved her and was from London with a dead-sexy accent to boot. They had two healthy daughters and lived in a beautiful home overlooking Long Island Sound. Juliet drove a safe, fancy but not too pretentious German car. They brought their daughters on vacations to places like New Zealand and Provence. She spoke French and Italian. Her boobs had survived nursing two babies, and while they might not be perky anymore, they weren’t saggy, either.

She knew a lot of successful, intelligent women, though her mother was her true best friend. She tolerated her younger sister and was sometimes even fond of her. Her father, who had always been distracted where she was concerned, had recently morphed into a raging asshole . . . and Juliet was going to have to tell her mother about it. Soon.

None of this explained why she was currently sitting in her closet, having a panic attack, hoping she’d faint.

The girls were at school, thank God, and Oliver was at work, designing jet engines. It was lucky that Juliet was working from home today, because last week, when she had a panic attack at work, and the idea of her coworkers, her boss, and Arwen seeing her hyperventilating and crying and possibly fainting . . . no. She’d had to get down eight floors and rush into the Starbucks on Chapel Street, and thankfully, the restroom was free. The first time it hadn’t been, and she’d slid to the floor and had to pretend she was having a sugar crash in order to keep the barista from calling the ambulance.

Today, the panic attack had just sneaked up on her right during the conference call with her team at DJK Architects, one of the best firms in the U.S. Seemingly out of nowhere, it came . . . that creeping, prickling terror that started in her feet and slithered up her legs, making her knees ache, her heart rate accelerate. Keep your shit together, she ordered herself. Her boss, Dave, was drawing out the goodbyes with his usual jargon . . . “So I think we all have our action points” and “we’ve really drilled down on the issue,” all those stupid clichés. Would it kill him to just end the damn meeting?

Her heart was beating so hard, and she was trying not to blink too fast, but the sweat was breaking out on her body, chest first, then armpits and crotch, back of the legs, forehead. In another ten seconds, she’d start to hyperventilate.

“Arwen, e-mail me those numbers, okay?” she said. Her voice sounded strained and thin.

“Already done.”

Of course it was. “Great! Talk soon, everyone!” Her voice was a croak. She clicked the End button, closed the computer just in case the feed was still live, and bolted for the closet.

Sometimes, the hyperventilation caused her to pass out, which was actually a lot easier than talking herself down, that forced slow breathing, the mantra of you’re fine, you’re fine, you’re fine, slow down, slow down, slow down. Fainting was lovely. If she fainted, everything grayed out gently, giant spots eating up her vision, and it felt as if she were falling so slowly.

Then she’d wake up, normal breathing restored, on the carpeted floor of her expansive closet—because so far, four of the six panic attacks had been in the closet, conveniently—safe among her shoes and sweaters. Like a nap. Like anesthesia. Juliet loved anesthesia; last year, she’d had to have a uterine biopsy, and the IV sedation was the best feeling she’d had in ages. She wished she could’ve stayed in that state, that lovely, floating, almost unconscious state, for a long time. Totally understandable why people got hooked on those drugs.

The attack was passing. No pleasant fainting this time, apparently. She’d have to shower again, since she was damp with sweat, and change, and get her current outfit to the dry cleaner’s. If Oliver noticed their dry-cleaning bill had seen a significant bump, he hadn’t said anything. Then again, that was her job: pick up dry cleaning on the way home from the office.

None of these was the reason she was sitting hunched in her closet.

The problem was Arwen.

No. No, she wasn’t the problem. Juliet hated women who blamed other women for their issues . . . or maybe their own lack of success.

But the problem was maybe Arwen. Arwen Alexander, Wunderkind.

Yes. Fuck it, Juliet’s heart started racing again. Come on, fainting! You can do it! A laugh/sob popped out of her lips.

The panic grew. Fast. Like a mushroom. Like cancer. How had she been reduced to sitting in a fucking closet with the full-on shakes when she had a perfect life?

In the past few months, everything Juliet took for a fact seemed fluid. She’d always wanted to be an architect, but did she anymore? Somehow, inexplicably, it felt like she was living the wrong life. How could that be? Every detail had been planned, mapped out, worked for and achieved. Harvard, check. Yale, check. Oliver, check. Two healthy daughters, check and check and thank God. This house that she’d designed in the town she loved. Check. Parents who loved her and had a solid (ha!) marriage.

But suddenly it all felt wrong. Never before had Juliet questioned that she was on the right path . . . until now.

Was she a good mother? A good wife? She loved her girls, of course she did. She’d die for them. Kill anyone who threatened them with a song in her heart and a smile on her lips. She did everything she could for them, and from the outside, it probably looked like she was a good mother.

She just didn’t feel like it these days. Brianna had grown sullen and withdrawn—she was twelve, so it wasn’t the world’s biggest surprise. But the thing was, Juliet hadn’t done that with her mother. She adored her mother, every day, every year. Sloane was right behind Brianna at ten . . . Would she stop talking to her, too? Oliver had been a little . . . distant, maybe. And if there was one thing Juliet couldn’t stand, it was distant. Her father had been that way (except with Sadie). And Dad had been especially distant with Mom.

Of course things stopped being hot and heavy after fifteen years of marriage. You couldn’t keep that shit up, no matter how hard you tried, how many thongs you bought. Things became expected and comfortable, and that was good, wasn’t it? Even if she tried really hard to be spontaneous and exciting, she and Ollie knew each other inside and out. Would she find herself walking her parents’ path, barely speaking, being invisible to the other?

This seeping dread, this flight response . . . why did it feel so real? Was she a fake somehow, in both work and life? Why was Arwen so terrifying when she was perfectly . . . fine?

Shit, shit, shit. This was what happened. One little crack, and the whole building comes down.

Juliet stood. Her legs felt shaky, and her hair looked greasy. There were circles under her eyes.

That faint would’ve been welcome. A little nap.

Instead, she went to her computer and Googled “how to become a smoke jumper in Montana.” Very conveniently, the U.S. Forest Service was hiring. So she would need a little experience fighting wildland fires. She’d get it. Juliet was in great shape. She liked heights and fires (though more of the bonfire/fireplace type). She was brave—always the first to jump in the water, or try waterskiing or leap off the platform while zip-lining. She was an adrenaline junkie who had just emerged from hiding in her closet.

The idea of being far, far away doing heroic things had such pull, such promise. Her sister Sadie would probably do it. Move to Montana, be handed a job, meet a cowboy who happened to also be a billionaire and spend the rest of her life traveling and getting massages on various beaches, because that’s how life unfolded for Sadie. Juliet worked and planned for everything; Sadie skipped off to New York City, doing things in the most irresponsible, unplanned, carefree way possible. No money? No problem. I can waitress! I can work in a tattoo parlor! I’m an artist, you see. Things are different for us, since we’re pure and superior. No career? No worries! Something will come along. In the meantime, look at this hovel I’m living in after Mom and Dad remortgaged the house to put me through college!

In typical Sadie fashion, she got a cute little job at a cute little school and somehow started earning money on paintings that allowed her to buy a cute little apartment and then found a cute wealthy boyfriend. Sadie never had to work for a thing. Juliet worked every fucking day, every fucking minute. Did people think Oliver just saw her and fell in love? Oh, no. She had to work for him. The guy was absolutely wonderful—handsome and charming and smart and kind and funny—and everyone had wanted him. Juliet had taken one look at him and thought, Game on. She’d had to earn him, which she had.

All work, all the time, every part of her life. Me time? Please. Juliet brought work with her on every weekend away, every vacation. She took a bubble bath for effect, only when Oliver had come home from a trip, and she’d run the bath and sprinkle flower petals in and light candles the way no one ever did in real life, and it was all for seduction, to say, “Sure, we’ve been married for fifteen years, but I’m still a voracious sex beast, you betcha!” Long walks on the weekends or after school were to incorporate health and outdoor time into the girls’ lives, even if Juliet’s brain was fogged with all the work she had to do to earn that fat salary, how late she’d have to work to make up the time spent walking, how to help Sloane catch up on reading and make gluten-free, peanut-free, dairy-free cupcakes for Sloane’s class and later have sex with Oliver so he wouldn’t forget he loved her, or take Mom out to dinner because she deserved it, or plant flowers in the front yard because Oliver’s British mother loved gardens and had once said a house without a garden is a house without a soul, and then what about the mentorship thing she’d promised to do for Yale, and the workshop (not keynote) she was giving at the annual American Institute of Architects conference on risk management (not the sexy one Arwen was doing on “breaking boundaries”) and right, their cleaning lady had moved and Juliet hadn’t found another one yet so she had to clean the house because she liked things tidy and couldn’t relax if things were messy.

“Shit,” she said aloud. “Next time, faint, you idiot.”

She left her closet, intending to take a shower, but there was her phone, buzzing on the desk of her study.

Mom. She always took calls from Mom.

“Sweetheart,” her mother began, “I’m real sorry to have to tell you this, but your dad’s been in an accident, and he’s hurt. Real bad. I’m on my way to Lawrence and Memorial.”

Her heart thudded hard, rolling in a sickening wave—once, twice, three times.

“I’m on my way,” Juliet said, her voice firm. “Hang in there, Mom, I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

Smoke jumper. She would make a great smoke jumper.