The Hole in the Middle

Chapter 7: OCTOBER 1994

By the time the leaves on the maple tree outside my window start to turn red, I’ve begun to settle into a comfortable rhythm in the house on Abernathy Road. I’m in the house alone quite often, especially during the day, since A.J. and Will both have much heavier class schedules than I do, but I’m not lonely. I divide my time between the stacks at the library and my desk on the second floor, alternately writing or staring out at the maple tree. The smell of oiled wood paneling, lemon furniture polish and wool carpets feels like home now.

I’m surprised at how quickly I’ve adapted, and it makes me feel disloyal to Zoe. For the first few weeks, I moved around cautiously and tried to be unobtrusive and inoffensive. I felt Zoe’s absence horribly, especially at dinner. We’d eaten together most nights, sitting at our little kitchen table, and it had given a structure to my days that I missed. The boys were perfectly friendly, and conscientious about including me in their dinner routine, but it wasn’t the same, since it generally involved eating pizza standing up at the kitchen island or in front of the television.

One afternoon, sick to death of working on my reader’s response to an essay on the social construction of gender through discourse, and dreading the idea of ever eating another slice of Hawaiian pizza, I went to the supermarket and bought the ingredients for lasagna. When Will and A.J. got home, it was bubbling in the oven. They appeared in the kitchen almost immediately, looking so hopeful that I wondered if they, too, were growing weary of a diet of cheap dough, canned tomato sauce and oily cheese.

“I thought I’d cook for a change,” I said.

“You cook?” asked A.J. He looked as though he was trying not to laugh.

“Of course I can cook,” I said, unsure whether or not to be offended and settling on the latter. “My mother’s a caterer.”

Will shot A.J. a look as if to say, Don’t f*ck this up. “It smells incredible,” he said, inhaling deeply and flashing me the version of his smile that I now recognized as his warmest and most charming.

“Thanks,” I said shyly. “Do you guys like lasagna?”

“We love it,” said Will sincerely. “Can we help?”

“You could set the table,” I said.

“Done.”

“What about me?” asked A.J.

“Can you wash the lettuce?”

“I think I can handle that,” he said.

I tossed the salad and carved up the lasagna, and A.J. helped me carry in the plates. Will had set one place at the head of the table and one on either side, and he pulled the head chair out for me. A.J. rolled his eyes heavenward and snorted.

I leapt to Will’s defense. “What is your problem? The world would be a much nicer place if people were more courteous. You should try it. For one thing, women like men with beautiful manners.” At least I did, but I read a lot of Jane Austen.

“I’ve noticed,” said A.J., and now it was Will’s turn to snort.

I was flustered, and kept my eyes on my plate for the first few bites. A.J. and Will addressed themselves vigorously to their food, and when I looked up again, they were both watching me, plates empty. “There’s a lot left,” I said. “Help yourselves.” I’d been planning on eating the leftovers, but now I remember my mother telling me that she was lucky compared to her friends with teenage boys; my brother Mike was a light eater, while her friends spent hours preparing towers of casseroles only to have them demolished in minutes.

They returned, with second helpings much more generous than my first ones.

“Your mom’s a caterer?” Will asked.

“A caterer and a wedding planner,” I said. “The wedding business is mostly in the summer, though.”

“Where do your parents live?” asked A.J. I looked at him in surprise; he’d never asked me anything personal before.

“Port Alice,” I said. They both nodded. City people always know Port Alice; it’s a sleepy little town in the winter but a tourist hub in the summer, at the junction of three lakes whose shorelines are dotted with designer cottages. Port Alice residents are utterly bemused by the fact that fabulously wealthy people who could pay for weddings anywhere would choose to marry on a dock with a view of Port Alice. My mother says that it’s just more evidence that romance is totally irrational; she herself is a hopeless romantic, but leans more toward beaches and swaying palm trees.

“Did you grow up there?” A.J. asked.

“Partly,” I said. “I was born here. We had a family place near Port Alice and when my dad inherited it, he decided that he wanted to move there. I was ten.”

My dad had been practicing law in a big law firm downtown for years and he loved the idea of being a small-town lawyer; my mother referred to it as his Our Town fantasy. She was less enamored with the idea of relocating, but with her city connections, she quickly established her business and made good friends with all the local suppliers. I hadn’t minded the move at the time, because I’d always loved the family cottage. It wasn’t until I hit high school that I began to appreciate what had been taken away, and since my first days of university, I’d been a zealous convert to city living.

“How do you guys know each other?” I asked.

“We went to summer camp together,” said Will. “And then we ran into each other at a bar the summer before university and started hanging out again.”

“I know that you went to Duke and came back here for law school,” I said. “What about you A.J.? Have you been living here the whole time?”

“Since second year,” he said. “Will introduced me to Lil when I said I was looking for an apartment. I lived here with Alex and Simon for two years, but they graduated ahead of me.” I’d met his engineering friends at a couple of parties, and in fact suspected that Zoe had a fling with Alex before leaving for Paris. “I had to take some time off in third year,” he continued, but didn’t elaborate further.

We carried the plates into the kitchen. “We’ll do the dishes,” said Will, and A.J. nodded and started filling the sink with water. I sat up at the counter and watched them, feeling like an anthropologist. They fascinated me, and I wanted to know more. I felt that if I could somehow come to understand the underlying meaning of their habits, their interaction with each other, their clothes, their language and customs, then I might also unlock more general principles of attraction between men and women in the modern age. It didn’t seem to work the way it had in Jane Austen’s day. I’d had boyfriends, even serious ones, but I’d always felt off-balance in relationships. It was unsettling to be vulnerable to someone when you had no idea what they were thinking – not just about you and the relationship, but about whether they liked the movie you had just seen. I wanted to see inside a boy’s soul. That was what true love was about, wasn’t it? But I needed more data, and I thought that Will and A.J. might have it.

“You know,” I said, dragging my eyes away from the sight of Will’s strong forearms drying dishes, “I could cook more often, if you like.”

Will and A.J. exchanged a look. “We’d like it,” said Will, “But we can’t ask you to cook for us all the time. That wouldn’t be right.”

“How often were you thinking?” asked A.J.

“If you put some money in for groceries, I could cook three times a week - say Mondays, Wednesdays and Sundays?”

A.J. nodded slowly. “I could do Tuesdays,” he said.

Will looked stunned. “You cook?” he said.

A.J. shrugged. “A bit.”

“Wonders never cease,” said Will. “I totally can’t cook. But if you are going to give me home-cooked meals the rest of the week, I’ll spring for takeout on Thursdays.”

“No pizza,” I said quickly.

Will laughs. “Deal,” he said. He stretched a hand out across the table, palm down, grabbed one of my hands and placed it on top of his; A.J. dried his hands on a towel and laid one of them on mine. “Family dinner,” said Will, drawing our hands down and then pushing them up in the air in a move I vaguely recognized from televised sports.

“Woo hoo,” I said, feeling immediately idiotic.

And so our family dinner routine began. A.J. had a solid, if limited repertoire of chili, macaroni and cheese, and chicken fajitas. Will, as advertised, was hopeless in the kitchen, but I agreed to take responsibility for reheating and plating his offerings, and in return he produced meals that were several cuts above takeout; he made some arrangement with his mother’s caterer, and seemed to enjoy ordering screamingly domestic dishes like chicken pot pie, beef bourguignon and salmon en croute. I wondered sometimes if he was making fun of me, but I preferred to think that he was hearkening back to the meals he remembered eating at his family table. As the weeks stretched on, and the arrangement remained in place, I could only conclude that Will and A.J. liked a home-cooked meal at the end of the day as much as I did.



Lil returns in October. Will says that she’s been on the European festival circuit, which apparently includes a film festival in Venice and an antiques fair in Paris. We have a special Friday night dinner in her honor. I roast a chicken and vegetables, and make a green salad and an apple crisp. Lil regales us with tales of shocking celebrity behavior in the grand hotels of Venice. At the end of the meal, she sits back and surveys us with satisfaction.

“I knew a girl would add a civilizing influence,” she says. “I do so enjoy being right.” We all shift awkwardly and say nothing. She laughs. “You don’t have to acknowledge that I’m right. Just knowing is enough for me. Now, what are you all doing tomorrow night? I’d like to take you out for dinner.”

“Whatever plans you have, you should cancel,” says Will to A.J. and me. “You won’t want to miss it.”

“Quite so,” says Lil. “I thought we’d go to Tableau. They have a tasting menu that I’ve been wanting to try, but tasting menus are always more fun with a group. Are you all in?” There is a chorus of assent. “Excellent,” says Lil. “No jeans, boys. Ties and jackets required. And Sophie, you are going to come with me in the afternoon for some girl time.”



Girl time turns out to be a visit to Lil’s salon. I know immediately that I can’t afford anything here and I wonder, anxiously, if they have student rates.

“Lillian,” says a tall, graceful man, stooping to kiss her on both cheeks.

“Hello, Hugo,” she says. “This is my friend Sophie.” Hugo shakes my hand. “Sophie is having a makeover today.” I look at her in astonishment. “It’s my treat, Sophie,” she says. “All I ask in return is that you put yourself in Hugo’s talented hands.” She turns to him. “Some golden highlights, I think. And a much shorter cut. Her hair is too fine to be so long.” I reach up to clutch the loose bun at the back of my neck. It’s taken two years to grow it this long. “Hand over the – what do you call that thing you wear in your hair?”

“A scrunchie,” I say.

“Hand over the scrunchie,” she says, and I do. She hands it to the girl behind the cash desk. “Would you mind throwing that in the trash for me? Thank you, dear.” A grin tugs at the corners of her mouth. “Don’t look so horrified, Sophie. Trust me, it’s for the best.”

For the next hour or so, I let Hugo paint streaks into my hair and cover my head with plastic and sit me under a giant domed dryer while I read magazines. Then Hugo’s comely assistant washes the dye out and returns me to his chair. “And now we cut,” he says. “Courage!” He pronounces it cour – ahj. His scissors start flying and soon the floor is littered with chunks of my hard-won hair. I feel tears prickle in my throat, and I close my eyes. Hugo massages product into my hair and turns on the dryer, and his brush scoops the hair up and pulls it out and under. Finally, the noise stops. “There,” he says with satisfaction. “Now you will look.”

I open my eyes with trepidation and freeze. I can hardly believe what I see. I have a sleek cap of golden hair that curves gracefully around my face. It’s short in the back but lengthens gradually towards the front, and by some magic, it seems to make my round face look heart-shaped.

“You like it?” asks Hugo anxiously.

“You gave me cheekbones!” I say. “I love it.” Hugo beams. “Thank you,” I tell him.

“Wait until Marisa is done with you. Then you’ll have cheekbones,” Hugo promises. “Marisa!”

Marisa appears with what looks like a toolbox. “What’s in there?” I ask.

“Makeup,” says Marisa.

“Oh, no thanks,” I say. “I don’t really wear makeup.”

“Mrs. Parker wants you to have makeup,” Marisa insists, pulling out various tubes, holding them up against my face and rejecting them. “Do you know what color you’re wearing tonight?”

“Black, I guess,” I say, as Lil appears behind me in the mirror, her own hair darker than I remembered and expertly set.

“Lovely cut,” she says. “Much better. What size do you wear?”

I blush. “Ten,” I say.

“Ten!” she says. “Nonsense. You need to stop wearing clothes that don’t fit you. You have a nice little figure.” She turns to Marisa while I stare at the floor in mortification. “She’ll be wearing midnight blue.”



Back at Abernathy Road, Lil hustles me up to her apartment. “I have just the thing for you,” she says. “Come into the bedroom.”

Lil’s bedroom is decorated in blues and creams, with stunning dark furniture that looks terribly old and expensive. But it is the painting above the bed that captures my attention. It’s an abstract portrait of a nude woman with dark hair, reclining on a sofa in the foreground, her face hidden by an arm lifted back and behind her head. The woman, the sofa and walls of the room are all captured in angular blocks of blue oil paint in varying shades and intensities. The only contrast is from a riotous vase of pink and red peonies in the upper right corner of the painting.

“Do you like it?”

“It’s wonderful,” I say. “It reminds me of a painting by – “

“Matisse.” She finishes my sentence. “Yes, he was very influenced by Matisse in his early years. His work evolved into his own distinctive style over time, but this is one of his earliest pieces of any significance.”

“Who was the artist?”

She seems to hesitate. “Isaac Wallace,” she says.

“I.B. Wallace?” It is a name I recognize, of course, but I wouldn’t have guessed that this was his work. Zoe and I went to the retrospective show at the Art Gallery last year. I wonder why this piece wasn’t included.

“Let’s get you dressed,” says Lil. She opens a door on the far wall, and beckons to me to follow her. The door leads to a closet that is only slightly smaller than the bedroom. “It’s organized by decade,” she says, wandering along the racks until she finds what she is looking for. “Here,” she says, unzipping a garment bag and lifting it off the hanger. “I want to see this one on you.” It is a satin confection of pleats and drapes, with a deep v-neck, small rounded cap sleeves, a fitted waist and bell skirt that hits below the knee. The name on the label is Dior. I suck my stomach in as Lil pulls the zipper up.

“No need for that,” she says. “It’s not tight on you at all; quite the opposite. These were supposed to be very fitted. But it works on you. And the color is fabulous with your eyes. What do you think?”

She spins me around so that I face the full-length mirror. I hardly recognize the reflection staring back. My eyes look huge and radiantly blue, framed with lush dark lashes, my lips full and rosy, and, as promised, my cheekbones look like cheekbones. “I feel like Cinderella,” I say.

Lil beams. “Bibbity Bobbity Boo,” she says. “Speaking of Cinderella, do you have any proper shoes?”

“I have some black heels,” I say.

“I’m sure those will be fine,” she assures me. She looks at her watch. “Anil is picking us up in a half hour. I’d better get ready.” She opens a drawer and rummages around, pulling out a faded blue box with a sparkling necklace inside. “Take this with you. It will go very nicely. It’s not real, so don’t have an anxiety attack.” She waves me off towards the door. “I’ll meet you downstairs.”



As I come down the stairs, I see that the boys have followed Lil’s instructions and cleaned themselves up. Will is stunning in a black suit with a charcoal tie. Even A.J. looks highly presentable in gray flannel pants and a jacket. Lil is wearing a claret velvet suit. All three turn to look up at me at the same time. Lil nods her approval, but both boys look shocked and I stop on the stairs, thrown by their reaction. I feel suddenly too exposed. My hands flutter up to cover my chest, the tips of my fingers touching the crystals on Lil’s necklace. Then Will gives a low whistle, and I smile with relief. A.J.’s expression shifts from astonishment to something more like annoyance.

The doorbell rings. “That will be Anil,” says Lil. “Are we all ready?”

I drape my fake cashmere wrap around my neck. It’s black, and doesn’t exactly go with the dress, but it’s passable in the dark. I’m not used to wearing heels, though, and I miscalculate the front steps and nearly pitch forward onto the walkway. Will grabs my arm and steadies me. “Alright?” he asks. I nod. He takes a step back and then holds out an elbow.

“You mean chivalry isn’t dead after all?” I say, looping my arm through his.

“It’s a special occasion,” he says.

“You three sit in the back,” says Lil. “I’ll ride up with Anil.” I take the middle seat. Lil glances back, her expression impish. “A rose between two thorns,” she says.

The ride is short, but I’ve never been this close to either Will or A.J., and I’m uncomfortably conscious that the top of the dress is gaping. I pull the wrap closer around my shoulders. I look out the window to the right and collide with a glance from Will; the same thing happens with A.J. when I switch to the other side. I shift my hips and lean back slightly to minimize the view of my bra, but as I do so my thigh rubs against Will’s leg and he jolts away. A.J. opens his window.

When we arrive at the restaurant, they both leap out, and I’m left to climb, inelegantly onto the sidewalk. No one offers to take my arm now, although A.J. holds the door as we enter. We sit, and I take in the lovely room, with its deep, upholstered chairs and crisp white linens and enormous floral arrangements, while Lil examines the wine list. The waiter appears at Lil’s side. “Madame,” he says. “May I offer you a cocktail to begin?”

“We’ll start with a bottle of Veuve Clicquot Vintage Rosé. Do you recommend the 1975 or the 1978?”

The waiter looks startled. “Let me get the sommelier for you, Madame,” he says and scurries off.

“Rosé?” Will is clearly dubious.

“Don’t be such a snob,” says Lil. “This is one of the great drinks of the world. We’re not talking about the syrupy sludge that can only be consumed with fresh strawberries on Valentine’s Day.”

The sommelier appears with a bottle. “1975,” he says. “The 1978 is much better paired with food. This one stands on its own beautifully. A marvelous choice.”

He pours a small amount into Lil’s glass and she sips it delicately. “Yes,” she says. “That will do very nicely.” He pours a glass for each of us. “Would you let our waiter know that we’ll be having the tasting menu with the wine pairings?” He nods. She raises her glass. “To new friends,” she says.

And then we eat. The hours vanish in a blur of sensation. Each fresh combination of flavors is a revelation: sea scallop and caramel, fois gras and lavender, lobster and lemongrass, chocolate and sour cherries, and with each course, another glass of exquisite wine. My head is spinning when Lil suggests that I accompany her to the ladies’ room.

“What do you think?” she asks.

I’m too tipsy to feign sophistication. “It’s incredible,” I say. “Amazing. The best meal I’ve ever had in my whole life.”

She beams. “I’m so glad,” she says.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” I ask, and then wince as I hear the words. “I mean, not that I don’t really, really appreciate it.”

Lil laughs. “Because I’m old,” she says. “And because you remind me of someone I used to be. Now, let’s get back to our dates, shall we?”



By the time Anil drops us back home, it’s past midnight.

“Gentlemen,” Lil says, and the way she enunciates each syllable tells me that I’m not the only one feeling light-headed, “One of you is going to have to escort me upstairs.” A.J. leaps up and moves to her side, holding out his arm. “Well-raised,” says Lil approvingly, as they head up to her apartment. “Good night, my dears.”

“Thank you so much,” I say. “It was a magical evening.”

“It was my pleasure,” she says. “And Sophie? I want you to keep that dress. It looks beautiful on you.”

“Thank you,” I say again, as she ascends.

Will leans against the banister. “Do you need assistance as well?” he asks.

“I think I can manage,” I say.

“I’ll stay close just in case,” he says.

I concentrate on keeping my balance. I wobble I few times but Will doesn’t intervene and we make our way up to the second floor. Outside my door, I kick off the heels. “Made it,” I say with pride. I look up at him. “I had a really good time tonight.”

“It shows,” he says.

I throw my hands above my head like a ballerina in a music box and spin so that my skirt flares out at the bottom. But this is one feat too many for my addled brain, and I lose my balance, giggling. Will grabs me around the waist. “Champagne spins,” I say, referring to my head and not my dance moves. “They’re much better than the regular kind.”

Will tightens his grip on my waist. With my heels off, I have to tilt my chin up to look at him, and when I do, I stop giggling. He is very still, his face troubled. For a moment, I think he is going to kiss me, but then he releases me and steps away.

“Goodnight, Sophie,” he says.

“Goodnight, Will,” I respond, opening the door to my room and closing it firmly behind me. I’m too drunk to hang up my dress, but I lay it carefully over the back of my armchair. I can see it from my bed, glimmering with captured light from the street as I fall asleep, with the memory of Will’s gaze lingering on my skin.