The Smart One

Chapter 8





It was Weezy’s secret. No one needed to know. She wasn’t hurting anyone, not even a little bit. It was just something to fill her time, something to lift her spirits. But if Will found out, he’d think she was crazy. And her kids—well, they would probably call the nuthouse and make her a reservation right then and there. That’s why she kept it to herself. No one needed to know.

It wasn’t like she meant to do it. No, it had all been innocent enough. Weezy had been smack in the middle of planning Claire’s wedding when it was called off. Just like that, it was over. She’d been talking to caterers and venues, had meetings set up, had been enjoying all the research, and then one day Claire called and it was all done.

She’d never thought she’d be the type of person to get so involved in wedding planning, but she was wrong. It was a whole different ball game since she and Will had gotten married in the Starlight Room, with a lovely, simple lunch reception. For her own wedding, she’d made her dress, worn her hair straight and down. They’d all eaten and danced and that was that.

But when she started researching for Claire’s wedding—oh, the excess! There were photo booths to be rented, personalized match-books and napkins to be had. Caterers sent her sample menus, with wonderful descriptions of bacon-wrapped dates and Boursin-wrapped snow peas. They sent pictures of the food, names of signature cocktails, options for monogrammed cupcakes and chocolate fountains. And that was just the food! There were also blogs of local brides, detailing every step of their weddings. There were forums of angry brides, trashing photographers and caterers and florists. It was a whole new world, and Weezy was fascinated.

Claire called off her wedding on a Monday. Weezy had already arranged to meet with one of the caterers the very next day, and she was too shocked to call and cancel. How do you explain a thing like that over the phone? That morning, she found herself driving toward the offices. She didn’t tell Will where she was going. No, he wouldn’t have understood. He would have picked up the phone and canceled the appointment himself, just said she couldn’t make it, with no explanation. But he didn’t understand. She’d been dealing with Sally Lemons, the owner of Lemons and Limes, for weeks now. They had a relationship, a correspondence e-mailing menus back and forth. She couldn’t just cancel over the phone. That would be extremely rude. And so she got in her Volvo and drove to the office.

She had fully intended to tell Sally in person that the wedding was off. It was the right thing to do, to end this face-to-face. But when she walked into the room, the table was already set with the ivory and taupe linens that they had discussed, and a man handed her a glass of cucumber lemonade. “This is what your guests will be greeted with,” he told her. She took a sip and decided to stay. She could tell Sally later.

And so they ate. They ate pan-roasted halibut with fingerling potatoes, and beef tenderloin with goat cheese medallions. They tried bruschetta and marinated mozzarella. They sampled wedding cakes and pecan diamonds. Weezy left Lemons and Limes, stuffed full and a little guilty. She’d drunk several glasses of wine without meaning to; every time she came close to finishing one, it was refilled right to the top. At the end, Sally had given her a warm handshake, saying how sorry she was that Claire couldn’t make it, that they could do another tasting when the menu was decided, that she’d be in touch to work out the details.

Weezy had sat in her car in the parking lot for almost an hour after the tasting. When she’d stood up to go, she was dizzy and, she realized, a touch drunk. She felt almost giddy, like she’d stolen something, only she hadn’t. It had all been free. Sally had talked to her like she was in charge of something big. She’d treated Weezy with respect and that was nice. The wine was just a bonus.

And that was how, months later, Weezy still hadn’t told any of the vendors that the wedding was off. She’d told them it was postponed, of course. She had to. The date she had originally given them was looming, and there was no way around that. “You know kids these days,” she’d said. “Their lives are so busy they can’t seem to find the time to get married!” But she still sent a note to Sally every couple of weeks, just to ask about new items on the menu, or to discuss what to do for a guest with a gluten allergy.

And so what? So what if Weezy was planning an imaginary wedding? People did far worse things, and anyway, maybe she’d use this information somehow at some point. Still, if anyone had caught her, she would have been completely mortified. And so, when Will walked into the kitchen and she was on her laptop, pricing out letterpress invitations as opposed to engraved, she slammed her computer shut and sat up straight.

“HI,” SHE SAID. She tried to act casual.

“Hello,” he said, and stretched his arms out to the side, which made his shirt pull tight against his round belly. “Just taking a break to get a drink. Don’t let me interrupt.”

Weezy was just the littlest bit annoyed (as she was at least once a day) that Will had a room to work in all to himself, while she was relegated to a built-in desk in the kitchen. When had she agreed to this arrangement? Her desk was often littered with things that people just dropped there, receipts or empty envelopes and sometimes even food wrappers. And there was no privacy with people parading through the kitchen. Will came down several times throughout the day. Of course he was going to interrupt. Why even say that? Don’t let me interrupt. It was ridiculous.

“How’s the writing coming?” she asked. This question was a reflex. She asked it so often, with so little real interest. It was like saying, “How are you?” to an acquaintance in the grocery store.

“Good,” Will answered.

“Are you ready for your class today?” This was another pointless question. Will had been teaching the same two classes for the past five years now, and he could do them in his sleep.

“Yep. I’m all set.”

“Mmm. What time are you headed over?”

“I have office hours at four.”

They were silent for a few minutes and Weezy looked out the kitchen window. “The Connors are having some work done on their house,” she said. “I wonder if they’re getting it ready to sell. There’s been people coming and going all day.”

“Huh,” Will said. He half looked out the window, as though he was curious about this, which Weezy knew he wasn’t. Will didn’t really care or keep up on any of the neighborhood news.

It was the mothers that remembered everything anyway. That’s what Weezy had learned after three decades in this house. The mothers knew what was happening in the neighborhood. They knew the history, the scandals, the stories, the transgressions. They were the ones that kept the details straight, that passed information to the new people on the block. They gave the prompts to the fathers—“You know who I’m talking about, the one that got pregnant, no, not the Brennan girl, the other one, the Sullivans’ daughter.”

They knew who had gotten divorced, who was getting divorced, and who would probably get divorced soon. They knew who had cheated and who got the best settlements. And the fathers would always just nod as they listened to all of this, the stories sounding vaguely familiar, or at least more familiar than unfamiliar, like it had been overheard at a picnic somewhere, discussed at a barbecue, or whispered in the kitchen while dinner was being prepared and the kids were in the next room doing their homework.

As the kids had grown up, the neighborhood gossip had slowed down. Everything had slowed down, really. For some years in the midst of it, when the children were growing up, Weezy had spent a fair amount of time talking with the other mothers on the block about everyone’s business. It wasn’t mean-spirited, or at least Weezy liked to think it wasn’t. It was just something to get them through the day, at a time when their days were always so busy—school projects, money worries, shuttling Max to hockey, and grounding Claire. It was all so fast that sometimes it felt like you needed a reminder to breathe.

Weezy and Will used to talk about what they would do after the kids moved out, when they had their own lives and no children to take care of. “We’ll be those crazy old people that buy an RV and drive cross-country,” Will said once. Weezy had laughed. She would be happy with an apartment in the city and a cottage by the shore. They had looked forward to that time, when they could relax and just enjoy themselves. It was still coming, Weezy believed. It was just put on hold for a while.

Ten years ago, if Weezy could have predicted where her children would be at this point, she would have guessed that Claire would be married and maybe even have a baby or two. Martha was harder to guess, but Weezy thought she’d be living on her own, nursing, and enjoying every minute of it. Max was still in school, so for the moment, he was still on track. But who knew? These things could get derailed at any moment. She knew that much.

Sometimes Will got a surprised look on his face when Martha or Claire walked into the room, like he’d forgotten that they lived there now. It wasn’t that he disliked having them there. Sometimes Claire would say something that would make him laugh loudly, a huge, surprising guffaw. And he and Martha enjoyed spending quiet time together, reading the paper in the mornings and drinking coffee. Sometimes he seemed confused by their presence, and sometimes he treated them just as he always had, as if they were still children.

Just the other day, Martha had walked into the kitchen to get some aspirin, and Will said, “You still have a headache? Poor baby.” And something unsettled itself in Weezy, hearing him say that. Martha wasn’t a baby. It didn’t seem right to call her that, to say poor baby and pat her on the head.

It didn’t help matters that when the kids were home they seemed to start acting like teenagers again. They left shoes and bags and jackets scattered all around. Glasses were missing from the kitchen, only to be found in bedrooms or the basement. Dishes rarely made it to the dishwasher. The best you could hope for was that they’d get rinsed off and left in the sink. Usually they were just abandoned in the kitchen, on the counter, presumably waiting for a fairy to come and clean them up.

This was not how Weezy had raised her kids. Not at all. She taught them to clean up after themselves, called them back to the kitchen to clean up the apple and peanut butter snack that was now smeared on a plate. But that was when she was younger and had more energy, when she was able to take the time to yell and insist and ignore the rolled eyes and sighs of injustice. Now, most of the time she couldn’t quite face it, and so she ended up picking up after them, throwing armfuls of possessions back into their rooms, rinsing off dishes, wiping crumbs from the table.

After Weezy had stopped working last year, Will had suggested that they get rid of the cleaning lady. “Should we let Sandra go?” he’d asked, like it was the natural thing to do. He had just left his crumby toast plate, an egg pan, and a coffee cup right in the sink.

“Let Sandra go? Why would we do that? So I can fulfill my life goal of cleaning up after you? Believe me, I do enough of that. Who is it that you think is going to come along and clean up from your breakfast? The elves that live under the sink?”

Will had thrown up his arms and sighed like a martyr. “It was just a suggestion,” he said. He went back to the sink and started cleaning up his dishes.

Sandra came in only once every two weeks now anyway. Did he really think that Weezy would be happy to spend her days scrubbing toilets? Sometimes she didn’t know where he got these ideas. She had remained angry for weeks, and whenever she started to get over it, she’d hear Will saying, Should we let Sandra go? and get annoyed all over again.

“Don’t you think you’re overreacting just a little bit?” Maureen had asked her.

“No,” Weezy said. “I don’t think I’m overreacting at all. My husband would like me to spend my days dusting and mopping. Maybe that’s what he always really wanted.”

“I think you’re reading too much into this. Will says stuff all the time that doesn’t mean anything. He just said it without thinking, that’s all.”

Somewhere, deep down, Weezy knew that Maureen was probably right. Will said stupid things all the time. She tried to let it go. But every time Sandra was due to come, and Weezy had to go around the house picking up stuff to make sure that the poor woman could actually get to the vacuum cleaner and dust without tripping over a pair of shoes, Weezy would say out loud, “It’s a good thing Sandra’s coming tomorrow. Look at this place. No one’s picked up a thing in weeks.” She couldn’t help herself. She wanted Will to know that she had better things to do than to be his personal maid.

Once a month, Sandra was allowed to go into Will’s office to clean it. It was disgusting in there. There were Kleenexes on the floor (near the garbage but not in it), dust all around the computer and desk, papers stacked everywhere. And as much as Weezy begged Will to bring dishes down as soon as he was done with them, there was always a glass or two that was left behind. The last time that Sandra was up there, she’d come down holding a coffee mug that had mold growing up the sides.

Weezy was embarrassed and also horrified for Sandra. Even if it was your job to clean someone else’s house, it didn’t mean that you expected to find a cup of mold while doing so. Will hadn’t really understood. “That’s her job,” he’d said. “Sorry, I didn’t know it was up there.” But he wasn’t sorry, and now Weezy was never going to be able to let Sandra back into the office without checking it out herself.

Will was still clunking around the kitchen, and Weezy wanted him to finish up so that she could go back to the blog post she was reading, the one that was all about the personal touches you could add to your wedding—old family wedding pictures, naming the tables after favorite books, designing your own guest book!

“So, what’s on the agenda for today?” Will asked. He took out some lunch meat and sniffed it, as if he thought it had been left there to go bad.

“That’s brand-new,” Weezy told him. “I just bought it yesterday.”

Will nodded and grabbed some cheese, bread, lettuce, and mayonnaise and started assembling a giant sandwich.

“Go easy on the mayo,” Weezy said. Will nodded and then moved so that he blocked the sandwich from her view. “I’m going to meet Sharon, from work, in a little bit.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah, she said there’s some things she wanted to talk to me about.”

“I hope she’s not trying to lure you back to work.” Will took a large bite out of his sandwich and chewed while standing. This was a habit of his that got more annoying with time. “Sit down,” she was always telling him. “Sit down and chew.” But he insisted on eating standing up, like a teenager or a farmer.

“I’m not sure what she wants to talk about. I told her I’d meet her for a cup of coffee.”

“Sounds good.” Will’s answer came so easily that Weezy almost felt guilty for lying. Almost.

THE FLORIST WAS LOCATED CLEAR on the other side of the city and it took almost an hour to get there. Sally Lemons had been the one to recommend him to Weezy. “I love working with Samuel,” she’d said. “He’s so creative. A true artist.”

And so Weezy had called him to make an appointment. This was actually the first appointment she’d made since the wedding was called off. All of the others were ones that were already set up, and this felt in some ways like she was crossing a line. It was one thing to peruse websites, and to e-mail for information, but now she was actually meeting with someone. But she was so curious to see what he had to show her, and she loved flowers, and really, what was the big deal?

Samuel worked out of his own florist shop, which was small and damp. There was some temperature-controlled room to the left that housed plants, and a large refrigerated portion up front that held cut flowers. The smell of flowers was thick, but not overwhelming. Then again, Weezy loved the smell of flowers. She loved everything about them, watching them bloom and flourish in her backyard. It was so satisfying to plant something and know what would spring up from the ground—that is, as long as the squirrels and chipmunks minded their own business. You always knew what you were getting when you planted a flower, and Weezy liked that.

When she opened the door, the shop was empty. She walked to the desk and waited a moment, then rang the little bell that was there. A large, balding, sort of roundish man peeked out from the back. “Mrs. Coffey?” he asked, and Weezy nodded.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she said, pointing to the bell. “I didn’t mean to be rude, I just wasn’t sure …”

“Of course not! Come on, let’s take a seat over at the table.”

Samuel was not what she expected. He had the build of an old high school football player, his voice was deep and booming, and he was wearing a blue-checked button-down polo shirt, which was identical to one that Will owned.

“It’s so nice to meet you,” Weezy said. “Sally said the nicest things about you.”

“She’s great, isn’t she?”

The two of them sat at a long table and Samuel spread several glossy books filled with pictures of floral arrangements in front of them. Weezy couldn’t help but sneak looks at Samuel. She was surprised at how, well, manly he was. Then she was ashamed of herself for being surprised. What did she expect? That just because he owned a flower shop he was going to be a tiny, delicate, feminine man? Well, yes, that’s exactly what she had expected.

“So, how long have you been doing this?” Weezy asked.

“Oh, forever,” Samuel said with a laugh. “This was my parents’ shop, and I worked here growing up, helping out as a little guy, then part-time during high school and college, and full-time after that. I really took to it, and I was lucky because when my parents got ready to retire, none of my eight siblings was even the least bit interested.”

“Eight!”

“Yes, eight.” Samuel laughed again. “You’d think there’d be a few more green thumbs in the bunch, but there was just me.”

“I love to garden,” Weezy said. “I think of myself as a green thumb too.”

“Great,” Samuel said. “Then this will be fun.” He placed his hands, palm down, on top of the books. “So what I usually do is flip through these books, and just have you point out anything that grabs your attention—good or bad. Then we can look through some of my photos from weddings I’ve done. We can talk a little bit about what you imagine for the day, what flowers are favorites of yours, and so on. Then once we’ve worked through it all, I can draw up a proposal and we can go from there.”

“That sounds perfect,” Weezy said. “And of course, it’s so unfortunate that my daughter couldn’t come with me today.”

Samuel nodded. “Not a problem. As long as the two of you have talked and are on the same page, it should be fine. And we can show her what we come up with and alter it if we need to. Nothing is set in stone—this is a work in progress.”

Sally Lemons was right—Samuel was amazing. Weezy loved him right away, and the way he knew flowers, oh! He was a wonder. All she had to say was “those little round green ones,” and he said, “Kermit flowers.” They talked about bachelor’s buttons and hydrangeas, lisianthus, and pincushion proteas. He knew the name of every flower, could describe the textures and colors so vividly. A couple of times, he went into the refrigerator and came out holding samples. He had flowers in every shape and size; he had green, and orange, and ivory. He talked about pairing textures and tones to complement each other. He agreed with her on the flowers she felt were a little tired (roses) and the ones that were timeless and elegant (lilies).

“Now, there’s one more thing I’d like to show you,” he said. “When the guests walk in, I like to give them a Wow!” He gave her some jazz hands when he said this. “One of my favorite things to do is a tall vase with monochromatic gerbera daisies, maybe in a dark orange, surrounded by a spray of tall grass. Now, it’s a little pricey, so don’t feel pressured. I just wanted to throw it out there.”

Samuel opened a photo album and pointed to a picture of the arrangement he just described. “It’s fantastic,” Weezy whispered.

On the ride home, Weezy’s flower high wore off. She got more deflated as she drove. What was she doing? How could she not have anything better to do with her free time than to have a fake meeting with a florist to plan a fake wedding? What was the matter with her?

Weezy thought of her mother, Bets, and how committed she was to attending daily mass. Weezy was almost jealous of her. Not because she herself wanted to actually go to daily mass (she didn’t, and anyway, if she did she could just go) but because it was an anchor in Bets’s day. Every morning she woke up and met her friend at the church at seven thirty, sometimes getting there a little early to say the rosary together. Afterward, they walked down the block to a little bakery and got donuts and coffee. It was simple, but it seemed nice to have an activity like that every day.

There was nothing worse than feeling bored and restless at the same time. Maureen could always find something to fill her time, but Weezy always felt like there was something else she should be doing, even if everything was marked off her list. Maureen and Bets both loved those cheap Harlequin romance novels, and every so often they’d exchange grocery bags full of them, passing the overflowing bags to one another. Weezy tried to read them, but she just didn’t get it. They were all the same. Why waste your time reading something that was just going to be thrown into a bag when it was done, and confused with the rest of the bunch? There was nothing special about any of them; you knew what the ending was before you even started.

She drove home slowly and pulled into the driveway feeling very low. When she opened the door, she smelled garlic and onions cooking. Claire’s head popped out of the kitchen. “Hi, Mom. I’m making dinner. Hope you didn’t have anything planned. I tried to call you, but your phone was off.”

Weezy walked toward the kitchen. “That sounds great,” she said. “I’m pooped.”

“I’m making sausage and peppers and some pasta thing to go along with it.”

“Mmm,” Weezy said. She smiled and sat down in a kitchen chair. “Do you need help?”

“No, I’m good. Where were you? Your phone kept going right to your voice mail.”

“I had some meetings. How was work?”

“Fine,” Claire said. “The same. Pretty boring.”

Claire had announced that she wanted something to do, a job, but she didn’t care what it was. This disturbed Weezy. She suggested that Claire look at grad school programs or research some nonprofits here, but Claire wouldn’t hear of it.

“I just want a job,” she’d insisted. “Just a job. I don’t care if it’s boring or what it is.”

Weezy wanted to tell her that this wasn’t the attitude to take. She’d spent years working at places that were “just a job” and it didn’t make it easier that you didn’t care about it. If anything, it made it harder.

She’d always known that Claire would be able to thrive in a work situation. It was Martha that she had to constantly build up. “You’re so smart and capable,” she’d said to her last week. Martha needed reminding, needed to be shown how to showcase herself. Sometimes her skills didn’t translate in the real world.

Claire didn’t go into much detail on her temp job, which was nothing new. She was always private with her information, never offered up anything unless Weezy was there to pry it out of her. Even after she and Doug called off the wedding, Weezy had to push to get any sort of answer. “It’s over, Mom,” was all she said. “What else do you want me to say? It’s done.”

“Was he unfaithful?” Weezy had asked.

“No, God, Mom. No.”

“I’m just trying to understand. Were you unfaithful?”

“Mom, stop. No.” Claire had breathed loudly on the phone, as if she was trying to calm herself down. “No one cheated, Mom. Nothing happened. We just don’t want to get married.”

Weezy had started to say something else, but thought better of it and stayed silent. She didn’t quite believe Claire, but there was no point in pushing further, she knew. Claire was the most stubborn of her children, and the more Weezy tried to put pressure on her, the more she dug in her heels and refused to move.

When the girls were little, Weezy sometimes resorted to trying to scare them into behaving. Once, in the grocery store, when they both refused to walk next to the cart, choosing instead to run in circles in the cereal aisle, she’d turned her back and left them. “Okay, then. I’ll see you later. I’m going home.”

Weezy walked down the aisle, turning once to look back at them for dramatic effect. Martha had screamed, “Wait! No! I’m coming,” and raced after her, snotty and red-faced, already crying in a panic. Claire had remained where she was. She sat herself down on the floor of the grocery store and didn’t budge. She just looked up at Weezy, daring her to go, her jaw clenched and her arms crossed, refusing to move.

And so Weezy went to the checkout, paid for her groceries, and then started walking to the car, sure that Claire would follow behind at any moment. Martha was still snuffling with fear because she’d almost been left behind. Weezy stood at the car, trying to remember what her childrearing books had said. Should she give in? Should she hold her ground? At what point did this become dangerous? Kids could be kidnapped anywhere at any time. Even if she was watching the front door, to make sure that Claire didn’t come out, you never knew.

She probably stood there for only a total of two minutes at the most, although it felt like an hour, and finally, convinced that Claire was in some sort of danger, she’d grabbed Martha and run back inside, and found Claire sitting right where she’d left her, staring straight ahead, refusing to move.

DINNER THAT NIGHT WAS WONDERFUL, mostly because Weezy hadn’t had to cook and Martha offered to clean up the kitchen. “Maybe having you two home isn’t so awful,” Will said, and the girls rolled their eyes at him.

Reading in bed that night, Weezy thought about the large flower arrangement of orange daisies, and how if she was really going to do this, she’d splurge for it. Even if it meant scrimping somewhere else in the budget, she’d do it. They were so beautiful and breathtaking. She could just imagine everyone’s faces as they walked in and saw them.

Will leaned over to give her a kiss good night, and his lips stayed on her for just a moment longer than usual. “You smell nice,” he said, smiling at her. “Like flowers.” He kissed her one more time, and then rolled over and fell asleep.