Evie nodded. “I mostly watch MasterChef Junior.”
“Can you go find me something to put in this frittata, in that case?”
“Sure.” Evie was always up for anything.
“Maybe lose the heels first?”
“Okay.” She kicked off the shoes like a bridesmaid about to cut loose to “Twist and Shout” at the end of the reception and headed out the slider that led to the deck. She came back a few minutes later with a handful of basil, a bunch of parsley, and a few fava beans. “Better,” said Rob, and Zoe rolled her eyes. Rob could work with this. He’d use the herbs in the frittata and serve the fava beans on the side, if he had time to google how to cook fava beans.
It was hard, being a mom.
The frittata was too dark on the bottom and slightly underdone on top but both girls had the grace not to mention it. The fava beans were a loss: he overcooked them into mush and shuttled them into the disposal when nobody was looking.
“When is Mom coming back?” asked Zoe, taking a long pull of her milk. Chocolate, the girls had made it themselves. He knew they were taking advantage of him but he let it slide. It was just for a couple of days.
“Soon,” said Rob. “Day after tomorrow, I think.”
“You have a funny look on your face,” said Evie.
“I do? Sorry. Just thinking about work.”
Evie nodded knowingly. “Cabot Lodge, right?”
“That’s right. Cabot Lodge.” Cabot Lodge was a gargantuan project, a second home for Christine and Jonathan Cabot, dear friends of Rob’s mother. It was the biggest (in truth, the only) project Rob had taken on since hanging out his own shingle after leaving the architecture firm of his mentor, Mo Francis, the previous year. And Christine Cabot, future proprietor of Cabot Lodge, was driving him out of his mind.
Cabot Lodge was going up in Naples, Maine, on the shores of Long Lake, which was far enough from Rob’s typical work area in Massachusetts to be sufficiently maddening. He didn’t have access to his usual guys; Mrs. Cabot had hired a general contractor who was unknown to him and who was also sort of scary. Mark Ruggman.
“It’s funny,” said Evie, taking a large bite of the improperly cooked frittata. “Ever since you stopped working for Mo Francis, you’re here more. But you’re here less.” She made little air quotes over the word here and raised an eyebrow at him.
Rob coughed. The girl was perceptive. He said, “That’s very astute of you, Evie.”
Evie nodded and said, “I don’t know what that word means. And also, Zoe’s on her phone.”
Rob saw that Zoe’s iPhone was tucked discreetly into the folds of her napkin and she was looking down at her lap and tapping away at it.
“Zoe! Put that away,” said Rob. Zoe kept tapping at the screen until Rob said, “Zoe!” again and she said, “Sorry,” rolled her eyes, and put the phone on the island. Then she said, “Jackie Rackley is so annoying on Instagram.”
“Can I get Instagram?” asked Evie.
“No,” said Rob and Zoe together.
At bedtime, Evie said, “Oh! I forgot. You’re supposed to check me for lice. A girl in my class had it at the end of the year. I forgot to tell Mommy, we were all supposed to get checked.”
“They don’t check you at school?”
“It was the last day. They just told us to get checked at home.”
He looked at her head. Evie had Eliza’s hair: massively thick and dark and curly. A battalion of lice could hide in there, remaining undetected for days, weeks, months, multiplying, dividing.
He took a deep breath and peered at her part. “Looks good,” he said after a moment.
“That’s not how Mommy does it,” she said. “She takes this lice comb and she really gets in there…”
He took a comb from Evie’s nightstand and moved it around a little bit on her scalp. You couldn’t comb through those curls without a lot of prior planning.
“That’s not a lice comb.”
“What’s the difference?”
Evie sighed patiently and said, “Believe me, there’s a big difference. Call Deirdre. She knows how to do it.”
“I don’t need to call Deirdre!”
Deirdre was the closest of Eliza’s friends. She was, like all of the Barton women, fit, tan, and busy busy busy. The women of Barton traveled in a great perfume-misted herd and were always planning things that did not include their husbands. What did women talk about, over all those drinks at the club, those girls’ weekends, the occasional spa day in Boston? What secrets did they spill about the men in their lives? Frankly, it made Rob nervous to think about it.
Eliza, who did not trust everyone, said Deirdre had a solid heart under the tan and the Pilates muscles. Deirdre had one child, Sofia (“the European spelling, no ph”), and a husband named Brock, with whom Rob occasionally went out sailing and sometimes for a drink after.
Deirdre was putting on a gigantic gala at the end of the summer to benefit African children, which mystified Eliza. (“Why not find a cause closer to home?”) Rob had grown up among aggressive fund-raisers, competitive do-gooders, cutthroat gala creators. He got it.
Despite all of this, Rob had had a strange feeling about Deirdre ever since last year’s holiday party at the Colemans’. There was something about that night he couldn’t put his finger on. Actually there was a lot about that night Rob couldn’t put his finger on—Rob and everyone else in town. Jennifer Coleman had discovered a new cocktail, the Angel’s Delight, and it had gone down easier than a penguin on an ice slide.
No, he didn’t need to call Deirdre. Eliza would be home soon; he could manage. “I can find the lice in my own family, thank you very much,” he told Evie. He made a few more casual swipes through her hair and said, “All clear.”
“Are you sure?” Evie looked up at him, her small brow furrowed. “That didn’t feel very thorough.”
“Positive.”
Evie sighed and got up from her bed and turned to face Rob. She was wearing a long white summer nightgown of the type favored by maiden aunts in old movies; she looked, standing there in the middle of her bedroom, like the Ghost of Christmas Adorable.
She pursed her cute little lips together and asked, “Is Grandpa hurt badly?”
“No, not too badly. He bumped his head on his boat. Not a big deal. He had to get a few stitches.” Eliza’s father was an honest-to-God lobsterman, the real deal, with orange overalls and a genuine Down East accent. He used hilarious, inscrutable expressions like “all stove up,” for sick or injured or broken, and “being awful spleeny,” for complaining a lot.
“So Mommy’ll be home soon?”
“Yes. Mommy will be home soon.” Rob folded down her sheet and comforter and gestured to the bed. Evie climbed in, and Rob pulled the sheet and comforter to her chin, the way she liked it, even in the summer.
“If she’s not, will you make another frittata?”
He felt cheered: here was an endorsement of his dubious cooking skills. “I will if you’ll pick some more of that kick-ass basil.”
Evie made a disapproving face. “That’s a bad word.”
“Basil?”