Second Time Around (2 page)

Jamie choked on her wine cooler and flushed bright red. “President Tait did not look at me! You’re getting a contact high from nail polish fumes.”

Arden intervened. “Wait, wait, I’m not done with my interrogation of Professor Johnson. Spill it, Cait. Any promising new prospects on the horizon?”

“None whatsoever,” Cait said. “Every eligible male I know on campus is either under twenty-one or over fifty. I’m so desperate, I’m considering reactivating my Internet dating account.”

“Don’t do it,” Jamie advised. “That’s how I met my second fiancé, and we all know how that turned out.”

“I thought that was a blind date?” Brooke said.

“‘Blind date’ is code for ‘We met online and don’t want to talk about it.’”

Caitlin tuned them out and focused on Arden, who had dropped out of the conversation and was trying to hide a wince of discomfort. Arden rubbed at her eyes with shaking hands, then gripped the wooden slats of her chair.

Cait leaned in and whispered, “You okay?”

Arden immediately unclenched her hands and jerked her face away. “Fine. My eyes are a little dry.”

“Do you want me to—”

“I’m
fine
. Can we please just have a good time?”

The crunch of tires on a gravel road drowned out their whispering, and Arden glanced toward the driveway with evident relief. “Look who finally decided to grace us with her presence.”

Jamie let out a whoop. “Reunion weekend can officially begin—it’s the late, great Anna McCauley!”

They heard a car door slam and a quick succession of footfalls on the path.

“We’re out on the deck!” Jamie hollered. “Hurry up; fireworks are starting as soon as the sun goes down.”

Anna rushed into view, bustling and breathless as usual.
Short and plump with wild curly hair and an adorable snub nose, Anna combined an innate tendency to nurture with never-say-die tenacity. She started doling out hugs and compliments as soon as her foot hit the porch.

“Sorry, sorry, I meant to be here hours ago,” she said. “We saw a new endocrinologist today and she could only squeeze us in at four forty-five and traffic on the Northway was a nightmare.”

Brooke’s eyes widened. “Endocrinologist?”

“Reproductive endocrinologist.”

“Ah.” Brooke paused. “May I ask how everything’s going with that?”

“Here, I brought cupcakes,” Anna said brightly. “Red, white, and blue for the Fourth. Ooh! Wine coolers!” She deposited a platter of baked goods on the rickety table next to the chaise, then helped herself to a bottle from the ice bucket. “Ahh. Tastes like youth and reckless abandon.”

Jamie grimaced. “It tastes like a wicked hangover in the making. That’s it; I’m making mojitos. Who’s in?”

“I’ll have one,” Arden said.

Cait’s vow to leave her friend in peace lasted less than two minutes. “Arden, seriously, don’t you think—”

Arden narrowed her eyes at Cait, then told Anna, “Throw your bag in the house, pull up a chair, and make yourself at home. We were just telling tales of the glory days. Namely, Professor Clayburn.”

“So dreamy.” Anna clapped her hands over her heart. “But Cait was always his favorite.”

Cait blinked. “I was not!”

“You totally were,” Jamie said. “Life is so unfair.”

“Mostly in your favor, blondie,” Anna pointed out. “So what else is going on in our old stomping ground?”

“Not much, really,” Brooke said. “The usual town-versus-gown drama. The grocery store finally started stocking organic produce and gourmet coffee. …”

Arden cleared her throat. “The college is selling Henley House. To raise money for a new state-of-the-art fitness facility.”

Cries of outrage rang out through the twilight.

“What? Shut yo’ mouth!”

“Blasphemy! How dare they?”

“Not
our
Henley House!”

“Yep. One of the deans called my dad last week,” Arden said. “To break the news tactfully and to let us know that it was nothing personal and they appreciate our continued endowment.”

“But Henley House was
our
house,” Brooke repeated. “Site of Primal Scream Thursdays! Site of Pack-a-flask Fridays!”

“Site of your deflowering,” Arden added.

Brooke flushed. “That, too. I’m an employee of the college, for goodness’ sake. How have I not heard about this?”

“What a shame,” said Cait. “What’s going to become of the building?”

“I have no idea,” said Arden. “But now that they’ve finished construction on some new dorms, Residential Life decided it’s not cost-efficient to maintain the off-campus houses.”

Brooke shook her head. “If I had any money, I’d buy it.”

“And do what with it?” Jamie scoffed. “It was built to house like fifteen students.”

“I’d renovate it and open a bed-and-breakfast. I’ve always wanted to run a B and B. I’d decorate every room differently and serve tea every afternoon and homemade biscuits every morning.” Brooke, a rosy-cheeked natural blonde who’d been
raised in Alabama, had always been a firm believer in the restorative powers of hospitality and baking-powder biscuits. Fifteen years of living amongst the Yankees had eradicated all but a trace of her lilting Southern accent, but when the booze kicked in, so did her drawl.

“Why a bed-and-breakfast?” Cait asked.

“Because I like making people feel at home.”

“
Why
?”

“Don’t be a dream crusher,” Arden admonished. “I think it’s a lovely idea.”

“Yeah, don’t let the misanthropes gang up on you, Brooke. I like people, too,” Jamie chimed in. “Sometimes, I like ’em a little
too
much, actually. But, look, with age comes wisdom. Please note which finger is naked.” She waggled her ringless left hand at them.

Anna nodded her approval. “Hearts must be broken all over Los Angeles.”

“Only those belonging to overpriced wedding planners, florists, and caterers,” Jamie said. “In fact, if
I
had any money, that’s what I’d do: start my own event-planning business. I can see my business cards now:
Let Jamie Burton’s three failed engagements add up to your one perfect day
. Anna, you could be my cake supplier.”

“Oh, I’m not doing the birthday cakes anymore,” Anna said.

“Why not? Those were works of freaking art!”

“It just got to be a little too …” Anna’s good cheer finally faltered. “Last month, one of the members of my book club asked me to do an Eiffel Tower cake with a pink poodle for her daughter’s fourth birthday, and while I was finishing up the detail work on the icing, I realized that I’d made a cake for this little girl every year since she turned one. Three
years, three rounds with in vitro, enough fertility drugs to stock a pharmacy, a maxed-out home equity loan, and still nothing.”

Brooke didn’t hesitate for even a nanosecond. She looked Anna square in the eye and said, “It’ll happen for you and Jonas.”

Arden touched her elbow. “Absolutely.”

But Anna shook them off. “Maybe it won’t. I’m so tired of people telling me to ‘just relax’ and ‘it’ll happen when you least expect it.’ I’ll probably never be able to have a baby, and eventually I’m going to have to face that fact. But right now, it kills me to spend my weekends making cakes for other families. Selfish, I know, but there it is.”

Cait nudged Anna’s bare foot with her own. “It’s not selfish at all.”

“It actually works out perfectly for my new fantasy career,” Jamie said. “I need you to whip up the dessert trays for all my five-star shindigs.”

“And I need you to make crumpets and watercress sandwiches for my B and B,” Brooke said.

“And what am I supposed to do while you’re all colluding with crumpets?” Cait demanded. “Don’t leave me stranded up in the Ivory Tower with Cheerio Charles and an angry mob of freshmen who’re pissed because they’ve never gotten less than a B+ on a paper before in their lives.”

“We would never,” Brooke said. “You’ll be up in the B and B garret, plugging away at the Great American Novel. We’ll keep you fully supplied with pastries and tea.”

Cait closed her eyes and indulged the fantasy for a moment. “Sounds heavenly. When do we start?”

“Never, because we have no money and no business acumen because we all majored in English.”

“Silence, dream crusher!”

Jamie started belting out Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time.”

Their laughter rang out over the black, still lake as the first firework of the night exploded into the dusk.

Arden held up her wine cooler. “Here’s to ten years of friendship and fine literature.”

“And many more!”

“Cheers!”

“Cheers!”

“Cheerio!”

L
ater, after the other girls drifted off to bed one by one, Arden and Cait remained on the porch, hugging their knees against their chests to ward off the damp midnight chill and watching the rippling reflection of the huge white moon on the lake.

They sat in silence, listening to the steady lapping of the waves, until Arden yawned loudly. “Last Fourth of July. Couldn’t have asked for a better night. Jamie was right about those wine coolers, though; I can already feel an epic hangover coming on.”

Cait stared straight ahead and addressed the fearless, frail girl who had started out as her freshman year roommate and ended up as her best friend and bonus sister. “You’re not going to die, you know.”

Arden’s laugh was wry but gentle. “Of course not. I’m only taking an extended leave of absence from the firm because I’m bone idle.”

“That’s not what I meant; I just—”

“I know exactly what you meant, Cait. I know what you
mean and you know what I mean.” Arden exhaled slowly, her breath barely audible above the breeze. “Let’s change the subject. How’s the book coming?”

Cait frowned. “What book?”

“That novel you keep saying you’re going to write.”

“Oh. That. Well, between teaching and going ten rounds with the B+ brigade and trying to publish all those esoteric articles in all those esoteric journals, I don’t really have time to write fiction right now.”

Arden shifted in her seat and quoted Marvell. “‘
Had we but world enough, and time
…’”

“Exactly. I’ll get to it someday.”

“Well, you better buckle down, sugarplum, because all the best writers kick off young: Keats, Shelley, Plath …”

“Those are poets,” Cait pointed out. “Totally different. Poets do their best work before thirty; novelists don’t even get warmed up until then.”

“Says who?”

“Professor Hott-with-two-
t
’s Clayburn.”

“I see.” Arden changed position again, but Cait couldn’t tell if the cause of this restlessness was physical or psychological distress. “Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but you just had a birthday, didn’t you? Thirty-two?”

“I prefer to think of it as twenty-twelve.”

“Always with the excuses.” Arden’s voice dropped to a thick, slow murmur. “Here’s the thing: Time is a luxury. Time is precious. And this is coming from the queen of procrastination. No more extensions. No makeup tests.”

Cait bowed her head to hide her tears. “Can we please talk about this?”

“Absolutely not.” Arden snapped back into her customary flippancy. “And if you start singing ‘Wind Beneath My
Wings,’ I’m kicking you out of the cabin. You’ll have to sleep on the beach.”

“Can I just hum a few bars?”

“You’ll be a tasty bear canapé in your sleeping bag.” Arden shivered. “Let’s stay up late and look at the moon. Pull an all-nighter, just like back in college.”

“You’re on.” Cait ducked into the house long enough to grab two thick woolen blankets, which she wrapped around Arden and herself. They huddled together on the chaise in silence, sharing a cocoon of warmth and gazing up toward heaven. Cait vowed to stay awake, to safeguard Arden with her own vitality, but sometime before dawn, her vigilance lapsed and she slipped into slumber.

T
wo months later, Arden slipped away, too. She did so in classic Arden Henley fashion, quietly and on her own terms, and not before springing one last, life-changing surprise on her friends.

A
million
dollars?” Jamie slid down against the bar’s break room wall until she was sitting on the booze-sodden floor mats. “You’re yanking my chain.”

“Well, a million dollars split four ways,” Anna explained on the other end of the phone line. “So two hundred and fifty thousand.”

“But that’s too much! She can’t do that!”

“She already did. According to her estate attorney, she wants us to pay off our student loans and our credit cards—or, in my case, home equity loans taken out to pay for in
vitro—and use the rest to start over. Follow our bliss. Fight the power.”

Jamie pushed off the wall, grabbed her handbag from her employee locker, and dug out a cellophane-wrapped pack of cigarettes.

Anna paused when the lighter sparked. “Are you smoking?”

“No.” Jamie closed her eyes and inhaled. The initial hit of nicotine rendered her light-headed for a moment, reminding her of how hard it had been to quit two years ago and why she shouldn’t have surrendered to the temptation to buy this “emergency reserve” pack on Monday when Cait had called to break the news about Arden.