That Last Weekend Read online

  As they pulled into the Target parking lot, a pick-up truck reversed out of a spot, almost dinging them. “Get off your phone and watch what the heck you’re doing,” Ellie muttered, standing on the brakes and automatically extending an arm in front of Shane as if he were seven instead of seventeen.

  “You can say ‘hell,’ Mom,” he said. “We went to high school—we’ve heard worse.”

  His comment summoned the memory of Evangeline telling her “use your big girl words” every time she said “frickin’” or “heck” when they were in college. She could never bring herself to do it, although the way people drove these days tempted her.

  Aidan griped, “I still don’t know why we need to get dorm stuff now. It’s two weeks before we have to leave. I told Ryan and Christian I’d hang with them this morning.”

  “I want black sheets,” Shane said, proving he could hear past his earbuds when he wanted to. “With black sheets it won’t matter if I don’t wash them all semester.” He and Aidan bumped fists.

  Hoping he was only trying to get a rise from her, Ellie marched toward the store.

  Forty-five minutes later, unloading towels, sheets, storage bins, desk organizers, beanbag chairs, socks, and underwear (lots of the latter for fear the boys really weren’t going to do laundry all semester) onto the checkout belt, Ellie watched her boys josh around. They were achingly handsome—fit and energetic and sun-bronzed from all the hours in the pool. Shane, the more outgoing, was a shade taller and had hair that was a richer gold. Aidan, more introverted, had the sweetest smile she’d ever seen, a shy flash of teeth that dimpled his left cheek. It was suddenly hard to breathe around the lump in her throat.

  The scanner beeped each time the cashier swiped an item and the staggering total mounted up. What was she going to do when her boys left? She only had two more weeks with them, then they were dropping Shane in Tuscaloosa. Two days later, they’d make the trek to Purdue where Aidan had won a full-ride scholarship for swimming. Then … then it would be home to an empty, quiet house where she’d rattle around purposeless ten hours a day, trying to keep herself from texting the boys—from being that mother who couldn’t let go, even though she was afraid that’s exactly who she was—while Scott worked, doing his mysterious satellite stuff at Schriever Air Force Base.

  She smacked a box of pencils onto the conveyor belt. She had her Lia Sophia business, but making a few extra bucks selling jewelry didn’t add up to a career. It was nothing more than a part-time job, one step up from the hobby Scott called it. What did she have to show for her thirty-eight years on the planet? Okay, she’d raised two great boys—young men—and that was something, but it didn’t feel like enough. Laurel … now, Laurel had a career. She was a high-powered lawyer, a partner in her father’s firm, about to become a judge. Ellie was willing to bet Laurel didn’t mope around with a glass of sauvignon blanc in the evenings, waiting for a husband to come home from work and the boys to trickle back from the activities that ate up all their after-school time these days, trying to figure out what she wanted to be when she grew up.

  “Ma’am?” The cashier’s tone suggested he’d been trying to get her attention. “That’s five hundred eighty-seven and fifty-two cents, ma’am. Debit or credit?”

  Sheesh. Tuition payments were only the tip of the iceberg.

  “Shotgun!” Aidan called, jostling past Shane as they headed toward the exit.

  Back in their Wolf Ranch neighborhood, Ellie bumped the van up onto the curb by the community mailboxes and nudged Aidan to hop out and check their box. “The price of riding shotgun,” she said.

  He scooped a handful of mail from the box and began to sort it as she continued to their house. “All junk,” he pronounced, letting it slide into the collapsible trash container between the van’s front seats.

  Ellie pulled into the driveway. The boys jumped out before the van was fully stopped and raced each other into the house, not bothering to take so much as a single bag with them. Ellie hardly noticed. Had she seen a flash of orange? If so, it would turn out to be nothing more than a come-on from a university trying to recruit one of the boys. The car still idling, Ellie pawed through the small trash can. There. An orange envelope. She retrieved it, stained brown on one corner from the contents of this morning’s Starbucks cup, and the van jolted forward as her foot slipped.

  Adrenaline whooshed into her system and she stomped on the brake, stopping the car six inches from the garage door. Scott would have a frickin’ cow if she banged up the van only a month after the repairs from Shane’s fender bender at the skateboard park. She cut the engine and stared at the envelope in her lap. Not a college come-on. An invitation. An invitation to a girls’ weekend. Just like old times.

  She wouldn’t be able to go, of course. North Carolina was so far. Scott and the boys couldn’t fend for themselves—who knew how many appointments and activities they’d miss if she weren’t here? Besides, she wasn’t willing to give up ten seconds of precious time with the boys, not when they were leaving so soon and she wouldn’t see them again until Thanksgiving. There was no point to reading the invitation. She tore open the envelope, her gaze sweeping over the familiar format and details. A month from now, the first weekend in September. The boys would already be gone. Plenty of time to get a good deal on airfare. She didn’t even want to go—did she?—not after the last weekend.

  Yes, she decided, getting out of the van. She did. Even if it meant revisiting what had happened.

  Geneva Frost considered the fifteen-year-old girl perched on the edge of the comfy recliner positioned across from her own wing chair. Expensively dressed in the latest logoed teen gear, including a hoodie that she’d pulled forward to hide most of her face, Marta gnawed on her thumbnail and tapped a foot so fast it sounded like a playing card stuck between bicycle spokes. The thought whooshed Geneva back to her childhood momentarily, to her brothers racing their bikes through the neighborhood, playing cards clothes-pinned to the spokes. Jimmie was dead, killed in a drive-by shooting when he was not much older than Marta, and Leland was in prison with another year to serve on his assault and battery conviction. Did kids even ride bikes anymore?

  “Do you have a bicycle?” she asked Marta.

  The unexpectedness of the question brought Marta’s head up. Geneva caught a flash of green eyes behind a scrim of black bangs before Marta looked down again and mumbled. “Yeah. I mean, I haven’t ridden it in years. The tires are probably flat.” With her chin tucked toward her chest, she glared at Geneva from under her brows. “Aren’t we supposed to be talking about my eating, Dr. Frost?”

  Geneva ignored the girl’s hostile tone. “We can talk about whatever you need to talk about, Marta.”

  The girl turned her head with deliberation and stared out the office window. Suppressing a sigh, Geneva followed her gaze. Mostly, the view consisted of blue-gray sky impaled by the skyscrapers that surrounded her office building. If she leaned a bit to her right she could glimpse a white-capped Lake Michigan far below. Despite the wind, the sailors were out in force on a bright summer day, their sails neat triangles of color against the gray water. A pigeon flapped heavily against the wind and then gave up, settling on the ledge outside the window and cooing softly. Summons for a mate, or lament for not getting where she’d been trying to go?

  “Did you bring your food diary?” she asked Marta.

  “Forgot.” The girl’s tone challenged Geneva to call her on the lie. Taptaptaptaptaptap went her foot.

  The baby shifted and must have kicked her bladder because suddenly Geneva had to pee. She surreptitiously checked the time. Thirty-six minutes left in her first session of the day. Stifling a groan and the urge to pee, she tried to remember why she’d ever thought counseling girls with body image problems and eating disorders was a good idea. Sure, during her pageant days she’d seen the damage girls could inflict on themselves by buying into society’s idea of the perfect body,
but right now she wished she’d decided to concentrate on marriage counseling, or any specialty that didn’t involve teens.

  “What made me think I wanted to work with teenage girls?” she asked Geonwoo when she got home. In her third trimester, she’d shortened her hours, enabling her to beat the rush-hour crowds clogging the train and reach their townhouse by five o’clock, with a quick stop at Jewels on the way. Only months after they married, they’d lucked into the house within walking distance of Northwestern when a Realtor friend gave them a head’s up that the owner had died and her heirs wanted a quick sale. He’d said the house was a bit of a fixer-upper—an understatement, if ever there was one—but they’d never have been able to afford the neighborhood otherwise, so they’d gulped and signed on the dotted line.

  Geonwoo beat her home every day except Wednesday, when he taught an evening class at the university. She envied him being able to walk to work, and thought for the thousandth time about leaving the group practice she’d joined after getting her PhD five years ago to start a solo practice closer to home. Also for the thousandth time, she thought about how she would miss the interaction with her coworkers, the way they gathered in the break room to discuss their cases and bat around treatment ideas, and talked about kids and spouses and How to Get Away with Murder and the shitty state of Chicago politics, and traded recipes for gluten-free dishes or holiday party cocktails. She’d miss that, and she knew the bonds of friendship would fray and get flabby, like old rubber bands, if they weren’t seeing each other regularly. The occasional lunch or outing wouldn’t cut it. Friends were worth the commute.

  “You love those girls and you know they need you. You’re just tired,” Geonwoo said, taking the grocery bags and putting them on the counter. He opened his arms. She walked into them and looped her arms around his neck, sagging gratefully against his triathlon-hard body.

  “A little. The baby was kicking up a storm today. I think she’s going to be a soccer player, or an Irish clog dancer.”

  “She’d stand out in an Irish dance class, I think.” He ducked and pressed his lips against her burgeoning belly through the cotton of her maternity blouse. “Lila, you’ve got to take it easy on your momma. Let her get a good night’s sleep tonight, hmm?” He held his ear against her stomach and then looked up. “She says she’ll be a little angel tonight.”

  Geneva made a sound between a giggle and a snort and pulled him upright to kiss him. “You’re a goof, but I love you.” She’d won the relationship Powerball with this wonderful man, and the gift of a baby girl who would make her appearance in two short months. They were all proof of God’s grace, because He certainly knew she didn’t deserve them. Quite the contrary. “How was your day?”

  “The usual, with the added joy of a departmental meeting. Arguments about candidates for the new endowed professorship, reminders about advising, paperwork for sabbaticals due in triplicate, woo wop da bam.” He pulled defrosted chicken breasts and an assortment of fresh vegetables out of the fridge, and slid a knife out of the block.

  The clink of the mail slot and slither of envelopes into their front hall interrupted Geneva’s commiserations. “Mail’s late today,” she observed.

  With the rhythmic ka-thunk of Geonwoo’s knife following her, she returned to the foyer. Four envelopes lay on the parquet floor, the one closest to her a bright tangerine color. Her brows rose toward her hairline. She was surprised to see the invitation, but also felt as if it were something she’d been expecting every year for the past decade. A sudden longing for a vodka tonic ambushed her, the strongest craving in years. She fought it back, her hands shaking as she bent to pick up the tangerine envelope. It just might represent the opportunity she’d been waiting for. Ignoring the other envelopes, she bore the tangerine one into the kitchen to show Geonwoo.

  Two

  In her eighth-floor condo, Laurel put the envelope on the granite counter, poured the bourbon she’d denied herself at the party, and carried it to her bedroom, taking two long swallows on the way. It burned all the way down to her stomach and she relaxed a notch. Shucking off the coral sheath, she dropped it in the dry-cleaning hamper and shrugged into knit loungewear. Her stomach gurgled, reminding her she hadn’t paused to eat more than a shrimp or two at the party, and she returned to the kitchen to forage, carefully not looking at the envelope. It wasn’t something to face on an empty stomach.

  Nuking leftover Thai food, she let her gaze drift over the living room, taking in the cool grays and lavenders that always soothed her after a contentious day of litigation. The space was open, with pale oak floors and a minimum of furniture. No knickknacks or clutter. Some might find it boring, but Laurel found peace in the clean lines and openness. Sectional seating formed a U facing the wall of windows. The colors complemented the stunning mountain view, hidden now by night. No more litigating, she thought, parking herself on the chair-and-a-half that was her favorite seat, and tucking her feet underneath her. The Boys on the Boat, the memoir she’d started the night before, lay face down on the table beside her, and she tried to read a chapter while forking up her gaeng daeng with its powerful aromas of lime and coconut, but she couldn’t concentrate.

  Her gaze went to the envelope. Annoyed with herself for not being able to resist its pull, she dumped her dishes in the sink and picked it up. She returned to her chair and sat, fingers rubbing the creamy cardstock. Might as well get it over with. Sliding a fingernail under the flap, she unsealed it and withdrew the folded invitation. She flipped it up and the fragrance of Opium wafted out, voluptuous notes of mandarin orange, sandalwood, and clove fighting with the leftover smell of coconut from her Thai dinner.

  The sense of smell was most closely tied to memories, she’d read. Well, tonight was as good a night as any for memories—the good ones, anyway. She closed her eyes and lifted the card to her nose. She sniffed tentatively and flashed on Evangeline doubled over with laughter in their dorm room, in the dean’s office that was the scene of their joint disgrace, and in a jam-packed Raleigh nightclub where they’d been squished so closely together by the crowd that Laurel might as well have sprayed herself with the perfume. She inhaled deeply. She’d thought the scent might carry her back to the first time she met Evangeline Paul, but it landed her in the last weekend instead, the weekend that ended with Evangeline’s broken body sprawled on the ground five stories below her bedroom balcony.

  Ten years earlier

  Laurel let Evangeline pull her into a hug in the foyer of the Chateau du Cygne Noir bed and breakfast, listing to the right with the weight of her suitcase. Crowded with petit-pointed chairs, the gleam of antique wood, dozens of oil paintings by “from the school of” minor artists, and collectibles on every horizontal surface, the inn’s entryway oppressed her slightly, as it had the first time they’d come here for spring break. Many people—Evangeline, for instance—were charmed by the Old World figurines and glassware, the Spode plates and decorative mirrors, the vases and lace doilies and candelabras parked atop a Louis Something buffet. For Laurel, the foyer’s contents spoke of centuries of heritage and responsibilities and made her feel tired just being in the same room. She turned away from the china shepherdess on the table who looked disgruntled at having been relocated from France to North Carolina along with every stone and timber of the old castle.

  “Yay, you’re here,” Evangeline said, squeezing hard. Her hair tickled Laurel’s nose and gave off a hint of Opium. Laurel resisted the urge to sneeze, hugged Evangeline with one arm, and separated. Her friend hadn’t changed in the year since she’d seen her. Light brown hair threaded with cinnamon and cognac was piled messily atop her head, and her feet were bare, as they almost invariably were. Her toenails were painted a clear orchid. Her skin was still unlined and lightly freckled, just as it was the first time she’d talked them all into heading for an inland B and B called Castle of the Black Swan for spring break, instead of to the beach where (it seemed) every other student at Grissom
University was going for a week of sun and surf.

  “Are the others here yet?” Laurel asked.

  “Somewhere. You’re in the same room as always.” Evangeline hefted Laurel’s suitcase and yelped. “What have you got in here? Did you rob Fort Knox on the way in?”

  “Work.”

  Evangeline screwed up her face. “No work this weekend,” she decreed. “You know the rules.”

  “Yeah, well, if I’m going to make partner, I’m going to have to work.” Just because Evangeline had introduced them to the B and B didn’t mean she got to set the rules. Laurel left the thought unsaid and followed her friend. The staircase swept upward from the entryway in a graceful swoosh of mahogany banister and wide treads carpeted down the middle with an Oriental runner. A coil of hair came loose from Evangeline’s topknot and bobbed against her shoulder with every step, hypnotizing Laurel. Evangeline turned right when they reached the fourth floor landing and stopped two doors down. “Here we are.”

  Laurel stepped across the threshold of the room that had been “hers” since the first time they came to Cygne. She crossed the wood floor to the window, pulled the heavy velvet drapes, and opened the door to step onto the Juliet balcony, little more than a foothold with no room for a Romeo. The stone balustrade was cool beneath her hands. The mown lawn and flower beds, and the naturalized area beyond it, a tangle of ferns, hostas, and decorative grasses in early summer, beckoned her. She glimpsed the blue of the small lake past the thicket of live oaks, dogwoods, and magnolias. A gentler landscape than she was used to—no granite peaks or prickly evergreens. Inhaling deeply, she relaxed and turned back to Evangeline, who stood still in that way she had, watching her with a smile in her eyes.