Killer Summer

Okay, now that I was officially disgusted with myself, I got up, headed to the desk and, without even thinking, clicked on the e-mail from Bern, as if to ground myself. Skimming past the first paragraph, which went on about how we didn’t have a future together (it was her usual refrain in letters of this type), I came to the part where she went on to wish me well. Because she always wished me well.

I never want to be the one to cast a shadow on your dreams. Your dreams, your intelligence, your integrity—it’s these things that I love most about you. And in order not to destroy the memory of how good we were together once—how good you are and always will be—we need to make a clean break. I love you, Nick. I always have and I know I always will.…

See? I’m not evil. Bern loves me. And Bern is good. So good. Do you know Bern used to volunteer for Big Sisters? God, I love that woman. She kills me with these letters. Kills me.

Maybe I’ll call her later.

My eye fell on the e-mail from Lance, which I’d left in my in-box, hoping to take the time to prepare a properly scathing reply for bailing on me.

But he wouldn’t bail on me if I cashed the check. I mean, I could just try it. See if it worked. I studied the check once more, noticing that only Maggie’s name appeared on it and remembering how she had leaned into me, her eyes glistening, her breath warm on my ear as she whispered, “Let’s just keep this between us, okay?” Which meant this was Maggie’s own money she was investing. She was free to do what she wanted with it, I thought, my gaze falling on the massive business plan that still lay in a heap on my bed.

Reaching over, I picked up the first page, which was a Power Point presentation outlining the various steps, with special fonts and colors—the works. Clearly this woman needed to get a life.

Shit. I didn’t mean that like it sounded.

I skimmed the page, which outlined her ideas for the first phase.

Not bad, not bad. Not that I hadn’t thought about this stuff already.

I looked back at my screen at Lance’s e-mail message, taunting me, beckoning me. Then nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of the cheerful musical tone that alerted me I had a new message.

Sage, I thought, seeing the familiar sagedaniels@edgeleather.com address pop up in my in-box and feeling a prickle up my spine at the subject line: “Maggie’s Dream.”

Fucking weird, right?

I clicked on the message.

Hey, guys,

Looks like we’re on for the beach this weekend. See below. xoxo Sage

I scrolled down to find an e-mail she had forwarded to me and Zoe from Tom.

Sage,

Thanks for all your help holding the fort while I took care of things. I’m off to Chicago to deal with that buyer from Wentworth’s, so we’ll catch up at the beach this weekend. The weather is supposed to be fabulous! Just perfect for the annual Fourth of July bash.

Tom

Tom was opening the house. This weekend. Not only opening the house, but having a fucking party.

Clearly Maggie’s husband had no qualms about living in Maggie’s Dream now that his beloved wife was gone.

And I wondered why I should have any qualms about keeping Maggie’s other dream alive.

After all, it was the least I could do for the poor woman, right?

9

Maggie

It’s like a nightmare. Only, I won’t be waking up.

That bastard. I can’t believe he’s opening the house. My house. Okay, he bought it, but he bought it for me. During the second year of our marriage. It was probably his last act of love.

Now it just seemed like a cruel joke.

Look at Sage in my kitchen. Already mixing up the pot lids and creating chaos in my recipe-filing system. Who the fuck does she think she is?

This is my house. Nothing can change that. Not even death.

Of course, that’s going to be a little hard for me to enforce. Already I could see my marigolds, the sweet little plants I’d potted on the front deck only weeks ago, dying from neglect.

It was almost too much to bear. Who am I kidding? It was too much to bear.

Maggie’s Dream was the only thing I’d ever called my own. Because the house on Fire Island was mine in a way that the apartment on E. 64th never was. The apartment was hers—Tom’s first wife, Gillian. Oh, Tom let me repaint the living room and choose new area rugs for the bedrooms, but it was Gillian who had met with broker after broker looking for the perfect home for her life with Tom. If it were up to me, I would have gone for prewar elegance, rather than reconstructed modern grandeur. But a woman isn’t supposed to complain about these things. What did I really have to complain about? In the space of a year, I had gone from a poorly heated, ramshackle two-bedroom in midtown to a triplex in one of the best neighborhoods in Manhattan.

Still, it was hard being second. I tried to explain this to Tom, but from his viewpoint, it would have been foolish to give up the apartment. He had bought it for a song back at a time when real estate values in New York weren’t as astronomical as they are now. It just wasn’t practical to sell the apartment and buy new, and Tom was, if nothing else, a practical man.

Then there was the decor. Antiques passed down through generations and deemed too precious to put away or sell off to strangers. It didn’t matter that the chandelier in the living room didn’t speak to me—it clearly was still having some cosmic conversation with Victoria Landon, Tom’s long-deceased great-aunt. Then there was the Art Deco furniture that Gillian had salvaged at antique fairs from the Hamptons to Paris. We certainly couldn’t get rid of that stuff, because, as Tom said, unique pieces such as those were hard to come by.

And Gillian, of course, no longer wanted the furniture. Why should she? She got a brand-new house in Boca Raton and an alimony settlement fat enough to allow her to move on to a whole new period of furniture.

But Maggie’s Dream was mine. Had been from the start. Well, mine and Tom’s anyway.

I remember the first time I saw the house. We had gone out late one afternoon on a Saturday when Dolores Vecchio, the broker who was working with us, called to say she had found exactly what we were looking for. I was a bit distrustful, since she had already ushered us through some less than spectacular homes in the neighboring town of Saltaire, which was Tom’s first choice since he had friends with homes there. I wasn’t fond of the houses—or Saltaire, for that matter. Too many rules. No barbecues or riding bikes at night. I mean, really, who ever heard of a beach house without barbecues or nighttime bike rides? This new place was in Kismet, and when I saw it, I felt like this house was fated to be mine.

It was so beautiful, hovering on stilts high above the ocean, as if that great swirling mass might swallow it whole. The beach had eroded a lot that year due to a hard winter, but somehow the precariousness of the house, which sat a bit too close to the crashing waves back in those days, only added to its majesty.

Of course, Tom resisted. “One good storm and that house will go right into the ocean.” But I stood firm. The house would last. It had to. I could see myself spending my summers there.

It was one of the few battles in our marriage that I won.

Now, as I watched my house infested with the very shareholders I hadn’t even wanted to take on, watched them lie about my sofas, sipping cocktails (and leaving rings on the furniture, mind you), I wondered if I had really won at all.

I felt a little like Mrs. Ramsay in To the Lighthouse, dying in parentheses.

Oh, who am I kidding? I’m no Mrs. Ramsay, despite the lovely view of the lighthouse from my house. No one would be writing books about me, least of all Virginia Woolf. No, there would be no books, no songs about Maggie Landon. Even the police had reduced me to a four-page report, which I wouldn’t exactly call lyrical. Or even just, for that matter.

I wondered if anyone would even think of me now. Or ever. Well, I knew at least one person would. Out of fear, if nothing else.

Fear of getting caught.

10

Zoe

Just when you thought it was safe to go into the water again…