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  It was just about noon when they finished their meeting. Diana asked Ellie to wait in her office for a minute while she checked in with her employee, who had been running the store by herself for an hour. Not that Diana was worried. Shawna was one of the most capable and confident twenty-six-year-olds Diana knew; she could do everything, from operating the cash register and restocking the shelves to accurately answering customer questions and anticipating what needed to be done next. Shawna gave Diana a two-minute summary and then told her boss, when asked, that if Diana wanted to have lunch with her accountant, it would be no problem.

  Diana walked back into her office. “I’ve been given permission to take a lunch break,” she said with a smile. “Are you hungry?” As Ellie was thinking through her response, wondering if she, as Diana’s accountant, should treat Diana to lunch, Diana reached under the table and produced a small cooler. She removed the lid and extracted the cooler’s contents: two sandwiches wrapped in wax paper, two small Granny Smith apples, and a plastic container holding what looked like brownies. She stood briefly to fetch a large bottle of seltzer and two clean coffee mugs from the shelf behind her desk, and then returned to her seat and looked at Ellie expectantly. A picnic, thought Ellie, this is a picnic in January.

  When Tim and Brandon were young, Ellie had talked Chris into Saturday picnics in the summertime. Chris much preferred eating at a table, but he had acquiesced, especially since Ellie said she would do everything. This meant preparing and wrapping the food of course. But it also meant finding suitable picnic spots, where they could play tag and explore their natural surroundings before their meal and quietly listen to Ellie read children’s books afterward. They went to state parks, mostly, with their wide open green spaces, ponds, streams, and walking trails. Sometimes they were lucky enough to get a picnic table, but most of the time they all sat on the plaid wool blanket Ellie still kept in the back of her car. As the boys got older, their interest in Ellie’s four-hour adventures had dwindled, unless they could bring along a friend. And Ellie had said yes, at first, and packed two more of everything. However, with friends in tow, it was no longer a family outing. The boys quickly ate what Ellie had prepared and then bolted from the table or blanket, leaving Ellie and Chris behind to look at their watches and think about what else they might be doing on a Saturday afternoon.

  Diana unwrapped the sandwiches and, using the wax paper as a plate, slid one toward Ellie. It looked like something out of a cooking magazine. Ellie picked up a sandwich half and studied its contents. “This looks absolutely amazing,” she said. “What’s in here?”

  “Grilled eggplant, sautéed mushrooms and onions, sundried tomatoes, goat cheese, and watercress.”

  Ellie smiled at Diana. “And you just whipped this up this morning?”

  Diana picked up one of her sandwich halves. “I cooked the vegetables last night, so that everything would be cold when I assembled them this morning.”

  “You’re a cook then.”

  Diana took a small bite of her sandwich, chewed, and then, shielding her mouth with her fingers, said, “I do like to cook.”

  “Well, I sure hope you have an appreciative family.”

  “I do,” said Diana. “But my son is in Colorado, and my daughter is in Los Angeles, and my husband has a new wife now, so I don’t feed him nearly as much as I used to.” Ellie was feeling a tug of regret about the comment she had made when Diana said, “But my husband, my ex-husband, occasionally comes over for a home-cooked meal and a bottle of wine, which he provides, and he is most appreciative. His new wife much prefers to eat out than to, as she says, slave away in the kitchen.”

  “I guess I know how she feels sometimes,” said Ellie. “I mean, I like to cook. But my family—when they are home—eats in six minutes what has taken me an hour and a half to prepare. They always tell me it’s good, but I have a feeling they’d say the same thing about dinner out of a box.”

  Diana laughed. “I think my daughter eats out of a box or a bag most nights. On the other hand, my son, who is a ski instructor in Aspen, is a pretty good cook. He often prepares a hearty meal after a day on the mountain, and his wife, who is also an instructor, is very appreciative.”

  Ellie wanted to ask what had happened with the marriage, but she hardly knew Diana, and she knew her inquiry would cross the nosiness line. But it was hard to believe that anyone wouldn’t want to be with Diana. From the limited time Ellie had spent with her, she could see that Diana was a kind, giving, and accommodating person—an ideal mate, yes? Of course, people got divorced for all kinds of reasons. Women liked to think that it was always the man’s fault, that he was the one with the wandering eye, the one who had the affair, the one who wanted out. These same women, while quick to blame their spouses, were also reluctant to acknowledge the effect of their own actions and what role their demanding or controlling personalities might have played in the breakup.

  Before Kelly Shulz’s son had shot Emmanuel Sanchez at the high school, everyone in town felt sorry for her. Her husband had had multiple affairs and even sired two children, according to persistent rumor, with other women. And Ellie agreed, when she bumped into the women who talked about these kinds of things, that this was a painful and cruel mockery of marriage. But Ellie felt differently about Kelly now. She, like Alice, blamed Kelly for having guns accessible in the house; she blamed Kelly for fostering in James an interest in guns—even though Ellie had to admit that she and Chris were guilty of the same things. Being nice to Kelly was, of course, warranted in the wake of the shooting, but it was even more forced and awkward than it had been before. Ellie’s sympathy was tainted.

  Ellie struggled with this because, in general, she was a sympathetic person. And every time she ran into Kelly, she fought the judgment she surely projected. It was too convenient, too easy to call someone a bad mother. Whenever a child throws sand at the playground or a tantrum in the grocery store; whenever an adolescent shoves a classmate up against the lockers or teases him in front of others, or smokes cigarettes in the girls’ room, or resists authority, it is the mother’s fault—for not setting limits, for not modeling positive behavior, for bad parenting. Sometimes a child does exhibit the behaviors of an ill tempered, inept parent. But most of the time, Ellie thought, a mother does the best she can. Diana, Ellie could tell by the way she talked about her children, was as concerned and connected a parent as Ellie and Chris tried to be.

  “Tell me about your family,” said Diana. “What do they do, other than eat quickly?”

  Ellie started with her husband, telling Diana that he was a gym teacher at the high school during the school year and that he worked for her uncle’s construction company during the summer. He enjoyed physical work and was therefore well suited to both occupations. Her older son, Brandon, Ellie explained, was in his junior year at Northern Michigan University in Marquette. He was right on Lake Superior, which made for brutal winters but superb summers—and he had chosen to live and work there after both his freshman and sophomore years. Ellie missed seeing and being with him, but she could tell that he was content with his choices, and she was pleased with his level of dedication. Her younger son, Tim, was a freshman at New York University, studying music and theater. Chris was worried about Tim’s lack of career choices after graduation, his earning potential. But Ellie was convinced that if he didn’t make it in the theater world, Tim could certainly teach others about music. There had been some talk at Christmastime about pursuing an advanced degree in music theory.

  “And what about you?” asked Diana. “What do you like to do?”

  It had been a while since anyone had asked Ellie that question, or since she had asked herself. She had fallen into the bookkeeping business because she was good at numbers, and it was something she could do from home, while raising the boys. Before the boys were born, she had worked in a bank as a credit analyst, and she was thinking about returning to that line of work full-time, but she’d had all fall to apply for positions and she had not done
it. “Does that mean I don’t want to be a credit analyst?” she asked.

  Diana picked up the second half of her sandwich. “Maybe,” she said. “The good news is it sounds like you have a choice: You can return to credit analysis; you can build out your bookkeeping business, which gets my vote, by the way; or you can do something completely different.”

  “Chris would like me to work full-time. He was very supportive of my staying home with the boys. But now he thinks there’s no reason for me to be home. College is expensive, even with scholarships.” Diana nodded her head as she chewed. “And I agree with him. I don’t know why I’m hesitant to jump back in.”

  “Let’s see,” said Diana, wiping the corner of her mouth with one of the cloth napkins she had packed in with the food. “You’ve been a hands-on mother for twenty years, and now both your children are gone. Welcome to empty nest syndrome.”

  Ellie smiled. “Tell me your definition.”

  “Well, it’s a time of discovery, isn’t it?” asked Diana. “We will always be mothers, even when our children are not at home. We simply have more time now to pursue other interests. And it often takes time to figure out what those interests are, both in and outside of the working world. We can put pressure on ourselves to make this transition too quickly—or there can be pressures put upon us. When finances are a concern, we don’t always have the luxury to figure it out. But if we can take the time, if we choose to take the time, this next stage in our lives can be a welcome change. Most mothers mourn when their children leave the house, but the smart ones also celebrate the freedom they now have to redefine themselves.”

  “Well put,” said Ellie, thinking that she and Chris had discussed the empty nest syndrome a number of times and had not been able to put as fine a point on it as Diana had in a few sentences. Maybe this was because Chris was primarily concerned about their expenses, and Ellie, while certainly in agreement with him that the next several years would be very expensive ones, did not want to take on something she would regret. He wanted Ellie to get back into the workforce and was somewhat dismissive of her talk about an emotional transition. The boys are off finding their way in the world, he had said. You’ve done your job, and you’ve done it well. Now it’s time to get back to work. There was nothing wrong with what Chris had said. It was the way he said it. This was typically the case when she and Chris talked about life’s larger issues. They both spoke English, but employed it differently. Chris was pleasant, but also terse, direct, and, at times, unwilling to thoroughly discuss whatever topic stood between them, while Ellie was more exploratory in her thought process and wanted their conversations to include every possible option. However, no matter how it was said, Ellie knew Chris was right, knew that she should return to full-time work, that she was being self-indulgent. But because Chris was intolerant of Ellie’s indecision, Ellie felt gypped. She yearned to discuss what was important to her with someone who would actively listen.

  CHAPTER 18

  Joan, five minutes late to lunch, quickly hugged both Ellie’s and Alice’s shoulders when she got to the table.

  “What was that for?” asked Alice.

  “Number one, I’m sorry I’m late,” said Joan. “And number two, I haven’t seen either of you in too long. I know we’ve been texting, but no matter what you say, Alice, that is not real communication.”

  “I politely disagree,” said Alice, picking up her phone from the tabletop and showing the screen to Joan. “Linda just communicated with me.”

  Sorry she had brought it up, Joan flicked the air in front of Alice.

  “I still can’t believe the snowstorm we had a couple weeks ago,” said Ellie. “Forty-eight hours without power, and I’m still trying to get warm.”

  “I wish you and Chris had taken me up on coming to our house,” said Joan. “A generator makes all the difference.” Alice nodded her head.

  “He likes to be home in a storm,” said Ellie, “to keep an eye on things. I told him it’s a lot easier to keep an eye on things when they aren’t frozen in their sockets.”

  Alice laughed. “Get him a generator—for his birthday or something.”

  Ellie smiled. “That would, actually, be right in his wheelhouse. I like that idea.”

  Joan studied the menu and said, “Do you two already know what you want?”

  “We’re sitting in a steakhouse,” said Alice. “I’m going with steak.”

  “For thirty-six dollars?” asked Joan, checking out the steak options and their associated cost.

  Ellie reached over the table and took the menu from Joan long enough to flip it over. “These are the lunch specials,” she said. “I checked ahead of time so we wouldn’t be looking at a $150 check.”

  “Good thinking,” said Joan. She’d had just one vodka drink at the roulette table before lunch, but the alcohol had gone right to her head. She had skipped breakfast, so she needed to put something in her stomach to absorb the booze. When their server came to the table, Joan ordered a steak sandwich with French fries and a large glass of ice water. Ellie ordered a sirloin burger, and Alice requested the flank steak salad. “Now that that’s done,” said Joan, putting the white cloth napkin in her lap, “catch me up on your lives.”

  “Alice, you start,” said Ellie. “I want to hear all about the new store.”

  “First, I want to thank both of you for coming to the opening,” said Alice. “You were really nice to do that.”

  “It was fun,” said Ellie. “My new walking shoes are incredible. And Dave was right; they’re much warmer than what I wore to the store.”

  “I have yet to try my cross-trainers,” said Joan, “but they look beautiful in the box.”

  Alice smiled at Joan. “I think things are going well. Dave has been pleasantly surprised by the customer turnout because he cut back on advertising to save money. The kids who work for the store told Dave they’d spread the word via social media—and so far it seems to be working. Have you seen the new Facebook page?”

  “Not yet,” said Ellie.

  “Here,” said Alice, again reaching for her phone. “Let me show it to you.” It took Alice less than a minute to sign on to the casino’s wireless network and to find the Fast Pace Facebook page. Alice handed the phone to Ellie, next to her, who looked at it and then handed the phone to Joan.

  “This looks good,” she said. “And look, you already have eight hundred likes.” Joan didn’t have a Facebook page, mostly because she thought social media was a tool developed for her daughters’ generation. She’d seen the Facebook pages of her bankers’ wives friends, who routinely posted girls-night-out pictures of themselves and then, in the comments section, congratulated one another on their cute outfits, for looking so hot or young, or for being so much fun! Boastbook is what Joan thought it should be called. She did, though, see the merit in using it for business promotion. From the limited exposure she’d had to the platform, Joan thought Facebook users were the best self-promoters out there.

  “Any more thoughts about working there?” asked Ellie.

  “Yes and no,” said Alice, sitting back in her chair while their server placed her steak salad in front of her. “I’m not sure I’d enjoy it the way I did before the girls were born. And Dave isn’t pushing me. I mean, he’s pushing me to do something, but he’s not pushing me to do something at the store. He seems to be happy with the kids on his team. They have weekly pizza meetings now, in addition to running together twice a week.”

  “Is this something you can do with them—the running?” asked Joan, shaking salt on her fries.

  Alice shook her head. “They’re way beyond me. I could never keep up. And even if I tried, they would resent my slowing them down.”

  “Really?” asked Ellie. “These great kids that you keep telling us about would treat you like that?”

  Alice put her hands up, palms facing out, next to her shoulders. “Hey, I get it,” she said. “I know how they feel. When you get to a certain stage as a runner, you only want to look a
nd move forward. I used to be like that myself.”

  “But it still kind of stinks,” said Joan, lifting her sandwich to her mouth.

  “I’m getting used to running alone,” said Alice. “And I’m always on the lookout when I’m on the trails for my next running buddy.”

  “You can always walk with me if you get too lonely,” said Ellie. “I know it’s not the same as running, but it’s nice to have company.”

  “Thanks,” said Alice.

  “So, Joan, what about you?” asked Ellie. “What are you doing to keep yourself out of trouble? Any more thought about teaching calculus at the high school?”

  “Oh God, did I actually say that out loud?” said Joan. “I’m not sure I want to do that. I’m not sure I even have the ambition to pursue that. I’m so out of practice. Do I really want to start a career now, in my early fifties? Or am I just talking?”

  “Talking is good,” said Ellie. “If we don’t talk about this, explore what’s next for us, then we run the risk of making uninformed choices or doing nothing at all. Doing nothing at all, making no change, is fine, as long as that’s what we want to do. Do you want to make changes in your life, Joan?” Ellie was surprised and pleased to hear these words, based on Diana’s ideas, coming out of her mouth.

  Joan ate a fry that she had just dredged through the mound of ketchup on her plate. “It’s complicated,” she said, chewing. “First, Stephen doesn’t want me to work—mostly, I think, because his mother doesn’t want me to work. She’s a charming woman, but she’s enormously big on that keeping up appearances thing, even though she’s eighty-three and doesn’t need to keep up with anyone. She would be embarrassed if I got a job because then all her friends would think that Stephen wasn’t making enough money to support his family. The notion that a woman might want to work, might want to realize her intellectual potential, might want to make her own money, is absolutely unfathomable to the Howard family. Why would a woman work, when she can shop for nice clothes, attend her children’s daytime recitals and sporting events, and volunteer at church and in the community instead?”