Switching off the teakettle, she tiptoed back to the front door, pushing aside the curtain to see who was there.
“It’s me, silly, open the door.” Margaret Newman grinned at her, pressing her face close to the window as if Kate were partially blind.
With a feeling of relief, Kate unlocked the door and stepped into the embrace of one of her oldest friends.
“Good Lord, you’ve gone Green Acres on me already,” Margaret said, stepping back and surveying Kate’s blue jeans and old T-shirt.
“I’m working,” Kate said defensively, self-consciously smoothing her hair.
“So am I,” Margaret said, indicating her hand-tailored brown suit, “but us city folk don’t slop the hogs.”
“I prefer to call it painting,” Kate said, but she couldn’t keep from laughing. Margaret always made her laugh. “I’m so glad to see you!”
“I promised I’d visit your country retreat and here I am.” Margaret hoisted an H&H bag she had resting at her designer-clad feet. “And I came with provisions.”
Kate led her to the kitchen, and while Margaret unpacked bagels and chattered about the charm of “the hinterlands,” Kate made a pot of strong, black coffee just the way her friend liked it.
“They do sell these here, you know,” Kate said, smearing an everything bagel with cream cheese.
“I’m sure they’re a poor imitation.” Margaret took a large bite out of a sesame bagel and picked a seed delicately off the corner of her lip.
They’d been friends for almost eighteen years, longer than Kate had been married to Ian. In fact she owed her relationship with Ian to Margaret, since she’d invited them both to one of the wild parties she’d thrown regularly when they were all in their early twenties and new to New York. At least Kate and Ian had been new. Margaret was a born and bred Manhattanite and swore that she’d never live anywhere else, though she complained often enough about the high cost of living. It was the one area of her life where emotion overcame pragmatism.
“How’s Ian?”
“He’s good. Busy with the new job.”
“I’ll bet he is.” Margaret took a sip of coffee. “Is it all the prestige he hoped for?”
“Ian isn’t like that.”
“Isn’t he? I thought that’s why he had to leave the city.”
Kate took a sip of her tea, hoping the hot liquid would soothe the nervous twisting in her gut. They’d had this discussion before. “You know why we left.”
“You were getting better.”
“I wasn’t.”
“And Grace would have gotten over that boy.”
“She hasn’t.”
“Well, you both would in time. That’s my point,” Margaret insisted, tucking a strand of honey-colored hair behind a perfectly proportioned ear. She was a beautiful woman, but she had yet to find a relationship that satisfied her. “Discriminating” was how Margaret described her attitude toward men, but Kate suspected that deep down she was really afraid of compromise.
“We’re not that far from the city,” Kate said.
“Then why haven’t I seen you?”
“I’m trying to work. I’m overdue with that portrait I told you about.”
“You work too hard,” Margaret said. She’d gone to art school, too, but after three years of struggling had steered her career into the safer, shallower waters of advertising. “Starving isn’t really my color,” she’d said at the time. She finished off her bagel with one large bite and dabbed her mouth daintily with a napkin. “C’mon, show me your new studio.”
“Sure.” Kate tried to sound casual, but her stomach twisted again, the knot of anxiety tighter. She locked the kitchen door behind them and turned to see Margaret staring at her.
“I thought it was supposed to be safe up here.”
Kate flushed. “It is.”
“Then why are you locking the door?”
“Just habit, I guess.” Kate avoided her eyes, moving past her to unlock the studio.
It was obvious that she hadn’t been doing much painting. The portrait of the banker had barely changed, but Margaret just looked at it for a moment without saying anything, before examining the rest of the room.
“It’s got lots of natural light,” she said, stepping over to the window. As she stood there, a screen door slapped and Kate saw Terrence Simnic coming down his back steps with a large, black garbage bag.
“Who’s your neighbor?” Margaret asked watching as he hauled it into one of the metal garbage cans neatly lined up on the other side of the storm cellar.
“Terrence Simnic.”
“He seems”—Margaret seemed to be searching for a word—“colorful.”
Kate laughed, relieved to have something to laugh about. “Yeah, he’s kind of strange.” She told Margaret about the doll collection.
“How creepy!” Margaret said. “Very Norman Bates. Are you sure he doesn’t have his mother stored somewhere in that house?”
“I wasn’t about to stick around and find out.”
“That’s a big bag of trash for one man.” Margaret stepped away from the window and moved over to the shelves Kate had filled with paints and palettes and other supplies. She ran a hand over the brushes and flipped the pages of a drawing pad before looking Kate square in the eye. “How are you really doing?
Her question took Kate by surprise. “I’m fine,” she said, but she felt as if she were lying.
“You don’t look fine.”
“I’m not sleeping well.”
“Are you taking anything?”
“No!” At Margaret’s surprised look, Kate lowered her voice. “And I don’t want to. I’ve just got to get used to being in such a quiet place.”
“How are things with you and Ian?”
“Fine,” Kate said again, but Margaret just looked at her and Kate cracked.
“Okay, they’re not fine. We’re still not doing it. I can’t do it. We haven’t done it in over eight months. Happy?” Tears burned in her eyes, but Kate blinked them back.
There was silence for a moment, and then Margaret gave her a slight smile and said, “Honey, you’re not in high school anymore. You’re allowed to say sex.”
It made Kate laugh, the tears spilling over as she did, and she brushed them away, feeling the knot in her stomach easing a little. “It’s been hard,” she said. “Ian doesn’t understand. It’s not like I want to be this way.”
“Are you seeing anyone?”
“You sound like him now.” Kate turned away from her friend, struggling to regain her composure. “I don’t want to see anyone again. It’s so boring. Talk, talk, talk. All the talk in the world isn’t going to change what happened.”
“But it might help you get over it.”
Kate could feel tears threatening again, and Margaret let it go, the way a good friend does, by steering the conversation onto mutual friends. They left Kate’s studio and went back to the house, spending a happy few hours gossiping about everything that had happened in the