At times it had felt like collective parenting. Paige, why aren’t you wearing a sweater? Paige, I saw the helicopter taking you to hospital again, you poor thing. She’d felt trapped and constrained, as if someone had grasped her in a tight fist, determined to keep her from escaping.
Life had been all about keeping her well, keeping her safe, keeping her protected, until she’d wanted to scream out the question that had burned inside her for most of her childhood—
What was the point in being alive if you weren’t allowed to live?
Moving to New York City was the best, most exciting thing that had ever happened to her and it was different from Puffin Island in every possible way. Some would have said worse.
Not Paige.
Frankie was frowning. “We all know I can’t set foot on Puffin Island again. I’d be lynched. There are a few things I miss, but one thing I don’t miss is everyone staring at me angrily because my mother has had yet another affair with a husband who doesn’t belong to her.” She shoved her hair out of her eyes and finished her drink. Anger, frustration and misery radiated from her and when she scrunched the empty can in her fist her knuckles were white. “At least in Manhattan there are a couple of men my mother hasn’t had sex with. Although there is officially one fewer than yesterday.”
“Again?” Finally Paige understood the reason her friend was so brittle. “She texted you?”
“Only when I didn’t answer her fourteen calls.” Frankie shrugged. “You were asking why I wasn’t in the mood for breakfast, Ev—apparently he was twenty-eight and banged like a barn door in a gale force wind. The level of detail kind of put me off my food.” Her flippant tone did nothing to disguise how upset she was, and Paige slid her arm through Frankie’s.
“It won’t last.”
“Of course it won’t last. My mother’s relationships never last. But in the time she’s with him she’ll manage to strip him of a significant quantity of his assets. Don’t feel sorry for him. I blame him as much as her. Why can’t men keep it zipped? Why don’t they ever say no?”
“Plenty of guys say no.” Paige thought about her own parents and their long happy marriage.
“Not the ones my mother hooks. My biggest dread is that one day I’m going to meet one of them at an event. Can you imagine that? Maybe I should change my name.”
“You’re never going to bump into them. New York City is a crowded place.”
Eva took Frankie’s other arm. “One day she is going to fall in love, and all this will stop.”
“Oh please! Even you can’t romanticize this situation. Love has nothing to do with it,” Frankie said. “Men are my mother’s job. Her income. She is the CEO of the BMD corporation, otherwise known as Bleed Men Dry.”
Eva sighed. “She’s very troubled.”
“Troubled?” Frankie stopped dead. “Ev, my mother left troubled behind five stops ago. Can we talk about something else? I should never have mentioned it. It’s a guaranteed way to ruin my day and it isn’t as if it hasn’t happened before. Living in New York has many advantages, but being able to avoid my mother most of the time is the biggest one.”
Paige thought for the millionth time how lucky she was with her parents. True, they worried and fussed a bit too much, which drove her insane, but compared to Frankie’s mother they were wonderfully normal. “Living in New York is the best thing that ever happened to any of us. How did we survive without Bloomingdale’s and the Magnolia Bakery?”
“Or feeding the ducks in Central Park,” Eva said wistfully. “That’s my favorite thing. I used to do it with my grandmother every weekend.”
Frankie’s gaze softened. “You miss her horribly, don’t you?”
“I’m doing okay.” Eva’s smile dimmed a little. “Good days and bad days. It’s not as bad as it was a year ago. She was ninety-three so I can hardly complain, can I? It’s just that it feels weird not having her around. She was the one constant in my life and now she’s gone. And I have no one. I’m not connected to anyone.”
“You’re connected to us,” Paige said. “We’re your family. We should go out this weekend. Shopping? We could hit the makeup counter at Saks Fifth Avenue and then go dancing.”
“Dancing? I love dancing.” Eva wiggled her hips provocatively and almost caused another pileup.
Frankie urged her forward. “There aren’t enough gel inserts in the world to cope with shopping and dancing in the same trip. And Saturday night is movie night. I vote for a horror fest.”
Eva recoiled. “No way. I’d be awake all night.”
“It wouldn’t get my vote, either.” Paige pulled a face. “Maybe Matt would let us have chick flick night to celebrate my promotion.”
“No chance.” Frankie straightened her glasses. “Your brother would jump off his own roof before he agreed to chick flick night. Thank goodness.”
Eva shrugged. “How about going out tonight instead of Saturday? I’m never going to meet someone if I don’t go out.”
“People don’t come to New York to meet someone. They come for the culture, the experience, the money—the list is long, but meeting the man you’re going to marry isn’t on it.”
“So why did you come here?”
“Because I needed to live somewhere big and anonymous and my best friends were here. And I love certain parts of it,” Frankie conceded. “I love The High Line, the Botanical Gardens and our secret little corner of Brooklyn. I love our brownstone and I will be forever grateful to your brother for letting us rent the place from him.”
“Did you hear that?” Eva nudged Paige. “Frankie said something positive about a man.”
“Matt is one of the few decent men on the planet. He’s a friend, that’s all. I happen to enjoy being single. What’s wrong with that?” Frankie’s tone was cool. “I am self-sufficient and proud of it. I make my own money and I answer to no one. Being single is a choice, not a disease.”
“And my choice would be to not be single. That’s not wrong either, so don’t lecture me. I can’t help feeling a little despondent that the condom in my purse has passed its expiry date.” Eva tucked a wayward blond curl behind her ear and skillfully steered the conversation away from relationships. “I love summer. Sundresses, flip-flops, Shakespeare in the Park, sailing on the Hudson, long evenings up on our roof terrace. I still can’t believe your brother built that. He’s so damn smart.”
Paige didn’t disagree.
Older by eight years, her brother had left their island home long before she had. He’d chosen to start his landscape architecture business right here in New York City and now that business was thriving.
“The roof garden is heaven.” Frankie increased her pace. “What happened to that big piece of business in Midtown? Did that come off for him?”
“Still waiting to hear, but his company is doing well.”
And now it was her turn.
Her promotion was the next step in her life plan. It would also hopefully be another step to curing her family’s tendency to be overprotective.
Born with a heart defect, Paige’s childhood had been a raft of hospital visits, doctors and loving parents who had struggled to