“I mean, I could.” Sam shrugs. “I might. I could do anything. I’m just not sure what I want, so I’d like to keep my options open.”
Amy misses the days when she and Greg were the supreme rulers of the household, when they could declare any topic something they needed to discuss alone, without children, before they’d deliver a verdict. Could Sam have a friend spend the night on Saturday? Was Henry allowed to go to the movies without a parent?Dad and I will talk about it and let you know, Amy would say. Or,Let me discuss it with your mother, from Greg. Now, just as Sam says, she’s an adult, and the matter at hand is her very own money, which she earned, and Amy knows that the only correct answer is,Yes, of course you can have your own money. No discussion necessary.
“Yes, of course you can have your own money,” says Amy.
“Right,” says Greg. “It’s yours.”
“After all, just as you say, you earned it,” continues Amy. “But if you do decide to go to college—”
“Mom,” says Sam warningly, and Amy holds up her hands, as though her seared tuna might jump up and bite her.
“I know. I know. But I have to say it. Humor me, okay? If you do decide to go to college, and I’ll indulge myself one more time by noting that I hope you will eventually decide to do that, you’ll need this money. So make sure you remember that.”
“Okay.” Tiny eye roll, barely perceptible. But definitely there. Amy can see Sam biding her time; she’s gotten what she wants out of the conversation, and now she just needs to ride it out to the end. “I’ll remember that,” she says.
“Good.” Amy wipes her mouth with her napkin. “Let’s pick a day soon when you can take the ferry over with me, and we’ll go to BankNewport and get everything transferred over to your name.Justyour name, with our names off the account. Okay?”
“Okay,” says Sam. She smiles at Amy, and then at Greg, and her smile is so bright, and so hopeful, and so loving, that for a moment Amy forgets to worry that she might move to Hawaii or Hong Kong or California and remembers to be happy that right here, right now, she is with them.
And then, of course, unable to let well enough alone, Amy messes it up.
“Are you ready to talk about it now, sweetheart?”
Greg shoots Amy a warning look, which she does her very best to ignore, but which she cannot help but see out of the corner of her eye.
“Talk about what?” Sam looks from her father to her mother.
“About what happened in New York.”
“Mom!No. I’m not ready. I may never be ready. Please. Stop. Asking.” And then the clamshell, which hadn’t really opened very far, snaps closed.
Timothy
Timothy catches Gertie after rehearsal the Friday of the next week, when they are the only two left in the barn. It always takes Gertie a ridiculous amount of time to gather her things after rehearsal. Scarves, bottles of Evian.Bits and bobs, they’d call it in England. Gertie has lot of bits, and so many bobs.
Rehearsal had gone well—they worked on act 2, scene 1, when Beatrice mocks Benedick and Don John, and Timothy got that excited feeling in his stomach that he recognizes as a sign that this play is going to be really, really good. In general he tries to keep feelings like that to himself, so as not to jinx things. Earlier that day, when they broke for lunch, he called the restaurant at the Spring House Hotel and reserved a table for two at seven o’clock. He wants to take Gertie. It won’t be adate,of course. Whatever they’re doing in the bedroom is just old-fashioned, grown-up fun. They’re not dating. But two exes can go out to dinner if they want, can’t they, to talk about old times, or to studiously avoid talking about old times? Yes. They can.
“Oh, sweetheart,” says Gertie, looking up from her massive handbag after he asks her.Whole-body bagis more like it, thinks Timothy. “That sounds lovely. But I have plans tonight.”
“Plans?” Timothy stares at her blankly.
“Yes. Plans. You know when you decide to spend time with aperson or people and you all do the same thing at the same time? That’s what plans are.”
Instantly, Timothy feels both aggrieved and embarrassed. “With whom? With a person, or with people?”
She stops digging—she has either found what she was looking for or given up on it altogether—slings the strap of the bag over her shoulder, and looks at him. “Timothy, Timothy,” she says. “We talked about this. We’re not together! You don’t need to take me to dinner.”
“I know I don’t need to. But I want to.”
Gertie lays a hand alongside his cheek, holds it for a second, then pats it twice, the way one would a child’s, and says, “I think that’s lovely of you. But I have plans. What about tomorrow night?”
“Tomorrow night I’m going to Newport. Dinner with Barry. He’s in town. Remember? I told you and Sam yesterday.” For some reason he takes it personally that she didn’t remember. Sometimes he gets the feeling that Gertie and Sam are only pretending to listen to him. “Do you want to come with me to Newport?”
“Don’t we rehearse on Sunday?”
“We do. But we don’t start until noon. We’ll take the early ferry back.”
She smiles at him. “You know what? I’d love to. Let’s go to Newport! But for tonight—why don’t you take Sam to dinner?”
