“No, he doesn’t cheat on her. But he never told her who he was with all through high school. He never told her who he used to hook up with.”
“Who?” Caroline asked, confused. “Bailey?”
“No.” Fran shook her head, exhausted. “Colin used to hook up with Eben. Colin was with Augusta’s brother.”
“He what?”
Suddenly Hale came running up with a triangular rock. “Mom! I found an arrowhead!”
Caroline was still staring at Fran, her mouth open. Colin and Eben? No wonder Eben was so uncomfortable around them. And they had kept it a secret? Hale lifted the rock to Caroline’s face and she tried to focus. It was definitely not an arrowhead.
“Wow, that’s amazing.” Fran smiled at Hale.
“It could be from a million years ago. Maybe two.”
“Humans weren’t alive a million years ago,” London said, stomping up and shaking his head indignantly.
“I think they were.” Hale nodded.
“Mom, can you please tell him that humans weren’t alive?”
“Were they dead?” Hale looked worried.
“No, they weren’t dead.Homo sapiensmight have been on earth two million years ago,” Fran explained gently.
“I SAID SO!” Hale bounced happily.
“But any arrowheads we find are probably hundreds of years old, not millions.”
“Ha!” London gloated.
“You know, in western Massachusetts they found an arrowhead that they believe is thirteen thousand years old?” Fran continued. “It was in a potato field.”
“Were you alive then?” Hale asked.
“No, honey.”
“I think this is very rare.” He admired his rock cheerfully.
“Okay, we’re going to head home.” Fran hugged Caroline goodbye and she and the boys clambered over the rocks off toward the field, Hale’s squeaky little voice fading into the distance.
Caroline was left reeling. How could Augusta not know about her husband and brother? And everyone else knew and just kept silent? And Van had moved in with Bailey? It gutted Caroline to hear it. To imagine him sleeping in her bed, making her coffee. She wanted to goto Bailey’s house and break something, she wanted to smash bottles of red wine over every stupid piece of white furniture. The ache spread through her, and along with it a sense of shame at her own foolishness. How could she have thought this might end any other way? Van was always going to want to be with Dylan. Dylan belonged to Bailey. How could he want one and not the other? But maybe it wasn’t forever? Maybe Caroline could wait it out. Would Van spend twenty years picking up Dylan’s underwear and then come back to Caroline? No. Because if Fran had been telling her anything it was that whenever Van came back—if he came back—he wouldn’t be the same at all.
The previous spring, when she left her job as a book editor, Caroline had turned over her ID, her company laptop, and her American Express card, but the one thing she kept was her subscription to an expensive publishing news website. It was honestly self-sabotaging, but she had never been able to break the habit of checking the new deals section once a week to see who among her agent friends had sold a manuscript, which editors had acquired a new writer, and what other gossip was shaking the book world in its insular and self-important way. But when Caroline logged in and saw the news of the Palmer Preston biopic being filmed in Greenhead, she was suddenly glad she had been torturing herself on such a regular basis. There was an A-list star signed on to play Palmer, and another to play his first wife. Interest in Palmer Preston’s backlist had surged, his sales were up by 500 percent, and they were reissuing all his old books with new covers, redesigned by a celebrity jacket designer.
Caroline felt a tingly sense of anticipation, almost like she washaving a premonition. Suddenly, she wasn’t off alone in a bucolic corner of the world, nursing heartbreak in a run-down cottage. Instead, she was a writer sitting at the very nexus of an enormous literary event. She wasn’t sure exactly why or how, but the movie felt important, like an opportunity for her to get out of her rut.
Of course, Gwendolyn Lash found a way to put a small pin in Caroline’s balloon. “It’s absolutely thrilling for Ned Clark,” she reported smugly. “You know he represents the Preston estate, and he was the one to sell the rights to Hollywood. Preston’s grandson wrote the biography that they optioned for the script adaptation, and Ned has been part of the project since day one. He’s actually going to be a producer on the movie.”
“Why does that make you so happy, Mom? Doesn’t it just mean your agent is going to be focused on the movie instead of you?” It wasn’t a nice thing to say, but Gwendolyn didn’t always bring out the best in Caroline.
“What’s good for Ned is good for me, darling. The higher Ned’s star, the more negotiating power he has for all his clients.”
Caroline harrumphed. She still hadn’t been able to square her antipathy for Ned with the idea that he had possibly given her an advantage with the fellowship committee. The notion that she had thought she won it on her own merits when really it was yet another gift of nepotism made her sick with self-loathing.
“He’s going to be in Greenhead all summer. I hope you’ll show him around and spend some time with him. I think he could really help you with your writing career if you let him.”
“I don’t need an agent, Mom, I just need to focus on my work.”
