Promises to Keep Read online

  “You did? You’re kidding! Who’s we? You and Olivia?”

  “Olivia cook? Don’t be ridiculous! No, the kids and I, and I have to thank you because they are the greatest cookies I’ve ever had.”

  “You don’t have to thank me. I had nothing to do with it. Where did you get the recipe?”

  “Online. But I wouldn’t have known about them if it weren’t for you. I think you may have changed my life.” He grins, placing the cookies on the counter. “Try one.”

  “Oh. My. God.” Steffi sighs, crumbs spraying out of her mouth. “These are good.”

  “Told you. Oh shit!” The smile leaves his face. “Oh Steffi. They’re not vegan. I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” She adds, “I break the rule for chocolate. And I have been known to fall off the wagon for my mom’s roast chicken.”

  Steffi perches on a stool. Fingal is already curled up in a custom-built dog bed tucked underneath the kitchen counter.

  “So how did you and Fingal get on? Did you fall in love?” She nods. “I really did. He’s amazing. He was a bit naughty at my sister’s house—my niece let him out of the TV room and he proceeded to eat the mushroom pâté, but other than that he’s just so easy. And I love the way he leans into you.”

  “He only does that if he likes you.”

  “Aw, you’re just saying that to persuade me to have him for a year.”

  “Is it working?”

  “It already worked. I’m persuaded. I love him. So when can you let me see Sleepy Hollow?”

  The sound of the elevator is followed by a clatter of high heels and a small blond woman appears, sweeping in, then stopping abruptly when she notices Steffi.

  “Oh . . .” She looks at Steffi with raised eyebrow. “Hello?” She is no longer the friendly woman who showed up at Joni’s; she is now imperious, and wondering who this blond girl is, sitting at her kitchen counter.

  “Hi!” Steffi jumps up with outstretched hand and a big smile. “We met at Joni’s? The vegetarian restaurant? I’m the chef?” She can’t help it; every word she utters becomes a question, aiming to please Olivia.

  “Steffi is the girl who’s going to look after Fingal,” explains Mason. “Remember? I told you she was taking him for the weekend to see how they got on.”

  “I love him!” Steffi babbles. “What an adorable dog he is. I can’t wait to look after him!”

  “Oh!” Olivia smiles coolly. It doesn’t reach her eyes. “I had no idea who you were! Of course! The chef!” And quick as a flash she excuses herself and disappears.

  And even though she was smiling, and even though she was friendly, something about her words—“The chef!”—make Steffi know, instantly, she has been dismissed.

  Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookies

  Ingredients

  5 cups blended oatmeal

  2 cups butter

  2 cups sugar

  2 cups brown sugar

  4 eggs

  2 teaspoons vanilla extract

  4 cups flour

  1 teaspoon salt

  2 teaspoons baking powder

  2 teaspoons baking soda

  1½ pounds chocolate chips

  8 ounces good quality dark chocolate, grated

  3 cups chopped nuts (your choice)

  Method

  Preheat the oven to 375°F.

  Grind the oatmeal in a food processor until it is a fine powder.

  Cream the butter and the white and brown sugars. Add the eggs and vanilla. Stir the flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder and baking soda into the mixture. Add the chocolate chips, grated chocolate and nuts.

  Roll into balls and place 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet, or drop by teaspoonful onto a cookie sheet.

  Bake for 8 to 10 minutes—or 10 to 12 minutes for a crispier cookie.

  Makes enough for you, your family and your entire neighborhood.

  Chapter Eleven

  Lila’s last high school reunion was five years ago, but she didn’t really need to have been there to be able to tell you what had happened to the vast majority of her class.

  Even before going, Lila knew that the girls would all be pencil thin, with long, dark, straightened hair hanging from a center parting in a glossy sweep. They would be wearing tight boot-cut jeans with sparkles on the rear pockets, and high-heeled boots. They would have diamond studs in their ears, of varying sizes depending on how well their husbands had done, and would be carrying the latest oversize designer handbag. Their husbands would stand in a corner of the room and talk about sports and trading and where they had gone on their most recent holidays. No one would come out and say it, but there would be an undercurrent of who was worth the most.

  Even before going, Lila knew that Alissa Goldbaum, now Alissa Goldbaum Stern, would still be queen bee. She would live in the biggest house on the best street in Scarsdale, would drive a very large and impressive car, and would be swathed in the latest, trendy, designer gear.

  Even before going, Lila knew that the women would all look a thousand times better than the men. Even the girls who had big thighs, or bad teeth, or large noses when they were all in high school together would have Pilated their thighs down to nothing, spent hours in the dentist’s chair having Lumineers expertly stuck to their teeth, fixed their noses . . . added cheekbones, smoothed frown lines and removed double chins, thanks to liposuction, Botox, Restylane.

  The men would be much the same, only chubbier, their success apparent in their jackets that didn’t quite fit. Their teeth would be as before, their hair thinning, their chins slack. But none of them would see that when they looked in the mirror. They had made fortunes. When they looked in the mirror, all they would see was that they were kings of the world.

  Even before going, Lila knew that she would still not be one of them. She would still be regarded as someone who was an oddity, who didn’t fit in.

  Years ago, in eighth grade perhaps, or ninth, Alissa had turned to her at someone’s party. “You could be really pretty,” she said, “if you just lost a bit of weight and had your hair straightened.”

  Lila hadn’t been particularly offended. Even at that age she was secure enough in herself to find it funny, and she knew Alissa had thought she was being kind, was offering advice that she thought would help Lila be a better person.

  Lila isn’t thin, doesn’t have straight hair, and didn’t spend her twenties living on the Upper East Side and prowling the singles scene before finding a husband, having a baby, then moving to Westchester County or back to Long Island within a five-mile radius of the house in which she grew up, getting involved with the local Hadassah, becoming a mover and shaker on the board of the new Conservative synagogue.

  And more to the point, Lila hasn’t been married. She hasn’t married a nice Jewish boy and gone on to have two point four children. She doesn’t live in a big colonial and put said children in the preschool of new Conservative synagogue.

  Lila has never wanted children in the way her peers did. She hasn’t wanted the life she was destined to have, the life that all her school friends have. She has never thought of herself as particularly maternal, in fact always jokes that she is slightly allergic to small children.

  She doesn’t mind older children, very much enjoys their company, actually, but she finds today’s children increasingly hard to stomach. What has happened to rules? she wonders. To boundaries? When did it become acceptable for small children to butt in on an adults’ conversation whenever they have something to say, without so much as an “excuse me”? And worse, when did the parents stop speaking in midconversation and turn with beatific smiles to respond to their children’s question, leaving their conversation partner stopped and shocked in midstream?

  When, she wonders, did parents stop teaching their children to say “please” and “thank you?” Sitting in cafés these days, she most often hears children say, “I want,” with not a hint of a “thank-you” when the food arrives.

  They climb on the seats in the booths, thei
r muddy shoes all over the banquettes, and grin playfully at the people sitting in the booth behind them, while the mothers ignore them, presumably thinking that everyone in the restaurant will find their children’s behavior as adorably cute as they do.

  They get down and run around, swerving round waitresses carrying hot food aloft, shrieking and bumping into people, while the mothers don’t see, or choose not to look.

  Lila walks into shops and small children come tearing out under her arms as she pushes the door open—not a hope of any of them standing aside to let the adult through.

  Oh GOD, she sometimes thinks. I am turning into my grandmother. I am becoming a curmudgeon. Surely forty-two is too young to be turning into this? But she doesn’t understand what is happening to today’s parents.

  Of course she cannot understand, for she is not a parent herself. She cannot possibly know what it is like to be exhausted, overwhelmed, to know that your children are behaving appallingly but you have already had words with them a million times today and frankly you just do not have the energy anymore.

  Lila cannot know that you spent years trying to get your children to say “please” and “thank you,” but you are only human and you cannot do it all the time, and sometimes you are just too damned tired.

  Sometimes it is easier to just tune out, because no one can be 100 percent vigilant all of the time.

  But Lila doesn’t know this. She just knows that once upon a time she presumed she would find a nice husband, probably sometime in her late twenties or thirties, and they would have a couple of children, and she would live in a small colonial somewhere. She thought this not because it was something she wanted, but because it was what her parents expected of her. What her world expected of her.

  And now, at forty-two, her life is not at all what she expected. She is no longer employed by a large company, but struggling to find work as a marketing “consultant,” grateful only that her prior company paid her such a large severance.

  She is not married, and doesn’t want children. She is very happy in her cottage with her big Waspy English boyfriend, and every other weekend with his lovely nine-year-old son, Clay, who is surprisingly well-behaved and chatty.

  So when Ed asks the following question, she is nothing if not a little surprised. They are flopped on the sofa on Sunday night, watching a pay-per-view movie while waiting for Entourage to start. Lila is alternately flicking through the pages of Martha Stewart Living and watching the movie, which has a little too much action, blood and guts to really capture her attention, and Ed is stroking her legs, which are flung over his lap.

  “I’ve been thinking . . .” Ed says, gazing at Lila.

  “Yes?” she says, looking up at him, wondering what he’s going to say.

  “How do you feel about children?”

  “I think they’re perfectly fine as long as they belong to other people. Although I adore Clay. He’s not really a child, though. He’s a twenty-year-old trapped in a nine-year-old’s body. Why?” She peers at him. “Is that what you’re asking or are you asking something far more specific?”

  Ed laughs. “A little more specific. I was just wondering whether you had thought of having your own.”

  “Thought about it, yes. A long time ago. A very long time ago. I thought about it and concluded the answer was no.” Lila squints at Ed, thinking. “Is this some convoluted way of trying to tell me you want me to bear your children?”

  And Ed, much to her surprise, blushes.

  “Oh God!” she blusters, kicking her legs off his lap and sitting up. “I was kidding. Oh Ed. What is this? What are you asking?” Her voice is now gentle as she takes his hand and looks him in the eye.

  “I don’t even know,” he says. “It’s just . . . I suppose I always thought I would have a big family. I grew up as an only child, and I hated it. I determined that when I grew up, I would have three or four children, and probably raise them on a wonderful old farm in the country, and have this idyllic family that was filled with love and laughter.”

  “Because your own childhood wasn’t?” Lila asks softly.

  “It was, to a point,” Ed says. “But it was very . . . ordered. Orderly. My parents treated me as something precious. They took me to concerts, and art galleries, and the theater. I learned how to discuss the merits of Picasso, the merits of the Bach symphonies, but all I really wanted was to live with the Campbells.”

  “The Campbells?”

  “They lived at the end of our road. Four children, three boys and a girl, and their house backed onto a big playing field. All the neighborhood kids would be at their house all the time, or in the fields behind, but Mrs. Campbell always made a huge cake for tea, and enough food to serve an army, and I just remember how much I wanted the chaos. Everyone was always welcome there, and because there were so many kids I think she just got used to other children joining the group.”

  “I bet they never went to art galleries and museums, though.” Lila smiles.

  “I don’t think they did, but their house was always fun. Lots of noise, delicious smells, animals everywhere.”

  “Animals?”

  “They had two red setters, a couple of cats, and there were usually small rodent-like creatures around the rest of the house. Anna had a rabbit called Timmy who thought he was a cat, and the boys had hamsters and guinea pigs. Oh, apart from Roger, who had an iguana.”

  Ed smiles at the memory before continuing.

  “But it felt like the family I should have had. I used to walk past every day praying that someone would see me, or that the kids would be outside, because I was always too self-conscious to just knock on the door. And that’s what I always thought I would have. A house filled with children, and animals. I thought I’d have it with Mindy, until . . . well . . . until I realized she was a complete nutcase. And then I just spent years miserably trying to leave.”

  “I still don’t understand. Why didn’t you leave sooner?”

  “I tried so many times. But every time there’d be another crisis, another drama. She’d be desperately sick, or something would happen with her family, or she’d just make me feel guilty. And it worked. How could I leave my wife and small child? It was unthinkable.”

  “Of course it was. Because you’re a knight in shining armor and you thought your job was to rescue everyone.”

  “God, you’re so American.” He grins.

  “It’s true though.”

  Ed shrugs. “Maybe. The point is, I thought I’d have tons of children. And now I have Clay, whom I love more than anything in the whole world, and I was honestly resigned to having just one perfect child. There was no way I was having another child with Mindy, and I had accepted that this was clearly my fate; it just hadn’t turned out the way I had always thought.”

  “And . . . now?”

  “Well . . . that’s the thing. Whenever I thought about having another child when I was married to Mindy, the thought filled me with abject horror. But now, with you, I realize that for the first time in years I can see me having another child. I can see us having a child.”

  Lila looks away for a second, unable to bear the softness in Ed’s eyes, and when she looks back her own eyes have filled up.

  “Oh Ed. I wish I had met you years ago. I wish I had met you when I was thirty-two, not forty-two. I’m not going to pretend I haven’t thought about it, thought about how miraculous it would be to have a baby with the man I love, to create a person out of this extraordinary love we have for each other, but . . . I’m forty-two, Ed. First, I think it’s unlikely that I would even get pregnant. And second, I don’t want children, Ed. Not now.”

  Ed cannot hide the sadness in his eyes as Lila talks.

  “I love my life. I love you. I love living here. I’m too old, and too selfish, and too set in my ways to have children. And I see how hard it is. At thirty-two I might have been under some illusion that raising children was easy, that they would be these gloriously adorable appendages I could dress in cute clothes from Gap
who would accessorize me perfectly. But I haven’t got the energy. Nor the inclination. Which doesn’t mean I love you any the less. It just means I think my time has passed.”

  Ed nods, considering all that she has said. “I’m not trying to change your mind,” he says finally, “but can we at least continue the conversation about it?”

  “Yes, my darling.” She smiles, drawing him close for a kiss. “This is why I love you. Because you leave no bridge burned, no stone unturned. Yes, we can continue the conversation about it, but I must warn you I will not be changing my mind.”

  “As long as you’re willing to keep talking about it, that’s all I ask.”

  “Have I ever told you how much I love you?” Lila places a hand on each of his cheeks and looks him in the eye, her nose inches from his.

  “Not half as much,” he says very seriously, “as I love you.”

  “Are you sure you’re not having an affair with him? Oh shit, hang on.” Callie drops the phone into her lap as she drives past the policeman, shooting him a big smile. “Hang on,” she shouts, “police alert.” She picks up the phone again after she rounds the corner. “Sorry, I’m in the car.”

  “I figured. Where’s your Bluetooth thing?”

  “I lost it again.”

  “Another one?” Steffi laughs. “Callie, you’re as bad as me. How many have you lost in the past year?”

  “Only four. Don’t try to change the subject. So this guy, Mason. Rich wife. Sounds like a bitch. Clearly interested in you.”

  “No. Not clearly interested in me at all. Why do you always have to be so suspicious?”

  “Because it’s just weird. I understand him wanting you to dogsit, particularly because he can clearly see your bleeding heart, but then offering you his house in Sleepy Hollow? For free? He must get a fortune renting that. I just don’t understand why he would give you his house unless you were secretly having sex with him and not telling me because I’m your older wiser sister and I would disapprove massively.”