Beautiful Day(75)

Ann remembered Olivia giving her googly eyes. As in What the hell is wrong with you? But Ann was too drunk herself to pick up on it.

She remembered that Jim had come home whistling.

But at the time, Ann thought nothing of it. She was happy that Helen had felt close enough to the group to reveal the truth. It meant the evening had been a success. And the next day everyone called to thank Ann and tell her it was the best wine tasting yet.

Cabernets at the Fairlees’.

Finally, it was Helen’s turn to host. She had moved out of the house that she had shared with Nathaniel and into one of the brand-new lofts built at Brightleaf Square. She invited everyone over for a port tasting. She would serve only desserts, she said, and cigars for the men.

Ann had been excited to go. She was dying to see what those lofts looked like, and she wanted to support Helen in her new life. It must have been difficult to stay in the wine-tasting group as the only single person among couples. But then Ryan got the chicken pox. On the Saturday of the port tasting, he had a temperature of 103 degrees and was covered in red spots. Jim had offered to stay home and let Ann go. But Ann wouldn’t hear of it. She didn’t really like port anyway, and Helen had made a big deal about the Cuban cigars she had gotten from a friend of hers living in Stockholm. Jim should go. Furthermore, Ryan was a mama’s boy, a trait that became even more pronounced when he was sick. Ann couldn’t imagine Jim staying home to deal with him.

“You go,” Ann said.

“You’re sure?” Jim said. “We could both stay home.”

“No, no, no!” Ann said. “That would make it seem like we’re rejecting Helen.”

“It will not seem like we’re rejecting Helen,” Jim said. “It will seem like our child has the chicken pox.”

“You go,” Ann said. “I insist.”

At the groomsmen’s house, breakfast was devoured, and everyone complimented Ann’s efforts in the kitchen—especially Autumn, who seemed surprisingly at ease with Ann, considering that Autumn was wearing no pants and had spent the night with Ann’s son after knowing him all of six hours. Ann cleared the dishes and began washing them at the sink, until Ryan and Jethro nudged her out of the way and told her to go relax.

Relax? she thought.

She headed upstairs to find Stuart.

Ann often wondered: If Jim had stayed home to take care of Ryan with the chicken pox and Ann had gone to the port tasting at Helen’s new apartment, would any of this have happened?

As it was, Jim went to Helen’s party and returned home at 3:20 in the morning. Ann had fallen asleep a little after ten after giving Ryan a baking soda bath, but she opened one eye to Jim, and the clock, when he climbed into bed. He smelled unfamiliar—like cigar smoke, and something else.

In the morning, Ann asked, “How was the party?”

Jim nodded. “Yep. It was good.”

In the afternoon, Olivia called. She said, “Helen Oppenheimer is trouble. She was all over every man at that party.” She paused. “What time did Jim get home?”

“Oh,” Ann said. “Not late.”

The affair had started that night, or at least that was what Jim confessed later. Ann had her suspicions that something had actually happened when Jim drove Helen home after the champagne party. But Ann had continued on, blissfully unaware, throughout the spring, into the summer.

It was in July that Shell Phillips had called with the idea of hot air ballooning. It could be done near Asheville, in the western part of the state, a four-hour drive away. They would lift off at five in the evening and land just before sunset in a meadow where there would be a gourmet picnic dinner with wines to match. There was a bed-and-breakfast nearby where couples could spend the night.

“Perfect for our group,” Shell said.

Ann had been thrilled by the prospect of ballooning, and she accepted right away. She wasn’t sure how Jim would react. He had been moody around the house, sometimes snapping at Ann and the kids. He bought a ten-speed bicycle and started going on long rides on the weekends; sometimes he was gone for three hours. Ann thought the bike riding was probably a good thing. She said to Olivia, “He must have seen Breaking Away one night on TV. He’s obsessed with the biking.”

Ann started calling him “Cutter.”

She worried that Jim might not want to go on an all-day ballooning adventure with the wine-tasting group. But when she asked him, he said yes right away. It was almost as if he already knew about it, Ann thought.

It had been so many years earlier that certain details were now lost. What did Ann remember about the hot air ballooning trip? She remembered that Jim had been quiet in the car on the way to Asheville. Normally on a ride that long, he popped in a cassette of Waylon Jennings or the Marshall Tucker Band, and he and Ann sang along, happily out of key. But on that ride, Jim had been silent. Ann asked him what the matter was, and he said tersely, “Nothing is the matter.”