Family Reunion Read online

  Ari was dressed casually in a sundress and sandals, her long dark hair tied back. No jewelry, no makeup. She wanted to be plain, plain, plain, unequivocal and understood. She had tried doing this before, as early as the beginning of their final semester, but Peter had been anxious about keeping his grades up and she didn’t want to wreck it for him. She really had tried, in so many ways, to give him hints, to back away. Peter should have guessed something was wrong. He should have been at least partly attuned to her. But he was excited about graduation, parties, celebrations with friends and family.

  And their engagement to be married.

  She’d met Peter Anderson when they were fifteen years old, swimming relay races at their summer camps on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. Ari’s mother had sent her to Bird Bell Camp for Girls every summer since she was thirteen. The camp was named in honor of two female British explorers, Isabella Bird and Gertrude Bell, and its mission was to teach girls independence, self-control, and mastery of sports. Ari loved being at the camp. She returned every year, thrilled to see her camp friends, to spend all her hours in nature, to run down the trails beneath towering evergreens. When Ari was fifteen, Miss Kiltenbarr, the head counselor, announced that there would be a one-day festival with the boys’ camp across the lake. It included races, sports, charades around the campfire, but most of all, it included boys.

  Ari was a strong swimmer. She’d learned to swim in the Atlantic, with its salt and its waves. The clear, sweet water of the lake offered little resistance, and she often won races. The day of the co-camp, she led off in a relay race across the lake. She was neck and neck with the boy when she handed the baton off to M. J. Clark and treaded water, catching her breath.

  “Hey,” the boy said. He was treading water, too. Like Ari, he was tanned, with a sunburned nose, and his long, thick eyelashes were clumped together with water, and his red hair stuck out in all directions.

  “Hey,” Ari replied. Her own long dark hair clung to her skull and her forehead, dribbling drops of water down her face.

  “I’m Peter,” he said.

  Peter, she thought, not Pete. Interesting. Like her father was Phillip, not Phil. “I’m Ari.”

  “Let’s swim to the island,” Peter said.

  The island was only a clump of rocks with a few hardy evergreens sticking out, but it was a favorite place to rest and watch the other races.

  They sat side by side in the shade of the evergreen clumps, looking out over the other campers participating in water sports. Peter was from New Jersey and went to a boarding school in Connecticut. Ari was from Boston and attended Dana Hall in Wellesley, Massachusetts. His family skied in Aspen. Ari’s family went to the Bahamas in the winter. Peter thought his camp was fun, but it was starting to get boring. Ari felt the same way about her camp. Peter pitched small stones into the water as they talked, and Ari was hyperaware of his maleness, his hairy arms and legs, his muscular chest, his deep voice. She was wearing her old navy blue Speedo, approved camp-wear, and she wished her nipples would stop sticking out against the fabric, it was embarrassing, right up until the moment Peter said, “I’d like to kiss you.”

  “Okay,” she replied calmly, as if this happened to her all the time.

  Peter put his arms around her, brought his mouth to hers, and kissed her for a long time. Ari found herself analyzing the kiss—she’d never been so thoroughly kissed before—while at the same time she censured herself for not giving over to the experience completely. She did put her arms around him. She did allow him to ease her back onto the ground, but when he attempted to move on top of her, she put her knees up to prevent him.

  When she did that, Peter stopped kissing her. He smiled at her. “I like you,” he said.

  “I like you,” she said back.

  “Let’s meet at the cookout tonight,” Peter said.

  “Okay.” She kissed him quickly, briefly, on his mouth, feeling sassy and daring as she did. Then, to be extra cool, she stood up and dove back into the lake.

  Before they left camp, they put their phone numbers on each other’s phones. During the winter, they kept up a texted conversation. The next year they met again on the co-camp day, and again the year after that. She decided to go to Bucknell University without talking it over with Peter, so she was amazed that Bucknell was his choice, too. Were they destined to be together?

  Ari joined a sorority at Bucknell. The delight and friendship and rituals kept her from spending all her time and thoughts on Peter. They argued about this and finally decided to allow themselves to date other people. It was actually, Peter argued, part of the college experience. Ari went out with other guys and enjoyed being with them, but she knew Peter was having much more of the college experience than she was. Ari’s life was too busy with coursework and deep, meaningful discussions about life with girlfriends and washing cars for a charity with her sorority to feel sad or threatened by Peter’s other girls. Maybe that should have told her something about her feelings for him.

  Ari majored in early childhood education. Peter took pre-law. In their junior year, Peter told Ari he wanted them to be a couple, now and in the future. He wanted them to be exclusive.

  “We’re on such different paths,” Ari reminded him.

  “Ari,” Peter said, “you and I have been on the same path since we kissed on the island in Lake Winnipesaukee.”

  Ari gave him points for that. Peter wasn’t often romantic, but that night at the end of their junior year, he was very romantic. Very persuasive. That was the first night they made love. The first time Ari had ever had sex. Not, obviously, Peter’s first time. She didn’t ask him about it.

  Once they became exclusive, they spent all their time together, and much of it they spent studying. They were both ambitious. Peter wanted to become a judge. Ari wanted to run a daycare for single mothers, paid for by the donations of people like her parents. They talked endlessly about their plans over the summer when they didn’t go to camp. Instead, Peter came to stay with Ari for two weeks on Nantucket in her grandmother’s house. In separate bedrooms, of course.

  The fall of their senior year, Peter asked her to marry him. Caught up in the moment, she said yes. Peter was admitted to Harvard Law, an impressive accomplishment that made Ari’s mother rapturous. Ari was admitted to the graduate program in early childhood education at Boston University. He took her to his home for Christmas. Ari took Peter to her house for New Year’s Eve.

  If, sometimes, Ari wondered if she really loved Peter, her friends made fun of her doubts.

  “You’ve been together for so long, you’re like an old married couple already,” Katie Warren said.

  “You are so obvs meant to be together,” insisted Sophia Brannagan.

  “I’ll tell you the exact truth,” Laura Hunter said. “You want gooey love to come all at once, at first sight, in some blinding fiery revelation that makes your little red heart pound. But that’s only infatuation, and you know that leads to disappointment. What you have with Peter is true love, the daily kind that allows you to be mad at each other and still make love at night.”

  “You’re right,” Ari agreed. She conjured up an image of the lodge on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee that she and Peter had reserved for the last Saturday in August. They would be married there, on the shore, even if it rained. The lodge had rooms for their families and several friends, and the owners catered. Ari would wear a ring of fresh flowers in her hair.

  Now all that had to be canceled.

  Before going out, Ari checked herself in the mirror. Long brown hair, blue eyes, five foot ten and slender, she’d been compared to Kate Middleton often. She and Peter were exactly the same height, as long as she didn’t wear high heels. Today was one of those freak spring days that acted like summer, hot and humid, and as Ari walked toward the bench by the Malesardi Quadrangle, she went slowly, telling herself she didn’t want to get all swea
ty. But really, she was dreading this meeting, even though she was determined to get it done. Fortunately, the campus was empty. The students had left, except for a few stragglers like Ari.

  As she neared the half circle of benches, she saw that Peter was already there. Of course he was. Punctuality was important to him. With him, over the past four years, she’d been rushing through every moment, not being late for classes, studying for tests, partying with friends. Even making love with Peter had always happened in a rush. As much as he wanted her, Peter was terrified of being caught in the act. Ari had joked with her best friend Meloni that having sex with Peter Anderson was like wrestling with a nervous puppy. Ari was certain that when Peter felt safe in his life, he would settle down and take things more slowly. She had learned during their time together that while Peter presented a cool, unflustered façade, in his heart and mind he was harried by insecurities.

  Peter was at his best when he was at home with his family, although of course Ari and Peter never made love when they were there. He played driveway basketball with his younger brother and his dad and hugged his mom all the time. He would be a good husband and father, Ari decided. He liked being part of something, liked teamwork, liked making his sister laugh and his father praise him and his mother force one more piece of her special chocolate cake on him. The Anderson family was so unlike Ari’s, it made her envious. When she took Peter home to celebrate New Year’s Eve, her mother had been unusually sweet and attentive, no doubt thrilled that Ari was with a man who intended to go into the law. Ari’s father was welcoming in his normal vague way. Phillip Paget was a surgeon, which impressed Peter and his parents, but when he was at home, he seemed to melt. It was as if all the energy had been drained out of him by his exacting work. Ari privately thought her father was simply exhausted, defeated, from living with his social-climbing, money-hungry, seldom-satisfied wife. Ari was certainly wearied by her mother.

  But Ari had never felt madly, crazily, hopelessly in love with Peter. Each year, each month, Peter grew bossier, more arrogant, and less pleasant. She was quite sure she didn’t want to spend her life with him. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she didn’t want to live in misery.

  Ari needed to break up with him now. She had to be quick and decisive, kind but unyielding. She’d tried several times to do it gradually, and that had never worked.

  There he was, standing beneath a cherry tree, smiling.

  Peter caught sight of her. He ran a few steps to catch Ari in his arms. “Hey! We’re almost outta this burg.”

  She shook off his hands and stepped back. Thank God no one else was within hearing distance. Her heart thumped hard with anxiety, and when she spoke, she was almost breathless. Her words flew out in a hurried flutter. “Peter, listen to me. I have to tell you. I can’t marry you, Peter. No—I don’t want to marry you. I’ve been thinking and thinking, and we’re wrong for each other. I’m breaking up with you.”

  Her hands were clasped in front of her as if she were Queen Elizabeth giving a speech. She didn’t want to touch him.

  Peter froze. After a moment, he grinned. “This is a joke, right?”

  “No. No joke. I’m sorry. I don’t love you, Peter. I don’t want to have a life with you.” She knew him so well. She could see how he clutched his hands into fists at his sides, as he always did when something was unfair. “I never meant to hurt you.”

  “Well, I never meant to be hurt,” Peter replied, without a hint of sarcasm. “Ari, come on. I can’t believe what you’re saying.” He shook his head. “We…we’re going to get married.”

  Peter reached for her hand. Ari moved away quickly, sitting sideways on a bench, drawing her legs up to her chest, making herself as small and as untouchable as possible. “I’ll take care of canceling the wedding arrangements,” she told him.

  “That’s certainly big of you. I feel much better now.” Peter paced up and down the bricks, running his hand through his thick red hair. He stopped in front of Ari. “I had no idea. You gave me no warning.”

  “But I did, Peter. You just never listen to me.”

  “Come on, Ari. Don’t be like this.”

  “Please, Peter, you know I’ve been wanting to tell you. I’ve told you I needed to talk to you, but you always said ‘later’ or that you don’t have the time.”

  “You do realize it’s rather normal to be busy and distracted during the month you graduate from college.” He had slipped into his terribly superior, I’m better than you are mode of speaking.

  “Peter, get real. You know you never gave me a chance to talk with you.”

  “So we’re talking, and this is what you have to say?” Peter’s voice went bitter. “What’s happened? Have you met someone else?”

  “I haven’t met someone else. I just know I don’t want the life you envisioned.”

  “We envisioned.”

  “No. It was all you. Law school, living in New York City. I don’t want that kind of life. I don’t want that speed of life. Cocktails and social climbing and competition. The terrible pressure. The lack of sleep, working twenty-two hours a day, trying to be, oh, I don’t know, cunning. I’ve told you that so many times, Peter.”

  “You’ve been worried about it, yes, but I promised you it will be okay. More than okay—it will be great!”

  “Peter, listen. I don’t want to be married to a man who’s always plotting, conspiring to win at a corporate battle, greedy for more money, a bigger office—all of that.”

  Peter sat down on a bench across from her. He was thinking, she knew. He was trying to turn this to his advantage. “You’re just afraid.”

  “Oh, God, Peter.” Ari started to laugh at how he’d come up with a way to twist her words. But she stopped herself. Let him have it. Let him believe she was too shy, too unsophisticated, to tolerate living in the city with a husband who was working for a top-notch corporate law firm. “I suppose you’re right,” she said softly.

  Now she could go. Now she could leave him, and he would feel that somehow he had won.

  To her surprise, Peter came over to her bench and lifted her hand. “Ari, we all get nervous. We all get stage fright. But you can do it, I know you can, and I’ll help you. You’re halfway there. Your father is a surgeon. Your family has a house on Nantucket. You’re beautiful, and smart—you underestimate how smart you are. I’ve always told you that you should major in something more important than childhood education.”

  Ari pulled her hand away. “And I’ve always told you there is nothing more important than childhood education. You’ve just never believed me.”

  “Ari, that’s minor stuff, nothing to break up over.”

  “Childhood education is not minor stuff.”

  “For God’s sake, Ari, I’ll be making hundreds of thousands of dollars. You’ll be making pennies.”

  “I’ll be making a difference,” Ari said quietly.

  “You’ll be making mud pies,” Peter shot back haughtily. The moment he spoke, he squinted in a kind of discomfort, as if he knew he’d said the wrong thing.

  Ari let the silence linger while they both absorbed the impact of their conversation. Finally, quietly, Ari said, “Listen to yourself. We aren’t right for each other.” She slid her engagement ring off her finger and handed it to Peter. Pushing herself off the bench, Ari rose. “I honesty, seriously, hand over heart, do not love you, Peter. I’m sorry, but it’s true.”

  Peter’s pale face flushed. He stood, too, one hand clenched tight, holding the valuable ring. “That’s blunt. I’m sorry, too. Because I love you, Ari.” He had tears in his eyes.

  Ari wished she could cry, too, and she did feel like a terrible person, but she also felt as if invisible ropes were loosening, as if she was almost free.

  “Peter, I don’t think you even know who I am. You’re in love with a fictional me, and—and I could never make you happy.” Let him hav
e that, she thought. Let him believe she would be a failure.

  “No, Ari, I—”

  Ari didn’t wait for the rest of the sentence. She turned and ran.

  Maybe she was a wicked, cruel, heartless person, but as she ran away from Peter, toward freedom, she wanted to throw her head back and laugh. She wanted to make victory signs with her hands and wave them in the air. With each step, the bonds of their relationship slipped, fell away, and vanished. She was released.

  She surged toward her sorority house. She yelled “Hooray!” to her empty room. She was almost ready for the drive home. Her parents had already come to take most of the boxes of books, winter clothes, silly costumes, stuffed animals. She quickly showered, finished her last-minute packing, and in a kind of controlled frenzy, she finished loading up her old dark green Subaru Forester and hit the road.

  It was a seven-hour drive to Boston. She left at three in the afternoon, which meant she’d be home by ten. Maybe eleven if she stopped to pee and get food. She found the eighties music station on her radio, which provided good emotional songs to cry and yell with, and she sang and screamed until her throat was hoarse. Her phone beeped constantly, but she didn’t want to talk to anyone. She was exhilarated, and at the same time she felt guilty, sorry for what she’d done to Peter. For him it would be an insult and an embarrassment, but truly more a massive inconvenience than a heartbreak, and that eased her guilt.

  As she crossed the state line and entered Massachusetts, the late spring light was slowly fading. She was leaving her past behind her, entering her future. She shook her hair back, a habit she had when beginning an exam. She sang along with Cyndi Lauper, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” and Eurythmics, “Sweet Dreams,” and Journey, “Don’t Stop Believin’.” She stopped for gas and coffee, and returned to her car full of caffeine and energy.

  What would her mother think about this? Her mom had been so thrilled about Ari’s engagement to Peter. She would be angry—no, she would be furious. Ari’s father would hug her gently and tell her that it was good she made the decision now, and things would work out in the end. Whatever, her mother would be dramatic. For once Ari was ready.