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  “Let’s do it together. On the count of three.”

  She laughed. “All right.”

  “One … two … three.”

  They broke away. Kelly hurried toward her car, looking, she realized, far too happy for someone in a cemetery. When she glanced back, she saw him walking rapidly away. He turned and waved. She waved. Then he went around a corner and was enveloped by the trees.

  Three

  TESSA MADISON SPILLED OUT THE passenger door of the silver BMW before her mother had even turned off the engine. She raced across the raked white pebble drive, heaved back the heavy oak door, clattered into the house and across the front hall and up the stairs, yanking the pink ribbon off the long French braid that pulled her pale blond hair away from her face. By the time she’d reached her bedroom, she had the braid undone, and she shook her head wildly like a dog coming out of the water, so that her hair flew all around her face.

  Limbs spinning, she managed to unzip her pink linen dress and at the same time kick off her white dress shoes so hard they flew into the wall with a satisfying thud.

  “Tessa.”

  She turned to see her mother standing in the doorway.

  “What.” Looking away, Tessa peeled off her dress, letting it fall to the floor. She hated her mother seeing her in her underwear, but she hated wearing that stupid dress more.

  “I thought we had an agreement.”

  “We do. And I kept my part, didn’t I?” She pulled on her black jeans and the man’s navy cotton shirt she’d bought from the thrift shop. Her mother didn’t know Tessa had gotten it there; she’d freak if she knew. Tessa had told her that Tracy had given it to her, and still Tessa’s mother had put it through the wash five or six times, on hot, before telling Tessa she was permitted to wear it. It was very soft now, comfortable to the touch.

  “I don’t understand why you’re so upset.”

  Tessa looked at her mother. You don’t understand anything, she wanted to yell, O Great Queen of Perfect Control.

  “I told you. Because it’s embarrassing. Because the dress is dorky. Because I’m twelve years old! Because no one my age dresses like that.”

  Anne Madison sighed. Her suit was the same pink of Tessa’s dress—she coordinated the clothing they wore when they were together in public, remembering that one of her advisers had said that since a picture is worth a thousand words, the sight—the snapped shot—of her and her daughter in similar colors was worth gold in what it conveyed.

  Anne’s suit was not wrinkled. Anne’s clothing, subject to the mysterious laws that governed her life, never wrinkled. Her blond hair was pulled back in its neat French coil, and pearl earrings—not too large, not too small—gleamed from the lobes of her ears, the same size and sheen as the pearls at her neck.

  “Darling.” Crossing the room, she sat down on the lavender velvet bench at the foot of Tessa’s bed. “We’ve talked about this. You care about my winning the election as much as I do. I know you do. All the issues I’m fighting for will directly affect your life. I think it’s a small sacrifice to make, to wear a beautiful dress to church, knowing that that will help me get elected and will help all women have better lives.”

  Tessa stared at her mother. Sometimes she thought that, beneath the perfect pink dress, beneath the silk slip, on her mother’s slender back, beneath her bra strap, lay a plastic button and a small plastic door where the batteries were inserted.

  “I miss Dad.” Tessa hadn’t meant to say that; it just came out. Her life was a mess right now, her brain was scrambled, she said things without meaning to. Sometimes she wondered if she had a disease.

  Anne took a deep breath. With infinite gentleness she began to rub at a spot on her dress. “Yes, well, I miss your father also. Why don’t you tell him the next time you see him that I’ll let you skip church completely if he’ll return home just until after the election.”

  “Mom,” Tessa said, “he’s not coming back.”

  Anne’s head snapped up. Two roses bloomed in her cheeks, as if she’d been struck hard, twice. She stood and stalked away—then she stopped at the doorway to glare at her daughter. “For that cruel remark, little miss, you’re grounded today.”

  “That’s not fair!” Tessa protested.

  Anne raised her chin. “And you’re restricted to your room.”

  “Mom! What about lunch?”

  “I’ll bring you something. Although it wouldn’t hurt you to miss lunch for once.” She left the room, then came back in. “I’ve got an appointment. We’re going to make the videotape for my television ads.” She paused. “Want to come along?”

  “No, thanks.” Tessa was always surprised how bad it made her feel to disappoint her mother, even though her mother had just been totally unfair.

  Anne waited. “You know it’s Carmen’s day off.”

  “Duh, yes.”

  “You’ll be fine here alone.”

  “I know.”

  “The taping might be fun.” The silence stretched. “Very well, then.” Anne went away.

  Grubbing through the junk on her desk, Tessa found her Discman, clapped the headphones on, and threw herself onto her bed.

  Tessa hated her mother for being so mean. She hated herself for hating her mother. She hated herself for becoming such a retard.

  Sometimes she consoled herself with a fantasy: she’d boot up one of her friend’s computers, click on to her mother’s Website, and send a letter to the world: The truth about Anne Madison, candidate for the State Legislature, Arlington and Medford Districts, Massachusetts.

  But her mother really wanted to win that campaign, and as much as she hated her mother, Tessa loved her, too. And winning that position might make her mother happy in a way she’d never been before.

  And then maybe her mother would let her have a cat. Cats weren’t as bad as dogs. Andrea’s Siamese had kittens, tiny chocolate creatures with eyes like huge blue jewels. But her mother didn’t want pets in the house—they were too much work. How could they be too much work when her mother had a housekeeper? Tessa had asked, but her mother had snapped, “Don’t get fresh with me, Tessa.”

  If she had a kitten, she’d treat it so gently. She’d give it lots of cream and salmon and scrambled eggs. She’d let it sleep in bed with her. When Tessa was an adult, she’d have lots of cats and let them all sleep in bed with her.

  When she was an adult, she’d have to have cats sleep in bed with her; she was too ugly ever to get a man.

  Although Chad had said hey to her when he saw her at the orientation for Camp Moxie on Friday. Chad’s parents were as wealthy as Tessa’s, and totally as bizarre.

  Tessa’s stomach rumbled. She was hungry again. She was always hungry. It was so easy, her mother said, to gain weight, weight crept up on women like a kind of fog, you didn’t even see it coming and the next thing you knew, it had glommed onto your body, lying just beneath your skin like slabs of yellow cheese. Her mother was already worried about how fat Tessa’s thighs were.

  For breakfast, Anne had green tea, a small glass of orange juice, and one Ry-Krisp cracker. She let Tessa have a bowl of Cheerios, but only a small one, and watched her eat it with a look of disgust on her face, as if Tessa were spooning mud into her mouth. Since her father had left, her mother was even more vigilant about the food she allowed in the house.

  Tessa curled on her bed, staring at the wall. She didn’t really mind being grounded. She was too tired, really, to go anywhere. And here in her bed was really the best place. She could close her eyes and be in a world of her own.

  Kelly slammed her Subaru to a shuddering halt, threw herself from the car, and raced up the stairs to her apartment on the second floor of the handsome stone building on Memorial Drive.

  Donna was waiting in the hall, leaning against Kelly’s door, reading. “You’re late,” Donna said.

  “Sorry. I’ll hurry.” Kelly unzipped her dress as she walked into her bedroom, dropped it on the floor, yanked on a severely cut blue linen sheath, fastened her grandmother’s pearls around her neck, stabbed pearl studs into her ears, dabbed her skin with perfume, and grabbed her purse. “Ta-da,” she sang out, returning to the living room. “Ready.”

  Donna shook her head. “A miracle.” She squinted her eyes. “But maybe your hair …”

  “It’s too hot to wear it down.”

  “Put it in a chignon.”

  “Not enough time. Come on. We’ll be late.”

  “You get away with a lot because you’re tall and slender,” Donna sighed, following her down the steps.

  “But you get all the men because you’re a short little bitty girly-girl.”

  This was an old argument, one that had started years ago when they joined the same law firm, where they camouflaged their femininity beneath stiff mannish suits and competed with one another in cold severity, until finally they got into a fight that ended up in an all-night laughing/crying true-confessions session and their eventual best-friendship.

  Donna slid into the passenger seat. Only five foot two, and as full of curves as a bag of apples, her usual expression was a fierce scowl, the only way she could get most people to take her seriously. “May I remind you, Your Honor, you’re the one who’s engaged.”

  “You’ve had how many men propose?”

  “True.” Donna giggled. “While we’re on that subject—”

  “Yes?”

  “I want you and Jason to meet Eric.”

  “This sounds very serious.”

  “I like him a lot, Kelly. We can talk law, or just be together. When I curl up next to him, I feel so content—”

  “How lovely for you, Donna.”

  Donna hugged herself smugly. “Lovely. Yes.”

  “Donna …”

  “Mmm?”

&nb
sp; “I met a nice man today.”

  “A nice man? Isn’t Jason a nice man?”

  “Jason is a handsome, brilliant, ambitious pain in the butt. The guy I met was a nice man.”

  “Define nice.” They were almost at the house. Donna pulled the sun visor down and checked her reflection in the mirror.

  “I don’t know, Donna, there was just something about him. He was so easy to talk to. Sort of like what you’re saying about Eric. I didn’t have to perform for him, and I don’t think he was performing for me. He seemed … honest. Real.”

  “You met him in the cemetery?”

  “I’d seen him there before. His mother died recently.”

  Carefully Donna touched up her mascara. “How old?”

  “Maybe forty.”

  “Then he’s married.”

  “Getting a divorce, actually.”

  “Did you tell him you’re engaged?”

  “Yup. I also told him I wasn’t sure I was doing the right thing.”

  “You met this guy this morning and told him about Jason?”

  “Donna, I can’t explain it. I felt like I knew the man. I felt like … like we were old friends.” The thought of his face, the entire healthy sense of the man flashed through her. “More than friends.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Donna slapped the visor up and slam-dunked her mascara wand into the open Kenya bag resting on the floor by her feet. “Okay, you know how strange this sounds? You met him this morning, you feel like old friends, but you don’t know his name.”

  “But you liked Eric all at once!”

  “Yeah, well, we also exchanged names and other appropriate information like whether or not we were on the Most Wanted List.”

  “I’m not explaining it well. We agreed not to give our names to each other. We’re going to meet again next Sunday, and we wanted the freedom to be able to talk then as openly as we did this morning. You’d have to be there, I guess, to understand. The whole atmosphere of the place is so otherworldly—”

  “To say the least,” Donna interposed wryly.

  “It was as if we were in our own universe. We could talk about what really mattered. We could say anything.”

  “Good grief. You’re glowing.”

  “Really?” Kelly tilted the rearview mirror so she could look at herself. “Yeah, I am.” She was silent a moment as they sat waiting for a light to change. “If I didn’t think it sounded so absolutely impossibly insane, Donna, I’d think I’d fallen in love.”

  “Aren’t you in love with Jason?”

  “Not like this. I’ve never felt like this before.”

  Because the forty-five thousand citizens of Arlington, Massachusetts, are, in general, neither disgustingly wealthy nor painfully impoverished, Anne Madison lived in Arlington and wanted to represent that district.

  Also, twelve years ago, she’d fallen in love with a house.

  She’d often thought—secretly, of course—that she loved the house more than she loved her husband. And the house did seem to respond to her needs more perfectly than Randall ever had.

  Something about the French Provincial house on Elm Street—its flawless proportions, high ceilings, spacious rooms—was calming to Anne, who loved, who needed order. Its placid cream stucco walls, square-cornered and symmetrical, provided a refuge for her, and the steep pitch of the dark green hip roof offered the illusion of a kind of convent to which she could retreat from the pressures of the cruel world. Her home was a haven in which she was the queen bee, safe at the center.

  Some days it was more difficult than others to force herself from that sanctuary. She disliked leaving Tessa alone. She hated leaving her when things were unsettled between the two of them, but increasingly as Tessa grew older and more independent, things were more often than not unsettled.

  Today Anne had to go out. The Democratic state primary election was Tuesday, September 19, and that was the election that mattered, since no Republican had won a position in Arlington for years. Anne was running against an incumbent, Marshall O’Leary, a well-loved and venerable septuagenarian who had done much good for his district and state, but who was, it was generally agreed, running out of steam. Marshall’s concerns were limited to making Arlington more pedestrian-friendly and developing bike paths; he just didn’t have the energy these days to fight for broader issues more crucial to the Commonwealth, such as an increase in the minimum wage, or to wade into the muddy, complicated waters of health care issues.

  Anne had the energy for that. She was nearly incandescent with ideas regarding health care reform, and she needed to let the constituency of Arlington know this, and soon.

  Anne’s assistant, Rebecca Prentiss, had persuaded Mick Aitkins, a brilliant young videographer, to put together her campaign video, but she had to do it when he was available. Mick only yesterday informed Rebecca that he had to go off to the Cape on Monday morning to tape a series of weddings. So Rebecca had grabbed this Sunday noon appointment, even though Anne was already scheduled to attend a PR brunch at Eleanor Marks’s. Unfortunate, but it couldn’t be helped. Anne had asked Eleanor to express her regrets, and Lillian Doolittle, her campaign manager, promised to cover for her.

  Mick Aitkins worked out of his home on the top floor of a two-family house on Edward Avenue. A rather bizarre-looking young man with a shaved head and a sparse goatee, Mick was slightly manic as he arranged Anne in a chair and played with the lights.

  “White shirt. Not good,” he muttered.

  “We’re trying to convey the idea of nurse,” Rebecca reminded him.

  “Okay, I see, but, we’ll just …” Mumbling to himself, he adjusted this and that. Then he approached Anne. “Just here on your shirt,” he said.

  “The microphone,” Rebecca interpreted.

  Anne sat docilely as Mick clipped the tiny mike to her collar and ran the wire—another strand in his spider’s web of cords, wires, and cables—to the videocamera set up on a tripod.

  Rebecca squatted next to Anne. “Just some powder, here.” She dabbed a sponge on Anne’s nose.

  “Rouge. Cheeks.” Mick instructed.

  “Got it.” Rebecca brushed blush on Anne’s face. Generally Anne disliked makeup, the film it cast over her skin, the way it seemed to be a kind of integument, available to all dust and germs floating through the air, but she understood the necessity of makeup for television ads.

  “Ready,” Mick barked.

  Anne leaned forward. Rebecca stood at Mick’s side, holding up cue cards, but Anne knew by heart what she wanted to say.

  “Are you concerned about the health—?”

  “Don’t lean forward,” Mick said.

  Anne nodded and forced herself to press her spine against her chair. She began again. “Are you concerned about the health of your parents, your children, your community, yourself? Are you tired of struggling through the indecipherable red tape of HMOs? Are you concerned about the financial health of your family? Do you care about the needs of the elderly, the health of our public schools, the lives of those unable to take care of themselves? I know I do.

  “I’m Anne Madison. I am a certified registered nurse with three years’ experience at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. I have a twelve-year-old daughter, and six years’ experience on the Arlington School Committee. I serve on the Massachusetts Council Task Force on poverty, health, and nutrition.

  “I’m asking you to vote for me for State Representative in the September Democratic primary. We already have a good representative, but I want to be better than good. I want to fight. I want to change things. And I will. Remember, a vote for me is a vote for health.”

  “Cut,” Mick said. “That was okay, except your slogan’s pretty lame, Anne.”

  “I disagree. Health is an issue—”

  “Vote for Anne Madison, for the health of it,” Mick said. “That’s what you should say.”

  Anne flinched. “I don’t think—”

  “I do!” Rebecca exclaimed. She clapped her hands. “Mick, that’s brilliant. Anne, come on, think about it. It’s very catchy. It’s memorable.”

  “It’s slightly inappropriate.”

  “Not at all.”

  “You don’t think it’s a bit … vulgar?”

  “No, Anne, it’s brilliant. Trust me.”

  “Very well.” Anne leaned back in her chair. “Do you want me to say the entire thing again?”