As You Wish (The Summerhouse 3)

Olivia set the box on the table. It was filled with what looked to be cotton quilt batting and buried inside were three business cards. On the back, their names were handwritten in old fashioned copperplate.

Futures, Inc.

Have you ever wanted to rewrite your past?

Madame Zoya can help

333 Everlasting Street

At the bottom had been handwritten “now off Farm Road 77.”

Olivia and Elise sat down at the big kitchen table, and Kathy opened the refrigerator to pull out a dozen oranges. There was a tall manual juicer clamped to the counter. She cut the oranges in half, pulled the handle down, and filled glasses with fresh juice.

“Lovely fantasy, isn’t it? To rewrite the past.” Elise was smiling at the absurdity of it.

“I agree.” Kathy put full glasses of orange juice on the table. “But it is a great thought, isn’t it? So where would you go back to?”

They were ignoring Olivia as she sat there staring at the card. Her eyes were fixed, unmoving, unblinking. No one needed to ask her what she’d change. She wouldn’t go to Richmond on that day.

“I’d go to my wedding,” Elise said.

Kathy cracked some eggs and was whipping them about in a bowl. “I’d think you’d want to go back and say no when your husband proposed.”

“That wouldn’t work,” Elise said. “If I said no in private, my parents and Kent’s would drive me so crazy that I’d eventually say yes just to make them shut up. I’d have to say no in a big, huge, public way. I’d throw my skirt over my arm and run out of the church.”

“Then what?” Kathy asked.

“I have no idea. I’d like to be rescued by a gorgeous man riding a big black horse, but since that wouldn’t happen, I don’t know.”

“How about a driver and a long black limo?” Kathy began scrambling eggs. “Have him drive you to the airport, then fly somewhere. If you planned it beforehand, you could have a suitcase packed and in the trunk. You could change clothes in the back of the car.”

“I like that,” Elise said. “Except that I have nowhere to go.”

“Maine.” Olivia was at last coming out of her trance. She put the card down on the table. “Kit has lots of single male relatives in Maine. You could take your pick. I’m sure they’d compete to see who could win you.”

“That sounds great!” Elise was laughing. “I’ll elope with one of them and return home married to some guy who is so rich he’d please even my parents.”

“What about Alejandro?”

“I didn’t realize it at the time but he started working there just a week before my wedding. But even if I went back, nothing would have changed. We still live in different worlds. I don’t know how they could be merged.”

“What about you?” Olivia asked Kathy, who was putting a bowl of scrambled eggs and a plate of whole wheat toast on the table. “Would you go back to get your Andy?”

As Kathy sat down, she was frowning in concentration. “What would I change?” She looked up. “Does it have to be about a man?”

“No!” the two women said in unison.

“Hmmm,” Kathy said. “If I went back in time—knowing what I do now, that is—the first thing I’d do is make a place for myself in my father’s advertising firm. A lot of the ideas that Ray presented were mine. The second thing I’d do is stay away from Ray. You know something? I hate living in Connecticut. I hate the big house Ray and I own. I even hate my gorgeous garden. Keeping it all going takes masses of my time—not to mention how much it all costs.”

She took a bite of egg. “I’d go back to those two weeks when Ray got caught in a blizzard in Chicago. Before we were married. Married or not, I’d never be able to do anything with him around. Dad was crazy for those two weeks that Ray was gone. He had clients coming in from Hong Kong and...” She shrugged.

“How did it get resolved?” Olivia asked.

Kathy shrugged. “Like always. Ray came back from Chicago with a great campaign and everyone was happy. My fantasy is that I would be the one to win the hearts of the clients.” Her chin came up. “And after that I’d demand that my father give me a real job, something other than playing a social hostess to him and Ray. I’d like to have a real salary and an office with my name on the door—and an apartment on the Upper West Side. Something cute with a terrace.”

She sighed. “But I’ll never get that. Ray is just like Kent. He believes he needs the Connecticut house to entertain clients.” She looked down at her plate.

“Ray wants to divorce you,” Olivia said softly. “That’s why he’s been going to Dr. Hightower.”