How to Keep a Secret

“Not exactly.” Nancy picked up the cloth again and twisted it in her hands. “Alice was having an affair with Tom. I suspect she was the one you saw him with in the Sail Loft that night.”

32

Lauren

Setback: something that reverses progress,

hinders, or thwarts

Lauren walked out of the bank and kept her head down. She was grateful that the bright sun gave her an excuse to slip on dark glasses. As long as no one spoke to her, she’d be all right. All she had to do was put one foot in front of the other and walk back to her car. Keep moving. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t had practice. Wasn’t that what the past months had been about?

Thirty more steps to the car, that was all.

“Lauren!”

The voice came from behind her. She wanted to ignore it, but good manners forbade it, so she stopped and turned, grateful that her eyes were shielded.

“Alice. How are you?” She wasn’t in the mood to speak to anyone. She particularly didn’t want to speak to Alice.

After her mother’s revelation, she had no idea what to say to her.

You were supposed to be my mother’s best friend.

But she understood the guilt her mother had felt in telling them and her concern that it shouldn’t affect Lauren and Jenna’s relationship with Alice, so she made a supreme effort to act normally.

“You’ve moved out of The Captain’s House,” Alice said.

“A few weeks ago.” It was already June. How had that happened?

“

Your mom must have been so busy with it all she forgot to say a proper goodbye.”

Lauren thought it more likely that her mother hadn’t yet decided how to handle the situation.

How did you handle a situation like that?

“She’s only moved a few miles away,” she said. “It’s not as if she’s left the island.”

“It must be hard for you all living in such cramped space after having so much room.”

“It isn’t,” Lauren said. “We’re all enjoying being close to the beach.”

She’d been surprised by how comfortable Nancy seemed in the Sail Loft. Her mother had undergone something of a transformation over the past few weeks. Her clearing out had extended to her closet and she’d thrown out all the drab clothes she’d been wearing for the last decade. In a storage bag she’d discovered clothes she’d bought years before on trips to Europe and worn for the openings of her exhibitions and for city tours. Her old look became her new look. Instead of blacks and grays, she wore white and teamed it with flowing scarves in bright jewel colors. There was a Pucci silk she’d picked up in Florence, and a Chanel jacket from Paris. Bold silver bangles decorated her wrists and Lauren noticed that she’d taken to wearing a touch of discreet makeup.

“You look like an artist,” Jenna had said when she and Greg had visited on their first night there. “I hope you’re not going to wear that to paint someone’s house. It’s asking for trouble. If you don’t believe me you need to read My Sister’s Adventures with Paint.”

Lauren and Jenna had both agreed that something was going on between Nancy and Ben.

The two of them were often together in the garden of the Sail Loft, heads together as they studied something.

Nancy had laughed off their comments on her appearance.

“I decided that if I’m going into business with my daughter I need to upgrade my look.”

If I’m going into business with my daughter.

Lauren blinked. “I have to go, Alice.”