Page 76 of Surfside Sisters

“It’s fine, Mom. We’re just friends. Enjoy your dinner. Isn’t it delicious?”

Keely smiled, but her food had turned to chalk in her mouth.

—

The moment she got home that night, Keely called Gray.

“Hey,” he said.

“Is this too late?”

Gray laughed. “Keely, it’s only nine-thirty.”

“Oops. Well, that tells you everything about my life with my mother. I just took her out to dinner at the Seagrille. Reservation time: six o’clock.”

“It’s good though, that you’re getting her out to dinner.”

“Yes. Yes, I think I am cheering her up.” She fell back on her bed, stretching out as she told him about the excitement of sorting through her mother’s treasures. “Tell me, how is your visit with your parents?”

Gray laughed. “Mother’s cooking more food than I could eat in a month. Prime rib, twice-baked potatoes, carrots in brown sugar, apple pie with ice cream…I’m sure I’ll split all my trousers when I get back to New York.”

Keely laughed. “You could use a few pounds.”

“Really? Would you like to elaborate?”

She laughed again. “I’ll do it in person.”

They continued to talk, their voices growing more and more affectionate. When Keely finally clicked off and got ready for bed, she felt a glow in her heart from Gray’s humor and from the life she shared with him in the city, the city that never went dark. She clicked the Photos icon on her phone and scrolled through photos they’d taken or had taken of them together. Here she was at Lincoln Center, by the fountain, during the intermission of the ballet. She wore a floor-length, narrow rose silk gown with a spectacular silk wrap, rose on one side, white on the other. Her hair was piled high on her head, her lipstick was red, her eye makeup was dark and dramatic. She looked beautiful. Really, she looked amazing. She looked the way she had dreamed of looking when she was a little girl.

There was another photo taken in the grand foyer of the Metropolitan Museum of Art during a charity dinner. Here, Keely wore a little black dress with her dark hair sweeping down past her shoulders, accentuating her heavy pearl drop earrings, the only jewelry she wore that night. Gray was standing next to her in a tux, his lush dark hair and green eyes gleaming. They were holding hands, and both were smiling. Keely looked more than happy—she looked radiant. She remembered how she felt that evening, that at last she was living the life she’d always imagined.

All of her photos taken in the city seemed like glamour shots. The city behind them, the bronze statues, the Art Deco interiors, the gleaming shop windows, the avenues of cabs and Ubers and buses and pedestrians hurrying along the sidewalks, all of it looked like the sparkling center of the world. With Gray, she could have all that, and with Gray she knew she would be loved. After his confession that night as they lay together so close in bed, she knew he would be faithful to her, that he had entrusted her with his deepest secrets, and he believed she would keep those secrets safe. That was a gift of devotion.

She fell asleep, dreaming of the bright lights of New York.

—

“Keely?” It was Sarah B., one of her old high school friends. “Listen, I’m teaching tenth grade English, and I wonder…would you consider coming out sometime to talk to the class about writing? What it’s like to be a writer, how you get published, that sort of thing?”

Keely brightened. “I’d love to!”

“Oh, my kids will be thrilled. Can we pick a day next week?”

“Absolutely.”

After they said goodbye, Keely straightened her spine and focused on her writing. It always took a few minutes for her to write the first sentence, as if her mind was blocked and she had to patiently push it forward. After she got that first sentence out, her writing flowed.

She was almost finished with her day’s work—it felt as if her work was finished with her. Her cellphone, set on silent, vibrated on her desk.

Impatiently, she checked who was calling: Sebastian Maxwell.

She kept her voice cool. “Hi, Sebastian.”

“Hi, Keely. Do you have some free time tomorrow afternoon?”

“Can’t your blond friend join you?”

“What? Oh, the restaurant. Mae-Brit is an artist in Stockholm, a friend. Also, she’s a lesbian. And she left the island today for New York. So no, she can’t join me. Anyway, I want to take you to do one of my favorite things.”

---