His eyebrows rose with curiosity, and he ripped off the bow, fol‑
lowed by the wrapping paper. Lifting the lid of the white box,
he pushed aside the tissue paper Alice had nestled around the
gift and gave a big, joyful laugh.
“Like it?” Alice asked, grinning.
He kissed her, twice. “I love it.” He held the polished wood
handle in his right hand, pretended to hammer a nail into the air
in front of them. “It’s perfect.” Nate ran his fingers over the
rustic hammer’s handle, where Alice had had inscribed into the
wood, Mr. Hale.
“I’m so glad, because it’s nice to have a matching set.”
She went back to the box by the door and pulled out her own
identical hammer, though on its handle it read, Mrs. Hale.
“You are the best,” he murmured, still smiling. “Thank you.
Now let’s hope I don’t smash too many fingers.”
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“Same.” She laughed, pausing briefly before adding, “We may
be in over our heads here, you know.”
“I know. But at least we’ll go down together.” He took the
hammer from her hands and placed it beside his on the floor next
to the mattress. “We can christen those tomorrow.” He nudged
her backward until she was flat on the mattress, his hands tugging
her nightshirt up so his palms rested on her bare skin. Alice
shivered, from the room’s chill and the tickle of Nate’s thumb
lazily circling her belly button.
“We’re going to make a life here, babe,” Nate murmured.
“I’m going to take care of us.”
Nate Hale and Alice Livingston met in Central Park, midway
on the running path that circles the reservoir. He was running
toward her but she didn’t notice him, as she was frantically
trying to get dog feces off her shoe. Nate was a “real” runner—
he had the GPS watch, the moisture‑ wicking shirt with stripes
of reflector tape sewn into the seams, one of those Lycra water
belts, and the bouncy stride of someone who found jogging
fairly effortless. This was only Alice’s second attempt. Though
later she would come to appreciate it, at this particular moment
Alice hated everything about jogging.
When Nate first noticed Alice she was hopping around on
one foot— her soiled shoe hanging from its laces, pinched be‑
tween her fingers, from her outstretched arm.
“Everything okay?” Nate slowed his pace as he got to Alice.
He was nice‑ looking, with a good head of hair that appeared as
though it would stick around for at least a couple more decades.
Long, dark eyelashes. Slim build, and a six‑ pack to boot, which
was hard not to notice— first when he pulled up his shirt to
wipe sweat out of his eyes, and later that afternoon, up close in
Alice’s bedroom.
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“I stepped in something.” She forced back a gag.
“Here, give it to me.” Nate held out a hand, and Alice gladly
passed the shoe to him. He walked a few feet to a green swath
of grass under a tree. “I’m Nate, by the way,” he said over his
shoulder as she limped after him, toe‑ touching with her shoeless
foot. “And I’d shake your hand, but, well.” He grinned and
Alice noted his great teeth.
“Alice,” she replied. “And thank you. You saved me from
losing my breakfast.”
Nate crouched, sliding the bottom of her shoe back and
forth over the grass, firmly, like he meant business. Alice waited
nearby, sorting out how she was going to get home with only
one shoe because obviously the one in Nate’s hands would be
going in the closest trash can. After inspecting the sole, Nate
rubbed it again on the grass and took one of the miniature
water bottles from his belt. When he squeezed a stream of water
onto her shoe, the fouled water ran off the rubber sole and Alice
turned to the side and heaved— this time embarrassingly losing
the few sips of Gatorade and half a banana she’d had before she
left her apartment into the grass at her feet.
Fifteen minutes later they sat on a nearby bench, both shoes
back on her feet (Nate had done an excellent cleaning job), en‑
joying an ice pop he’d purchased from a cart to get something
back into Alice’s stomach.
“So, tell me, Alice, what are three things I should know
about you?”
“Hmm. Outside of knowing dog shit makes me throw up?”
Nate laughed and Alice looked contrite.
“Sorry about that, by the way.”
“It’s fine,” Nate said, taking a lick of his ice pop, which was
melting quickly in the day’s rising temperature. “You made to‑
day’s run much more interesting.” He smiled, and Alice, though
mortified by her weak stomach, enjoyed his flirty banter.
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“So, three things?” he asked.
“One, I’m in PR and I work too much but I love it. Two,
I’m not really a runner despite how it looks.” She gestured at
her shoes and jogging shorts. “This is only my second run, ac‑
tually.”
“And what do you think? Do you want to be a runner,
Alice . . . what’s your last name?”
“Livingston. And that remains to be seen.” She laughed. “I
would not count today as a great success.”
“And three?” Nate was finished with his ice pop by now, the
wooden stick between his teeth as he leaned back against the
bench, watching her intently.
Alice blushed under his stare, a warmth coursing through
her body that had nothing to do with the humidity or her prior
exertion. “ Three . . . I don’t generally eat ice pops with strange men in Central Park.”
Nate smirked, and it was adorable. “Well, this is the first
time I’ve bought an ice pop for a woman who threw up at my
feet, so I guess we’re both in unfamiliar territory.”
“Funny guy,” she murmured, chuckling. Alice tried to keep
up with the melting sugary ice and failed, its stickiness all over
her hands.
Nate took one of his water bottles and said, “Hold ’em out.”
Alice did, and Nate squirted the water, then lifted his shirt to
dry her hands. For a moment his touch lingered, and then he
smiled, looked away, and busied himself with putting the bottle
back in his running belt around his waist.
“I don’t know if you want to give this running thing an‑
other try— I know the shoe incident might have been a deal
breaker,” Nate said, a deeply serious look on his face that made
Alice laugh but then cringe as she held a hand to her stomach.
“But I’m out here a few times a week at least and am happy to,
you know, give you some pointers if you’re willing to
risk it.”
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“Are you asking me on a jogging date, Nate . . . Wait, what’s
your last name?”
He held out a hand, and she took it. “Nate Hale. Runner;
actuarial analyst, which is a fancy way to say I work with num‑
bers; and overall nice guy with a rescue‑ the‑ damsel‑ in‑ distress weakness.”
Thirty minutes later their naked bodies were pressed to‑
gether in Alice’s shower, running shoes haphazardly kicked off
by the front door and a trail of shorts, T‑ shirts, a sports bra, and underwear leading to the bathroom. Alice didn’t typically invite
guys she had just met back to her apartment, but Nate was dif‑
ferent. She knew it right away.
It wasn’t long before Alice was spending most nights at Nate’s
place and Bronwyn started asking— somewhat grumpily, as up
until Nate, Alice had insisted she was not relationship material and Bronwyn, similarly minded, imagined them living together
for years to come— if she should find a new roommate.
Alice had met Bronwyn Murphy a few years earlier, both of
them junior PR associates hired only a week apart, and they’d
bonded over their fear of, and worship for, their boss, Georgia
Wittington. Though Alice would have called herself “ambitious,”
Bronwyn had been rabidly so. For her, Georgia and the firm were
merely stepping‑ stones, and she had a fully charted timeline for
when she would advance within Wittington or leave without a
glance back. When a promised promotion from Georgia didn’t
come through, Bronwyn gave her notice. She’d begged Alice—
by then her roommate— to come with her, but Alice hadn’t
wanted to give up her seniority, expecting soon to be rewarded
for her hard work and loyalty. Now Bronwyn pulled in twice what
Alice had at her top salary, and had a coveted “director of pub‑
licity” title from a competing firm.
“It’s going to be hard to find someone who understands my
needs,” Bronwyn had said, following Alice around when she
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came back to their apartment briefly to pack a few things to stay
at Nate’s. “Someone else might want to use the oven, for, like,
roasting a chicken.” Alice had hugged her friend— Bronwyn cur‑
rently used their oven to store her shoe overflow.
“You’re all settled now.” Bronwyn sat heavily on Alice’s bed and watched as she tucked a few pairs of underwear into her
weekend bag. “I miss fun Alice! She always made me feel better
about my choices.”
“She’s still here! You’re overreacting, Bron. Yes, I have a
boyfriend. But I am still your best friend and will never abandon
you. Don’t worry.”
“Fine,” Bronwyn grumbled, helping Alice fold a couple of
T‑ shirts. “But if you go all Stepford Wives on me . . .”
A few months later Alice officially moved in with Nate, and
six months after that, during an early‑morning jog through the
park, Nate proposed. Beside the same bench where they’d shared
ice pops, pulling the diamond ring from a tiny zippered pocket
inside his running shorts and getting down on one knee, causing
passersby to cheer and shout out well‑wishes.
Alice loved Nate. Deeply. Initially it scared her because she
hadn’t been expecting it and her past experience hadn’t prepared
her for it. Her last serious relationship was with a colleague,
Bradley Joseph, who was charming and successful and very much
into her, but who also, as it turned out, was a control‑ freak
bastard. At first it was small stuff: he didn’t like the hemline of her dress (too short) or the color of her lipstick (too bright); he bemoaned her weekly drink night with her work friends, sug‑
gesting he was taking their relationship more seriously than she
was; he never asked her about work, preferring to talk about his
own accolades instead.
Initially she dismissed it all, explaining his behavior as that of
a confident guy with a bit of an ego, but nothing to be concerned
about. Until he punched a hole in the wall of her apartment,
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inches from her head, after she said she couldn’t attend his
brother’s wedding because she had a 104‑ degree fever. Alice
broke up with him on the spot, but Bradley turned her off the
opposite gender enough that she didn’t go on another date for
more than a year. Until she met Nate.
“What about Nate made me say yes? It’s simple, actually.
Life with Nate is better than life without him,” Alice had said at
their wedding reception, holding a glass of chilled champagne
in one hand, Nate’s hand in her other. He kissed her, her gulp
of champagne wetting his lips as their teary‑ eyed guests clapped, and Alice thought, There will never be a moment more perfect
than this one.
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7
q
Nellie
septeMber 15, 1955
Chocolate Chip Cookies
3⁄ 4 cup brown sugar
1⁄ 4 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon sweet milk
11⁄ 2 cups flour
1⁄ 2 teaspoon baking soda
1⁄ 2 teaspoon cloves
1⁄ 4 teaspoon salt
1 cup semisweet chocolate pieces
1⁄ 4 cup coconut
Cream shortening, adding sugars gradually until combined. Beat eggs with milk, and add to shortening mixture. Sift together flour, baking soda, cloves, and salt and add to shortening mixture. Cut chocolate into small pieces and stir into dough with coconut. Drop rounded
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teaspoonfuls of dough onto greased baking sheet, about 2 inches
apart. Bake in moderate oven (350°F) for 12 to 15 minutes.
N ellie settled the cookie tray on the back seat of the two‑ door Chrome Yellow
Studebaker—
the car had been Richard’s
choosing, but he’d let Nellie select the color, which reminded her
of the yellow hybrid tea roses from her mother’s garden— and
got in herself. She ran her hands down her black dress to release
the creases, adjusted her gloves, and stewed as she waited for
Richard. They had argued all morning, he demanding she stay
home (“pregnant women should never attend funerals”) and
Nellie countering she would do no such thing. She was perfectly
healthy and would not miss Harry Stewart’s funeral because of
one of her late mother‑ in‑ law’s silly superstitions. “How would
that look?” Nellie
had asked, because Richard was concerned
with such things. She had marched out to the car, cookies in
hand, leaving him no choice but to follow.
As Richard pulled up to the church, Nellie took in the large
group of black‑ clothed people gathering for the funeral. Harry
Stewart was one of Richard’s best salesmen and had died riding
the train to work the previous Friday morning. He’d been seated,
though slumped to the side and leaning against the train’s interior wall as though deep in sleep. It was only when the train braked
hard— pitching Harry forward into another commuter’s lap— that
someone realized something was horribly wrong. Harry was
thirty‑ six, a year older than Richard, and father to four young
children. “Heart attack,” Richard had said, looking as shaken as
Nellie had ever seen him. Likely imagining himself in Harry’s
place, his death going unnoticed for some time while fellow pas‑
sengers read newspapers, smoked cigarettes, and carried on banal
conversations.
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The fear hooded Richard’s eyes all that week as he dealt
with his shocked employees and helped Harry’s widow make
funeral arrangements, the cost of which Richard covered per‑
sonally. Nellie tried to imagine if it had been Richard on that train, dead in an instant when his heart ceased beating. Would
she be standing on the church steps like Harry’s wife, Maude,
was right now? Pressing a church‑ bazaar embroidered handker‑
chief to puffy, desolate eyes? But Nellie couldn’t put herself
there. Not because she couldn’t imagine the grief, but because
she and Maude Stewart had little in common.
Maude’s four daughters stood in a row beside her like Russian
nesting dolls, from the oldest and tallest to the youngest— four
or five, by the looks of her. Maude had made a wise choice about
whom she married. Harry had been a kind man who loved his
children, wife, and God, in that order. Nellie had met him only
a few times, but she could see it instantly— the warmth in his
eyes when they were introduced, the way he never walked ahead
of his wife, always beside her. Nellie glanced at Richard now,
taking in his dour expression, a worm of unease wriggling in her
belly. He placed a hand to his jacket, on the left side of his chest, and his scowl deepened.