Proper Care and Maintenance of Friendship (9781609417291) Page 29
Three.
And for you, Rachel. For reminding all of us that we have to jump out of airplanes every once in a while, for perspective.
Kate straightened. Paul’s hand felt warm on her shoulder. He’d been sweet today—attentive, accommodating, and a source of comfort and support. She slipped her hand in his and squeezed his fingers, to let him know how much she appreciated it. As they rambled down the hill, Kate saw a car stop on the road just beyond the green. A woman stepped out of the passenger’s side, dressed in a coral tie-dye sundress. Kate’s heart leapt: Sarah had arrived. Late, as usual, and wrinkled, as if she’d just tripped off an international flight. Sarah waved at her briefly, then struggled to tie a black mourning band around her upper arm as she wound her way through the gravestones toward the huddled crowd.
Paul dropped his hand from her shoulder. “I’d better get going if I’m going to get Tess to her soccer game.”
She tugged the lapel of his navy suit jacket. “Thanks, hon. I really need this afternoon with the girls.”
“You can pay me later.”
She couldn’t resist a slow, wicked smile. “Oh, I will.”
She watched him for a while, as he herded their three kids into the car.
“Sugar, didn’t anyone tell you the rules?” Jo sauntered up behind her. “You’re married. You’re not supposed to drool over your husband.”
“Clearly, you’ve been given the wrong information.”
Kate turned and embraced Jo, who looked very much as if she could use a cigarette.
Jo spoke into Kate’s shoulder. “I take it things are still improving?”
“Oh, yeah. And the make-up sex is great.” Any marriage, Kate had come to realize, was a work in progress. Kate glanced around. “Where’s Grace?”
“She’s going to Leah’s house for the High Holies.” Jo brushed at a dusty little handprint on her skirt. “It’s a perfect arrangement. I can concentrate on the new launch, and I may even squeeze in a love life.”
Kate grinned. “Do spill.”
“Surely you know who it is.”
“Really?”
“Down, girl. The accountant and I have been out to dinner twice, real casual, to talk about the new account after hours.”
“An account your buddy Hector is handling now, I hear.”
“Well, yes. I did insist he be promoted. Somebody has to handle the travel and the talent after hours, now that I’ve got Grace at home.”
Kate gave Jo a soft smile. Six months ago, Jo had quit her job. Jo said she had enough money to keep her and Grace comfortable for at least a year, and she needed to sort things out. Grace’s little episodes had worsened over the winter, and though Jo made Herculean efforts to handle both the job and the grieving little girl, the strain had proved too much.
“Rachel would say,” Kate said, “that you got a big dose of reverse karma when your boss begged you to come back after you quit.”
“I can’t say I didn’t enjoy hearing that my clients were bailing when they heard I had left the company.”
“So is it working—the flextime, working at home one day a week, the whole new situation?”
“Oh, it’s working. But, sugar, I’m no fool. I won’t make CEO before fifty.” Jo gave Kate a wink. “But there’s a good chance I’ll get something better. Gracie will raise a glass in my honor at her wedding.”
Kate laughed, a little laugh, a laugh that went husky and wet.
“Don’t you start, Kate Jansen,” Jo said in a shaky voice, “because then there’ll be no stopping.”
Sarah came toward them, glanced at both of them in concern, and then opened her arms for a hug.
Kate embraced her. “Hey, Sarah. Welcome back to the real world.”
“Is that where I am?” Sarah burrowed against Kate and then gave Jo a squeeze. “I can’t think. My head is still in Burundi time.”
“We’re glad your body’s here.”
Then they held on to one another as they talked, the three of them in one loose circle. Kate couldn’t stop looking at her friends. Marriage was treating Sarah well, for her cheeks flushed when she spoke Sam’s name, and she looked peaceful and happy. Jo let out a hearty laugh at something Sarah said, and the oh-so-familiar sound made Kate’s breath hitch a little. Her thoughts turned—inevitably—to the one whose laughter was missing.
Rachel.
Suddenly they all fell silent.
Jo was the first to speak. “You know, girls, I’ve been doing a bucket load of thinking lately.”
Kate felt a teary weakening. “If you cry, Jo, I swear, I’m going to lose it.”
“You know all this trouble Rachel caused us?” Jo blinked rapidly. “The skydiving, the hunting of old boyfriends, the raising of small children?”
Kate and Sarah, in unison: “Oh, yeah.”
“Well, this much I know is true.” Jo looked at each of them. “Rachel didn’t want us to go through it alone.”
Kate tightened her grip. She pulled them all close, until all that was left was a small space between them, a space just big enough for one athletically slim mountain-climber with a big heart.
Then Kate lifted her head and smiled up at the blue, blue sky.
Dear Reader,
If you’ve been to a college reunion lately and noticed a bunch of crazy women in the local pub singing bad eighties rock… and, if you’re in a certain upstate New York college town, then it’s a good bet that those are my friends, and I’m the one in the middle, dancing badly.
We’ve been doing this every five years since we graduated. As a group, we celebrate the memorable times we spent together lolling on grassy quads, as well as the years after graduation, where, cash-strapped and struggling, we suffered through one another’s horrid first jobs, romantic relationships, and roach-infested apartments. Now we’re scattered all over the country and settled into marriage, mortgages, careers, and family life. When we get together, we tend to embarrass our children.
We’re an odd and varied bunch: One raises money for charity by biking in 100-mile marathons; another, a gregarious working mother, juggles incredible responsibilities yet throws fabulous parties; and a third started her own landscaping business in midlife.
Honestly, I don’t remember how we were drawn together all those years ago. We’re a jumble of religions and races and socioeconomic classes and political beliefs. There are rough edges, old hurts, and fundamental disagreements. There’s also respect, humor, and empathy. It’s a recurring miracle that we’ve maintained our bond despite the distances of both time and geography. We know we are blessed. That’s why, every five years, we make Herculean efforts to reunite at our alma mater.
Magic occurs when we are in a room together. We talk about politics, sex, money, religion—all the things you’re not supposed to talk about in polite company. We roll out the old stories, and then tell new ones until we laugh ourselves to tears. By the wee hours of the morning, we’re at the college pub singing hair-band power-ballads and dancing as if no one is watching. And by the time we return exhausted to our regularly scheduled lives, we are sure of one essential truth: Life has taken us in very different directions, yet we all strive for the same goal—joy in our work, our marriage, our parents, our children… and our friends.
This novel, The Proper Care and Maintenance of Friendship, is my little valentine to all of them.
reading group guide for
The Proper Care and Maintenance of Friendship
Which of the four women do you most relate to? Is it the one whose lifestyle most resembles yours? If not, why?
Rachel chooses not to tell her friends about her illness because she feels she is sparing them. Was this the right decision? Is it ever right to keep the news of a potentially fatal illness from your loved ones?
Toward the end of her life, Rachel thought long and hard about what her friends needed to do to improve their lives. Do you think Rachel understood the full consequences of what would happen to them if they followed her last wis
hes?
One of the themes of this book is that friends know you better than you know yourself. Rachel, in particular, has a good bead on each of her friends, but Kate, Jo, and Sarah also, in some cases, see each other more clearly than they see themselves. Do you know your friends better than they know themselves? What advice would you give a good friend on how to improve her life? What advice do you think she’d give you?
Kate’s fifteen-year marriage faces a crisis born of the stresses and responsibilities of raising a modern family. Do you relate to her troubles? Would your parents relate to her troubles? What about your grandparents?
Do you consider Kate’s behavior—skydiving and traveling to India—to be irresponsible for a mother of three young children? If you were in Kate’s position, caught between a deathbed promise to an old friend and the responsibilities of family, how risky a task would you be willing to do? Where is the acceptable line of risk for a mother? Is that line the same for a father?
Paul reacts very negatively to Kate’s choice to take a sudden vacation to India. Was his reaction justified? What are the factors that complicate his response? If you are married with a family, how do you think your spouse would react, if you did the same?
Why do you think Sarah clung to the memory of Colin for so long? Why did she resist Sam despite the strong physical attraction? If Rachel’s letter had not forced Sarah to seek Colin, do you think she and Sam would have ever gotten together?
Rachel chooses to have a child as a single mom, using a sperm donor. Knowing her lifestyle, what do you think about her choice? Why do you think she chose to have a child at all?
Jo’s attitude toward Kate’s busy life is skeptical and dismissive but changes quickly when she is forced to be a full-time mother to Gracie. Have you seen friendships between mothers and their working peers disintegrate under the same pressures?
Jo’s early life as a foster child, as well as the memories of her mother’s struggles as a single mom, would perhaps make her the worst candidate to adopt an orphan. What factors encouraged Rachel to choose Jo over Kate, and did she make the right choice?
Motherhood is often described as sacrifice. What sacrifices did Kate, Rachel, and Jo make in order to raise their families? How did they each feel about their sacrifices? Is it ever possible to be fully comfortable with the choices a woman must make when she chooses to have a family?
Rachel mentions that the friends have grown apart because they didn’t properly maintain their friendship. Rachel’s three best friends have become so busy with their own lives that they don’t realize what is happening to their friend. But Rachel seems to understand. Do you understand?
Table of Contents
Front Cover Image
Welcome
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Reading Group Guide
About the Author
Praise for The Proper Care and Maintenance of Friendship
Copyright
about the author
Lisa Verge Higgins
Friends who know me as an author are often surprised to find out that I was once a chemist. In fact, when I wrote my first novel, I was studying for a PhD at Stanford University. That kind of smarty-pants revelation tends to grind conversations to a halt, so it’s easier to just stay mum.
The situation isn’t as crazy as it sounds. While I was in graduate school, teaching, studying, and working in a lab, the creative side of my brain was simply withering. So much analysis, so much math! Writing a dramatic story about lovers in revolutionary France was just, well, therapy. The real surprise came when a charming editor in New York decided to pay me for my labors. Until then, I hadn’t even considered the option of writing as a career.
If I hadn’t met a certain hot rugby player, I probably would have tinkered at both professions forever. We’d connected the year before, in the last few weeks before we’d graduated from our East Coast college. Apparently smitten, he decided to move clear across the country just to be with me in California. After he finished law school, he made me an offer. If I’d move back east, he said, with a lusty twinkle, he’d support me while I continued my burgeoning writing career. But here’s the catch: I had to marry him.
Then, in a glorious flash—and that’s how I remember a few years in Manhattan—I was living in the wilds of New Jersey, married, mortgaged, and with multiple small children. Though I had twelve books to my credit, writing fell to the wayside as I focused on the care and feeding of the lovely little moppets who filled my days. But writers never really stop gathering material, and suburban family life turned out to be richer than I’d ever imagined. When my kids entered school, I was bursting with ideas, and I knew I had to write again. The Proper Care and Maintenance of Friendship is the result.
As for my former career… well, I still devour the Science section of the Tuesday New York Times. I read, wistfully, of chemists working on breakthroughs in drug synthesis. But writing has afforded me the opportunity to work and stay at home. For my kids, and for me, that has been the greatest blessing.
Praise for The proper care and maintenance of friendship
“A lovely novel with moments of deeply moving insight into what it means to be a mother, a wife, and a friend. Read it and share it with your own friends—you’ll be glad you did!”
—Nancy Thayer, New York Times bestselling author of The Hot Flash Club and Beachcombers
“Offering words of wisdom from a dying friend, THE PROPER CARE AND MAINTENANCE OF FRIENDSHIP inspires us to focus on what’s really important in our lives.”
—Liza Palmer, international bestselling author of Conversations with the Fat Girl and A Field Guide to Burying Your Parents
“An amazing novel of love, friendship, and community. A truly joyous read that marks an impressive debut.”
—Jane Porter, author of Flirting with Forty and She’s Gone Country
“Poignant, romantic, and funny… about the need for our closest friends to occasionally give us a shove in the right direction when we’ve lost our way. You’ll recognize yourself in these women. I loved it.”
—Claire LaZebnik, author of Knitting Under the Influence and If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home Now
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 by Lisa Verge Higgins
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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First eBook Edition: January 2011
ISBN: 978-0-446-57512-6
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