Olivia Goldsmith - Young Wives

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

This edition 2000

First published in Great Britain by

HarperCollins Publishers 2000

First published in the USA by HarperCollins Publishers 2000

Copyright © Olivia Goldsmith 2000

Olivia Goldsmith asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

Source ISBN: 9780006510536

Ebook Edition © MAY 2015 ISBN: 9780007482030 Version: 2015-05-19

In memory of the late Jane O’Connell, a dedicated reader

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

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Keep Reading

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Praise

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

For a woman, marriage is like a circus. There are three rings: the engagement ring, the wedding ring, and the suffering.

Nan Delano

In which we meet the improbably named Angela Rachel Goldfarb-Romazzano Wakefield, on the occasion of her paper anniversary, and the strange outcome of that celebration

Angela Wakefield had arrived early, partly because she was a compulsively prompt person—law school had taught her the wisdom of that—but equally because she wanted to savor these moments before their little party began. So she sat, her legs neatly crossed at the ankle, her purse on the third chair, and stared out the window at the water. Marblehead, Massachusetts, was so beautiful that it was not a place she’d ever imagined making her home—her, a dago Jew mongrel from Queens, New York. Even now, though it was well into autumn, sailboats were tacking their way across the harbor, fishing boats were pulling into dock as the sunset turned to twilight. Distant lights had begun to twinkle in homes along the water.

Reid had picked the restaurant and, just like Reid, the club was perfectly groomed. The white cloths on the table glowed in the waning light; the glass and silverware gleamed. The starched napkins had been folded into complicated shapes, kind of like the newspaper soldier hats she used to make to play army, though these napkins were much prettier.

Angie looked around self-consciously. She was never so neat, so well-pressed as the napkins. Her hair was wild, black and curly, long and not really styled; her clothes were always wrinkled or losing a button. She was told often by Reid that it was part of her charm. Why else would Reid have married her?

Angie looked around the club dining room. She knew not to expect much from the food in places like this: go to a Brookline deli or Boston’s North End for good food. Here the martinis would be dry, the service impeccable. Angie never felt very comfortable alone in the club. She shifted in her chair. In just a little while—since he was usually late—Reid Wakefield III, her husband of one year today, would be sitting opposite her. Reid was comfortable anywhere. He belonged not only to this club but the birthright club welcomed by all.

When the waiter approached Angela inwardly groaned. He asked for her drink order, but she didn’t want to start without Reid, so she apologized and said she’d wait, if it was okay. “He should be here any minute,” she added, checking her watch. Reid was already twenty minutes late, but he was chronic that way, always overscheduling, always so involved with whatever he was doing that he forgot about whatever he was committed to do next. Well, not forget about, exactly. He just juggled a little and—because of his charm—everyone forgave him.

Angie used the time now to pull out her makeup kit and surreptitiously check her face. It was a pretty face—roundish, with round dark eyes, and a generous mouth. Okay, let’s face it—a big mouth in both senses of the word. Now her mouth needed more lipstick—why did it wear off her lips but not off her teeth? She ought to comb her hair, though she knew she shouldn’t do that at the table.

Angie sighed. She was what she was, and Reid had picked her, not one of these real blond, anemic poster girls for Miss Porter’s School. They all had names like Elizabeth and Emily and Sloane, but they—in their understated, unwrinkled clothes and untreated hair—hadn’t attracted the prince that she had. Take that, you Waspettes!

Reid represented sunshine, vitality, and the kind of life that did not have to acknowledge defeat. Cushioned by money and contacts, his family boated and played tennis and celebrated birthdays and weddings and even funerals in a dignified way that boasted of order and control.

Not that Angela was proud of her heritage. Anyway, all of them were new immigrants compared to Reid’s family. The Wakefields had come over after the Mayflower , but only just. Reid’s mother, on the other hand, was a Daughter of the American Revolution—and looked it. She didn’t color her hair or worry about fashion. She was a Barbara Bush type, but prouder. She’d never said that she was disappointed in Reid’s mate, but when Angie thought about it, she didn’t know what they had to be so proud of—they’d stolen their land from the Native Americans. Angela figured they got some credit for stealing it early. And they still owned plenty of it in and around Marblehead.

Angie put her lipstick away and pulled out the wrapped gift she had for her husband. It was their paper anniversary and she had racked her brain to come up with the right present. Here it was: an autographed first edition of Clarence Darrow’s autobiography. Reid—a newly minted lawyer working for Andover Putnam, the most old-line of Boston’s old-line law firms—worshipped Darrow. He’d plotz . Angie patted the package and grinned.

She didn’t allow herself to get too excited by the prospect of his gift to her, though. Men weren’t that good with gifts or romance. Especially WASP men from old money. She’d learned that already: for their first married Christmas, Reid had given her a pair of ski gloves—even though she didn’t ski. When she’d suggested they spend their first romantic weekend away, he’d opted for Springfield, to visit the Basketball Hall of Fame. As if. Worst, for her birthday he’d given her a coffee grinder. She shook her head now, remembering the scene when she’d opened the elaborately wrapped box. “But don’t you like fresh ground?” Reid had asked, shocked when in answer she’d thrown the thing at him. They’d had a huge fight. Later she’d called her mother. “A coffee grinder?” she’d asked. “Is it a Braun? Hey, he’s trainable. Your father once gave me an ironing board.”

Angela had neglected to point out to her mother that she and Angela’s father had divorced, and that she didn’t want that to happen to her and Reid. Instead, “What did you do,” Angie had wept, “when you got the ironing board?”

“I made him swallow it,” her mom admitted. Angie had begun laughing. “Look. Mixed marriages never work,” Natalie Goldfarb-Romazzano said in a comforting voice.

“Don’t tell me that now, after I married a Protestant,” Angela had replied.

“I don’t mean mixed religions. I mean mixed genders. Men and women. Mars and Venus. We’re not from other planets. We’re from other solar systems.”

Now Angie shook her head again at the memory. Her mother was, as her father put it, a real piece of work.

“What’s that about?” a voice asked. “We allow no ‘nos’ here. ‘Yeses’ exclusively. This is a very exclusive club.”

Angie looked up at Reid—her tall golden boy, a water skier, a rock climber, a Princeton grad. In the last reflected light of the sunset, she could swear he glowed. Reid, who had already taken his seat across from her, got up, came over to her chair and bent down and kissed her—a long, lingering one. A public display of affection! She could hardly believe it. And at the club, where no one ever had any feelings, much less showed them! His lips pressed hers. God! He’d been so sweet lately. Angie found his tongue with her own. She felt herself blushing. He took her breath away. Big deal about the coffee grinder. She was so lucky!

Eventually Reid moved back to his chair, untousled, unflushed. The waiter stood behind him. “So, what will you have, Angie?” Reid asked. Then he hesitated, moved her purse, and took the chair beside her. “Too far away from my girl,” he explained, his voice low. Then unexpectedly he put his right hand—the one closest to her under the tablecloth—high on the inside of her thigh. A wave of longing washed over her, so intense that she had to look away, out at the lapping tide. “I want you,” Reid whispered. Then he raised his voice to give their drink order to the hovering waiter. But that interruption didn’t stop him from stroking her thigh. She blushed again while the waiter nodded and left to fetch for the scion of the Wakefield family. Angie always apologized to “the help,” while Reid made them wait, yet they served him better.

“So, what’s this?” Reid asked, placing his other hand on the little package. “Who could it be for?” His voice was full of assurance and teasing.

“Oh, nothing,” Angie said innocently. “For no one. A little anniversary present, maybe, if anyone you know is having an anniversary.”

“Oddly enough, I am. And so is my wife. Could it be for her? Or for me?” He didn’t reach for his gift, though. Instead, to her delight, he pulled a little box from his inside jacket pocket. “Does this look like a Braun?” he asked.