Barefoot by Elin Hilderbrand Read Free Book Online Page A

what happened—she’d nearly killed Porter coming off the airplane and then she dozed off like Sleeping Beauty. That left Brenda holding the bag. Brenda to cover the kids, Brenda to drive Vicki to chemo, Brenda to shop for the food—and cook? This was what Brenda had offered, earnest in her desire to redeem herself, to prove to her sister and parents that she was neither soft nor rotten, she was neither self-centered nor self-destructive. She was not a person who typically broke rules or committed sins. She was a nice person, a good person. But really, really, Brenda thought, it wasn’t as easy as that. She was soft; she was self-centered. And Vicki was asking too much of Brenda this summer; she wanted Brenda to be her wife, and what if Brenda couldn’t do it? What she craved the most right now was quiet, even the quiet solitude of her apartment back in Manhattan. But to free herself of the rent, Brenda had sublet the apartment to her best friend in the world, Erik vanCott, and his fiancée. Erik and Noel would be making love in the bed that had most recently been occupied by Brenda and Walsh. Brenda had an exquisite longing in her stomach that was unique to being separated from one’s true love. She could call Walsh, she thought, palming her cell phone. But no. She wouldn’t pitch all of her resolutions into the trash can just yet. It was only the first day!
    At the market, Brenda bought milk, bread, a log of goat cheese, some purple figs, a pound of gourmet butter (this was the only kind they had), a bunch of bananas, a pint of strawberries, a bag of Chips Ahoy!, and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food. Thirty-five dollars. Even Brenda, who was used to Manhattan prices, gulped. She gave the bag of cookies to Blaine, snatching one for herself first and one for Porter to gnaw on. As she was leaving the market, she noticed a bulletin board by the door. Yoga on the beach at sunrise, missing cat, room to share.
    Yes, she thought.
    She went back to the counter and borrowed an old flyer from the deli and a nearly used-up black marker. In streaky gray letters, she wrote: Babysitter wanted. Flexible hours, daily, in ’Sconset. Two boys, 4 years and 9 months. Experience required. References. Please call 257-6101.
    She pinned it to the bulletin board in a prominent place, and then she strolled the kids home with one hand and held the bag of very expensive groceries in the other. If Brenda had just a little assistance with the kids, she would be better able to help Vicki and she would be able to start her screenplay, which might possibly earn her money and keep her from being a financial burden to Ted and Vicki and her parents. A voice in Brenda’s head whispered, Soft. Self-centered.
    Oh, shut up, Brenda thought.
    That night at dinner—steak tips, a baked potato, iceberg salad—Josh told his father he was thinking of quitting the airport.
    Tom Flynn didn’t respond right away. He was a quiet man; Josh had always thought of him as stingy with words. It was as though he withheld them on purpose to frustrate and annoy people, especially Josh. What Josh realized was that in not speaking, Tom Flynn prompted other people—and especially Josh—to say too much.
    “It’s boring,” Josh said. He did not share the story about the three women, the woman falling, the baby, the briefcase, or the delivery of the briefcase to ’Sconset, though Josh understood it was this incident that was causing him to think about quitting. “It’s pointless. I’d rather be doing something else.”
    “Really?” Tom Flynn said. He cut into his wedge of iceberg lettuce. Always with dinner they had iceberg salad. It was one of the many sad things about Josh’s father, though again, Josh couldn’t say exactly why. It was his refusal to deviate, his insistence on routine, the same salad winter, spring, summer, fall. It was tied to the death of Josh’s mother eleven years earlier. She had hanged herself from a beam in the attic while Tom was at