a chance to heal. She hadn’t even cried at the funeral, or any time after, that Kat was aware of.
When Kyle was thirteen, Kat caught her smoking pot in her room. Actually, not just smoking pot . . . she was showing little Bree, age seven, how to roll a joint.
When Kyle was fourteen, she started sneaking out of the house, stuffing pillows under her blankets and slipping out a side door. Once, Kat caught her trying to sneak back in, dressed in a sequined minidress that barely covered her privates and carrying a fake ID with the name Bobby Brown, age twenty-one.
And worst of all . . . when Kyle was fifteen, and Kat and Beau were away for the weekend, she stole the family’s brand-new navy Range Rover and drove it to a P. F. Chang’s in Marina del Rey to meet up with a bunch of friends. Unfortunately, the restaurant happened to share a parking lot with a hotel, and some woman happened to be in one of the hotel rooms at the time, hooking up with a man who wasn’t her husband. The husband showed up and angrily set fire to the boyfriend’s car. The Rover was parked next to that car and caught fire as well. Kyle had been so afraid of Kat and Beau’s wrath that she hadn’t come home for almost forty-eight hours. And rightly so; they ended up grounding her for three months. (Kat had wanted six months, except that Beau had pointed out to her—privately, gently—that the incident had occurred on the exact anniversary of David’s death.)
And now Kyle was sixteen. And things didn’t seem to be getting any better.
But what was the solution? Kat had suggested therapy to Kyle several times, including family therapy, and Kyle had adamantly refused. Maybe a new school? Or music lessons, to give her a creative outlet? What was the answer?
She sniffed and dabbed at her eyes. Beau tipped her face up to his. “Honey? You okay?” he whispered.
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. You’re crying. What is it?”
“It’s just that . . . oh, I don’t know. This stuff really gets to me. Kyle, the kids.”
“Which kids?”
“It’s mostly Kyle. But I’m worried about Kamille and Kass, too. Kamille thinks she’s going to become a supermodel, which sounds totally pie-in-the-sky to me. I mean, of course she’s gorgeous. But that’s like me wanting to become a four-star Michelin chef or having my own Food Network show. And Kass—well, Kass is perfect, which is a problem, because really, that girl needs to loosen up and live a little, and I don’t know why she and Parker Ashton-Gould didn’t hit it off.” Kat sighed. “Plus, I think I might be going through menopause.”
“Menopause? Um, aren’t you a little young for that?”
“I’m forty-four. Pippa’s my age, and she’s been getting symptoms for a while now. Like just the other day, she was telling me that she’s been feeling really, really dry down there, and—”
“Whoa, ixnay! Too much information!”
Kat laughed. “Sorry.”
“So does this mean our sex life is going to, you know, slow down?” Beau joked.
“Is that all you care about?” Kat punched him in the arm.
“Yes.” Beau leaned over and kissed her neck. And her ear.
“Beau LeBlanc, what are you doing?”
As his mouth found hers, she wished they were alone somewhere, and not in a very public courtyard at a high school. Their children’s high school. “Okay, enough,” she protested feebly. “Mr. Leibowitz is going to have us arrested.”
“Good. Let him,” Beau whispered, unbuttoning the top button of her blouse.
“Beau!”
Menopause was definitely not going to slow them down.
Chapter Seven
Kamille
K amille’s phone began ringing in the middle of Some Like It Hot, which was one of her (and Kass’s) favorite films of all time. She and Simone were hanging out at the house, drinking a pitcher of midori sours and discussing who looked hotter in a dress, Tony Curtis or Jack Lemmon. Kamille had left Kass a message telling her to get her butt home ASAP so she could
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni