The Chick Palace

By Leslie Davis Guccione

A novel of female friendship and summer romance from the RITA Award finalist and creator of the Branigan Brothers series.
 
Three dilemmas. Two friends. One abandoned treehouse.
 
Johanna Lawrence and Lilly Covington have a friendship that spans decades. From their days as college roommates to the years after as lakeside neighbors, they’ve offered each other sympathy, support, and solace for life’s rough edges. As they find themselves together for another summer and a new set of crossroads in their lives—Johanna having lost her mother, Lilly an empty-nester on her second divorce from the same man—they commandeer their sons’ long-abandoned treehouse for morning coffee, evening margaritas, and soulful contemplation.
 
All hope of a restful summer is shattered when Johanna’s first love, the bad boy she dated years ago in a fit of teenage rebellion, reappears in her life. Quicker than he can dub the treehouse “The Chick Palace,” he embroils Johanna and Lilly in a triangle and proves himself as adept at stealing hearts and turning summers upside down as he was years ago.
 
With her trademark heart, humor, and sass, Leslie Davis Guccione sets up a lakeside romp fueled by friendship, family, and one old flame ready and willing to once again test the waters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: May 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781626810952

Book preview

Chapter One: Lilly

Late May dusk hovered over Lake Allamuchy, New Jersey, by the time Johanna Lawrence Wheeler found me staring into the thicket, contemplating the warning on our sons’ deserted tree house.

NO GRILS AND THIS MEENS YOU BUTTHED. Even through my tear-swiping I grinned at the fourteen year old sign my Ethan and her Jake had made and tacked beside the entrance after Jake’s sister Meg had snapped the heads off their G.I. Joes. It seems she’d discovered Magic Marker pubic hair on her Barbies and Ken sporting a Play-Doh penis.

Lilly! This is a surprise, so early in the season, Johanna called once she’d hopped the stream and crossed the small field that separates the Lawrence/Wheeler cottage from their tennis court and the tree house. Gordon and I thought we heard a car on the pea gravel.

I just sat through Ethan’s half-baked Alumni Scramble lacrosse game. Bickley played Friends Academy in Oxford so I drove on out here to check on things.

Johanna glanced over her shoulder, past her cottage to the tangle of honeysuckle, forsythia, barberry and leggy privet that forms our property line. You’re staying overnight at your bungalow? I didn’t know you’d opened it.

I’m not; I haven’t. Ex-ex showed up during the first half of the game.

Brad’s with You? Bad news?

The man I’ve divorced twice had given me such a case of the Mean Reds I’d driven to the lake to plant myself on the last of our community property. I looked at Johanna. No and yes. I felt the need for terre firma. He intends to use our place this summer. He and Cat Gallordi. Alternate weekends with me or some such. I told him, fine, I said I’d just move into the smelly old tree house till Labor Day.

You’re in for a shock. Jake drove out yesterday from Brooklyn to help us put the docks in. Johanna nudged me up the ladder.

I poked my head through the door for a closer look at what now smelled of industrial strength detergent and latex paint. Lordy!

A Lake Allamuchy dreamscape in shades of vibrant blues and greens with cartoonish renditions of our cottages worked its way around what had been grimy plywood. Even in the low light color jumped like carp after bait. A familiar flourish of silver graffiti spelled ETHAN. Another of white lay JAKE along the east wall. His complicated tag filled the lower right signature corner, one I’m sure Johanna was grateful bore no resemblance to any on the overpasses along 1-78.

Johanna’s fretting over Jake has filled more than one phone call but his three dimensional letters tumbled over one another in intricacies that took my breath away. She traced some of the tag. With this much talent.…

Sugar, he’ll do you proud. I looked out the single window at the mostly deserted beachfronts, some raked and ready, others still full of rafts and dock sections stacked for the winter. And he got the docks in, too?

Even yours. Lilly, come over to the cottage and stay for dinner. Gordon’s built a fire and I brought some leftovers from home. We’re here through Memorial Day to open the place. She looked out at the lake. I brought Mom’s ashes with me. Even though it’s been two months, I can’t seem to make any sort of decision.

Oh, Joho. And here you just let me ramble about Ex-ex and Jake’s graffiti?

Alzheimer’s, Lilly. It’s not as if her death was unexpected. Or I wasn’t prepared. She waved away the thought.

It was a beautiful memorial service your daddy arranged.

It was wonderful of you to fly up for it, she replied.

I’d have hitch-hiked to Boston if I’d had to. So you’ve still got her ashes—

Sitting in her jewelry box upstairs on my dressing table. Safe keeping for now. I patted her arm. I met your mama when I was younger than Ethan. Instead of reminding me of who I’m not she spent her whole life just walking around setting an example for what I could be.

Johanna managed a grin. And wouldn’t she love to give us her opinion on sharing the bungalow with Brad and Cat, not to mention her grandson’s affinity for all things edgy. Come on, stay for dinner. You can convince me not to disown Jake while Gordy and I work on making you think sharing your place all summer can be managed.

And so we ambled from the tree house back across the stream. Lake Allamuchy’s not but a mile by a quarter-mile wide, a spring-filled hollow surrounded by the low-slung Kittatinny Mountains. We’re in the northwest corner on a wedge of five level waterfront acres, originally Johanna’s family compound. At our end our neighbors perch like upturned shoeboxes in the steep hillside, choice views but separated from us and the water by the single road ringing the perimeter below.

Her compound’s been passed down through the daughters and the current generation still calls the rambling nine room house a cottage. With the chauffeur and cook gone since Hitler invaded Poland, the help’s quarters over the garage are now bunkrooms. Makes me grin.

We headed for the kitchen through the picket fenced enclosure where blankets and a rag rug aired on the clotheslines. Cold Roast Yankee thrift straightens the spine of all the Hansford/Jimerson/Lawrence/Wheeler women. To avoid the expense of upgrading the septic system and meet ever-stricter environmental codes to support a washing machine, Johanna buzzes into Belvidere for the Laundromat and just like her mama, hangs most of the Wheeler laundry in their drying yard.

In consideration of the septic tank, they continue to share flushes and mostly use the outdoor shower. Even with my dedication to mimicking the finer points of casual silver-spoon-in-the-mouth living, this old-money behavior and attitude can trip me up like a wrinkle in their threadbare Shiraz.

I helped gather the summer blankets and let the screen door slam behind us as we entered the kitchen.

Welcome Lilly. Guess you’ve seen the tree house. Gordon Wheeler dropped an olive into his martini as he appeared from the butler’s pantry.

Guess I have, I replied while Johanna put the bedding on the staircase.

He started in on uncorking some Napa Valley whatever. At least you’re a pleasant diversion.

You might want to withhold judgment. I explained about the lacrosse game and Brad’s intentions. He wants to use our place this summer. He and Pussy Galore.

I thought Gordon might choke on his olive. Is that such a problem? Have you used it more than three or four times a season these past few years?

There’s a principle involved. He got the Porsche; we sold our Penham house. The lake bungalow—shoot, there was no dissuading him. I eased out of my barn jacket. Johanna found me just now, checking out the tree house where I told him I’d camp out. I hate it when Ex-ex does me that way and I get all sarcastic.

Gordon, who refers to me as Johanna’s South Carolina smart and smartass college roommate-cum-maid-of-honor-cum-summer neighbor, filled a goblet and handed it to me.

Too early in the season for margaritas, Johanna said.

Y’all know me too well, I said.

Sometimes better—

--than you know yourself, they replied, one over the other.

Sorry I’m not staying over. If I throw back enough of these I might could lose this urge to strangle Ex-ex. I contemplated the pinot noir as we made our way into their living room, welcoming and probably nearly unchanged since the great-grands built the place.

Gordon fed Dave Izard and Peter Cincotti CDs into the stereo as Johanna moved to the fireplace, pulled the wing key from under the mantel clock and wound it.

Materfamilias, Gordon murmured.

She shot him an over-the-shoulder glance.

I just meant watching you, I got a sudden flash of your mom. My first weekend out here Maggie explained about the clock, that it had been her grandmother’s, the first Johanna Hansford. That the women of the family always wind it, careful to feel for the resistance as the spring tightens. The kind of idle chat meant to make me feel at home and disguise the fact that every Lawrence on the premises was looking me over. Gordon smiled and jazz piano filled the room. The baton has passed.

Johanna looked at the key in her hand before sliding it back in place, then tilted the clock, listening for the click of the pendulum.

Baton passing. Well Materfamilias, I said, you may be just the person to get me through this current crisis. We settled in front of the fire, makeshift suppers on our laps. The principle being: when the little place next door came on the market, buying Lake Allamuchy digs was my idea. Obviously the connection to your family is mine, Joho; and hell, half those summers Ex-ex tolerated it only because Ethan loved it out here. In fact-- I put down my spoon. —half those summers he wasn’t here with us but what felt like about fifteen frigging minutes at a time. He’s fought every repair and every upgrade. He has a hissy fit when I mention replacing those old porch steps. He’d just as soon wait till somebody puts a foot through one.

You-don’t-want-it-but-Brad-can’t-have-it syndrome. Gordon was on his second martini.

Sugar, Ex-ex doesn’t want it. For that matter, when did he ever know what he wanted? He says they just need a quiet place that won’t take hours to reach getting out of Manhattan on Friday nights. They. I’m betting this is Ms. Madison Avenue’s idea and has more to do with her keeping a low profile in the Hamptons. Half the New York advertising community’s out there, not to mention a former husband. I presume former but maybe some bridges are still burning. I glanced at my hosts. I don’t expect either of you to be ugly to them, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t make her your new best friend.

I have a best friend, Johanna said.

Gordon squatted at the fireplace and added a log. Have you met her?

I have not.

If you don’t want ugly, as in my broken nose, I need more than Pussy Galore and Ms. Madison Avenue. It’s Cat Something, right?

Gallordi. Catalana Gallordi, the wunderkind of J. Walter Thompson who left the advertising firm with a pocketful of print clients to start Gallordi Graphics. West Village brownstone.

What’d you do, put an investigator on Brad’s tail? He broke up some kindling.

Bite your tongue. The Wall Street Journal got half that scoop from Advertising Age. The other half comes from sources close to home. My darling son told me her talent is ‘way cool’.

Surely you and Brad can work out co-op arrangements.

He confessed he was too late booking a room for Ethan’s graduation and now everything’s sold out. Seeing as Ex-ex lives in Manhattan now, he told me for convenience he’ll stay out here next weekend and open the place. That’s when he eased his sorry self into the bungalow-sharing discussion. He has it all planned.

He could have stayed with you in Penham for graduation.

I laughed off the suggestion. As it is, we are alternating our festivity attendance so’s to hold onto a modicum of civility. Princeton graduation takes four days. He’ll stay here and go to Saturday’s silly ‘P-rade’ and Sunday’s Baccalaureate, then hustle back to his hedge funds. I get the Step-sing and then Class Day luncheon on Monday.

Sounds complicated.

"Sugar, Princeton’s schedule’s so complex, we’re leaving Ethan’s grandparents out of it-Kip and Cookie Covington to their Pennsylvania back nine in Sewickley and Mama to her South Carolina sweet tea in Two Rock.

For Ethan’s sake we will work mightily not to rub each other raw. And since reasoning works better in person, I plan to chat about this bungalow mess at Commencement on Tuesday. We’re sharing the Big Moment. Dread already filled me.

Tell him you and Ethan need to be here over the Fourth of July before he heads to grad school, Johanna added. After Mom’s memorial service, Dad suggested a Lawrence reunion over the holiday. Both my brothers and their families will be here.

I explained that I had an invitation to the Poconos and Ethan would be off to the shore before leaving for Pittsburgh. I expect to be crazed getting him ready for Carnegie Mellon. Three hundred and thirty-four miles west. But who’s counting? My sigh nearly filled the room. Ex-ex is driving out with him and taking a few days with his parents.

This was a good place to get back to the stew and we finished in comfortable silence and gathered the dishes. On the way to the kitchen I glanced at the rogues’ gallery of family photos filling either side of the chimney. From sepia-toned and black and white to fading Kodachrome, four generations of husbands have posed their Hansford-descendant wives and children on the old glider out on their screened porch.

There are shots at the water, too, and I looked at my favorite: Johanna’s mother Maggie and her grandchildren in her beloved Old Town canoe. Looking at it all about closes my throat every time. Well after she couldn’t tell her tennis racquet from the canoe thwart, she could still bear off, feather and back-paddle from their dock through the lily-pads to the flatwater that shimmered out beyond the front veranda.

The final shot features my best friend grinning for Gordon with Jake and Meg. Shoot, all those after-school hours I spent in Two Rock, South Carolina, loading shelves at the Piggly Wiggly? Or slouched in my seat at the Paradise watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s for the fifth time while I invented my future? I turned to Gordon. What I needed was Selwyn College for Women. The me I set out to become couldn’t have had a better example than Johanna Hansford Lawrence walking into my dorm room that first sweltering day of Freshman Week.

*

It’s so hot I’d liked to died, I quip as a brunette pauses on my dorm room threshold like she’s not wanting to come any closer.

Through the haze of my perfect smoke rings dissipating above my frosted hair and hoop earrings, she glances from the fresh and crisply made bed on the other side of me to the bare mattress ticking I’m reclining on. I shoot another three smoke rings toward the ceiling.

You’re as good as that Camel billboard in Times Square, she says.

You’ve been to New York City?

My grandmother lives there.

Well, hey! That makes you my Yankee roommate? Johanna Lawrence?

She eyes my Percy Sledge album spinning on her stereo.

Johanna, she replies, Everyone’s been calling me Johanna. And you all must be Lonnye-Ronette Drinkwater?

I stump my mentholated Newport into the ashtray. First thing you need to know: y’all’s plural and there’s only me in here.

Her measured glance moves from me to my cigarette case as I slide the leather tongue under the strap and cross one sandaled foot over the other. Etienne Aigner, Johanna says and shows me her Aigner fishing creel purse.

She seems desperate for the familiar. It takes me about fifteen minutes to confirm that until this first day at Selwyn life as she’s lived it has stretched from suburban Boston south along the Northeast Corridor, through Manhattan to Lake Allamuchy, New Jersey. And here she stands like she’s found herself on another planet called Charlotte, North Carolina.

Every transom above every Fraser Hall door has been cranked open and the heat amplifies the cacophony of Wilson Picket, James and Bobby Purify and the constant Y’all come back, and Hey, darlin’! mingling with Percy. It will be weeks before she can discern eastern Georgia, from middle Tennessee, from the Two Rock, South Carolina, drawl I will spend our four years trying to mollify.

I check my watch. My Jimmy’s due any minute. I met him this summer at Duke but he lives right here in Ayres Park. Did you leave a honey behind?

She squints, trying to cull something recognizable out of my vowels, stretched like taffy on this blistering September afternoon. Not really. She pulls a smooth stone from the pocket of her madras wraparound skirt. There was a lifeguard this summer at our cottage. August mostly. The flush creeps from under her collar.

Ooo wee, just look at you, Sugar.

She waves it off. He was just a townie. You know, the Steve McQueen type your parents sweat bullets over.

My parents would hug the moon if I’d settle down with a Two Rock townie. Even with my scholarship, what they are sweating bullets over are Selwyn expenses.

*

I brought the trip down Memory Lane to a halt by getting the dishes to the sink, then picked up my purse and jacket. Once I said my thank-you’s and accepted their buck-up advice, Johanna walked me out the front door. Barely an acre separates their wide front veranda from the water and we looked across the lawn into the dying spring light glinting off the lake. I wonder if Jim Cathcart would have liked it up here.

Johanna smiled. ’My Jimmy’ Cathcart. Goodness, there’s a name I haven’t heard in a million years.

Do you ever think about those early boys? The Duke and Davidson frat brothers? That old summer lifeguard who broke your heart?

She shook her head.

Of course she didn’t. She’d married the right one.

That was then, Lilly. I’ve got too much in the now. Staying one step ahead of my graffiti artist, encouraging Meg.…

And scattering those ashes, I wanted to add. Instead I swung my arms wide. Summer soon. Right here from your Adirondack chairs? Best view; bar none.

I followed her glance from the lake to the tree house overlooking the tennis court. Our neglected plywood tribute to father-son bonding nestles between twin maples about five feet off the ground, braced with two-by-six stilts.

Johanna smiled. "How long has it been since the boys used it? Ethan’s graduating; Jake’s bound to finish one of these years.

Is he still wearing dreadlocks?

You had to ask.

Tell him ‘hey’ from me. Ethan had good summers out here with your kids. That old tree house--

Great summers.

You think?

She hugged herself against the chill as I pulled on my jacket. She knew this wasn’t about our summers. Lilly, you’re a wonderful mother. Ethan’s proof of that.

He’s had a lot to contend with. Ex-ex and I--

—always put him first.

Thank you. You’re shivering and here I’m getting all maudlin again. Go on in. ‘Was great to see you and dinner was delicious. I’m going to wander back to my property and give it a quick once-over. I felt a grin coming on. Hopefully I’ll find mice dancing in the kitchen and bats snoozing on the bathroom walls. I hope the happy couple’s in and out right through Labor Day. Flushing all summer’s sure to guarantee a back up of the cesspool.

Lilly—

We daughters of septic tank drillers know these things, Joho.