The Sky Beneath My Feet - By Lisa Samson Page 0,20

in her midthirties, now semiretired thanks to her husband, Eric’s, fortune. He may be fifteen years older—old enough that Holly’s stepdaughter is about to graduate college—but in finding each other, the two of them discovered their soul mates. If you believe in such things. All I know is, they’re good for each other.

And yet.

There are two things you need to know about Eric. First, he is a professional fund-raiser. His job is squeezing money out of the rich, and he’s very good at his job. Before they met, he made his millions (literally) in the finance sector, then walked away to spend the rest of his life finding money for worthy causes. I’m not sure if it’s guilt that motivates him or altruism or just the thrill of the challenge. Whatever it is, the work keeps him on the road a lot. Wherever there’s a tsunami or an earthquake or a disaster of any kind, Eric Ringwald is on the first plane down, working the phone the whole way.

Yes, that’s the second thing you need to know. His last name is Ringwald.

Which makes her name Holly Ringwald—just one letter of separation between eighties Breakfast Club sweetheart Molly Ringwald—and she married him anyway. She didn’t even put her maiden name up front and go hyphenated. That is love, if you ask me. They are in love, Eric and Holly, and yet . . . I can tell that my friend is lonely. Lonely in her marriage. Maybe that’s what brought us together in the first place, our unacknowledged common ground.

“Oh, Beth, you’re in a funk, aren’t you? I can always tell. Is it the vacation planning? Everything’s up to you again, isn’t it?”

A funk? That hardly describes it. I’m bitter as cursed well water. You take a drink and you can’t get the taste out of your mouth ever again.

“It’s not just that. There’s Eli’s birthday next week.”

“That’s right.” She reaches for a ballpoint pen and writes something down on one of her canary-yellow legal pads. That scribble will translate into something nice and shiny for Eli, I’m sure. “Eric’s down on the Gulf Coast again, so if you need any party planning assistance, you know who to call. Assuming you’re not going to leave for Florida until after the party.”

“I don’t even know if there’s going to be a party.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“Don’t make me spill it. Not now.”

“Beth, really, what’s going on?”

And so it all comes tumbling out, and so do the tears. Crying really does make you feel better, the same way shock makes hiccups disappear. The more immediate trauma erases the longer-term one. For a time. By the end of my story, we’re both dabbing our eyes and then she’s hugging me and patting my back.

I pull away. I try to laugh. “Just look at me. I can’t go out there like this.”

“You don’t have to go anywhere,” she says with conviction.

If I was an eccentric old spinster in a Merchant Ivory movie, I’d want to share my lovely cottage with Holly and that’s the truth. I’d do the cooking and leave the decorating to her, and we’d be inseparable.

“Thanks.”

“It can’t last, Beth. It’ll never last. He’ll be begging to get back in the house this time tomorrow. If he doesn’t give up the idea before then. Rick’s not stupid. The real question is, are you going to leave me high and dry? Richmond is the dumps, believe me. You couldn’t drag me any farther into Virginia than Arlington, and even then I get nervous when I’m out of sight of the Washington Monument. Eric thinks touring Civil War battlefields is romantic, but, sister, it’s not.”

“You don’t have to convince me. I couldn’t imagine leaving my friends, our little house, Lutherville—no way.” As I say the words, they ring false in my ears. The fear goes deeper than this. I can’t bear trading this life for a new one with the same problems and none of the outlets. “But Jim knows how to bait a hook. You know what he said? ‘You’d be trading a megachurch for a megaphone. You’ll be a big voice in the church.’”

“A big voice in the church.”

“With a capital C.”

“Wow. All that versus being a Men’s Pastor. I see what you mean.”

“And you don’t know any of this. He’d flip out if he knew I’d said anything.”

“It sounds like he’s flipped out already.”

On the screen, the crowds are flowing back into the auditorium. The Community logo flashes onto the projection screens and the