damn busy.
Initially, friends gave her grief and said she was going Baptist because the church was near the very best shopping in Burlington. That was an inducement, she would admit. But she enjoyed her Sunday mornings in the sanctuary. And the minister was a vegetarian, and she liked the way animals figured often in his sermons.
Nevertheless, when she graduated she was as unsure of what to do with her life as Laurel: She was considering divinity school, but she thought it was equally as likely she might wind up at Wharton. She did, however, know that she loved Burlington, and so when the minister asked if she would be interested in remaining in town and starting a program for teenagers in the congregation, she jumped at the chance. Fifteen months later, she was enrolled in the graduate program in theology and pastoral ministry at nearby Saint Michael’s College, driving to and from her classes each day while continuing to work with the teens at the church. Other than Laurel, her friends were incredulous. But they were also in attendance—as were most of the teens and even some of their parents from her church youth group—when she was awarded her master’s.
She had been at the church over four years now, the program was thriving, and most of the time she was having more fun than she’d ever had in her life—and Talia was a woman who’d had a great deal of fun in her two and a half decades on the planet. She had always been drawn to men with eyes that could scorch off a skirt; in truth, she had eyes a bit like that herself.
She had grown up in Manhattan and her decision to attend the University of Vermont had been a rebellion: It had meant that she was no longer going to be wearing stilettos with three- and four-inch heels that cost as much as a mountain bike, or retain any friends with the audacity (or lack of self-awareness) to actually call themselves
Muffy.
Consequently, she and her parents continued to have what she still considered an uncomfortable relationship at best. They viewed Vermont as an outback-like mountain range peopled largely by sanctimonious liberals in rusted-out Subarus who dressed exclusively in flannel and fleece. This was a misperception that Talia tried to correct: She reminded them that a lot of her neighbors actually drove Volvos. Still, her parents never came north, and she only returned south on the major holidays: Easter, Christmas, and the Neiman Marcus personal shopper sale (some habits died harder than others).
She and Laurel would often have breakfast together when Laurel returned from the pool at the university, and they did the morning of Bobbie Crocker’s funeral. She was reading the newspaper on the floor when Laurel arrived, her roommate’s hair still damp from her swim. She had already set out a small feast on the mirror-topped coffee table that Laurel had discovered years earlier at a yard sale. There were sliced apples and pears, bagels beside a tub of blueberry cream cheese, orange juice, and hot steeping tea.
“I think you should stay out of the water for a while,” Talia remarked, barely glancing up from the paper.
“Why, do I look pruney?” Laurel asked from the bathroom, as she hung her wet suit in the shower.
“Not at all. But water is getting awfully dangerous,” she answered. “Have you seen today’s newspaper? Just when you thought it was safe to go trudging through the swamps of Alabama, they tell us there’s a twelve-foot, thousand-pound gator prowling around. Apparently, he escaped from the zoo during the hurricane last week. Answers to the name
Chucky
. Meanwhile, a seventeen-foot great white shark has made the Woods Hole area of Cape Cod its new home—in water as shallow as three and four feet.”
“I don’t think there are carnivorous predators in the school pool. I don’t think I have to worry about getting eaten.”
“Maybe not by gators and sharks. But watch out for those snarky undergrad frat boys in Speedos.”
“I wear a
Initially, friends gave her grief and said she was going Baptist because the church was near the very best shopping in Burlington. That was an inducement, she would admit. But she enjoyed her Sunday mornings in the sanctuary. And the minister was a vegetarian, and she liked the way animals figured often in his sermons.
Nevertheless, when she graduated she was as unsure of what to do with her life as Laurel: She was considering divinity school, but she thought it was equally as likely she might wind up at Wharton. She did, however, know that she loved Burlington, and so when the minister asked if she would be interested in remaining in town and starting a program for teenagers in the congregation, she jumped at the chance. Fifteen months later, she was enrolled in the graduate program in theology and pastoral ministry at nearby Saint Michael’s College, driving to and from her classes each day while continuing to work with the teens at the church. Other than Laurel, her friends were incredulous. But they were also in attendance—as were most of the teens and even some of their parents from her church youth group—when she was awarded her master’s.
She had been at the church over four years now, the program was thriving, and most of the time she was having more fun than she’d ever had in her life—and Talia was a woman who’d had a great deal of fun in her two and a half decades on the planet. She had always been drawn to men with eyes that could scorch off a skirt; in truth, she had eyes a bit like that herself.
She had grown up in Manhattan and her decision to attend the University of Vermont had been a rebellion: It had meant that she was no longer going to be wearing stilettos with three- and four-inch heels that cost as much as a mountain bike, or retain any friends with the audacity (or lack of self-awareness) to actually call themselves
Muffy.
Consequently, she and her parents continued to have what she still considered an uncomfortable relationship at best. They viewed Vermont as an outback-like mountain range peopled largely by sanctimonious liberals in rusted-out Subarus who dressed exclusively in flannel and fleece. This was a misperception that Talia tried to correct: She reminded them that a lot of her neighbors actually drove Volvos. Still, her parents never came north, and she only returned south on the major holidays: Easter, Christmas, and the Neiman Marcus personal shopper sale (some habits died harder than others).
She and Laurel would often have breakfast together when Laurel returned from the pool at the university, and they did the morning of Bobbie Crocker’s funeral. She was reading the newspaper on the floor when Laurel arrived, her roommate’s hair still damp from her swim. She had already set out a small feast on the mirror-topped coffee table that Laurel had discovered years earlier at a yard sale. There were sliced apples and pears, bagels beside a tub of blueberry cream cheese, orange juice, and hot steeping tea.
“I think you should stay out of the water for a while,” Talia remarked, barely glancing up from the paper.
“Why, do I look pruney?” Laurel asked from the bathroom, as she hung her wet suit in the shower.
“Not at all. But water is getting awfully dangerous,” she answered. “Have you seen today’s newspaper? Just when you thought it was safe to go trudging through the swamps of Alabama, they tell us there’s a twelve-foot, thousand-pound gator prowling around. Apparently, he escaped from the zoo during the hurricane last week. Answers to the name
Chucky
. Meanwhile, a seventeen-foot great white shark has made the Woods Hole area of Cape Cod its new home—in water as shallow as three and four feet.”
“I don’t think there are carnivorous predators in the school pool. I don’t think I have to worry about getting eaten.”
“Maybe not by gators and sharks. But watch out for those snarky undergrad frat boys in Speedos.”
“I wear a
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