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  Four of a Kind is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012 by Valerie Frankel

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of

  The Random House Publishing Group, a division of

  Random House, Inc., New York.

  BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Frankel, Valerie.

  Four of a kind : a novel / Valerie Frankel.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-345-52541-3

  1. Female friendship–Fiction. 2. Mothers—Fiction. 3. New York

  (N.Y.)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3556.R3358F68 2012

  813′.54—dc23 2011039023

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  Cover design and photograph: Laura Klynstra

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Ante

  Chapter 1 Alicia

  Chapter 2 Robin

  Chapter 3 Bess

  Chapter 4 Carla

  Call

  Chapter 5 Alicia

  Chapter 6 Robin

  Chapter 7 Bess

  Chapter 8 Carla

  Raise

  Chapter 9 Alicia

  Chapter 10 Robin

  Chapter 11 Bess

  Chapter 12 Carla

  Showdown

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14 Alicia

  Chapter 15 Bess

  Chapter 16 Carla

  Chapter 17 Robin

  Epilogue

  Game Guide

  Glossary

  Dedication

  About the Author

  ANTE

  1

  Alicia

  Alicia Fandine, thirty-five, walked as quickly as her sensible pumps would carry her from the subway toward the home of Bess Steeple, a blonde of the sparkle-eyed variety, for tonight’s meeting of the Diversity Committee, a group of Brownstone Institute parents (mothers) from different backgrounds who shared a common goal: to ensure their kids grew up free of religious, racial, and sexual prejudices. Like organizer Bess Steeple, Alicia was as Caucasian as glue, and as “diverse,” she thought, as a potato. It was an odd invitation, although Alicia had her suspicions about why she’d been recruited.

  While she knew it was ridiculous, totally unfair, Alicia had an aversion to gorgeous blondes. When introduced to one, she instinctively recoiled. Over the course of her life, Alicia had known plenty of kind, caring, yellow-haired individuals, both male and female. And yet, when she met a new one, in particular, a vibrant, winsome, outgoing type like Bess Steeple, Alicia felt a kind of xenophobia, as if blondes were alien or cyborg. Run-of-the-mill brunettes, as Alicia saw herself, were all too human.

  The irony was only too tart for Alicia. She’d been asked to fight prejudice by a member of the one group she had a bias against—namely, women more attractive, wealthy, and sunny than herself. Nearly every mother at Brooklyn Height’s Brownstone Institute seemed to fall into this category. Alicia made snap decisions about them. The school year was just a week old, and she’d been able to observe her peers for only the few minutes at drop-off in the morning before rushing to Manhattan to work. Her general impression of the fourth-grade moms: they gleamed. In Dansko clogs, they glided. They carried an effortless, casual contentedness in their bones. Of course, the glistening patina could be a façade. Alicia prayed nightly that some of them—two or three, please—felt just as overwhelmed and inadequate as she did. Otherwise, she’d never make friends. Although Alicia could strike up an easy conversation with nearly anyone who had something to complain about, she didn’t see how she could possibly break the ice with women who were so perfect and pretty and happy all the freaking time.

  But if making friends would help Joe, her son, Alicia would try. He was the new kid: shy, small and awkward, clinging to her side at drop-off. After she left him in the commons and spied him through the door’s peephole window, her heart broke to see her nine-year-old son standing by himself while other kids laughed and played in groups around him.

  Like Joe, Alicia had been shy and small for her age. As a five-foot-two adult, she still felt built to hide. Joe’s social dismay brought back all of her old anguish, redoubled. She had empathetic pain for her son—thinking about his loneliness could make her gasp for breath—plus, she had her own anxiety about fitting in with the moms.

  Tonight, she’d be okay, she hoped. Alicia always did better in small groups. The smaller the better. One-on-one, Alicia was capable of genuine charm. Her mantra for the evening: Be nice.

  The air had cooled considerably. Mid-September, and it was already coat weather. Alicia pulled her brown Banana Republic suit jacket tight and walked faster, low heels clicking on the sidewalk, trouser hem shushing against her ankles. On Joralemon Street, she passed glorious Victorian townhouses, meticulously maintained. Brooklyn Heights’s pre–(Civil) war architecture, clean streets, and flowerboxes were certainly a switch from the deserted hinterland of Red Hook where Alicia lived now, or the shopping mecca of the Upper West Side, her neighborhood as of two months ago. In its antiseptic perfection, Brooklyn Heights was a Disney version of “city.” Like a poodle was a “dog.” Technically true, but lacking in gritty verisimilitude.

  Alicia reached the address on Clinton Street. First clue that Bess Steeple was queenly rich: the buzzer panel had just one button. The family occupied the entire building. Having spent much of last year poring over Brooklyn real estate, Alicia estimated that the four stories, pointed façade, painted cornice, prime-Heights, prime-block townhouse would be in the $4,000,000 range—post-bubble. If the inside looked as good as the outside, that number would jump. Alicia suddenly felt (even more) inadequate in her economical suit, as well as intimidated and jealous—a potent insecurity cocktail. From a protective crouch, bracing for New Blonde contact, Alicia pushed the buzzer.

  Beautiful Bess appeared in the vestibule. Like a beacon, Bess’s luminosity was hard to miss at drop-off. Alicia had noticed her, but the two women had never spoken. Framed by the door’s beveled-glass window, the host shimmered in the chandelier light, her smile white and welcoming. Alicia smiled back, she couldn’t help it. Some people had that power to put you at ease in an instant. Along with her obvious other gifts, Bess had that ability. If she was smart, too, Alicia might have to spill something.

  “Hello!” sang the host, welcoming Alicia through the doors and into the foyer. “I’m so glad you could make it.”

  “Alicia Fandine,” she said, holding out her hand, which Bess clasped in a two-fister. Her host wore jeans and a cute red silk chiffon top. She could have worn a garbage bag and looked crisp and classy.

  “Joe’s mom, I know,” said Bess. “What a sweet boy.”

  Alicia mentally groped for Bess’s kid’s name, and came up empty. Sensing her discomfort, Bess said, “I’m sure Joe and Charlie will be great friends.”

  Charlie? Which one of the boys was Charlie? A slideshow of kids’ faces snapped through her mind, but Alicia couldn’t put names on the faces. “Charlie is a sweet kid, too,” she said.

  Bess laughed at that. “R-iiiight,” said she. “Come on in. Everyone else is upstairs in the living room.”

  Alicia followed Bess through the shell-pink-painted foyer, up a carpeted stairway lined with art that looked real to Alicia’s untrained eye, to the next floor, an open space of some 1,000 square feet with two period chandeliers of colored-glas
s globes, a detailed parquet floor, Persian rugs, modern Swedish furniture, built-in custom bookcases that housed, among other electronic doozies, a 50-inch flat screen TV. Alicia gasped when she saw the space. Couldn’t help it. This was Architectural Digest. Alicia wondered what Bess’s husband did for a living.

  Two other women were seated on plush comfortable couches. An enamel pot sat over a blue flame on the coffee table in front of them, with a basket of bread chunks beside it.

  “I hope you like fondue,” said Bess. “I impulsively bought the set at the cookware shop around the corner. Thought I’d use it all the time. Naturally, it’s been sitting in a box for six months.”

  “Hot cheese, yum,” said Alicia. Was fondue a diverse food, she wondered? To the other women, she gave a self-conscious little wave and said, “Hey.”

  The black woman in a creamy caftan nodded curtly. The caftan might count as ethnic, although it appeared to be straight off the rack of Ann Taylor. Alicia recognized this woman from drop-off, too. Hard not to. She was among the handful of black moms, a dahlia in the field of lilies. Alicia introduced herself and held out her hand. The woman took it firmly.

  “Carla Morgan,” she said. “Zeke’s mom.”

  The fourth in the group, a skeletally thin woman with a huge head of curly red hair, in a peasant skirt and gauzy top, smiled at Alicia and said, “Robin Stern. Stephanie’s mom.” Alicia hadn’t noticed her at drop-off. She was relieved that, of the three other women, only Bess sent off waves of pure joy. Carla and Robin seemed as confused about their presence at Bess’s house as she was.

  “It’s funny how we introduce ourselves by our kids’ names,” said Alicia. “Like we don’t have identities of our own.”

  The three women blinked at her. Clearly, they didn’t think this was funny—ha-ha or weird. Alicia tried to smile (passing for friendly) and she sat down next to Robin the redhead.

  Bess took a seat next to Carla, who readjusted her caftan as if she was cold in the warm room. No one spoke. Four fondue forks and four little plates neatly arranged on the table lay untouched. The pot of molten cheese bubbled away. Finally, Bess leaned forward, took a chunk of bread from the basket, impaled it on a fork, and plunged it into the pot. When she lifted the fork again, the bread had disappeared.

  “Oops,” she said.

  The other women instinctively leaned forward and peered into the pot. “Sunk,” said Alicia. Like this evening?

  “The cheese is awfully thick,” said skinny Robin. “Did you cut it with wine?”

  “I should have used more,” said Bess.

  “So there’s wine left over somewhere?” asked Robin.

  “Oh, God. So sorry. We need drinks, of course,” said Bess. “There’s a bar downstairs.”

  “I was hoping to get a look around,” said Robin, standing. “This house is incredible.”

  Bess asked the other two women, “Would you like a tour?”

  Alicia said, “Yes, please,” slurping back her anticipatory drool. In Brooklyn, real estate was porn.

  Caftan Carla, who Alicia had already characterized as intense and quiet, said, “Why not?”

  “Okay,” said Bess, slapping her thighs and standing up. “Is the fondue experiment officially a failure?”

  Carla said simply, “I ate a big dinner.”

  “Communal dipping?” said Alicia. “Bit of a fon-don’t.”

  To her surprise, the women laughed. Alicia thought, Okay, then. Sense of humor detected.

  Robin said, “Cheese isn’t kind to me,” and patted her iron-flat stomach. Anorexic? thought Alicia. Bulimic? Lactose intolerant?

  Bess smiled good-naturedly and called out, “Kids! You’re up.”

  On cue, three boys burst into the room from a side door at the other end of the floor. They clamored to the coffee table, grabbed the long fondue forks and fistfuls of bread chunks. Alicia recognized the smallest kid, from Joe’s class. Charlie was spearing bread with demonic zeal. Bess said, “Eric, you’re in charge.” The oldest of her sons nodded and chewed.

  “You have three boys?” asked Alicia.

  “And one girl,” said Bess. “Amy is my oldest. She’s sixteen. Upstairs sulking in her room, which is her favorite hobby.”

  “Where’s your husband?” asked Robin.

  Bess grinned. “He’s at work.”

  Alicia couldn’t help asking, “Where’s that?”

  “Merrill Lynch,” said Bess. “ ‘Lynch’ being the operative word. Borden is one of the few people left in his department.”

  “Which is?”

  “Foreign currency futures,” said Bess. “But lately he’s been doing a little bit of everything.”

  “Four kids at Brownstone,” said redhead Robin, whistling low. “That’s a hundred thousand dollars a year in tuition. Why didn’t I pursue a career in foreign currency futures? Whatever that is.”

  Alicia felt a mite squirmy about Robin’s overt nosiness, but Bess took it in stride. She was obviously well trained at deflecting questions about her wealth. Bess probably grew up surrounded by money, great green piles of it. That said, Bess seemed relatively normal for a loaded person, thought Alicia.

  Bess took them down two flights, to the garden level. “This is my husband’s lair,” said Bess.

  Alicia’s eyes took in the sights. A glass wall in the back showed the private garden, equipped with a built-in gas grill the size of a short bus. Some trees for privacy, flowering plants showing off the last bloom of the season. Alicia had desperately wanted to find an apartment with outdoor space, but even a Juliet balcony was out of their reach. Alicia was awed by the home-theater setup and the surround built-in speakers. She counted eight.

  “Here we are,” said Robin, spotting the mahogany bar, fully stocked with two mirrored shelves of booze. She went behind it, and started mixing herself a cocktail. Alicia would never help herself like that in another person’s home.

  “I’ll have the same,” said Bess as she watched Robin make a vodka tonic. “And for you two?”

  Caftan Carla frowned. Was she a wet blanket? A lot of black moms in Brooklyn were churchgoing teetotalers. Please don’t let her be a Bible thumper, thought Alicia. Although that would be diverse.

  “White wine, please,” said Alicia.

  Carla said, “Wine would be great.”

  “How many kids do you have, Carla?” asked Alicia.

  “Two,” said Carla. “Boys. You?”

  “Just one,” said Alicia.

  Robin said, “My Stephanie is an only child, too.”

  “We’re a boy-heavy bunch,” said Bess. “Six boys and only two girls among us.”

  The drinks poured, the women leaned around the bar, clinked glasses, and drank.

  And stared blankly at each other. And smiled awkwardly. So much for alcohol as a social lubricant, thought Alicia. She drank up. Perhaps things would improve by the tenth glass.

  Bess said, “I really appreciate you all coming. It’s a lot to jump right in and talk about committee goals and an agenda. I thought that tonight we could just get to know each other a bit.”

  They began talking about (what else?) their kids. How old, how much of a handful, bedtimes, soccer league, art class, snack preferences, the fourth-grade curriculum at Brownstone. Alicia’s mind wandered, and fixated on the paradox. How was it that discussing the most important people in your life sounded so banal? Women could blab about their kids from sunrise to sunset without exchanging a single heartfelt emotion. Even the intimate, profound experience of giving birth was usually reduced to a funny, scary, oozy story to swap like trading cards.

  At work, all day, every day, she was surrounded by men who delved no deeper than last night’s Mets scores. Except for Finn Clarke, her office mate. He could make a chat about the weather seem profound. Alicia smiled to herself, flashing back to the workday, beautiful Finn standing close behind her chair, the two of them looking at the latest Paris Hilton commando paparazzi photo on her computer. “Twat is her middle name,” he said,
speaking softly, making Alicia’s own twitch.

  “What’s that you were saying, Alicia?” asked Robin, “about mothers having identities apart from their kids?”

  Alicia forced her mind back to the women. She’d lost the last five minutes of their conversation, so she just said, “Exactly.”

  Bess said, “When men meet each other, their first question is, ‘What do you do for a living?’ ”

  “As if that defines who you are,” said Robin.

  “Yeah,” said Alicia. “So. What do you do for a living?”

  They laughed, even Carla, who then said, “I really need to sit. I’m on my feet all day long.”

  Bess said, “Oh, God. Worst host ever. Table and chairs that way.” The blond host pointed at the unlit part of the floor. She turned on a lamp to reveal an alcove separated from the bar/home theater area by demi-walls. In the center of the room was a round table and six chairs. The tabletop was made of green felt. The chairs were hard-backed with cushioned seats.

  Robin said, “What is that?”

  “It’s Borden’s,” said Bess, flicking on a couple more lamps. “Remember how poker became huge a few years ago? Celebrity poker, the poker channel. Extreme poker tournaments. Poker cage matches. Borden decided he wanted to get into it. So he moved the pool table out and the poker table in.”

  “What happened to the pool table?” asked Robin. “That’s my game. You can’t believe how many drinks I’ve won over the years thanks to my killer cue.”

  “We moved it upstairs,” said Bess. “But I don’t think you want to hang out in the boys’ room.”

  “Your house is big enough for a poker room and a pool room?” Alicia asked. “I feel sick.”

  Carla asked, “What’s wrong?” Her tone was professional, concerned.

  “Just intense jealousy. It’ll pass,” said Alicia. “Actually, it won’t.”

  Bess invited them to sit. They each plunked their drinks into the table’s built-in cup holders, and smoothed their hands across the pill-free green felt. “The pathetic thing is that Borden had maybe two poker nights with his friends,” said Bess. “And that was it. I’m waiting for him to replace this with a Ping-Pong table. Or a foosball table.”