Other People's Houses, page 2
“Alright, Kate. I’ll go back and get them after I drop Ava, OK, and bring them back to school for you.” Frances knew she was being played, but it was OK. She was softhearted, and she could live with that.
“Suckah . . .” Ava headed back to her seat, shaking her head over her mother’s weakness, a weakness she loved to take advantage of herself.
“Thanks, Frances!” Kate beamed an enormous smile, turned, and ran off—the transformation from tremulous waif to bouncy cherub instantaneous. Behind her in the line of cars, someone tapped their horn. OK, the brief honk said, we waited while you dealt with whatever mini crisis was caused by your piss-poor parenting, because we’re nice like that, but now you can get a move on because we, like everyone else in this line, have Shit to Do. Amazing how much a second of blaring horn can communicate.
Frances waved an apologetic hand out of the car window and pulled out of the gate.
She dropped the other kids and was back at Anne’s house in a half hour. Having carpool duty wasn’t the onerous task the other parents thought it was: All three schools were close to home, and all four families lived on the same block. As Frances ran up to Anne’s door she looked over and saw her own cat, Carlton, watching her. She waved. He blinked and looked away, embarrassed for both of them.
She knocked softly on the door, but no one answered. Maybe Anne had gone back to sleep. She turned the handle and pushed open the door, peering around. Yup, there was the bag of toilet roll tubes. She grabbed it and was about to shut the door again when she saw Anne lying on the floor, her face turned away, her long hair spilling across the rug.
“Anne! Holy crap, are you OK?” But as she said it her brain started processing what she was really seeing. Anne, on the floor, check. But now she’d turned her head and Frances realized she was fine. In fact, she was better than fine. Frances had instinctively stepped over the sill and now she saw that Anne was naked, her face flushed, a man between her legs, his head below her waist.
“Shit . . .” Frances dropped her eyes, began to back out. “Sorry, Anne, Kate forgot her toilet roll tubes . . .” Stupidly she raised her hand with the Whole Foods bag in it because, of course, that would make it better, that she’d interrupted Anne and Charlie having a quickie on the living room floor. It was OK, because she was just here for the toilet roll tubes. Nothing to see here, move along.
The man realized something was wrong, finally, and raised his head, looking first at Anne and then turning to see what she was looking at, why her face was so pale when seconds before it had been so warmly flushed.
Frances was nearly through the door, it was closing fast, but not before she saw that it wasn’t Charlie at all. It was someone else entirely.
Two.
Anne closed her eyes and shivered. Frances had let in a draft, along with the potential end of the world.
The younger man laid his cheek on her upper thigh and smiled ruefully up at her.
“Uh . . . I’m going out on a limb here and guessing you didn’t want that person to see me.”
Anne shook her head, shifting her weight and pulling her legs out from under him, drawing them up, covering herself. “No. Although of all the people who could have walked through that door, she was the least disastrous.”
“Your friend, not his?”
She shrugged. “She’s both of our friend, but she won’t say anything to him, she might not even say anything to me.” She noticed he still had an erection, bless his youthful stamina. If she’d been young herself, she would have felt an obligation to blow him—but those days were long gone.
“Are you sure she saw me?” Richard was still hoping this session could get back on track, and tried kissing her knee. Maybe he could get a consolation blow job.
She frowned at him. Stood, turned, reached for the dressing gown she’d been wearing when he had walked in. They hadn’t made it any farther than the living room floor; it had been a long time apart. If they’d gone upstairs their secret would still be safe, Anne thought, but she felt queasy about fucking this guy in her marital bed. Not that the marital bed saw much fucking, but still.
Richard, watching her face, now that her body was covered, wondered for the thousandth time what this woman was thinking. She confused and worried him; he was so drawn to her, even though he knew what they were doing was total karma suicide. The one female friend he’d told, a woman he used to date in college, but who’d turned into a much better friend than girlfriend, lost her temper with him for the first time in years.
“She has children?” Richard clearly remembered the look of disgust on her face.
He’d tried to laugh it off. “I’m not asking her to leave them. It’s just an affair.”
His friend knew better, and wasn’t appeased. “It will end in disaster, it can’t possibly end any other way. I can’t believe you’re being so selfish. For sex! You’re not seventeen, for fuck’s sake, can’t you keep it in your pants?”
Richard looked at Anne now, or her back at least, as she left the room. She had twisted her dark brown hair into a knot, literally tying it within its own length. It was magical to him, watching her do things like that. He had wanted this woman from the moment he’d met her, in the fevered way he remembered from high school, when just proximity to a girl was enough to make him hard. He had thought he was long past that phase. He was an adult, he paid taxes, he had a job. He had lived with a woman for three years, bought her tampons, talked to her through the bathroom door while she took a crap, watched her dress and undress morning and night. He was getting ready for marriage, he could tell. God knew his mother was starting to bug him for grandchildren. But then that relationship had ended, almost by accident, as if they’d dropped a baton somewhere and run farther and farther apart before they noticed. The lack of emotion when she moved out was embarrassing.
But then he’d met Anne at an art store, where both of them wanted the last piece of a special handmade paper. They’d started friendly, both offering the piece to the other, then he’d prevailed and made her take it and they’d stood outside the store and talked about art . . . And when she’d smiled at him he was aroused. He was good with women, he was handsome and artistic and somewhat remote; he’d rarely been turned down. But when he’d asked for her number, she had laughed, blushed, and refused. She was married, she had kids, she’d even mocked him gently for asking out a woman who could have been his mother . . . though that was far from true; less than a decade separated them. He’d persisted and, suddenly possessed by a madness he’d never suspected in himself, told her the truth: that he wanted to take her to bed and drive her mad with pleasure, that he’d never seen a woman so beautiful before, that his apartment was four blocks away and no one would know. No one would ever know, Anne, come with me now and give in, let me tangle my hands in your hair and make you gasp and shudder.
And Anne, so used to being sad that she didn’t even see beyond the end of each day, said yes. Walking into his small apartment had been like pushing her way through fur coats in a closet and coming out in Narnia. She left herself behind, and Richard saw an Anne no one else ever had.
For him this whole affair was unreal, a liminal period like a hangover, or the days between Christmas and New Year’s. Intense sex, interspersed with long silences and days where Anne took her kids to Disneyland, bickered with her husband, made meals that everyone took for granted, tried on clothes that suddenly fit her again, decided to end the affair and then picked up the phone to call him one more time. All he knew were the sex and the silences, of course, though he wondered about the rest.
He could hear her now, in the kitchen. He reached for his clothes, scattered on the floor, and started to dress himself. Maybe Anne was making coffee, her slender fingers efficient. Maybe she was splitting open a brioche with just one twist, and getting out the jam. Or maybe she was slitting her wrists with one of those fancy ceramic knives she liked. His throat tightened, and he hopped slightly, tugging on his jeans.
In the kitchen Anne reached for the coffee and wondered what Richard was doing in the other room. Getting dressed, hopefully. Seeing Frances had thrown her so badly, all she wanted was for him to leave. She opened the coffee bag, cursing when the little wire- and-paper thing that held it shut fell off. Why do they even make that kind of bag, where the wire and paper thing was glued on? She much preferred the other kind, where the wire was part of the bag. Integrated, integral, whatever. This kind, the thing inevitably fell off, and then you couldn’t close the bag. Eventually when you opened the cupboard one morning, when things didn’t seem able to get much worse, the bag would tip onto the counter, flipping in mid-descent, dumping the coffee grounds onto the counter, onto the floor, where you would track them all over the house and they would work their way into the carpet like poppy seeds in your teeth. She tossed the broken bag, three-quarters full, in the trash. Let’s just avoid that disaster, she thought to herself, her mouth turning up a little, despite the tightness with which she was holding it closed.
Richard came up behind her, his hands smoothing the silk dressing gown over her hips, his fingertips folding around her hip bones possessively. She felt different from the younger women he’d slept with. She wasn’t perfect. She had broader hips, despite her narrow waist, and her butt wasn’t firm from the gym. But he craved her. Dreamt about her every night, wanted right then and there to bend her over the counter and finish what they’d started in the living room.
Anne twisted away from him, gently. Pouring half-and-half into her coffee she raised an eyebrow to ask if he wanted some. He shook his head. “I guess I should be going, right? I’m getting that sense.”
Anne wondered how she would explain him to Frances. Clearly, Richard was gorgeous and young and sexy, that part clichéd and obvious. But that wasn’t what drew her to him, although it might have been easier to explain it that way. She liked how he talked, the different vocabulary, the occasional pop-culture reference she missed, the otherness. He was interested in what she had to say, found her novel and wise, valued her experience. It didn’t hurt that he constantly wanted her, that when she ran out of things to say she could lose herself in sex.
Charlie, her husband, loved her dearly, but in the way one loves a sibling, with all the wrinkles and scabs those relationships have. If she made a joke, he’d heard it, if she wore something new, he noticed but wondered if it had been on sale. Richard thought she was fascinating. Charlie thought she was competent and strong. Richard wanted to go down on her, to immerse himself in her body, to put his fingers inside her and then suck on them, grinning. Charlie was fine to wait until another night, no problem, babe, no, I understand, let’s snuggle.
“I think you should go now, yeah. I’ll text you or something.” She held her mug of coffee tightly: WORLD’S BEST MOM.
He left by the back door, and she’d turned away before he was even out of the garden.
Three.
Frances was amazed to discover her legs were propelling her in the usual fashion as she walked down the street toward her own house. Birds appeared to be singing, the sidewalk wasn’t opening underneath her, and her cat was still standing where he had been twenty seconds earlier, washing his tail. She herself felt light-headed and woozy, as if gravity wasn’t working so well, or she’d accidentally had four shots of Jägermeister.
“Hey, Frank!” Startled, Frances looked up to see her cousin Iris crossing the street toward her, glowy from the gym. “Drop-off go OK? Did Wyatt behave himself?”
“Of course.” Her voice worked, too. It was astounding. “He was the sweetheart he always is.” She was going to be able to have a conversation without blurting out what she’d just seen. Such casual perfidy.
“For you, he is. For us, he’s the spawn of Satan.”
“Maybe you should have looked more closely at the donor profile.”
“You think?” Iris grinned. “Maybe Nick O’Deamus wasn’t the six-foot Irish-American hottie and geologist he claimed to be?”
“Yeah . . . ‘My hobbies include collecting minerals like sulphur and brimstone, sharpening my scythe, and propelling souls into eternal damnation.’ It’s important to read the whole thing.”
Iris laughed. She was tall and blond, with strong features. She and Frances had grown up together, essentially, because their mothers were sisters who lived four blocks from each other on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. When Iris and Sara, then a struggling actress making the occasional TV commercial, moved to L.A. they’d encouraged Frances to come, too. When a house on the same block was about to come on the market, Iris had called Frances and told her to jump on it. She and Michael left everything behind and made the move, and had yet to regret it. Today might be the day, of course.
“Are you OK?” Iris looked at her cousin closely.
Frances thought about telling her, because it would feel so good to just blurt it out and split the headache, but then she realized she couldn’t. She had no idea why Anne was fucking around on Charlie, couldn’t understand why she would threaten her entire existence by doing so, but until she’d spoken to her she couldn’t tell anyone else what she’d seen. It was the omertà of friendship.
“I’m fine, just tired as usual.”
“How can you tell?” Iris hugged herself. “Aren’t you always a little bit tired?” Frances smiled tightly, and Iris added, “Why don’t you go home and grab a quick nap? Don’t you have a little time before you go back to pick up Lally?”
“Yeah. That’s probably a good idea.” Frances gave her cousin a hug and carried on to her house.
Iris stood and watched her go, wondering what was up. She shrugged inwardly—it would all come out in the end whatever it was. It always did.
* * *
• • •
When Frances opened the front door her house phone was ringing. The mechanical voice said, Call from Anne Purr-tah . . . Call from Anne Purr-tah . . .
I’ll bet it is, muttered Frances, suddenly furious. Fuck you.
She started unloading the dishwasher, letting the machine pick up.
“It’s Anne. Please come talk to me.” Click.
Fuck you again, I say, thought Frances, calmly placing mugs upside down in the glass-fronted cabinet. Fuck you very much for ruining my carefully constructed life in which all my friends are just as happy as I am. Where we are going to do it better than our parents did, are going to be happy and raise our kids without ambivalence and frustration. Fuck you for peeling the lid off the can of worms, you selfish, selfish bitch.
The phone rang again. Frances clicked her tongue and suddenly picked it up.
“It’s Anne.”
“Yes.”
“Can we talk?”
“Yes. You have to come here though. I’m cleaning up.”
“OK.”
“OK, see you soon.” After you shower the come off your legs, you whore.
“Bye.” Anne hung up.
Frances put the coffee machine on and checked for cream in the fridge. She pulled out cookies and put some on a plate. She swept crumbs into a pile in the center of the table and then onto her cupped palm, throwing them in the sink. She finished unloading the dishwasher and reloaded it. She put cereal boxes back in the cupboard from breakfast and wiped the counters. She straightened the chairs around the kitchen table. She checked again for cream in the fridge. She went to pee and when she looked at herself in the bathroom mirror she saw her mother’s face looking back at her.
* * *
• • •
Anne held the mug Frances always gave her, a souvenir Anne had brought back from Venice one year. The blue and white stripes and the red scarf of the gondolier always looked so cheerful. Anne looked at the plate of cookies. “Did you make these?”
Frances nodded.
Anne reached for one, out of habit. “Drop-off go OK?”
Frances nodded again. “Apart from the toilet roll tubes incident.” Yes, let’s talk about the toilet roll tubes.
“Yeah. I put them out, but I guess she forgot to grab them. Thanks for coming back for them.” Thanks for ruining my secret.
“No problem.” Of course, I didn’t take them to your kid, yet. I sort of got derailed. I haven’t decided yet whether she needs to suffer for your sins.
Silence. Another cookie.
They’d been friends for about five years, since Iris and Sara had introduced them. They’d always gotten on well, both having the same interests—their children, their houses, their marriages, their hopes and dreams, their Pinterest boards. They weren’t truly close, they were friends of proximity, friends because their kids were friends and because of the carpool. If they saw each other in the street they would stop and hug, check in, plan to have lunch, and maybe twice a year they would. They would describe each other as friends, do each other significant favors, but if one of them moved away they would promise to keep in touch, and not. But hey, look at them now—now they were bound together in a whole shiny new way.
Frances took a sip of coffee. “So, how long have you been sleeping with a total stranger?”
Anne shrugged. “Six months.” Her tone was even, as if Frances had just asked a follow-up question about the toilet roll tubes.
“I assume Charlie doesn’t know?”
“No.”
“Are you in love with him?”
“Charlie?”
“The stranger.”
“His name is Richard.”
“I don’t give a shit what his name is, Anne. Do you love him?”
“No.”
“Then why, if you don’t mind my asking, are you risking your children’s happiness in order to have sex with him?”
Frances’s face was flushed, her eyes bright with tears. Anne looked at her and felt irritated by her judgment, even though she genuinely liked the other woman, trusted her completely, and could see how much she was hurting.
“Suckah . . .” Ava headed back to her seat, shaking her head over her mother’s weakness, a weakness she loved to take advantage of herself.
“Thanks, Frances!” Kate beamed an enormous smile, turned, and ran off—the transformation from tremulous waif to bouncy cherub instantaneous. Behind her in the line of cars, someone tapped their horn. OK, the brief honk said, we waited while you dealt with whatever mini crisis was caused by your piss-poor parenting, because we’re nice like that, but now you can get a move on because we, like everyone else in this line, have Shit to Do. Amazing how much a second of blaring horn can communicate.
Frances waved an apologetic hand out of the car window and pulled out of the gate.
She dropped the other kids and was back at Anne’s house in a half hour. Having carpool duty wasn’t the onerous task the other parents thought it was: All three schools were close to home, and all four families lived on the same block. As Frances ran up to Anne’s door she looked over and saw her own cat, Carlton, watching her. She waved. He blinked and looked away, embarrassed for both of them.
She knocked softly on the door, but no one answered. Maybe Anne had gone back to sleep. She turned the handle and pushed open the door, peering around. Yup, there was the bag of toilet roll tubes. She grabbed it and was about to shut the door again when she saw Anne lying on the floor, her face turned away, her long hair spilling across the rug.
“Anne! Holy crap, are you OK?” But as she said it her brain started processing what she was really seeing. Anne, on the floor, check. But now she’d turned her head and Frances realized she was fine. In fact, she was better than fine. Frances had instinctively stepped over the sill and now she saw that Anne was naked, her face flushed, a man between her legs, his head below her waist.
“Shit . . .” Frances dropped her eyes, began to back out. “Sorry, Anne, Kate forgot her toilet roll tubes . . .” Stupidly she raised her hand with the Whole Foods bag in it because, of course, that would make it better, that she’d interrupted Anne and Charlie having a quickie on the living room floor. It was OK, because she was just here for the toilet roll tubes. Nothing to see here, move along.
The man realized something was wrong, finally, and raised his head, looking first at Anne and then turning to see what she was looking at, why her face was so pale when seconds before it had been so warmly flushed.
Frances was nearly through the door, it was closing fast, but not before she saw that it wasn’t Charlie at all. It was someone else entirely.
Two.
Anne closed her eyes and shivered. Frances had let in a draft, along with the potential end of the world.
The younger man laid his cheek on her upper thigh and smiled ruefully up at her.
“Uh . . . I’m going out on a limb here and guessing you didn’t want that person to see me.”
Anne shook her head, shifting her weight and pulling her legs out from under him, drawing them up, covering herself. “No. Although of all the people who could have walked through that door, she was the least disastrous.”
“Your friend, not his?”
She shrugged. “She’s both of our friend, but she won’t say anything to him, she might not even say anything to me.” She noticed he still had an erection, bless his youthful stamina. If she’d been young herself, she would have felt an obligation to blow him—but those days were long gone.
“Are you sure she saw me?” Richard was still hoping this session could get back on track, and tried kissing her knee. Maybe he could get a consolation blow job.
She frowned at him. Stood, turned, reached for the dressing gown she’d been wearing when he had walked in. They hadn’t made it any farther than the living room floor; it had been a long time apart. If they’d gone upstairs their secret would still be safe, Anne thought, but she felt queasy about fucking this guy in her marital bed. Not that the marital bed saw much fucking, but still.
Richard, watching her face, now that her body was covered, wondered for the thousandth time what this woman was thinking. She confused and worried him; he was so drawn to her, even though he knew what they were doing was total karma suicide. The one female friend he’d told, a woman he used to date in college, but who’d turned into a much better friend than girlfriend, lost her temper with him for the first time in years.
“She has children?” Richard clearly remembered the look of disgust on her face.
He’d tried to laugh it off. “I’m not asking her to leave them. It’s just an affair.”
His friend knew better, and wasn’t appeased. “It will end in disaster, it can’t possibly end any other way. I can’t believe you’re being so selfish. For sex! You’re not seventeen, for fuck’s sake, can’t you keep it in your pants?”
Richard looked at Anne now, or her back at least, as she left the room. She had twisted her dark brown hair into a knot, literally tying it within its own length. It was magical to him, watching her do things like that. He had wanted this woman from the moment he’d met her, in the fevered way he remembered from high school, when just proximity to a girl was enough to make him hard. He had thought he was long past that phase. He was an adult, he paid taxes, he had a job. He had lived with a woman for three years, bought her tampons, talked to her through the bathroom door while she took a crap, watched her dress and undress morning and night. He was getting ready for marriage, he could tell. God knew his mother was starting to bug him for grandchildren. But then that relationship had ended, almost by accident, as if they’d dropped a baton somewhere and run farther and farther apart before they noticed. The lack of emotion when she moved out was embarrassing.
But then he’d met Anne at an art store, where both of them wanted the last piece of a special handmade paper. They’d started friendly, both offering the piece to the other, then he’d prevailed and made her take it and they’d stood outside the store and talked about art . . . And when she’d smiled at him he was aroused. He was good with women, he was handsome and artistic and somewhat remote; he’d rarely been turned down. But when he’d asked for her number, she had laughed, blushed, and refused. She was married, she had kids, she’d even mocked him gently for asking out a woman who could have been his mother . . . though that was far from true; less than a decade separated them. He’d persisted and, suddenly possessed by a madness he’d never suspected in himself, told her the truth: that he wanted to take her to bed and drive her mad with pleasure, that he’d never seen a woman so beautiful before, that his apartment was four blocks away and no one would know. No one would ever know, Anne, come with me now and give in, let me tangle my hands in your hair and make you gasp and shudder.
And Anne, so used to being sad that she didn’t even see beyond the end of each day, said yes. Walking into his small apartment had been like pushing her way through fur coats in a closet and coming out in Narnia. She left herself behind, and Richard saw an Anne no one else ever had.
For him this whole affair was unreal, a liminal period like a hangover, or the days between Christmas and New Year’s. Intense sex, interspersed with long silences and days where Anne took her kids to Disneyland, bickered with her husband, made meals that everyone took for granted, tried on clothes that suddenly fit her again, decided to end the affair and then picked up the phone to call him one more time. All he knew were the sex and the silences, of course, though he wondered about the rest.
He could hear her now, in the kitchen. He reached for his clothes, scattered on the floor, and started to dress himself. Maybe Anne was making coffee, her slender fingers efficient. Maybe she was splitting open a brioche with just one twist, and getting out the jam. Or maybe she was slitting her wrists with one of those fancy ceramic knives she liked. His throat tightened, and he hopped slightly, tugging on his jeans.
In the kitchen Anne reached for the coffee and wondered what Richard was doing in the other room. Getting dressed, hopefully. Seeing Frances had thrown her so badly, all she wanted was for him to leave. She opened the coffee bag, cursing when the little wire- and-paper thing that held it shut fell off. Why do they even make that kind of bag, where the wire and paper thing was glued on? She much preferred the other kind, where the wire was part of the bag. Integrated, integral, whatever. This kind, the thing inevitably fell off, and then you couldn’t close the bag. Eventually when you opened the cupboard one morning, when things didn’t seem able to get much worse, the bag would tip onto the counter, flipping in mid-descent, dumping the coffee grounds onto the counter, onto the floor, where you would track them all over the house and they would work their way into the carpet like poppy seeds in your teeth. She tossed the broken bag, three-quarters full, in the trash. Let’s just avoid that disaster, she thought to herself, her mouth turning up a little, despite the tightness with which she was holding it closed.
Richard came up behind her, his hands smoothing the silk dressing gown over her hips, his fingertips folding around her hip bones possessively. She felt different from the younger women he’d slept with. She wasn’t perfect. She had broader hips, despite her narrow waist, and her butt wasn’t firm from the gym. But he craved her. Dreamt about her every night, wanted right then and there to bend her over the counter and finish what they’d started in the living room.
Anne twisted away from him, gently. Pouring half-and-half into her coffee she raised an eyebrow to ask if he wanted some. He shook his head. “I guess I should be going, right? I’m getting that sense.”
Anne wondered how she would explain him to Frances. Clearly, Richard was gorgeous and young and sexy, that part clichéd and obvious. But that wasn’t what drew her to him, although it might have been easier to explain it that way. She liked how he talked, the different vocabulary, the occasional pop-culture reference she missed, the otherness. He was interested in what she had to say, found her novel and wise, valued her experience. It didn’t hurt that he constantly wanted her, that when she ran out of things to say she could lose herself in sex.
Charlie, her husband, loved her dearly, but in the way one loves a sibling, with all the wrinkles and scabs those relationships have. If she made a joke, he’d heard it, if she wore something new, he noticed but wondered if it had been on sale. Richard thought she was fascinating. Charlie thought she was competent and strong. Richard wanted to go down on her, to immerse himself in her body, to put his fingers inside her and then suck on them, grinning. Charlie was fine to wait until another night, no problem, babe, no, I understand, let’s snuggle.
“I think you should go now, yeah. I’ll text you or something.” She held her mug of coffee tightly: WORLD’S BEST MOM.
He left by the back door, and she’d turned away before he was even out of the garden.
Three.
Frances was amazed to discover her legs were propelling her in the usual fashion as she walked down the street toward her own house. Birds appeared to be singing, the sidewalk wasn’t opening underneath her, and her cat was still standing where he had been twenty seconds earlier, washing his tail. She herself felt light-headed and woozy, as if gravity wasn’t working so well, or she’d accidentally had four shots of Jägermeister.
“Hey, Frank!” Startled, Frances looked up to see her cousin Iris crossing the street toward her, glowy from the gym. “Drop-off go OK? Did Wyatt behave himself?”
“Of course.” Her voice worked, too. It was astounding. “He was the sweetheart he always is.” She was going to be able to have a conversation without blurting out what she’d just seen. Such casual perfidy.
“For you, he is. For us, he’s the spawn of Satan.”
“Maybe you should have looked more closely at the donor profile.”
“You think?” Iris grinned. “Maybe Nick O’Deamus wasn’t the six-foot Irish-American hottie and geologist he claimed to be?”
“Yeah . . . ‘My hobbies include collecting minerals like sulphur and brimstone, sharpening my scythe, and propelling souls into eternal damnation.’ It’s important to read the whole thing.”
Iris laughed. She was tall and blond, with strong features. She and Frances had grown up together, essentially, because their mothers were sisters who lived four blocks from each other on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. When Iris and Sara, then a struggling actress making the occasional TV commercial, moved to L.A. they’d encouraged Frances to come, too. When a house on the same block was about to come on the market, Iris had called Frances and told her to jump on it. She and Michael left everything behind and made the move, and had yet to regret it. Today might be the day, of course.
“Are you OK?” Iris looked at her cousin closely.
Frances thought about telling her, because it would feel so good to just blurt it out and split the headache, but then she realized she couldn’t. She had no idea why Anne was fucking around on Charlie, couldn’t understand why she would threaten her entire existence by doing so, but until she’d spoken to her she couldn’t tell anyone else what she’d seen. It was the omertà of friendship.
“I’m fine, just tired as usual.”
“How can you tell?” Iris hugged herself. “Aren’t you always a little bit tired?” Frances smiled tightly, and Iris added, “Why don’t you go home and grab a quick nap? Don’t you have a little time before you go back to pick up Lally?”
“Yeah. That’s probably a good idea.” Frances gave her cousin a hug and carried on to her house.
Iris stood and watched her go, wondering what was up. She shrugged inwardly—it would all come out in the end whatever it was. It always did.
* * *
• • •
When Frances opened the front door her house phone was ringing. The mechanical voice said, Call from Anne Purr-tah . . . Call from Anne Purr-tah . . .
I’ll bet it is, muttered Frances, suddenly furious. Fuck you.
She started unloading the dishwasher, letting the machine pick up.
“It’s Anne. Please come talk to me.” Click.
Fuck you again, I say, thought Frances, calmly placing mugs upside down in the glass-fronted cabinet. Fuck you very much for ruining my carefully constructed life in which all my friends are just as happy as I am. Where we are going to do it better than our parents did, are going to be happy and raise our kids without ambivalence and frustration. Fuck you for peeling the lid off the can of worms, you selfish, selfish bitch.
The phone rang again. Frances clicked her tongue and suddenly picked it up.
“It’s Anne.”
“Yes.”
“Can we talk?”
“Yes. You have to come here though. I’m cleaning up.”
“OK.”
“OK, see you soon.” After you shower the come off your legs, you whore.
“Bye.” Anne hung up.
Frances put the coffee machine on and checked for cream in the fridge. She pulled out cookies and put some on a plate. She swept crumbs into a pile in the center of the table and then onto her cupped palm, throwing them in the sink. She finished unloading the dishwasher and reloaded it. She put cereal boxes back in the cupboard from breakfast and wiped the counters. She straightened the chairs around the kitchen table. She checked again for cream in the fridge. She went to pee and when she looked at herself in the bathroom mirror she saw her mother’s face looking back at her.
* * *
• • •
Anne held the mug Frances always gave her, a souvenir Anne had brought back from Venice one year. The blue and white stripes and the red scarf of the gondolier always looked so cheerful. Anne looked at the plate of cookies. “Did you make these?”
Frances nodded.
Anne reached for one, out of habit. “Drop-off go OK?”
Frances nodded again. “Apart from the toilet roll tubes incident.” Yes, let’s talk about the toilet roll tubes.
“Yeah. I put them out, but I guess she forgot to grab them. Thanks for coming back for them.” Thanks for ruining my secret.
“No problem.” Of course, I didn’t take them to your kid, yet. I sort of got derailed. I haven’t decided yet whether she needs to suffer for your sins.
Silence. Another cookie.
They’d been friends for about five years, since Iris and Sara had introduced them. They’d always gotten on well, both having the same interests—their children, their houses, their marriages, their hopes and dreams, their Pinterest boards. They weren’t truly close, they were friends of proximity, friends because their kids were friends and because of the carpool. If they saw each other in the street they would stop and hug, check in, plan to have lunch, and maybe twice a year they would. They would describe each other as friends, do each other significant favors, but if one of them moved away they would promise to keep in touch, and not. But hey, look at them now—now they were bound together in a whole shiny new way.
Frances took a sip of coffee. “So, how long have you been sleeping with a total stranger?”
Anne shrugged. “Six months.” Her tone was even, as if Frances had just asked a follow-up question about the toilet roll tubes.
“I assume Charlie doesn’t know?”
“No.”
“Are you in love with him?”
“Charlie?”
“The stranger.”
“His name is Richard.”
“I don’t give a shit what his name is, Anne. Do you love him?”
“No.”
“Then why, if you don’t mind my asking, are you risking your children’s happiness in order to have sex with him?”
Frances’s face was flushed, her eyes bright with tears. Anne looked at her and felt irritated by her judgment, even though she genuinely liked the other woman, trusted her completely, and could see how much she was hurting.
