Between Husbands and Friends (5 page)

But one woman stood out, and I surreptitiously studied her. Tall, thin, blond, she lounged against the wall in a pale violet linen sheath, looking as if without the wall she’d fall right on over with boredom.

“Who is that?” I whispered to Sandy Granger.

“Kate Cunningham. Isn’t she gorgeous?”

“She looks like a model.”

“She
is
a model. For Smith and Smith. You must have seen her in their catalogs.”

“I
say
,” I murmured, affecting a British accent. Smith and Smith was a revered women’s New England clothing store specializing in a certain kind of just slightly dowdy old-money look. Their models wore pearls with their simple white shirts and plaid golf slacks. Their heels were never over two inches high, their hems never above the knee. They were always posed against the brick walls of Ivy League colleges or the masts of sailboats with a yacht club launch in the background.

“Her husband’s a lawyer with Masterbrook, Gillet, and Stearns.”

“Perfect.” Masterbrook, Gillet, and Stearns was the oldest, stuffiest, most elite group of lawyers in Boston.

“They just bought the Seldon farm,” Sandy continued, naming the most expensive property in Sussex County, one hundred acres with pond, horse barn, hills covered with maple sugar trees, and a two-hundred-year-old farmhouse that it was rumored Paul Revere had slept in.

“Wow. Is she nice?”

“I have no idea. I’ve never met her. Whoops.” Sandy was off like a shot to referee in a tussle of little boys.

All around us women were exchanging inventive recipes to make vegetables palatable to their children or comparing pediatricians. Out of the corner of my eye I saw elephantine, competitive, hyperactive Jiffer Curtis barreling toward me, no doubt to tell me that her daughter had just learned to recite the alphabet in four different languages. I turned and made my way
through the miniature chairs, tables, and people to the window supporting Kate Cunningham.

“Hi. I’m Lucy West. My daughter, Margaret, is over there.” I pointed to the spot where Margaret was gathered with a gaggle of little girls.

“Kate Cunningham. My son, Matthew, is over in the corner, trying to decide whether to eat the modeling clay or stick it in his ears.”

Sure enough, there was a boy with white-blond hair and his mother’s fair skin, standing all by himself, facing the wall, intensely scrutinizing the wads of clay he held tightly in each fist.

“My husband and I try to tell ourselves that Matthew has a
scientific
nature,” Kate Cunningham continued. “We reassure ourselves that he really is capable of socialization, that he’ll learn at some point to talk to other children, that someday he’ll have friends and get married and not grow up to be some misanthropic insectologist living in an apartment with twelve thousand jars of bugs.”

I looked over at my daughter, who had Lulu, her own doll, in one arm while with the other she sorted through a pile of baby dolls, discussing their prospective merits with several other little girls. “Max and I worry that Margaret will get pregnant at twelve and have a baby every year.”

“I’d rather have the bugs,” Kate said in a low, husky, conspiratorial voice, and we both laughed. “Do you have any other children?”

“No.”

“Just no? Not ‘not yet’?”

I leaned closer to Kate, drawn to her intensity, to her lack of pretense.

“I don’t know. We weren’t quite ready when we had Margaret. I mean, we’d just gotten married, we had no money, we hadn’t gotten our marriage established, really. I’m sure we’ll want other children, but not yet. In the meantime, I spend too much time feeling
guilty
for turning Margaret into the dreaded Spoiled Only Child, but I don’t want to have another child just because of guilt.”

“Oh,
guilt.
” Kate sighed. “It’s
exhausting
, isn’t it? Jesus, when Matthew was two weeks old, I had to cut his fingernails. Well, I accidentally sliced into his fingertip! He turned
purple
screaming! I felt so guilty I nearly went down and stuck my own hand down the garbage disposal in penance.”

“Oh, God. I know.” A kind of demented laughter swept through me. Emotions welled up inside me, surprising me; I hadn’t realized how much I had been tamping down.

Kate went on. “Now we’ve bought this farm so he can have a puppy and fresh air and I’m
sick with guilt because he doesn’t have any neighbor children to play with.
It doesn’t fucking end.
”

I nodded. “I know. They never told us this before we got pregnant, did they?”

Other mothers were collecting their broods now; it was time to leave. Children whined and resisted as their mothers attempted to lead them out the door. One woman tried to detach her son from a toy race car; he squirmed and fussed then burst into a full-scale rage. Anita Walton and her assistants were gathering up paper cups and napkins.

I said, “I wonder, since you mentioned the farm … my husband is the editor of
The Sussex Gazette.
I’d love to do an article on your farm. What it was like before, what you’re planning to do with it now.”

Kate Cunningham looked at me, and a shield dropped down over her face. “I don’t think so.”

Oh, no, I thought. She thinks I came over to speak to her because I want to do an article on her. To use her.

Then I thought: And she’s right. That was one of the reasons I came over. That, and because I was escaping Jiffer Curtis.

I hadn’t suspected that I might like her, that I might feel something in common with her.

“Look,” I said, desperately, “would you like to come over for coffee sometime? You could bring Matthew. He could play with Margaret. They could look for bugs in the backyard.”

Kate shrugged again. “Perhaps.” She headed off toward her son.

I wanted to weep. This was the most interesting woman I’d met since I’d moved to Sussex, the first woman I’d felt that private instantaneous
click
of connection with, and I’d insulted her.

“You asshole,” I muttered to myself.

“Did you say something?” Anita Walton asked pertly.

“I said I have to go,” I responded snappily, and crossed the room to take my daughter’s chubby hand.

That night, in bed, I told Max about my encounter with Kate Cunningham. We were lying facing each other, heads on pillows, in the dark. We could talk like this for hours, knowing we ought to
go to sleep, but wanting to confide just one more thing. The bed was the core of our relationship: We made love here, I had nursed our daughter here, here we plotted how the newspaper would approach the town’s gossip, politics, and business. Sometimes I felt like our bedroom was the warm center of all of Sussex.

“I liked her so much, and I’m afraid I offended her.”

“It’s common knowledge that the Cunninghams bought the most historic property in town. It’s not offensive to want to write about it. Maybe she’s just a bitch.”

“No, Max,” I insisted. I didn’t know why, but I wanted my husband to like Kate Cunningham, or at least not dislike her. “I think it was that she thought I approached her under false colors. Trying to be her friend, and then suddenly becoming press. Intrusive.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Max said, yawning. “Anyway, they’re going to begin renovations on the Congregational Church. That can be our historical focus this week.”

I lay awake long after Max’s breathing had deepened. I envied my husband’s ability to fall instantly into sleep. I always had to wrestle myself out of consciousness, and often the sound of his easy, profound slumber would make me so frenzied with envy that I’d have to stumble from the bed clutching my pillow to collapse on the living room sofa, where I’d twist and turn, trying to get comfortable, suddenly waking to a new morning.

The children have only one more week of school, so we have only one more week of these crazy mornings when we’re all in the kitchen bumping into one another as we get ready to rush off into our day. Jeremy’s cough has disappeared; he’s eating well and he’s full of energy. I’m busy with the complicated work of French-braiding Margaret’s hair while Max stands at the counter, fixing Jeremy’s lunch.

“Dad,” Jeremy moans. “You put apple slices in. I don’t want apple slices!”

“Apples are good for you, buddy. You like apples.” Max uses his most cajoling voice.

“Not at lunch I don’t like apples! Not slices! They get all brown and yucky! I want apple cookies!”

From under the table comes a wet retching noise.

“Gross, Mom,” Margaret says, announcing the obvious. “Midnight barfed again.”

“Midnight barfed!” Jeremy echoes, giggling.

Max is a master conciliator, at home as well as at work. “Jeremy, I tell you what. I’ll put apple cookies in if you’ll promise to try one apple slice, okay?”

“Okay …” Jeremy drags out the word to express his reluctance.

“
Voilà, ma belle.
Your
coiffure
eez
parfait.
” I kiss the top of Margaret’s head lightly and turn to pour myself another cup of coffee.

Margaret asks, “Can a cat have an eating disorder?”

“The limo leaves in five minutes, kids,” Max tells them.

The phone rings. Margaret dives for it, answers, hands it to me.

Kate’s voice is bright. “So, are we still on for today?”

I turn my back to my family. My voice is low and even. “Kate. Don’t do this.”

“Great! I’ll come to your house and then we’ll go to the community center to register.”

“Kate. Come on.”

“Mom!” Jeremy yells. “I can’t find my baseball cards.”

“Kate, I’ve got to get the kids off to school.”

“Right, I’ll pick you up,” Kate chirps. “About one, okay? You’re a doll. See you!”

I hang up the phone and tell Jeremy, “Your baseball cards are in their albums. You put them there last night, remember?”

“Oh, yeah!” Jeremy grins and streaks from the room.

“Are you okay for driving Jeremy to T-ball after school?” Max asks, coming out of his study with his briefcase in one hand and a sheaf of faxes in the other.

“You bet.” Without warning, my stomach sends up a huge bubble of fear. My heart races. I’m going to faint.

Margaret asks, “Mom, did you sign my permission slip for the museum trip?”

“It’s on the refrigerator. Pig magnet.” My lips are cold. My fingertips are icy, too. A band tightens around my chest. Grabbing some paper towels, I kneel beneath the table and concentrate on breathing.

“Mommy, what are you doing?” Jeremy asks.

“Cleaning up Midnight’s breakfast.”

My family talks and moves as if on the other side of a looking glass. On the other side of the universe.

I think: I’m having an aneurysm. At the same time I notice with an eerie sense of responsible calm that I hadn’t spotted all the marinara sauce Jeremy spilled last night; the back leg of his chair is streaked and sticky.

Margaret’s legs plant themselves near my vision. On this sunny June day she wears a loose long-sleeved button-down shirt of her father’s, baggy jeans, and heavy black Doc Martens. “Can I ask Jenny to spend the night Friday?”

“Sure.” My heart slows down. Like a tide, the pressure in my chest and head slowly but definitely recedes. My breath comes more easily. “As long as you both understand you’ve got to practice piano Friday afternoon.”

“I know.” Margaret sighs. It’s
her
choice to take piano lessons and to perform in the summer concert, but recently Margaret is putting distance between us, making me responsible for anything slightly unpleasant in her life.

I rise carefully, not wanting to upset my equilibrium. I toss out the cat puke, wash my hands, smack kisses onto my children’s foreheads.

“Come on, guys.” Max bends down to kiss me good-bye, then herds our children out the door to the car.

I stand in the familiar messy kitchen, as exhausted as if I’ve just returned from outer space.

Grabbing up the phone, I punch the speed dial button for Kate’s number.

“We’re sorry we can’t come to the phone right now …”

I slam the phone down.

Immediately it rings. I snatch it up. “Kate?”

“Sorry, no, it’s Jared Falconer. Is that you, Lucy?” His voice is deep and rumbly.

I stand frozen like a deer caught in the headlights. “Oh. Hello!”

“I was wondering if you’ve had time to think about our offer.”

“Jared, honestly, I haven’t. I haven’t even mentioned it to Max yet. With school ending and everything …”

“I don’t want to rush you. Take your time. We wouldn’t expect you to start until September.”

“That’s good. That’s helpful.”

“Would you like to come in and meet some of the staff?”

“Perhaps later …”

“Good. Just give me a call. Nice talking to you, Lucy.”

I stare into space, biting my lips, drumming my nails on the counter, then give myself a shake. I pour my cup of coffee down the drain, make some herbal tea, and go out the back door.

Sighing, I collapse onto a lawn chair. The sun beats steadily down. Bees buzz among the iris. I hear morning doves. Mourning doves? It’s a haunting, yearning sound.

Our backyard, now that I take the time to really look at it, could use some TLC. Its uses have changed so rapidly over the years, filled first with sandbox and plastic wading pool, then the playhouse Max built for Margaret, and now the badminton net and croquet wickets for Margaret and her friends and soccer and softballs for Jeremy. I haven’t really done any gardening here, and all at once I’m swept through with a wash of gratitude for the house’s former owner, Mrs. McIntyre, who planted all the perennials that splash the yard with color.