Skylight Confessions (4 page)

John went to the kitchen to fetch some cheese and crackers and freshen their drinks. "And olives, please!" Cynthia called after him.

"God, I love your husband," Cynthia told Arlie.

Arlyn blinked when she heard that remark. There was a scrim of pollen in the air. She stared at Cynthia: her pouty mouth, her long eyelashes.

"Not like that!" Cynthia assured her when she saw the expression on Arlyn's face. "Stop thinking those evil thoughts. I'm your friend, honey."

Friends as different as chalk and cheese. They disagreed on politics and people, on fashion and homemaking. More than anything, they disagreed on Sam.

"You should have him tested," Cynthia always said, just because he liked to be alone and preferred playing with blocks to making friends, because he didn't speak in the presence of strangers, because of the look of concentration Cynthia mistook for an odd, troubling detachment. "Something is off. And if I wasn't your friend I wouldn't bother to tell you."

Well, Arlie had finally had him evaluated and it turned out Sam had a near-genius IQ. There was some concern over one of the tests; Sam had refused to answer the series with the pictures, he'd just put his head on the psychologist's desk and hummed, pretending he was a bee. What on earth was wrong with that? Sam was imaginative and creative, too much so for silly personality tests. And a little boy had a right to be tired, didn't he?

"You're going to have problems with him," Cynthia warned.

"He's pigheaded. He lives in his own world. Wait till he's a teenager. He's going to drive you crazy. Trust me, I know big trouble when I see it."

It was the beginning of the end of Arlie's friendship with Cynthia. She didn't let on that she was disenchanted for quite a while, not even to herself. But the damage was done. Arlyn could not value someone who didn't value Sam. And now that the blindfold was off, Arlie couldn't help noticing how flirtatious Cynthia was. All at once she saw the way John looked at their neighbor during their Friday evening drink time. People thought because Arlie was young and freckled and quiet that she was stupid. She was not. She saw what was going on. She saw plenty.

They were playing a game around the table when she first understood what was happening.
I
spy with my little eye.

John had gone first and Cynthia had guessed correctly. John had

"spied" the tipped-over pot of red geraniums. Then it was Cynthia's turn. She was looking at John's tie, a pale gray silk, the color of his eyes. She spied something silver. Something that was very attractive, she said. Cynthia had sounded a little drunk, and much too friendly. She had a grin on her face that shouldn't have been there, as though she knew John Moody wanted her.

Arlyn glanced away. Even if nothing much had happened yet, it would. Arlie stared upward and noticed Sam at his window. He waved to her, as though they were the only two people in the world, his arm flapping. She blew him a kiss, up into the air, through the glass.

Maybe that was the day when Arlyn left her marriage, or maybe it happened on the afternoon when she ran into George Snow at the market. He was buying apples and a sack of sugar. Her cart was full of groceries.

"Is that what you eat?" Arlyn said to him. George was ahead of her in the checkout line. "Don't you have anyone who takes care of you?"

George Snow laughed and said if she came to 708 Pennyroyal Lane in two hours she would see he didn't need taking care of.

"I'm married," Arlyn said.

"I wasn't asking to marry you," George said. "I was just going to give you a piece of pie."

She went. She sat outside 708 for twenty minutes, long enough for her to know she shouldn't go in. At last George came out to the car, his collie dog, Ricky, beside him. He came around to talk to her through the half-open window.

Arlyn could feel the mistake she was about to make deep in her chest.

"Are you afraid of pie?" George Snow said. Arlyn laughed.

"I didn't use anything artificial, if that's what you're worried about," George said.

"I'd have to know you a lot better to tell you what I'm afraid of,"

Arlyn told him.

"Okay." George just stood there. The dog jumped up and barked, but George didn't seem to notice.

Arlyn got out of the car. She felt ridiculously young and foolish.

She hadn't even brought the groceries home before she went to Pennyroyal Lane; she'd just driven around as though she were looking for something and couldn't quite recall what, until she found herself on his street. By the time she did get home, half of what she'd bought at the grocery was ruined; the milk and the cottage cheese and the sherbet had leaked through their containers. But George had been right. He made a great apple pie.

He listened to her when she talked. He fixed her a cup of tea. He did all those things, but it was Arlyn who kissed him. She was the one who started it all, and once she had, she couldn't stop.

Sometimes Arlie would go to his house on Pennyroyal Lane, but she was afraid of getting caught. More often she drove out to meet George at a public landing at the beach while Sam was at school.

She never let it interfere with Sam; never let her affair with George affect Sam in any way. It was her secret life, but it felt realer than her life with John ever had.

George's collie loved nothing more than to run at the beach.

They'd chase the seagulls away, running and shouting, then George would throw stones into the sea.

"I'm afraid of stones," Arlyn admitted. She didn't want things to break and fall apart any sooner than they had to. She thought of the stones on her father's night table from the time he'd almost drowned. She thought of the house she lived in now, made of a thousand windows.

"Afraid of a stone?" George had laughed. "If you ask me, it makes more sense to be afraid of an apple pie."

George had the blondest hair Arlyn had ever seen and brown eyes. His family had lived in town for two hundred years; everybody knew him. For a while, he had left window washing to start a pet store, but he was too kindhearted. He gave away birdseed and hamster food at half price, he was bad at figures, and the business had failed. Reopening the pet store was his dream, but George had a practical nature. He did what needed to be done. He was a man who fulfilled his responsibilities, and his brother had asked him to come back to the family business. That was why he was up on her roof the day Arlie met him, working at a job he hated, although Arlyn secretly believed it was fate that had put him there. Her true fate, the one that had gotten misplaced on the night John Moody got lost, the future she was meant to have, and did have now, at least for a few hours a week.

When Arlyn went to the dry cleaner or to the post office, when she went anywhere at all, she felt like standing up and shouting,
I'm in love with George Snow.
Everyone most likely would have cheered — George was well thought of.
Good for you!
they would have said.
Excellent fellow. Much better than that son of a bitch you're
with. Now you can right what's wrong in your life!

She couldn't stay away from George. When they made love in the back of his truck, or at his house on Pennyroyal Lane, Arlyn couldn't help wondering if he was one of those Connecticut people in her father's stories who had unexpected powers. But she knew that such people always waited until the last moment, until the ship was going down or the building was burning, before they revealed themselves and flew away. Whether or not they could bring anyone with them was impossible to know until that dire moment when there was no other choice but flight.

Although Arlie had never imagined herself to be the sort of woman who had an affair, lying was easier than she'd thought it would be. She would say she was going to the market, the post office, a neighbor's, the library. Simple, really. She brought along a clothes brush so none of George's collie's long hair would stick to her slacks or her skirts and give her away. Not that John was looking for evidence of her betrayals; most of the time, he wasn't looking at her at all. Whenever Arlyn thought about George, while she fixed eggs for Sam's breakfast or raked leaves, she did not smile, not unless she was certain she was alone. Then she laughed out loud. For the first time in a long time, she felt lucky.

The only one who knew about them was Steven Snow, George's older brother, and then only by accident. Steven had stumbled upon them in bed, as he shouted out, "Hey, Geo. You're supposed to be working at the Moodys', get your lazy ass out of bed." Steven had stopped in the doorway as they pulled apart from each other.

He saw her red hair, her white shoulders, his younger brother moving the sheet to hide her.

They dressed and came into the kitchen, where Steven was having a cup of instant coffee. It had been three months since the day she'd first seen George on the roof. By now they were too much in love to be embarrassed.

"Big mistake," Steven said to his brother. And then, without meeting Arlyn's eyes, he added, "For both of you."

They didn't care. No one ever had to know, except for Steven, who didn't talk much to anyone and was a quiet, trustworthy man.

They went on with their secret life, the life Arlie had once imagined as she had stood out on her porch. They did crazy things as time wore on. Did they think they were invisible? That no one would figure it out? They went swimming naked in the pond behind the dairy farm. They made love in the Moodys' house, in Arlyn and John's very own bed, with all that glass around so that anyone might see, the birds traveling overhead, the telephone repairman, anyone at all. After a while, Arlyn forgot to hide how happy she was. She sang as she raked; she whistled as she went down the aisles in the market looking for asparagus and pears.

And then one morning as she walked back from the school-bus stop, Arlyn happened to meet up with Cynthia, who was out for a run. Arlie had taken to avoiding her former friend. If she'd ever really been a friend. That was questionable now. All those glances between Cynthia and John. A woman with her own secrets had no business with an untrustworthy ally. Arlie hid in the bathroom if Cynthia dropped by. If Cynthia phoned, Arlie made excuses, often ridiculous — she had a splinter in her foot, she was dizzy from the heat, she had lost her voice and had to squawk out her apologies.

As for those Friday get-togethers, there was no reason to sit through those farces anymore. In fact, Arlyn arranged for Sam to take recorder lessons on Fridays; hours in the waiting room at the music school listening to the cacophony of student musicians was preferable to seeing Cynthia.

"What do you know — you're still alive," Cynthia said when they met up on the road.

"I've been so busy." Arlyn sounded false, even to herself. She looked down the lane. She wished she could start running, past the Glass Slipper, all the way to George's, a place where she could be herself, if only for a little while. She was shivering, though it was a warm day. She didn't like Cynthia's expression.

"I'll bet you've been busy." Cynthia laughed. "Guess what a little birdie told me about you? In fact, all the little birdies are talking about it."

Arlie disliked Cynthia more than she would have thought possible. Everything about Cynthia was repellent: her tan, her white T-shirt, the blue running shorts, her dark hair pulled back into a ponytail.

"I guess you're not the good girl you pretend to be," Cynthia went on. "Even if we're not friends anymore, I didn't think I'd be the last to know."

"You're clearly mistaken." Arlie could feel something inside her quicken. A panic, a flutter, a lie.

"Am I? Everyone's seen George Snow's truck parked at your house. You're lucky I haven't told John."

"Don't act as though you're so above it all," Arlie said. "You've been after John from the start. Do you think I'm stupid?"

"Actually, I do. All we've done is flirt. Unlike you and George. I heard you do him in his truck in a parking lot down at the beach."

Arlyn felt dizzy. Had this really been her best friend, the woman she'd confided in, invited to her home each and every Friday?

"If I got my windows washed as often as you did, the glass would be worn away," Cynthia said. "Sooner or later you're going to get caught, baby girl."

She wouldn't want to face off against John in divorce court. He might try to take away everything she cared about for spite. Even Sam. Then what would she do? Arlie must have turned even paler, her freckles standing out like a pox. She thought of the sort of war John might wage if he was angry enough, if Cynthia stoked his fury. Arlie began to imagine a custody battle, a lost little boy.

"Don't worry. I haven't told him." Cynthia seemed able to see right through her. "He's not home enough to notice anything, is he? But all of us gals on the road have been keeping track. We meet once a week to discuss your progress as a liar. Who would have thunk it? Little Arlie. Enjoy it while you can. I plan to be there for John when he needs me. Whenever that happens, I'll be right next door."

"I have to get home." Arlyn turned and started walking.

"Go right ahead," Cynthia called. "Fuck your window washer however much you'd like. But don't come crying to me when it all comes crashing down."

* * *

THE FIRST CRASH CAME WITH A CRACK IN THE WINDOW. One night rain came pouring into the upstairs hall. "Nobody noticed this!"

John shouted. "What the hell are those window washers paying attention to?"

There were breaks in several of the roof panels, one in Sam's bedroom, as a matter of fact. It was a dangerous oversight. John fired the Snow brothers the next day, even though Steven Snow insisted they hadn't been hired for structural work. After threatening the Snows with legal action, John engaged a team to replace the broken windows, then found a new cleaning service, one that would be responsible for the yardwork as well. George's truck could no longer be seen near the house. Still, he continued to come around, even though Arlie told him to phone instead and she'd meet him at the beach. He couldn't stay away. Once he arrived on a bicycle borrowed from a neighbor's child, another time he was waiting behind the boxwoods, so that when Arlie went out to get the newspaper a hand reached for her, and pulled her into the hedges. There he was, George Snow.