The Glass Wives (20 page)

“Yep, you’re doing great! What’s next?” Evie handed Sophie a baby wipe for her hands and a towel for her face.

“I’m going back in for the last quarter,” Sophie said, handing the sweaty stuff back to Evie.

“I’ll be watching.”

*   *   *

The game clock ticked and the score was tied. Sam ran toward Evie, swung his arms, and jumped the last few feet, landing with a thud. His hair was slick, pushed back off his forehead. He smelled like sweat and cotton candy, his cheeks puffed like a chipmunk’s.

“They’re tied!” he said.

“I know! Here, sit down. Watch Sophie.”

Evie made space between herself and Nicole. Then, Sophie had the ball. With three, two, one second to go, she threw a long shot. It swooshed through the lowered hoop. The buzzer blared. Evie, Sam, and Nicole sprang to their feet, arms waving above their heads, jumping, cheering. Sophie whipped around, errant curls unfurling around her face as her eyes locked with Evie’s. Smiling broader than she had in months, Sophie revealed unfiltered joy, and the dimple just like her dad’s.

“Oh, yeah,” Sam yelled, still facing the court. “I want to go to school Monday.”

An hour ago he was never going back.

“Okay.” Evie swallowed her hesitation. Through Sam’s heavy breaths and reddened face, she glimpsed the boy from before. She swelled with the pride of recognition, even though it was tinged with the ache of things unknown.

Chapter 14

T
HE MINIVAN GLIDED TO A
stop outside the school. The twins scooted from their seats and stepped out, arranging their backpacks, zipping their coats halfway. Evie buzzed down the window on the passenger side, and Sam and Sophie leaned in, next to one another.

“Love you, Sam.”

“Love you, Mom.”

“Love you, Soph.”

“Love you, Mom.”

Together Sam and Sophie walked toward the mass of “big kids” on the playground. And then they were gone.

Evie sat in the car until all the kids and the teachers had filed inside. Then she still sat, car idling, radio on. It had been three months since she had been alone for more than the time it took to use the bathroom. What would she do with a whole six-hour day?

But she wouldn’t be alone. Nicole and Luca would be there. And Beth and Laney were coming for coffee and cookies. Evie should have left the morning open to climb back into bed with a book—or to pound the Internet pavement for a job.

Only no-thank-you’s from her application madness. And no word from County. Maybe Alan’s recommendation wasn’t worth much after all. Regret crept into Evie’s thoughts, but she pushed it aside. There was no room for regrets.

At home Evie cleared the kitchen counter. She stacked her disheveled to-do lists and grocery lists on the desk next to the computer. She smiled at the thought of spending her first morning “off” with Beth and Laney, and how it was pointing her internal compass toward normal. But pushing aside the business of death and job-hunting made her feel as if she were halfway to the grocery store and had realized she’d left the iron on. Her conscience tugged at her, so she appeased it. With Nicole and Luca at the beach taking advantage of the early-spring temperatures that would probably disappear for one more frost, Evie could spend just one or maybe two more minutes searching websites before putting on the second pot of coffee, pulling out the container of frozen cookies, and brushing her hair so Laney didn’t collapse into an I-have-an-ungroomed-friend frenzy.

When Evie looked up from the monitor, thirty minutes had passed. Beth and Laney wouldn’t care that the coffee wasn’t made or that the cookies weren’t thawed, but Evie cared. She looked at a folded piece of paper on her desk. The e-mail address Alan had given her for the job at County College. Maybe she’d typed it in wrong. She double-checked. How long did it take someone at a community college to send a form rejection or a simple thanks-but-no-thanks e-mail? It was rude. Yes, that was it. They were rude. She did not want to work for a rude institution, absolutely not, but she wanted to make sure they’d received the application they were going to deny. As she landed on the County College website—just another few seconds—her monitor winked at her; a few more swipes and clicks and
under review
popped up next to her name. She bookmarked the page and closed the website. Evie opened the freezer as Beth knocked on the door.

“Come on in,” Evie said, waving her arm. She slid a container of unidentifiable cookies across the counter. Laney entered, talking on her phone. She grumbled, “Whatever,” then laid it on the table.

This was all followed by the kerplunk of a stroller and Nicole’s walking into the kitchen with Luca on her hip.

Laney commandeered her spot next to Beth. They stirred half cups of coffee—a new pot was brewing—and rooted through the defrosting Tupperware contents.

“Did you have fun at the beach?” Evie asked, reaching for Luca, who stretched out his arms. She took him from Nicole, then handed him back, realizing that without Luca in her arms, Nicole seemed aimless and empty.

“It’s perfect weather to let Luca sit in the sand for the first time,” Nicole said. “I can tell you about it later.” She pulled out a piece of lined paper from Luca’s diaper bag and handed it to Evie. “She called while you were driving the twins to school. Gerry somebody or other from County College. She said their server has been down since Friday.”

Evie took the paper from Nicole and held it up to Beth and Laney like a six-year-old’s first lost tooth.

“Did she say anything else?”

“She apologized for taking a few weeks to respond.”

“Oh,” Evie said. “I mean, thanks.”

“No problem. That’s the job you want, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

Nicole looked away from Evie, blinking hard. “I know you ladies like your coffee time and I am not going to interrupt. I’m going to take Luca downstairs for a nap. I have some paperwork to do anyway.”

Laney waved and crinkled her nose at Luca.

“You can join us for a cup if you want,” Beth said.

Evie glared at boundary-defying Beth.

“Thank you, that’s sweet, but I’m going to go downstairs. I’m sure I’ll see you both soon.” Nicole disappeared into the basement stairwell.

“You’re going to get that job at County. I just know it!” Beth said. She leaned her chin in her hands.

“We don’t know what this woman wants,” Evie said, flicking the paper, but she had a good feeling. Actually, she didn’t have a bad feeling, which was as close as she’d gotten in a while.

“What are you waiting for? Call that woman back,” Laney said. “We’ll be quiet.” She put one hand over her mouth and crossed her heart.

“In a minute.” Evie looked at Beth. “Do me a favor?”

“Anything!”

“Don’t invite Nicole to have coffee with the three of us.”

“I was just trying to be nice.”

“Don’t.”

Beth shrugged and bit into a chocolate-chip cookie. “I don’t get it. You want us to be nice, but you don’t want us to be nice?”

“Exactly. She is part of my life, but she’s not part of this.” Evie drew an air-triangle connecting herself to Beth and Laney, and Beth and Laney to each other. “Some things are off-limits.”

“Like husbands?” Laney said.

“Oh my God, Lane, knock it off already,” Beth said through a grimace.

“I’m just sayin’…”

“Can you call County or can we change the subject?” Beth said to Evie. “Or I’m going home. I was just trying to be nice to Nicole. I wasn’t trying to add her to our trio. I only asked her if she wanted a cup of coffee.”

“Look,” Evie said. “I feel bad I don’t want her up here with us, but I don’t. I don’t know if that makes me a bad person, but for right now at this moment with this pot of coffee on this day, I just want it to be the three of us.”

“Amen to that,” Laney said a little too emphatically.

“You know,” Evie said, “I’m getting tired of this good-cop/bad-cop routine with Nicole. She’s not perfect. This isn’t perfect. But no matter where I go from here, this is where I am now, okay?”

Beth attempted a smile. Laney fiddled with the wooden buttons on her stubbly cardigan. Even in her one-of-a-kind knit, insolence did not become her.

“What’s up with you?” Evie asked, pointing her chin in Laney’s direction.

“She had a fight with Herb.” Beth bit her lip.

Laney shoved a cookie into her mouth. “We’re falling back into old, crappy patterns.”

“Even though Richard is still dead?” Evie hoped humor would ease Laney’s tension.

“Ha ha, very funny, Ev. Yes. But this time we’re working on it.”

“Good for you guys,” Beth said.

“Yeah, I guess so. It’s just…” Laney said.

“It’s just what?” Beth prompted.

“Oh, say it.” Evie had a low tolerance for woe-is-me marriage stories. When the kvetching revolved around husbands, Evie usually tuned it out—but this was Laney.

“I was just going to say that I knew that good marriages took work—but I didn’t realize how much work. And that it’s not always fun or easy or fast. Those things that got on my nerves about Herb before Richard died? They’re still there. And frankly, that pisses me off.”

Laney’s phone buzzed. They all knew it was Herb—and snorted short bursts of laughter.

“Just go,” Evie said. She opened the door against the March wind. Laney backed out the door and saluted her friends before running across the yard. Evie might even have seen her skip.

Beth held out her hands as if to inspect her nails, but her eyes fixed on the eternity band on her left ring finger. Beth’s sense of humor did not extend to marriage. “It’s worth it to make a marriage work.”

“Well, tell me something that I don’t know. Of course marriage is worth the work. And I did the work, you know? It’s just that … God, Beth, sometimes you do everything you can and it still doesn’t work out.”

Beth shrugged. “Guess so.”

Evie shrugged back. What did Beth know of the thousand little compromises that made up Evie’s marriage? What did Beth know of the compromises that made up Evie’s day? Her friend’s life was so regimented, so calm. Beth and Alan ate meat loaf every Tuesday. Bunco was Wednesday. Tennis on Thursday. They went on a date every Friday night. When Cody, their son, was little, they spent Saturdays at all his games. Now they Skyped while he was in Paris for a semester.

Of course Evie knew better than to judge things by appearances. Well, by appearances only. But Beth was rock solid. Beth and Alan were rock solid.

The two women sat in a growing silence. Beth folded her hands and twirled her thumbs.

Evie had never seen Beth fidget. “What’s wrong?”

“I need to be honest with you about something. Something I did.”

“Something
you
did? You’re like a Jewish Mother Teresa in pearls and pink argyle. What on earth did you do? Put the salad fork next to the soupspoon?”

Beth twirled her thumbs again.

“Oh my God! Stop with the thumb-twirling and tell me what’s wrong.”

“I had an affair.”

“Oh my God!” Evie grabbed Beth’s hands to stop the jumble of movements and words. “You cheated on Alan?”

“No!”

“So it was like a zillion years ago.” Evie let go of Beth and fanned herself.

“Right. And it doesn’t matter now.”

“It must matter if you want to tell me about it after all this time. So, what’s the story? You cheated on a boyfriend and now he found you online?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“I was like Nicole.”

“What do you mean you were
like Nicole
?”

“I had an affair with a married man.”

Evie’s face contorted and she sat on her hands. “You did not. I know you.”

“You’re right, you
do
know me. But you’re wrong because
I did
. That’s the point.”

Evie’s mouth dropped open. Her throat was dry. She walked to the sink in rapid, little steps, turned on the faucet, cupped her hands under the water, and sipped. She stared into the stainless-steel basin and watched her moral certainty wash down the drain.

Beth slept with someone else’s husband? Beth was like Nicole—but Beth was nothing like Nicole. Beth was a community matriarch, a beloved wife and mother, Evie’s confidante. She fussed over seating arrangements for dinner parties, changed her curtains with each season, and was the closest a grown woman could come to being a Boy Scout. Evie’s limbs ran cold. Did this mean Nicole could be
like Beth
?

Evie wanted to be alone. No, she wanted the kids home. No, she wanted to be back at Laney’s house for dinner so she could drink more wine, come home without Beth and Laney, and fall right to sleep. The insides of Evie’s sleeves itched as if the fabric had turned from cotton to wool. She rubbed her arms, turned back to the sink, her cheeks burning. Evie cupped her hands again and filled them with cold water. This time she splashed it on her face. To hell with mascara and with Beth.

“When
exactly
was this?”

“I was twenty-six.” Beth stood, walked around the counter, and ended up behind Evie. Evie grabbed the spigot, afraid she was going to lose her balance.

“I’m not who I was twenty-five years ago. You’re not who you were two months ago or four years ago. We all change.”

Evie let the quiet hang between them until she burst. “Does Alan know that you had an affair?”

Beth inhaled deeply. “Alan knows because it
was
Alan.”

Evie tipped her head to the side, repeating the words to herself.
It was Alan.
She paused and swallowed each word separately.

It was Alan.

Alan was married before, and Beth was his mistress. How could Evie not have known? She felt middle-of-the-night nauseous and the room seemed to sway. Alan was Richard. Beth was Nicole. Then who the hell was Evie? She looked at the floor to stop the rocking and blocked the echo of Beth’s words by counting indentations in the tiles.

“Look at me,” Beth said.

Evie looked up and past Beth at the wall behind her.

“Can we sit down?”

“I can sit.
You
can leave.”

“Scream at me or something, please.” Beth’s voice was the same as always, yet completely unfamiliar to Evie.