Twenty-two.
When Frances got home from drop-off the next morning, Anne was sitting on her front step.
“Can I talk to you?” She looked awful, cold and pinched despite the typical warmth of the day. As Frances nodded and opened the door she thought she saw Charlie coming out of his house up the street, but wasn’t sure. She hoped not; she really didn’t want to take sides. Well, apart from the side of the kids, that side she would always be on.
The dogs greeted Anne in their usual enthusiastic fashion, because (a) they didn’t know she was a cheater and (b) they’re instant forgivers, dogs, it’s just the way they roll. They also sensed deep misery, and followed her into the kitchen and sat next to her while she lowered herself into a chair. While Frances pulled the usual mugs from the cupboard and looked to see if there was any coffee left, Anne petted the dogs and felt like death warmed over.
In the distance, Frances could hear the shower running. “Michael’s still here, you know. Is that OK?”
Anne was still petting the dogs as if it were going out of fashion. She nodded. “It doesn’t matter. I just wanted to talk to you.” She looked up suddenly. “Does he hate me?”
“Michael?” Anne nodded, so Frances shook her head. “No, or at least, he hasn’t said so. It’s not our place to hate you, is it? You didn’t cheat on us.” What she didn’t say was that she and Michael hadn’t spoken yet that morning, so who knew what he thought? She’d been giving him the cold shoulder, and had been a little vexed that his car was still out front when she got back from drop-off. She’d hoped he’d be forced to reach out to her from work, maybe send her flowers, or leave her apologetic voicemails. That way she could nurse her resentment in solitude, whereas if she saw his face she would find it hard to stay mad. Their relationship was basically a deep, deep friendship at this point, and flares of anger usually just fell into the darkness and burned out. They frequently ignored the advice to never go to bed angry, but it took too much effort to stay mad past the following lunchtime.
Anne got a flush of color. “I’m not sure everyone will be as understanding as you two.”
Frances had started making a fresh pot of coffee, and was reaching for filter papers as she answered. “I don’t think it’s understanding. You know how I felt about you cheating, after the other day. But the fact that I was right, that it ended really badly, doesn’t make me happy in the least. You know that. I wish I had been wrong, because now things are all fucked up.”
Anne looked at her. “I don’t know what’s going on with me. I felt so lonely and empty and suddenly Richard was there and he saw a totally different side of me, not even a side that I knew existed. I was a different person with him.”
Frances was leaning against the counter, listening to the gently puffing efforts of the coffee maker. She noticed the laundry was done and moved it over to the dryer, dumping the dry clothes into a basket. “Well, who are you now? Are you seeing a psychiatrist?”
Anne frowned. “Do you think I should?” She kept crossing and recrossing her legs, and Frances wondered idly if she had a urinary tract infection.
She said, “Well, let’s look at the face of it, shall we? You just destroyed several lives, including your own, over a brief and meaningless relationship. You’re mystified as to why you did it, and you find yourself adrift now, not sure how to get back to normal. I would think a psychiatrist might be helpful. You’re depressed.”
“Am I depressed, or am I just responding appropriately to a disastrous situation?”
“It wasn’t disastrous until you made it that way. Go get help, Anne.” The coffee maker was done. “Usual?”
Anne nodded. “Will you help me?”
“I’m not a shrink. I’m not any kind of doctor, and you need professional help.” She added half-and-half, hesitated as she tried to remember if Anne took sugar in her coffee or not, decided she could use the extra calories and added some. Anne was still talking.
“I mean with Charlie. Will you help me with Charlie?”
Frances carried over the coffee, then turned to get cookies. “Did you have breakfast?” Anne shook her head. “Eggs?” Anne shrugged, so Frances pulled out a pan, butter, and eggs. Food before anything, always. Her mother had always been a good cook, and after Frances’s brother died she became almost fanatical about it. Frances would eat three meals a day, under the watchful eye of her mother, because she knew it was three times a day her mother felt like maybe she had some control over the shit storm that was life. If this child was fed, she seemed to radiate, then maybe she won’t suddenly die. Frances had inherited this belief, and now she was making eggs for Anne because it was what she could do. Ava had once joked that on her mom’s headstone it was going to say, “I’m fine, but when was the last time you ate something?”
Frances cracked a couple of eggs while the butter melted, whisking them together with a fork, adding a pinch of pepper. “I don’t honestly know what I can do for you, Anne. You need to fix this, if you can. How are the kids?”
Anne shrugged. “We told them together, because that was what Charlie thought we should do, but they seemed confused about it. I stayed and helped put them to bed, but then I left.”
“Are you staying at your parents’? They’re in Santa Monica, right?”
“Yes, but no. I haven’t told them yet.”
Frances put a plate of eggs in front of her friend, and felt herself standing over her, just like her mom had always done. That was creepy, so she sat down.
Anne ate, her usual color returning. “These are so good, thanks.”
Frances smiled. “You have to take care of yourself. If you want to save your marriage you’re going to have to fight for it. You’ll need your strength.”
“I don’t think Charlie will forgive me.”
“Would you forgive him, if he’d been the one who cheated?”
Anne shrugged, cleaning up the last of her eggs. “I have no idea.” She looked at her neighbor. “Will you help me? Will you help me talk to Charlie?”
Michael walked in, his hair still wet from the shower. He opened his mouth to speak to Frances, but paused when he saw Anne. Two seconds passed, then he glided onward. His unflappability was one of the things Frances enjoyed about him. “Hi, Anne, sorry to hear things are all fucked up right now.” And his honesty, Frances enjoyed that, too.
Anne blushed. “Yeah. I messed up. Sorry.”
Michael grabbed a travel mug from the cupboard and filled it with coffee. “Don’t say sorry to me, dude, no need. We all make mistakes.” He added cream, put on the lid, and said, “Last night, for example, I behaved like a total dick to my lovely wife, who has punished me terribly by simply not smiling at me this morning.” He stood in front of Frances and added, “I am such a phallus, I am so sorry, please smile at me again so I can go on with my life.”
Frances narrowed her eyes at him. So. Fucking. Annoying. He would behave badly but then apologize magnificently, so she would have to forgive him. She smiled a small smile, which broadened once he’d bent down and kissed her. “Go to work, total dick,” she said, and he turned to leave. As the front door closed Frances could smell her shampoo in the air. He bitched about her “fancy” Aveda shampoo that cost too much, but used it himself, the hypocritical swine. She felt a sudden swoon of gratitude that she wasn’t in the same boat as Anne, that she and Michael were making it OK, despite hating each other from time to time, and not having enough sex, and not having much to talk about besides the kids. It wasn’t a sexy marriage, it wasn’t a fun-filled romantic romp, but it was solid. She felt a flicker of concern at the back of her mind that if a few glasses of wine were revealing Michael’s real feelings about her, then maybe they were in more trouble than she realized, but she couldn’t face thinking about that now. She had other people’s lives to think of. And yes, she was aware of the irony of that.
“I’ll help you if I can, Anne,” she said, reaching across the table for her friend’s hand. “But I don’t know what I can do.” She paused, treading carefully. “Were there problems between you two before?”
“Before?”
“Before you started the affair?”
Anne looked out of the window, noticing how untidy Frances’s backyard was, wondering why Frances had no standards at all. “No, things were fine. Just the same as ever. Richard just made me feel young again.” She turned to Frances suddenly, her face flushing. “You know that feeling you had when you were twenty-two and you met someone and fell in lust and spent days and days in bed, fucking and talking and laughing and fucking and it felt like there was only the two of you? It was like nothing I’d experienced for years. It was wonderful.”
Anne laid her head on the table and cried, her fingers curling around Frances’s. OK, thought Frances, well, this I can do. She squeezed Anne’s hand and sat there thinking about what her friend had said and how scared she suddenly was that her husband felt that way about someone else.
The store was called Please Come Again, and it was on Hollywood and Western. Frances had driven past it a thousand times, idly reading the list of offerings: bedroom toys, massage lotions, DVDs, fun bedroom wear. Every single time she read the list she’d gotten an image of her husband on a scooter, naked, rolling gleefully across the bedroom with a jester hat on his head. She’d never seen this in real life, of course, but the combination of the words toys and fun bedroom wear met up in this way in her imagination. Clearly her imagination was nine-tenths of the problem.
The lady inside the store was a middle-aged Latina with a friendly face and a surprisingly vanilla approach to sex. She liked it straight down the middle, missionary, with her husband and no one else, no need for anything more exotic than an extra Dos Equis on Friday nights. However, there was nothing she hadn’t heard or seen in her twelve years in the store, and as she saw Frances walk in she knew she could sell her a vibrator, a self-warming massage oil, and maybe, just maybe, a pair of fur-lined handcuffs. She further knew that Frances would maybe use the vibrator once or twice, the self-warming oil the next time she had a sore neck, and the fur-lined handcuffs never. Then she would ignore them in her bedside table for a year or two until she suddenly realized the kids could find them and would struggle to think of a way to dispose of them without scaring the cleaning lady. She’d put it all in a paper bag and drop it in a trash can on the high street somewhere, thinking as she did so of the surprise of the next homeless person who’d hoped for a half-eaten sandwich but ended up with so much more. But all this was in the future. Araceli was ready to focus on today.
“Good morning, how can I help you have better sex today?”
Frances was unable to stop a nervous giggle. “Does it have to be today?”
Araceli nodded and smiled a smile that suggested they were talking about knitting, rather than sex. “It should be every day.”
“Really?” Frances felt tired suddenly.
Araceli nodded. “It is like any form of exercise: A little each day is better than a lot once a week.” She turned her attention to the cabinet she was resting on. “Can I show you some toys? A vibrator, perhaps? Pleasuring yourself is the first best step to pleasuring someone else.”
Frances nearly bolted right then. The word pleasuring always made her laugh, she wasn’t really sure why. “Uh. I guess so. Nothing too . . .” She stepped forward and looked through the glass lid. “. . . extreme.” There were things in the cabinet she could only hazard a guess at. Basic penis-shaped things she recognized, but there were also things with multiple ends and extra flaps and ribbed surfaces and bobbled surfaces and movable parts that would surely increase the risk of embarrassing hospital visits? (Well, I was walking along and I fell on it . . . Yes, in a seated position, Doctor.)
“How about this one? It’s very popular.” Araceli held up a seven-inch silver bullet–looking vibrator, shiny and smooth.
“It looks a little high tech for me.” She also knew someone small would be using it as a lightsaber within two seconds of finding it, God forbid. Shit, where was she going to keep all this stuff?
Araceli reached for another. “This one is maybe more familiar.” It was basically a realistic looking penis. Araceli turned it on, and it hummed in a friendly way. Frances nodded, feeling she could get her head around that one. So to speak.
She looked over at a rack of lingerie, and Araceli followed her gaze. Without the other woman noticing she quickly scanned her figure, gauging what she had to work with, and stepped out from behind the counter. “Are you interested in something sexy to wear? We have many lovely things.”
Frances could see nothing but string on hangers, but she gamely went with Araceli to take a look. Black and red featured prominently, although animal skin was also a common motif. She thought about the nature documentaries she’d seen, and got sidetracked by images of baby pandas. Maybe she’d forgotten how to be sexy. She had been sexy, as a younger woman, sexy and free and uninhibited. She’d had many lovers before Michael, and felt pretty good and liberated about the whole thing. But she’d also felt anxious and slightly crazy and out of control, and the safety and warmth of her relationship with Michael had felt like a safe harbor, not a dry dock. And then came the kids. Adorable little passion killers, each and every one.
Araceli was holding up a black . . . item . . . that seemed to be constructed of three lacy doilies held together with boot laces. She thought about looking at herself in the mirror, the doilies gamely holding on for dear life, the boot laces disappearing into her little folds and curves, and shook her head. “My husband prefers me naked,” she said, without thinking, and then started giggling uncontrollably. It made her sound like some acolyte, and Michael stood tall in her mind, ordering her washed and brought to his tent. She lost it completely. Araceli waited patiently, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, thinking about what to make for dinner.
Once Frances calmed down she paid for the vibrator, some warm massage lotion, and a pair of fur-lined handcuffs, which she’d thrown in completely on impulse. If Araceli had been surprised by the choice she certainly hadn’t shown it.
That afternoon Frances called her mother, amazed at herself for thinking of it, and further amazed that she thought of it at a time when she had access to a phone and time to place a call. The kitchen was empty, the dogs were outside, the washer and dryer were both humming, there were flowers on the counter, sex toys in the bedside table . . . She was on top of her game and nothing bad was going to happen to her. Her mother answered the phone, thousands of miles away in New York.
Frances said, “Hey, it’s me.” She pulled her cup of tea closer, listening for the children. Normally the best way to get them all to appear was to try and place an important phone call. They would then instantly materialize, often in tears, and always with demands of some sort. It was a kind of magic. Shitbird magic, but effective.
“Hi there, sweetheart. How are you doing? What’s new in your neck of the woods?” Her mother sounded just the same as always, the cadences of her voice familiar on a cellular level. Frances loved her mother dearly and also felt very sorry for her, which hadn’t been that great a combination when she was a teenager, but worked now. More or less.
“Nothing much.”
“I heard your neighbor has been sleeping around. Is that such a normal occurrence it’s not worth mentioning?” Her mother laughed, and Frances heard the click of a kettle being turned on. She could see the kettle in her mind, see the kitchen counters with their countless red jars and mugs, a little color being what her mother loved. Anything red. Made her very easy to shop for.
“How on earth do you know that?” Frances took a sip of tea, debated whether she wanted a cookie enough to get up for it.
“Ava told me.”
Frances was surprised. “When did you speak to Ava?”
Her mother laughed again. Clearly, she was in a good mood. Or maybe she was as high as a kite, who knew? “Yesterday. We talk on Skype, you know. You should look into this Internet thing. I think it’s going to catch on.”
“Funny. That’s nice. I hadn’t realized you two were in touch so much.” Her tea was sweet enough without a cookie.
“It’s not that much, maybe once or twice a week. She likes to talk, I like to listen, it’s good.” Her mom sighed suddenly. “I wish I had listened to you more, when you were her age. I have no memories of that time at all. I’m sorry.”
Frances raised her eyebrows. “That’s OK, Mom. It was a hard time, right? Because of Alex. I don’t know how you kept going, honestly.”
“Is that why you called?”
“What?”
“Tomorrow is the anniversary, you know. I thought maybe that was what you were calling about.”
Frances got up and grabbed the cookie jar, which was shaped like an elephant. “No. Or at least, I don’t think so. Maybe on some level I remembered, but I just wanted to hear your voice.”
“He’d be the same age as Michael, you know.”
She bit into a cookie, which truly was delicious. “Yeah, I know. Their birthdays are even close.”
“Little May babies. Both Taurus, strong and calm. I think about Alex all the time, do you?”
A second cookie. “I do. I think about what a great uncle he would have been. I think about the cousins the kids might have had, the nieces and nephews, the grandkids. Of course, he might have married someone we didn’t like, there’s always that chance. Like that girl across the street.”
“Isabel? She ended up marrying a proctologist from Long Island.”
“Serves her right.”
“Who knows, maybe she and Alex would have been happy together. When you lose a child, you lose the life they would have had, too. Right? Don’t you look at the kids and wonder what kind of adults they’re going to be, who they’re going to marry, that kind of thing?” Her mother’s voice faded in and out as she bustled around her kitchen, all those miles away.
Frances laughed ruefully. “Mostly I just try to make it through the day alive, but sure, sometimes I think about the future. Mostly trying to imagine what life will be like once they’ve moved out and I finally have enough storage space.”
Her mom sighed. “I used to pretend Alex was just away, you know. Sometimes when it got too hard, I would just decide he was at camp and I would write him letters in my head, or imagine him climbing on ropes and riding horses and having a wonderful time. I would tell myself it was good I hadn’t heard from him in so long, it meant he was busy and happy.”
“Wow, that sounds . . . delusional and painful.” Would a third cookie lead directly to diabetes, or was it OK?
“Yeah,” replied her mother, dryly. “I think it’s generally understood that outliving your child is horrible.”
“And now?”
“Still horrible. But bearable, because time really does, as they say, heal all wounds. It’s also easier because none of my friends have kids at home, either. The first few years it hurt so much because of this constantly nagging sense I was forgetting something, then I’d remember he was gone and there was nothing I could do. And the other mothers in his grade knew it, too, and I knew that every time they saw me dropping you off they remembered Alex and felt sorry for me and guilty for being glad it was me and not them. Did you ever have those dreams where you forget you have a child?”
Frances shuddered. “Oh my God, not as much as I used to, but when the kids were babies I’d have them all the time. I’d dream I’d left the car seat on top of the car and driven off, or that I’d forgotten they existed and they’d been at home for days without anyone feeding them, and I’d rush home and they’d be crying and dirty and hungry, or not there at all because someone had taken them away from me. It was horrible. I still get them from time to time, but not so much.”
“Well, it was like that, but I was awake. That pit-of-the-stomach-panic feeling, combined with a terrible physical pain and emptiness. I’d forget for a second or two, then it would come slamming back and knock the wind out of me. Your father and I didn’t talk about him for nearly a decade. I think we each thought it would kill the other, just the act of physically shaping his name with our mouths.”
“How is Dad?”
Her mom laughed. “He’s addicted to meth and having an affair with a forty-year-old.”
“No! You’re joking.”
“Yes, I’m joking. He’s fine, he’s working on a book, he’s teaching, he’s happy. He has a cough that won’t go away, and in the middle of the night I think it’s cancer. But hopefully not.”
“Has he seen a doctor?”
“No. He just tells me not to worry, so I don’t.”
Lally came in, wearing a swimsuit and bunny ears. “Who are you talking to?”
“Grandma.”
Lally took the phone. “Hey, Gramma. Did you watch the show?”
A pause.
“No, just her.”
Another pause.
“Yes, but . . .”
And another.
“I don’t know.” Lally handed the phone back to her mother and rolled her eyes. “Gramma doesn’t get Littlest Pet Shop.” She walked away, then stopped. “Can I have some chocolate milk?” Frances nodded, and pointed to the fridge. Lally wandered over and hung on the big door with all her weight. It suddenly swung open, nearly knocking her over. Never not funny. Frances started to ask about the swimsuit, but remembered in time there was no point. She turned back to the phone.
“What don’t you get about Littlest Pet Shop?”
“So many things,” her mother replied. “Why would someone leave a chameleon at a pet boarding service? Do all those animals belong to people who’ve just abandoned them? Do they have lives outside the pet shop? Is Blythe the only one who can talk to them, and why is her head so big? Who looks after her while her dad is away flying airplanes? Is the old lady who runs the shop on drugs? Why do those rich twins who are so funny go to a public school, and not a fancy private one?”
“Wow, you do have a lot of questions. I had no idea.”
“Don’t you watch it?”
“Not if I can help it. However, I like the idea of you sitting in your nice Riverside Drive apartment, watching Littlest Pet Shop, taking notes.”
Her mother laughed. “I like to talk to Lally about these things, although she was no help just then.”
Frances’s mind jumped back. “So, tomorrow is thirty years? Is that possible?”
“Not only possible, but inevitable.”
“Is it hard every year?”
“Yes.”
“It doesn’t get easier?”
“Yes, it’s easier, but if something starts out as the most difficult thing in the world and then gets progressively easier each year, it’s still pretty hard at the end, right?”
“I guess so. I hope I never find out.”
“Me, too.”
“I’m so sorry, Mom.” Frances drank her tea, and watched Jack the dog rolling in a patch of sunlight in the garden. Hopefully it was just sunlight. “I see him in Milo, you know. Milo has his hair, and his ears.”
“He does? Send me a picture.” There was a murmuring in the background. “Your dad is here, do you want to say hi?” More murmuring. “No, wait, he says we have to go. We have tickets to something.”
“OK, Mom. I love you.”
“I love you, too, Frances. Kiss everyone for me.”
“I will.” She hung up and sat and looked at the phone until Ava came in and asked about dinner. She surprised her daughter by pulling her onto her lap and hugging her, very tightly. After a moment, Ava relaxed, and for a blissful minute they just sat there, together.
Then they parted and Frances stood to get dinner ready.