Thirty-four.
Frances woke up the next day with an emotional hangover. She closed her eyes and lay in bed for a moment, not ready to face the day. Driving Anne home had turned out to be the last straw. She’d lost patience for the other woman, maybe at the worst moment to do so. But hey, Anne’s husband had just told the neighborhood she was fat and had no sex life and that was, you know, awkward.
Anne was temporarily staying at the Palazzo, an apartment building across the street from the park where the kids played soccer on Saturdays. The Palazzo was in many ways the secret long-stay hotel Angelenos never told tourists about. Some people lived there year-round, sure, but a large part of its business was during pilot season, and in general it served the Industry. Studios owned apartments there and would put up actors and directors when they needed to. People would rent furnished apartments for three or four months while shooting a pilot, or some other short-lived project. The building was also across the street from the Grove, a big outdoor mall, and was painted the kind of ochre normally seen in hotel paintings of the Italian Riviera. It was a color not found in nature, yet somehow it worked.
Anne had basically lost her shit all the way from Iris’s party to the Palazzo. The security guard waved them into the parking lot with not even the slightest flicker at the sounds of distress coming from inside the car, having seen it all several times. Anne’s apartment was a two bedroom on the ground floor, dark and cool and decorated in timeless and faceless style. She’d barely made a mark on it.
When Frances had looked in the fridge hoping to make Anne a cup of tea or something, she found literally nothing. The cupboards were also entirely bare.
“What on earth have you been eating, Anne?” she asked.
Anne had reached the staring portion of her distress, and turned her head toward her friend. “I go across the street when I get hungry.” She’d stopped crying, but her eyelids were puffy and for the first time that Frances could remember, she looked like shit. “Farmer’s Market, you know.”
Frances nodded. “Are you hungry now?”
Anne shook her head. “I think I’m going to be sick.” She went into the bathroom and Frances heard the toilet seat hit the tank, but then there was silence. Frances went and stood at the window, looking out through the manicured greenery. It was quiet out there, the occasional and distant ping of the elevator the only sound to be heard over the ever-present hum of pool pumps. A slender girl in sweatpants and furry boots came out through a door, leading the world’s smallest dog on the world’s thinnest leash. It looked like she’d tied a cotton ball to a piece of dental floss. Frances watched the dog poop a lentil, then sit and snooze while the girl conducted a lengthy operation on her cell phone.
“I’ve got nothing to throw up,” Anne said, returning. “I can’t breathe properly. Do you think I should go to the ER?” She sat on the edge of the overstuffed coral sofa.
Frances turned and looked at her. “You’re having a panic attack, and your blood sugar is zero. Go get something to eat and ask for a paper bag to put it in, then you’ll have something to breathe into.” She turned to go.
Anne said, “Please don’t leave me.”
Frances said, with more than a hint of exasperation in her voice, “Look, Anne, I don’t want to kick you when you’re down, but you need to get it together.”
Anne’s eyes filled with tears. “You’re angry with me.”
“I’m angrier with your husband, but seeing as you’re the one that put him into this filthy mood then I guess I’m a little angry with you, too. But now I need to get back to my kids, and I can’t stay and hold your hand. Call your mom. Call your brothers. Pull it together, Anne.”
She’d walked out knowing Anne wasn’t going to pull it together, and comfortable with the fact that she really didn’t give a fuck.
Now, the next morning, Frances felt exhausted. She turned her head to look at Michael and found him already awake and looking at her.
“‘Jesus wept,’” she said. “You scared me.”
“Score,” he replied, smiling.
“Why are you awake? Are you OK?” She pulled her hand out from under the sheets and stroked his head. His face was so dear to her, and so familiar.
“Yeah. Yesterday sucked. I had bad dreams about it.”
She nodded. “Yeah. Let’s not do that to each other. Let’s grow old and be boring together forever.” She paused. “It was a bit embarrassing.”
“The massive revelation that we don’t have a lot of sex?”
She nodded.
He shrugged. “I’m happy, are you happy?” She nodded. “Then fuck the neighbors, who gives a shit what they think?” He looked closely at her. “Do you think Charlie knew there was a problem before?” Frances said nothing, so he continued. “What if you’re really cheating on me this whole time, and just doing a really good job of hiding it?”
She laughed. “The idea of willingly taking my clothes off in front of another person is absurd. If you and I divorced, I would sew my vagina shut, get fifteen cats, and let myself go completely.”
Michael laughed. “That seems extreme. You’re wonderful. I expect you would be a hot commodity on the open market.”
Frances rolled her eyes. “Yeah, because an extra thirty pounds and three kids is what all single men want. I can read the dating profile now: Single man seeks overweight, middle-aged woman to ignore his input while raising her children. Willing to share school run and homework duties in return for annual blow job (not guaranteed).” She sat up and threw back the covers. “And Playboy called me the other day hoping I could make time for a centerfold shoot.” She stood and faced him, naked and smiling. “Because this”—she indicated her gentle rolls—“is incredibly hot.”
“I love looking at you.”
“You’re used to it.”
“That’s true. I’m used to it and I love it.”
Frances sat back down and leaned forward to whisper in his ear. “I went to a sex shop the other day and bought a vibrator and some fur-lined handcuffs.”
Michael burst out laughing. “My penis isn’t good enough for you?”
Frances reached under the covers. “It’s totally fine, but I don’t feel it vibrating.” There was a pause, then she smiled. “That isn’t vibrating.”
“Look, it’s movement. Give me a break.”
“Mommy!!!” Lally’s voice rang down the hall.
“And . . . that’s you,” said Michael, snuggling under the sheets. “Good luck hiding that shit from the kids, by the way.”
Down the street Charlie was horribly hungover and ashamed of himself. It was not a good combination, and he was wondering if he would ever feel like eating again, or be able to face the outside world. Sadly, sheltering in place was not an option in this particular battle.
“Hey, Theo,” he said to his son, gently shaking the sleeping child. “It’s time to get up for school.” Theo grunted and pulled the covers over his head. “Come on, buddy, time to shake a leg. Do you want some OJ?” The lump shook its head.
Charlie wandered down the hall to Kate’s room, and found her already dressed and sitting on her floor, playing with her sizeable collection of little animal figures. There were ponies, weirdly big-headed animals of all varieties, and the obligatory elongated dolls with odd makeup on. He didn’t know what they were called, and thought they looked like extras in a German fetish movie, but who was he to judge?
“You’re already dressed,” he said, surprised. Kate nodded, but didn’t say anything. “Do you want some breakfast?” She shook her head. “Toast?” No. “Eggs?” No. “Cheerios?”
Finally, she turned to look at him, and frowned. “No thanks, Daddy. I’m not hungry. I woke up really early and got myself something already.”
“You did?” She nodded, already back at her game. “OK, well, great. Time for school in twenty minutes or so, OK?”
She looked back at him. “Are you taking us?”
“Do you want me to?”
Back to the dolls. “No. I like when Frances takes us.”
OK. He heard noise from Theo’s room, and went back there. Theo was sitting on the edge of his bed pulling on his socks, more or less dressed. His eyes were swollen, and Charlie stepped over to feel his forehead. Theo ducked his head away, and frowned at his dad. “I’m fine,” he snapped. “How long until school?”
“About twenty minutes.”
Theo went back to his socks, ignoring Charlie for the thirty more seconds he stood there wondering how to reach his kids, and why he was suddenly the bad guy when Anne was the one who cheated. As if reading his mind Theo suddenly looked up and said, “You know, you could just forgive Mom and let her come back and everything would be just like it was before.”
“No, it wouldn’t. It won’t ever be the same.”
For a moment his son looked at him blankly. Then he pulled on his shoes and stood, pushing past his father and closing his bedroom door behind him, leaving Charlie standing there alone.
Lucas wasn’t awake yet when Bill Skyped Julie. He told her about the day before, and she surprised him by laughing out loud. He hadn’t heard it in a while, and it was worth some bruised knuckles.
“You punched him? Really?” She was in bed, of course, the tablet propped up on her arm, and her face was so close it was almost easy to pretend she was in the same bed as Bill. She smiled, her warmth undimmed by weeks of chemotherapy, even as it robbed her of her eyelashes, pubic hair, and immune system. “How very macho and unexpected of you.”
He grinned. “It was unexpected even to me. I didn’t know I was going to do it until I did it, if you know what I mean. I just got pissed off with his fucking whining.”
“Oh, come on. His heart is broken.”
“No,” Bill said firmly. “His ego is broken, and he’s sad as shit that his wife let him down, but he’ll recover.”
“Don’t be a dick, Bill. What about his kids? I’d be fucking devastated if you did that to me. To Lucas.”
“How do you know I’m not doing it right now? I could be sleeping with a wide variety of lovely young women while you’re out of the picture.”
She laughed. “I assume you are, because I know how much free time you have. It’s easy to take care of a small kid and work full time, right?”
“Yeah, it’s a walk in the park.”
She stopped laughing. “See, this is why . . .”
He interrupted her. “Don’t even go there, Jules. I wanted you to stay here for treatment, and I still think you were wrong. I’m your husband. I want to take care of you.”
She was firm. “I need you to take care of Lucas, and I need to take care of myself. This way is easier.”
He sighed. “For you.”
“And for you. And most of all for him.”
Then they just looked at each other until Lucas appeared sleepily behind Bill, his hair sticking up at all angles.
Iris was talking on the phone to her brother Archie.
“Mom said you guys are fighting.” Iris could hear Archie’s kids yelling in the background, thousands of miles away. Her brother lived in Ireland, married to a gorgeous woman somewhat like their father had been, charming and dreamy and unambitious and exhausting. He loved her, loved their four kids, loved the green grass of Ireland, and hated the rain. Of all her brothers he was the one she was closest with.
“Did she?” Iris slowly pulled her coffee cup across the table toward herself. “What did she actually say?”
“She said you want another baby and Sara won’t let you have one.”
Iris made a face. “That’s not true.”
“Which part?”
“The not letting me part. Sara is open to having another baby, she just got offered a movie and we’re trying to work out the details.” Her brother waited, hearing the unspoken in her voice. “And yes, I want one and she wants one less.”
“Didn’t you discuss this years ago, when you had Wyatt? Presumably you did.”
“Sure, but like you do when nothing is real or binding. We said we were going to have a dozen kids. We didn’t mean it.”
“But you’d like another.”
“Yes. But not if it costs me my marriage.”
She waited while he settled a dispute over a ball, sipping her coffee and watching birds peck about on her lawn. She wondered if birds thought anything of the people they saw milling about below them. Probably just wondered what was keeping them on the ground, lazy bastards.
“I’m back. Kieran felt strongly that the one who scored the goal should be the one who got to throw it back into play, but Jenny disagreed.”
“She’s in goal?”
“Exactly. She pointed out she didn’t get to really kick the ball at all . . .”
“She has a sound point.”
“Yeah, but she illustrated it by kicking her brother in the ankle, which undermined her position.”
Iris smiled. “Maybe you could just send me one of yours.”
“I’d be thrilled.” He had a drink, too; she could hear him sipping. “So, what’s going on now?”
“Now we’re stepping around each other carefully, both trying not to be the one who starts it up again.”
Archie made a surprised noise. “That isn’t like you two. Normally you guys can’t stop talking.”
Iris sighed. “I know. It’s weird. I should have just mentioned it like a year ago when I first realized I wanted another kid, but I got nervous for no reason that she was going to flip out, and then I waited a little longer, and a little longer, and then it turned into a Big Thing in my head, even though it wasn’t. And then one of the neighbors had an affair and her marriage blew up and suddenly that seemed like a far worse outcome than just having one kid.”
“You’re losing it. Sara’s always been very laid back, and you pretty much always get your way, right? And she’s not the cheating sort and neither are you, or at least, neither of you used to be.”
“Yeah, but nobody thought this neighbor was, either.” She stood to go empty her cup. “Do you and Carol fight a lot?”
“Of course. Everyone fights. But mostly we talk about the kids, or about moving back to the States, or about what’s for dinner. We’re sort of in a holding pattern right now, I don’t know.”
“Why don’t marriages just wheel along on their own? Once you’ve given them a good push at the beginning they should just keep trundling along.”
She could hear a shrug in her brother’s voice, and got a mental image of his tall frame, his angular face, and missed him. “If the path was always smooth then maybe they would, but, if we can stretch this metaphor too far, it isn’t smooth and all those bumps slow it down and send it off course. I think of it more like one of those old-fashioned hoops you see in Victorian illustrations, you know?”
“The ones with the stick?”
“Yeah. You have to keep it going by poking and prodding, and marriage is like that, maybe. Basically wheeling along, but needing a poke from time to time.”
“You need a poke.”
He laughed. “That’s a true story. OK, I gotta go.” The noise in the background had changed to the dull roar of actual warfare. “Someone’s crying and I’m not sure who.”
“Got it. Talk soon?”
“Yeah. Love to Sara and hug Wyatt, OK? Stop fighting and sort your shit out.”
“You sort your own shit out.”
“OK, babe.”
He hung up. Iris thought about him, about his wedding, about her other brothers, about her father and now her mother, all alone. Then she got up and went to find Sara and sort out her shit.