Finally, she had no recourse but to take their spoons away—which solved one problem but created another when she served their food. How were they to eat mashed potatoes and carrots with no spoons? Reluctantly she went to the sink to retrieve them, but before she’d rinsed them off she felt a warm splat on one of her stockinged feet, heard a delighted giggle, and suddenly was dodging an arsenal of vaguely orange, mushy cannonballs, launched by her fiendish twins.
She stood at the sink, her heart racing, her hands clamped around the sink edge, thinking how she could so easily march over to those bratty little monsters and slap them from here to Sunday.
Instead, like a drill sergeant advising slow-learning privates, she ordered, “You will stop that now!” and the raised decibel level of her voice so startled the twins that they clutched their sticky little hands and began to cry.
Time then took on a slow-motion quality, and after Faith got them bathed and into bed, it seemed she had aged several years.
Sighing with weariness, she poured herself a highball and selected a book from the stack she’d gotten at the library. Settling on the couch, under the cashmere throw Wade had given her the day the temperature had plunged to minus forty-two degrees, she felt the familiar mixture of calm and anticipation.
It didn’t matter that a storm raged outside, that her husband wouldn’t be back until Friday, and that she came awfully close to inflicting bodily harm on her twins at the peak of their vegetable bombardment. What mattered was that for a few hours she could forget her world and enter someone else’s.
Books were Faith’s easiest friends. They demanded nothing from her but her attention.
She opened the cover and ran her hand over the page, enjoying the paper’s smooth, cool texture under her hand.
Chapter One. How many times in her life had those two words invited her to go to a different place, a better place than the one she lived in?
She read the words again before plunging into the first paragraph, and then the lights went out.
Faith’s heart clenched. Was there a prowler in the basement messing with the fuse box? Should she run upstairs and get her babies or call the police?
Oh, Wade, she thought, do I have time to get your pistol?
Her heart beating in triple time, she eased herself off the couch, but if stealth was her objective, the edge of the coffee table foiled her.
“Ouch!” she hissed as pain shot down her shin. She clamped her hand over her mouth, not wanting to give the intruder/murderer/rapist any more clues as to her whereabouts.
She slunk across the living room toward the staircase but stopped at the large picture window, parting the curtain ever so slightly to take note of whatever getaway car might be waiting.
Through the falling snow, she could see that there was no dark sedan occupied by a lookout man, but what thrilled Faith even more was the absence of lights throughout the entire neighborhood. It wasn’t yet eight o’clock, and she knew that everyone couldn’t have mutually agreed to go to bed so early.
“The power’s out!” she whispered, and relief surged through her so strongly that for a moment she thought she had wet her pants. She pulled the drapes open and then sat back primly on the couch, as if she were waiting for instructions to begin a test. The grandfather clock that the previous homeowners had left behind (it kept erratic time at best) ticked its sibilant ticks. Faith wondered if she should run upstairs and check on the babies—but then the power outage wouldn’t have affected them, seeing as they’d been sleeping in the dark anyway.
Faith shut her eyes and dozed for a few minutes—it had been a long day and she was tired—but she was startled awake by questions. What would she do if the power stayed out all night? Would she and the twins freeze? What about all the food in the refrigerator—would it spoil? Would the hot water heater go out? She got up, determined to find a flashlight and investigate whatever there was to investigate.
Through the picture window, she saw movement in the dark snowy night. Pressing her nose to the glass, Faith saw that more than the power was out—so were several neighborhood kids. She could barely see them, let alone identify them, but, squinting into the blurred darkness, she was able to make out three forms the size of teenagers, although the little one was probably the industrious Hammond girl, who had presented Faith with a card that read, Baby-sitter for Hire—Cheap Rates, Good Service. Faith had accepted the card but never took the girl up on her offer—no eleven-year-old, no matter how entrepreneurial, was going to watch her precious babies.
Another, taller one joined them, and the advent of a fourth person seemed to inspire the group to break into teams and begin pitching snowballs at each other. One of these snowballs—hurled by the Hammond girl, Faith was sure—smashed into the very window she was looking out of.
She gasped. Normally she might let a little teenage vandalism slide, but because she was at the end of her rope—trapped without power in the middle of Antarctica with no husband and babies who might be double the pleasure but could also be double the trouble—she decided to give those insolent Yankee teenagers a lecture on manners, or at least proper aim.
Groping her way to the closet, she grabbed her winter coat and rushed out the front door. Pulling on her gloves, she marched down the front sidewalk (which had been shoveled but now sported over three inches of new snow) and to the circular turn-around at the end of the cul-de-sac where the young vandals cavorted. Only they weren’t young vandals. They were her neighbors, the two women she’d watched earlier that day and two others Faith saw at various times leaving or entering their homes.
“Oh, good, you’ve come out to play!” said the statuesque dark-haired woman from the unkempt colonial.
“Not really, I—”
“Sorry about your window,” said the slight woman Faith had mistaken for the eleven-year-old baby-sitter. “I was aiming for Kari, but she ducked.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t break it,” said the older woman, turning to Faith. “She’s got an arm like Sandy Koufax.”
“You probably think we’re a bunch of nuts, having a snowball fight in the dark.” The tall brunette scooped up some snow and began packing it into a ball. “But it sure beats being trapped inside with two boys who wouldn’t know the meaning of brotherly love if you hit them over the head with it.”
“I was vacuuming,” said the fourth woman, whose face was so lovely Faith nearly gasped when she saw it. “I thought I’d blown a fuse or something—but I wasn’t about to go down to the basement myself and check!” She blinked, dislodging a snowflake from her long eyelashes. “It’s not that I’m afraid of the dark,” she said, smiling shyly at Faith. “I’d just rather not be in it alone.” She flashed a shiny white smile. “By the way, I’m Merit. I know you’ve already met Kari and Slip—”
Ah. Slip, thought Faith. Riddle solved.
“And I’m Audrey,” said the tall woman, offering a mittened hand to shake, “as in Meadows.”
“Or Hepburn,” offered Faith.
“If you insist,” said Audrey, batting her eyelashes.
“I’m ashamed we haven’t made more of an effort to get to know you, but it’s been so cold this winter.” Kari nodded at the golden retriever leaping through the snow. “That’s Flicka. She said if I didn’t start walking her again, she was going to report me to the SPCA.”
“People go a little crazy when they’re snowbound,” stage-whispered Slip as she spun a gloved finger near her temple. “Not only do they talk to their animals, they start thinking the animals talk back.”
“At least I don’t threaten poor salesmen who are only trying to make a living,” said Kari.
“I had just put on Joe’s snowsuit when I realized he had a dirty diaper,” Slip explained, laughing. “It was hardly the time to be called on by the Fuller Brush man.” She looped her arm through Faith’s. “So, what do you say? Join us in a little winter warfare?”
“Well,” said Faith, not exactly sure what winter warfare was, “I left my bab
ies sleeping. . . .”
“Then they’re fine!” said Audrey, taking her other arm, and for the first time in her life, Faith joined in a snowball fight.
LAUGHING AND SHRIEKING, they half slid, half tumbled down the moonlit hill to the creek basin to continue their battle, Flicka looking more like a big rabbit than a dog as she bounded after them. Surrounded by a white swirl, Faith was exhilarated. The snow, whose appearance had earlier depressed her so, now looked enchanted, filling the night sky with movement, frosting the tree branches that stretched over the creek, settling on pine boughs and whitewashing the layer of old snow that covered the ground.
It didn’t take her long to learn the maneuvers—scoop, pack, and throw—and she laughed maniacally when her snowball hit someone or a snowball hit her.
“Faith!” shouted Audrey, who’d paired off as her partner. “Incoming! Incoming!”
Faith ducked behind a giant oak tree, but not before a snowball exploded on her shoulder.
As she bent to mold her own munitions, another snowball hit her on the back. She packed a handful of snow and threw blindly, repeated the process, then repeated it again. It was the first time Faith had ever played in the snow (once in Oklahoma Faith had been in an ice storm, but what little snow she had seen never amounted to anything), and to do so at night was an experience that delighted her senses, that made her feel like a kid because she was doing something so strange and new. Snow clotted under her collar and the cuffs of her sleeves, and each breath she took seared her lungs with cold, but when a torrent of snowballs pummeled her, she laughed as if she were being mercilessly tickled.
She wiped her dripping nose with the side of her mittened hand and threw a snowball at the older woman.
“Uncle!” said Kari, holding up her arms. “I surrender!”
“Good,” said Audrey. “I’m freezing my patootie off.”
“Oh, please,” gasped Faith, “let’s stay out a little longer.”
Slip laughed. “We might have a convert here, ladies.”
When no one else expressed a desire to remain outside, Faith said, “Can we at least move the party inside? I’ll volunteer my house,” and before she had a chance to rethink her invitation, everyone had agreed that it sounded like a great idea.
As the women made their way up the hill and to the sidewalk, patting the snow off one another’s backs, they were as enthusiastic as Shriners assembled for a national convention.
“I’ll just bring Flicka home,” said Kari as the others turned up Faith’s sidewalk.
“Oh, bring her in,” said Faith, who was in a more-the-merrier mood.
“Hey, are you all right?” asked Slip. “You’re limping.”
Faith was glad the dark hid her blush. “Old cheerleading injury. It flares up sometimes.”
“You sure you don’t mind Flicka?” asked Kari. “She’s all wet.”
“She’ll dry,” said Faith, opening the door.
In the entryway, they stomped snow off their boots, unwound mufflers from their necks, and crammed snow-caked gloves and mittens into their coat pockets. Faith held her forefinger to her lips and cocked her head to the staircase. Hearing no sounds of distress from her babies, whispered, “This way.”
Holding the flashlight she got off the closet shelf, Faith led the group into the living room. When Merit tripped and bumped into Slip, who grabbed Audrey, a spontaneous conga line formed, each woman giggling as she held the hips of the one in front of her. Someone started up a chant, and they all joined in, the volume of their voices low in deference to the sleeping babies.
“Dada-dada-da-dah!”
“If I knew someone was going to be fondling my behind, I would have put on my girdle,” said Audrey.
“I’m not fondling your behind,” said Slip. “I’m just trying to hold on.”
Faith got matches out of the cigarette box on the mantle and lit the many candles that were placed around the living room.
“I haven’t seen this many candles since my last birthday cake,” said Kari.
“Did you know the power was going to go out?” asked Audrey as a soft, shadowy light dappled the room.
“No, I just like candles,” said Faith. “Only with kids I hardly ever think to light them.”
“I love your accent,” said Merit shyly.
“She told me the same thing,” said Slip. “And I told her people spend years trying to get Joisey out of their speech.”
“It doesn’t matter what kind of accent it is,” said Merit. “I like them all. I like thinking about how big the world is.” She smiled at Faith. “But yours isn’t really a southern drawl, it’s more like a southern twang.”
“Whatever the difference between a drawl and a twang is,” said Audrey. “So where are you from?”
“Texas,” said Faith, who didn’t add by way of Arkansas, Oklahoma, and mostly Mississippi. “Now, what would everyone like to drink? Is hot chocolate the preferred drink after a snowball fight, or should I plug in the coffeepot?”
Four faces looked at her expectantly, and then Audrey asked, “You wouldn’t happen to have anything stronger, would you?”
Faith laughed. “ ‘Course we do. I just wanted to be proper. I didn’t know if y’all liked a little pizzazz in your drinks.”
Martinis were the unanimous choice, except for Kari, who asked for a highball—a whiskey Seven, maybe?
“That’s my drink,” said Faith.
In her haste, or excitement, Faith dropped the first glass she took out of the portable bar parked near the staircase. Fortunately, the carpeting was thick and it landed softly.
“Thank the Lord,” whispered Faith. Now that she had such good fortune, she tried to protect it with superstitions, and she was superstitious about her wedding presents. Her sister-in-law Carleen had broken the creamer from her china set the day she got back from her honeymoon, and sure enough, a year later she and her husband were divorced.
“Hey, mind if we build a fire?” Slip asked.
“Be my guest,” said Faith. She poured vermouth and gin into the metal shaker and gave it a good shimmy. “So, how long do you think the power’ll be out?”
“It could stay out all night as far as I’m concerned,” said Audrey, who watched Slip stacking a little triangle of logs. “My boys had this little wrestling match going—it started at seven o’clock this morning—so I told Paul that if I didn’t get out of the house, they’d all be sorry.”
“Eric won’t be home till after midnight,” said Merit softly. “He has to work such crazy hours.”
“What’s he do?” asked Faith, serving the drinks.
Merit flushed as she patted her ash-blond hair, tucked into a French roll. “He’s a doctor. He’s almost finished with his residency—he’s going to be a surgeon.”
Thinking how she still sounded like a newlywed, Faith smiled at the pride in Merit’s voice. At the same time she felt a zip of envy—was Merit more in love with her husband than Faith was with hers?
“Here you go,” she said, handing Kari her drink and joining the others seated on the couch and overstuffed chairs that made up the living room’s conversation pit (although truth be told, this was the first conversation that had taken place in it, excluding those Faith had with Wade or tried to have with the twins).
Wade had encouraged Faith to join the Pilots’ Wives Association (“You need to make some friends, hon”), but between unpacking and decorating, between the twins’ chicken pox and their trip back home and a fear of driving in the winter weather, Faith had had no time for socializing. Other than the paper boy or the diaper service man, these were the first people who’d been in Faith’s house, and she was buzzing with the pleasure of hosting actual company. There was a high color to her face, and the happy, expectant expression she wore made her look like the college coed she had been not so long ago. Her glossy black hair (it was dark to begin with, but Lady Clairol gave it a dramatic boost) was teased and worn in a flip (after the snowball fight, a limp flip). She had just d
one her nails last night, and the house was clean (the twins threw everything—toys, blankies, and bottles, as well as the occasional supper—but Faith had learned to pick up throughout the day rather than wait until the mess had accumulated into a pile too daunting to deal with), so there were no worries about how she or her housekeeping was being judged by these women. She could relax (as much as Faith could relax) and enjoy herself.
Audrey, satisfied that the fire was going, got up and draped herself over the chair like an afghan, crossing her long legs, which were encased in black stirrup stretch pants. “So, when are you due, Merit?”
Faith turned to the woman who could have stripped her old college roommate of her dozens of beauty pageant titles, including Miss Yellow Rose, Miss Star of Texas, and Miss Conventional Drill Bit.
“July,” was Merit’s answer. “July fourth.”
Faith was surprised; at over five months, the woman barely showed.
“Oh,” said Kari, “a Fourth of July baby.”
Merit shivered. “I hope not. If there’s one thing I’m more afraid of than labor, it’s fireworks.”
“Is this your first?” asked Faith, and because she couldn’t help herself, she added, “You are so pretty—has anyone ever told you you look like a doll?”
Merit did have the curvy rounded forehead and cheeks of a doll, the poreless skin, heavily lashed eyes (a deep brown, which made a startling contrast to her blond hair), and rosebud mouth, and Merit had in fact been told that more times than she could remember, but she smiled anyway, as if pleased to be compared to something inert.
“Yes,” she said, answering Faith’s first question. “We’ve been trying for over two years—ever since we got married.”
“That’s the fun of trying to get pregnant,” said Audrey as she fumbled in her sweater pocket. “You don’t have to make excuses for your raging libido—you can just say, ‘But honey, we’re trying to have a baby, aren’t we? Come on now, unzip your pants.’ ”
Taking a cigarette out of its pack, Audrey looked at the women who had suddenly grown quiet. “You mind if I smoke?”
Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons Page 4
