by Sutton, Jacy
“The neighbors have a party. We go to that every year.”
“What will you dress as?”
“Mike suggested outdoorsmen.” She tried to remember if she’d named her husband before in their talks. “He has lots of camouflage clothing and I’ll wear some of Daniel’s old hunting boots. I hope they’re not too ridiculously big on me.”
“You don’t seem like the lumberjack type.”
“No?” she asked. “What would you suggest?”
“I was thinking mermaid.”
“That would make walking across the lawn a challenge.”
“You’ll never reach the top of the mountain…” he began.
“I’ll never reach the top of a hill if I’m walking on a fish tail,” Olivia answered, but she did picture herself in a scallop seashell bra.
Now, with the dry cleaning pick-up crossed off her to-do list, she reached the turn to the frontage road leading back to work. Spying the Halloween Superstore that had popped up back in August without much fanfare, she took a sudden, hard right into the parking lot.
Having nearly surpassed her allotted thirty-minute lunch, Olivia thought she’d look quickly around the store, but the multitude of choices overwhelmed her. Upon closer inspection, it was mostly the colors and patterns that changed. From Catholic schoolgirl to lady cop to German beer fräulein, they all featured low-cut tops, high-cut bottoms, and not much of either. She was about to leave when she spotted a bargain bin with a nurse costume, size small, poking out from the top. Without bothering to try it on, she brought it to the checkout.
***
On Saturday night, as Mike showered, Olivia pulled the costume out of the thick plastic package. She rubbed the cheap polyester, thin as a moth’s wings, between her fingers. There was red trim at the neck and a Red Cross logo tucked into the small patch of material between the plunging V-neck and what would cover—barely—her breasts. She pulled off her yoga pants and turtleneck, but before putting the costume on, she traced her finger along the low back of the dress, then slipped off her bra, as well.
The dress clung to her. It hugged her breasts and bonded to her torso. She studied her reflection, trying not to focus on the slightly rounded swell of her belly, a condition she attributed to the combination of having given birth and being in her forties, as no amount of crunches, power-walks, and chocolate deprivation alleviated it. Aside from the bump, she was pleased. She turned right and left, then slid her hand down the smooth white front of the uniform over her breasts, a cold nipple protruding. Olivia wondered if she dared wear this tonight. She reached into the costume bag for the plastic headband with the Red Cross insignia. She imagined the looks from the other guests. Some appreciative, she imagined, and some…surprised? Riled? Jealous?
Olivia heard the shower shut off and took a last glance in the mirror. She unzipped the front zipper half an inch lower, then moved catlike to the door, simultaneously knocking and walking into the steamy bathroom. Mike stood, wiping his fist along the mirror to remove the condensation. Daniel’s Minnesota Vikings beach towel dangled loosely around his hips. When he saw Olivia reflected in the mirror, his mouth opened wide and he swiveled to face her.
“Holy shit,” he whispered. At that exact moment his towel dropped unceremoniously to the floor.
Olivia laughed and walked toward him. She picked the towel up and wrapped it back around his waist.
“Dare I wear this?” she asked.
“Um, wow. Wow,” he said. “Won’t you be cold?”
“That’s what you’re worried about?” She tucked the corner of his towel in for him, letting her hand linger at his waist. “Yes. I’ll probably freeze and end up wearing my coat all night.”
“Then why bother?”
The corners of her lips pursed, and she sighed loudly. “You’re right, Mike. Why bother?” She turned back to the bedroom, lumbering now, the earlier feline strut forgotten.
“Olivia, please,” Mike called after her as she walked away. “Please don’t wear that.” He followed her to the door. “I don’t want every man at the party thinking about taking you home.”
“That’s better,” she said, watching him step back into the bathroom. When he’d shut the door again, she allowed herself one more appraising glance in the mirror, arching her eyebrow and giving a “what if” smile. Then, reluctantly, she slipped the dress off and stuffed it back inside the sad little plastic bag.
***
Olivia and Mike settled instead on matching costumes, a hillbilly-meets-woodsman kind of thing. Each wore plaid shirts with suspenders and tall, rubber, waterproof boots.
The night was unseasonably warm. Guests overflowed the hosts’ home, dribbling out in small groups down the wide patio steps and onto the front lawn. The party was an annual neighborhood event, so Olivia and Mike knew nearly everyone.
Olivia got as far as the front hallway, where she found Marti and her neighbor, Beth, looking like a mismatched salt-and-pepper shaker set. Marti, dressed as a flapper, wore an extravagant, beaded dress and sky-high heels, and kept fussing with her cherry-red feather boa. Beth had done a lot less work. She wore a daffodil-yellow checkerboard shirt, cowboy hat and pigtails. Like Olivia and Mike, these items were probably things Beth had found in her closet a few minutes before the party.
The three discussed possible book choices for the next book club meeting. Beth, the most dedicated reader of the group, suggested a classic, something by Edith Wharton or Virginia Woolf. Marti disagreed. Her reading style was casual at best, and Beth had been unimpressed when Marti nudged her way into the club, claiming her friendship with Olivia as an invitation.
In a pique last spring, Beth suggested any month someone didn’t read, they should contribute five dollars to a kitty. At the end of the year, they could give the collected money to a charity or throw a party.
“That’s $60 dollars a year,” Marti had protested.
“Or you could read the books now and then,” Beth had suggested.
Tonight, Marti advocated for A Holiday Stroll, a melodramatic novella typically found in the bargain bin at the local Walmart.
“You don’t think it’s too much for us to take in, do you? A boy and his dog?” Beth asked, the corners of her mouth turned down, her eyes lit up.
Olivia asked, “Have either of you read Truman Capote’s A Thanksgiving Memory?” She described the story, glancing over at Mike, who stood off to one side of the circle, sipping from a bottle of beer adorned with a flamenco dancer. “Mike, you’ve read it. Isn’t it great?” She reached for his hand.
“Yeah.” He nodded pleasantly. “It is.”
They all paused a moment to see if Mike would continue. Beth seemed to realize first he’d said everything he planned to on the subject, and she turned back to the women. “Why don’t you email the title to everyone?” she suggested to Olivia.
From there, the discussion moved like a pinball game, ricocheting off topics and bumping up against partygoers who deftly moved in and out of the conversation. Mike stood as though afraid he’d be hit by something fast and hard. Olivia was pulled back into their discussion, and by the time Beth left to make carpool plans with another neighbor and Marti went to find a cocktail, Olivia realized Mike was nowhere in sight.
Olivia clomped around the perimeter of the party, the stiff rubber of her boots scuffing her bare skin. She spotted Beth’s husband, Max, telling a story to an attentive group. On lazy summer evenings, Beth and Max’s house typically served as the neighborhood gathering spot. Someone would bring a twelve-pack of beer, someone a box of fruity popsicles, and everyone brought lawn chairs.
Tonight, Olivia slipped into a sweet spot close to the veggie tray and at the edge of Max’s crowd. She overheard the ending of a tale that involved a passel of prepubescent neighbor kids and copious amounts of mud.
Beth tapped Olivia on the shoulder. “Which story is he telling? The BB gun or the time they went fishing and got covered in leeches?” She shook her head dismissively as she spoke, but h
er half smile betrayed her.
“He’s like a flashlight and we’re all moths,” Olivia said.
“He loves an audience,” Beth agreed, but she had to purse her lips to contain her pride. They watched Max for a moment longer, and then Beth asked, “Where did Mike go?”
“I lost him when we were talking.” Olivia looked again around the large living room, which held at least twenty people. More were in the kitchen, which darted off at an odd angle to the left. She finally spotted Mike by the kitchen entrance nearly flush against the back wall, deep in conversation with a young woman, who, unlike Olivia, had not worried if she would be too cold in her costume. “Who is that?”
“She’s not one of the neighbors,” Beth said.
Olivia watched Mike. There was something different about his stance. Her brain fumbled for the word. Not serious. Not attuned. Riveted, maybe? He wasn’t simply listening to the slim young woman outfitted from head to toe in shiny black Lycra—with a headband and two pointed cat ears as her only adornment—he was totally engaged in the conversation.
“He looks enthralled,” Marti said, stealing in behind them, her feathery boa tickling Olivia’s ear. “Who’s she?”
“We were just trying to figure that out,” Beth said.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Mike so.…” Marti’s words trailed off.
“Captivated?” Beth said thoughtfully.
“I am right here,” Olivia reminded them.
“I just meant…” Beth stuttered.
“It’s fine,” Olivia said.
“Geez, I wish I had a body like that.” Marti unconsciously slid her hand down her waist to her thigh.
“Yes.” Olivia agreed to the principle in general.
“Olivia, you do.” Marti turned to her abruptly. “And someone might actually notice you if you didn’t always dress like…that.” She gestured vaguely at Olivia’s outfit.
“Mike wanted me to wear this.” She glanced down, taking in her costume that featured oversized everything.
Beth gave Olivia a sympathetic glance, but before she could offer an opinion, Max called, “Beth, remember that time?” and all three women turned in his direction.
“You’re not going to tell the story about the Dairy Queen and the police again, are you?” Beth teased her husband.
Olivia watched her walk to Max’s side and perch on the arm of his chair. Max casually threw his arm around her waist as he launched into another tale. Olivia studied them while she listened. Beth’s hand rested casually at Max’s hip, her eyes drawn to his smile, their touch a tactile display of devotion.
This story Max told was of a high school car chase that never went above twenty miles an hour. The adventure ended in the parking lot of one of those old-fashioned Dairy Queens only open in summer, where people stood outside and ordered through a small window. Max and his friends had finished the evening eating Dilly Bars, bought for them by the police officer who’d initially pulled them over.
When Olivia thought to look for Mike again, he was no longer talking with the lovely young woman. Now, she was surrounded by a group of similarly dressed, or not-so-dressed, twentysomethings. Olivia didn’t see Mike anywhere. She was just about to clomp downstairs when Max called her and said, “Olivia, remember that time at the lake when Daniel and Mike and I were going to catch fish for dinner?”
She paused to listen. This story was one she knew word for word. She smiled at Max when he’d finished, then left to look for Mike, who she found somewhat coincidentally in a small downstairs office, watching a fishing show. Beside him on the tray table next to the upholstered coach sat a serving bowl of pretzels he must have filched from the upstairs buffet. He held a fresh bottle of beer, this one with a more manly label, a picture of a mountain stream and an elk.
“You look content,” she said.
“I am.” He patted the empty space on the couch next to him, welcoming her. “Look, they’re at that resort in Ely, the one Dale went to last summer.”
“Dale?” she asked. She took another step into the room, but didn’t go so far as to sit beside him.
“The president of my fishing conservation group.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, not remembering in the slightest.
“We should go there this summer. Daniel and I can fish, and you can bring some books.”
Olivia nodded noncommittally. “Come back to the party. Max was just telling about when you caught that massive pike. You had Daniel hold the net while you went for the, what was it? Pliers? And Max got the camera. Remember?”
“Of course. From the other side of the boat, I heard Daniel say in that four-year-old singsong voice, ‘Bye-bye Mr. Pike.’ Mr. award-winning pike is what he should have said.”
“The ones that get away always are,” Olivia said, without malice. “Well, Daniel was certainly as happy eating frozen pizza from the gas and bait store.”
Olivia and Mike smiled at each other fondly. “Come back, Mike.”
“I just need a little more break from all the chatter. You know parties aren’t my thing.”
“You seem to have found someone you liked talking to earlier.”
His eyes were back on the TV, where two bearded men in baseball caps leaned over the front of a colossal fishing boat.
“Hmmm,” Mike said, without meaning much of anything.
“Who was the young woman you were talking to before?” Olivia touched his elbow to pull his attention away from the screen. “In the cat suit. Who was that?”
“Oh,” Mike answered, finally coming back to the thread of the conversation. “She’s a hunter. She grew up in South Dakota and heard that I knew of some good pheasant spots near the Twin Cities.”
An image instantly formed in Olivia’s brain of the young woman in Lycra camouflage. She imagined Mike in the field alongside her and sniffed aloud at the thought.
“Come back to the party, Mike,” she said.
“In a minute,” he mumbled, but his eyes were focused on the men on the TV, who now triumphantly held a large, brown flopping fish in their nets and were high-fiving all around.
CHAPTER TEN
NANCY WAS ALREADY AT THE PARK when Olivia drove up. Using the slide’s ladder as a ballet barre, she stretched her long, toned leg. Olivia was struck by how fashionable Nancy looked today in matching cappuccino yoga pants and a fitted sweatshirt.
“You look good,” Olivia called.
Nancy stared up at the sky. Billowy white clouds floated across the periwinkle canvas. “I feel good today. I barely remember being outside at the beginning of last fall, although I know I was. I used to walk with Dave every afternoon that he felt up to it.”
“I remember. He hated being pushed in that damn wheelchair.”
“He did.” Nancy switched legs and stretched the other hamstring. “But he loved those walks. He loved being outside.”
“With you,” Olivia added.
“Whenever I think about that wheelchair, though, I always remember our trip to Madison.” Nancy grabbed the hand weights she’d set below the water fountain and started toward the lake path.
Olivia followed. “Which trip?”
“At the end of last summer. The month before he….” Nancy didn’t finish.
“Oh. Yes.” Olivia touched her friend’s hand lightly as they hiked. She remembered how agonizingly close Nancy and Dave had come to their twentieth wedding anniversary.
“The trip itself was excruciating. Six hours in the car. And sometimes, being back in all those places where we’d first met and fell in love…well, some of it was unbearable. And some, amazingly beautiful. Often at the exact same moment.”
And even though Nancy had told Olivia about the trip several times before, Olivia said, “Tell me again.”
Nancy turned to look directly at Olivia. Her eyes crinkled and she whispered, “Thank you.” And then she began. “When we got to Madison, we stopped and parked the car at the health clinic, right across from the football stadium.”
“Romantic spot,” Olivia teased. “Remind me why you needed stitches back then.”
“It was a Sunday morning during my sophomore year. I had this big picture frame in my dorm room with lots of openings for smaller snapshots. I thought I’d want to change the pictures a lot, so I hung it without the glass, then I hid the glass behind my dresser.”
“Where, besides a sitcom, would that plan not work?”
“Who would have guessed I’d bend over one day and have that small protruding corner stab into my rear end like a plate glass shish kebab spearing a cherry tomato?”
Olivia laughed and stepped nimbly over a large tree branch. The entire path looked disheveled, covered by small twigs and branches, the refuse of a recent rainstorm.
“Tonia and another friend walked over to the clinic with me,” Nancy continued. “We stuffed a bunch of wadded-up Kleenex into my jeans to soak up some of the blood. I looked like I had Kim Kardashian’s rear end. Well, half of it anyway.”
Olivia nodded, kicking at a smaller branch to clear it away.
Nancy forged on with the story and the trek. “While the three of us waited in the exam room, Tonia taught us a drinking game to pass the time. Just as Dave walked in I shouted, ‘Tequila,’ and he said, ‘So no need to ask how this happened.’ But he said it so straight-faced, I didn’t know if he was joking. I think he started out trying to be funny and then decided halfway through the comment he should act more professional.”
“That was Dave, wasn’t it?” Olivia said. “Always a bit cautious.”
“Yes, he was. By this time, my friends and I were giggling hysterically. It was the most ridiculous situation, and he hadn’t even started to stitch my butt up.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t send your friends out of the room.”
“I know. When I’d ask him about it later, he’d say it hadn’t even occurred to him to tell them to go. He was so young,” Nancy said. “And my friends were cute.”
“Like you,” Olivia said.
“Except he couldn’t see much of me. Just my derrière.”
“Guess that’s all he needed.”
