by Sarah S.
It was ten in the morning on Wednesday, two days after Joanna and Charles went to Sylvie’s for dessert. There had been no more talk about Scott since then, and although Joanna wanted to bring up what she’d heard Charles and his mother talking about in the kitchen, she didn’t know how. What was this fight Charles had referred to at his high-school graduation? Why hadn’t he ever told her about it, and what did Bronwyn have to do with it? How much did he think about Bronwyn, anyway? Charles had said he hadn’t spoken to Bronwyn in twelve years, but he’d never explained why they’d broken up. Joanna suspected that Charles had not been the one who had cut it off. She couldn’t exactly say why she felt this way—perhaps because the faraway look Charles got on his face when he spoke of her. Or how, when Joanna had made a snippy, jealous comment about Bronwyn one of the first times Charles had mentioned her name, Charles had immediately become defensive, as though Bronwyn were someone to protect, as though he felt unresolved about how they’d left things. Perhaps the strongest case was that Charles hadn’t dated seriously after Bronwyn until Joanna had come along. But she tried not to think about that.
She lay in bed now, staring up at the clean, smoothly plastered ceiling, willing herself to get up. Out the window, she saw the rest of the houses lined up along the streets. Their development was called Centennial. There was a stone sign at its entrance, crowing the name in curly “We the People” font. The streets’ names had something to do with American ideals. There was the cluster named after great American leaders: Washington, Franklin, Hancock; there was Valor Drive, Integrity Circle, and Freedom Court. Joanna and Charles lived on Democracy, just past the dog park and the jogging path and the playground.
It was nothing like Joanna’s old neighborhood in Lionville, with its hodgepodge of houses linked together by a gate at either end; her own house slightly on the bedraggled, lower-class side. Each house in Centennial was big, beautiful, and perfectly maintained in exactly the same way. The only flaw was the line of houses on Spirit, two streets down. They were originally models, but the developers had decided to try to sell them off. Charles had put a down payment on this plot before he and Joanna had seriously begun dating—a fact that he’d announced only after they’d gotten engaged and a fact that had disappointed Joanna a little, knowing that they wouldn’t be choosing a house together. But no matter. By the time the construction on their house had been completed, the market had taken a steep downturn, and the developer hadn’t started any new projects since. All the houses on Spirit were still empty. Quite a few of the “for sale” signs in the yards—low financing! upgrades! reduction!—had fallen over. One was missing entirely. A tree in front of one of the houses had become so overgrown it looked like it was doing damage to the siding. There was a rumor teenagers had broken into one of the homes and were using the closets to grow pot. Maybe it was naive, but Joanna had thought life in the suburbs—suburbs like this—would be untouched by the recession. More than that, Spirit houses seemed so expendable. Without people inside them, they were without identity, mere structures of concrete and siding and faux stone.
She sighed, rolled out of bed, and stumbled for the bathroom, forgetting for the millionth time that it wasn’t in the hall but to the left, part of the master suite. Though they’d lived in this house for two weeks, she still felt lost. She felt a little aimless, too. She’d quit her job in the city two weeks ago, her position at a nonprofit not lucrative enough to justify the commute into the city, and it was the first time in years she’d woken up without somewhere to go, without something concrete to do. There were rooms to paint, she supposed. There were new fixtures to buy for the kitchen, patio furniture to scope out. And there were all the unpacked boxes to attend to, including the ones stacked in the living room containing items from Joanna’s old apartment in Philly.
She walked downstairs and looked warily in the boxes. She hadn’t seen any of the contents in almost a year, since she’d put the stuff into storage when she first moved in with Charles. Only one box had been opened, its flaps gaping free. All of its contents were still packed inside: a stack of old foreign films on VHS, a pair of seventies-style sunglasses she had bought at a thrift shop and worn incessantly one summer, an industrial-size backpack she’d used on a trip to Europe, all funded on a ridiculously tiny amount of money. These items from the past smelled a bit moldy and unclean, instantly conjuring up a long-suppressed memory of a house party she and her roommate had about five years ago that had culminated in a bunch of strangers kissing. The time when she’d used any of it felt like three Joannas ago, and she couldn’t quite remember who that Joanna had been. She also wondered what the Joanna who’d used those items, who’d kissed strangers at a party, would think of the Joanna now in her bright, clean house.
She turned away from the box toward the kitchen, focusing her gaze on a Crate & Barrel box by the fridge. Inside was the Cuisinart mixer she and Charles had been given as a wedding gift. She lifted it out of the Styrofoam packing material and put it on the counter. Maybe she’d make cookies to lighten her mood.
A sound in the backyard made her turn. The women from the neighboring houses were standing outside in their yards. Two little kids sat in an enormous sandbox that straddled the neighboring lawns, feeding sand into a wheeled and levered contraption and sifting it out in a neat, pyramid-shaped pile.
Joanna sprang into action, running her hands through her hair and racing upstairs to put on a bra, a clean T-shirt, and a pair of jeans. She walked down the stairs, turned right instead of left for the kitchen, stopped, reversed directions, and padded around the island and the table and the pile of broken-down boxes near the laundry room. Sun dappled across the back deck, and the one birdhouse they’d installed twisted on its chain. When the women heard Joanna’s sliding glass door open, they turned their heads for just a moment and gazed at her disinterestedly, as though she was just another Canada goose slowly meandering across their lawn. Undeterred, Joanna walked over.
“Hi,” she said. Her heart beat quickly, although she wasn’t quite sure why. She was usually good at making plenty of new friends. “I’m Joanna Bates-McAllister. My husband and I just moved in. I’ve been meaning to say hello for a few days, but I’ve been so busy.”
The brunette woman nodded. “I thought I saw a van.” She was the type of woman who wore matching velour sweat suits and shimmering athletic sneakers, ready to exercise at a moment’s notice. She lived on the left side of Joanna, and Joanna had watched yesterday as she’d hung a silk flag decorated with an Easter basket outside her front door in honor of the upcoming holiday.
“I’m Teresa Cox,” the woman added as an afterthought. “And this is Mariel Batten.”
Joanna turned to Mariel, who had blunt-cut blonde hair, a slender, down-sloped nose, and very white teeth. There was a lipstick imprint on her white coffee cup. She appraised Joanna without much enthusiasm. “Is your husband related to Timothy McAllister?” she asked blandly. “From Chadds Ford?”
“Oh.” Joanna tugged self-consciously on her earlobe. “No, my husband’s last name is Bates-McAllister. His father was from Boston. He didn’t have family from around here. His mother did, though. Sylvie Bates?”
Mariel shrugged noncommittally. There was no recognition of Sylvie’s name. No swift change of expression, no grabbing Joanna’s arms and saying it was so nice to meet her. No begging that she and her husband had to come over for dinner some time. No huge grin and confession that when they’d heard Joanna and Charles were coming to this neighborhood they’d gotten so excited, for it’s truly an honor to have them.
Joanna rubbed her hands up her bare arms, struck dumb. “Anyway,” she fumbled. “Cute kids.”
Teresa Cox smiled. “The girl is Forrest. She’s mine. Hollis is Mariel’s. Do you have any children?”
Joanna shook her head. And then there was that dead air again. But my mother-in-law is on the board of directors at the Swithin School, Joanna wanted to say. The best school in the county. Didn’t that matter?
> “Anyway,” Joanna said, not able to stand the pointed, exclusionary silence any longer. “It was nice to meet both of you. I have things to do inside. So …”
“Nice to meet you, too,” the women said in unison, as they tilted their bodies away. Joanna took faster steps than normal back to her house, suddenly painfully aware of how cold it was outside. Goose bumps rose on her arms and her whole body shook with shivers. There was a peal of laughter behind her, followed by a gasp. She whipped around to see one of the children turning a crank of a sandbox toy.
She shut the screen door quietly and placed her palms flat on the cluttered kitchen table. The house was judgmentally quiet. She longed for the noise of the city—traffic screeches and subway rumblings and buzzing chaos to drown out what had just happened. She snatched her cell phone from the island and pressed the speed dial for Charles’s office. When he answered, she let out a whimper.
“What is it?” he gasped.
“I just tried to meet the neighbors,” she blurted out in a scratchy whisper. “The ones I told you about? With the shared sandbox? The ones that just stand there and talk all day?”
There was a three or four second pause. “Okay …”
“They were so … cold. I felt like I was the new girl at school not wearing the right clothes.”
There were voices in the background, someone else’s phone extension ringing. “I’m sure they’re very nice, Joanna.”
“Oh.” She sat down on the couch, not anticipating this answer.
“I don’t remember you being this way about people in the city.”
“I wasn’t. It didn’t matter.”
“Why does it matter now?”
She stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t know,” she whispered. There was something about these people peering out from their identical houses that made her want to conform and belong. Sadly, it reminded her of her mother sitting on that Adirondack chair at the country club, in the right place but so, so wrong. Joanna had always assumed it would be so much easier for her.
“Is that all?” Charles asked.
She swallowed, now almost in tears. “Are you okay?” she blurted out.
“Me? Yeah. Why?”
“You’ve been … quiet.”
“No I haven’t.”
She squeezed the red throw pillow on the couch. Give me something, she thought. Anything. “Are you and your mother worried about Scott? Is there anything I can do?”
He paused for a long time. Let me in, she willed, staring at her reflection in the blank television screen. You have to know I heard you two talking.
Charles sighed. “Joanna, I’m actually in the middle of something. Can I call you later?”
The receiver was limp in her hands. She tugged on her sweater sleeve so suddenly and with such force that she heard a seam rip. “Don’t bother,” she snapped.
And then he hung up. Joanna sat upright on the couch, her back pressed into the cushions, her calves at right angles to her thighs, waiting for him to call back, but he didn’t. She felt silly for wasting his time. To Charles, she was the one at fault, she was the one who’d broken some kind of social contract and was now being whiny and impatient. Where was the sympathy for her? Again she thought of Bronwyn and tried to imagine what Charles was referring to two nights ago, but it was like trying to bake a cake without any of the ingredients.
She stared blankly at the mantel across the room. The only thing they’d put up there so far was a framed photo from their wedding, Joanna in her long and simple strapless gown and Charles holding her waist just as the photographer ordered. They stood in Roderick’s garden, where the wedding had taken place, grinning at one another. Joanna squinted at the photo until their faces blurred.
On the day of their wedding, Catherine had arrived at Roderick in a long red dress that dragged on the floor, almost like a wedding train. Her posture was very poised and upright, Joanna could tell she was trying very, very hard to act as though she’d visited Roderick many times, but whenever Catherine thought no one was looking, she stole long glances at the stained glass on the second floor, or at the labyrinth and wading fountain over at the other side of the grounds, or at the opulent yellow diamond Sylvie had recently begun wearing. It was early fall, the air growing crisp, and some of the guests wore furs. Catherine gaped at those, too.
“A garden wedding,” Catherine had sighed romantically. She spied a man with a camera over her shoulder and gripped Joanna’s arm. “Who do you think he is?” she whispered. Her breath already smelled like gin; she’d been making good use of the open bar, probably due to nerves. “Maybe from the Inquirer? Or the Main Line Times? This is just the kind of thing that would make it into that.”
“He’s just the wedding photographer,” Joanna said, shrugging.
“Nonsense,” Catherine said, craning her neck at other guests. “I’m sure he’s from the Main Line Times. I think I recognize him. And oh! I just met Charles’s brother, Scott. So unusually handsome. And such a flirt!”
Joanna craned her neck to see where Scott was. Charles had chosen not to include him in his small wedding party—”It’s not like he’d do it, anyway,” he’d said defensively—and so Scott had been a ghost at the ceremony. Joanna had definitely taken notice of the thin, beautiful, dark-skinned girl he’d brought as his date—Queenie, or Quincy, something with a Q. As she walked through the crowd earlier, taking a look at the cocktail hour appetizers, everyone quickly parted. It was as if the other guests were slightly afraid of her.
Catherine inspected Joanna carefully. She reached out and brushed a few strands of hair from Joanna’s eyes. “Why do you look so pissed off? You should see yourself. It’s like you’ve swallowed a wasp. Your pictures in the Main Line Times are going to be terrible.”
“Mom, the Main Line Times isn’t here, okay?” Joanna snapped. And then her mother’s face fell, and Joanna clenched inside. Okay, so she was pissed off. A sour, irksome feeling had infected her in the last hour, crawling under her skin, though she couldn’t quite put her finger on the cause. Catherine, most definitely, was a contributing factor, but that wasn’t all of it. Was she irritated about the band not showing up on time? Was it because the bustier beneath her dress was digging into her ribs? Certainly, but she was also just the tiniest bit rueful about a particular entry in an old journal she’d kept when living alone in Philly, which she’d come upon a few days before while cleaning out her things. The entry described Joanna’s ideal wedding—barefoot on a beach on a midsummer night with only a handful of guests, culminating in a clambake on a patio and a lot of dance songs like “Come On, Eileen.” It was a silly idea, one she never would’ve shared with Charles, but that was the thing, she was never able to share any ideas with Charles. The details for the wedding at Roderick had more than likely been in place before they’d gotten engaged, probably before Charles was even born.
“You’d better start smiling,” Catherine whispered through clenched teeth, nudging Joanna’s elbow. “Don’t screw this up. You probably don’t even realize what you have here.”
Joanna took stock of Catherine’s words and finally understood. Her mother’s reservations weren’t about Joanna not knowing how to hang pants on a hanger, or how to properly set a table, Catherine thought Joanna didn’t deserve this marriage—Catherine did. She was the one who had wanted, who had worked, but Joanna had swooped in and taken.
Joanna walked away from her mother, not dignifying her with a response. As she headed back toward Charles, who was sitting with his groomsman, having danced his one and only dance of the wedding and therefore fulfilled his duties, a sharp pain pierced her side. She suddenly felt dizzy and thirsty and on display. When the photographer grinned at her from behind his camera, she was afraid he was secretly laughing. What if Catherine was right? What if she didn’t deserve Charles? Was that what was eating away at her?
It wasn’t possible. She was just feeling wedding jitters, and underneath that, a fizz of excitement. Excitement that her life was abou
t to change into all she’d anticipated it would be. In fact, no, more than that, excitement that it was going to be better than she’d ever imagined.
………………………………………………………… five
horrible idea had begun to form in Sylvie’s mind. It was a torturous idea, an enticing idea. Yesterday her fellow board members had mentioned where the boy had lived. They’d dangled it out there, a worm on a fishing line. She knew where that apartment complex was—everyone knew where it was, even though they pretended places like that didn’t exist. She could remain anonymous and just go and see.
No, she told herself, as though she was a bad dog. No. She tried to
garden, to do a crossword puzzle. She read the first few pages of her grandfather’s copy of The House of Mirth, one of his favorite guiltypleasure books. He wrote notes in the margins, chicken-scratched nonsense she could barely decipher. She went into James’s office and stared at the filing cabinet. It was so infuriatingly unchanged. She looked again at the blank spot on the bookcase where the jewelry box had been. She turned her diamond ring around and around her finger.
To stave off the idea, she called Hector, the lawyer who had handled James’s will. She described the situation at the school to him in dainty, unworried tones. Just if you have a couple minutes to chat. In case you have an opinion. Hector passed her to another lawyer, one who “handled cases like this.” Sylvie wanted to ask what he meant by that, but he quickly added, “I just handle tax law and estate planning, Mrs. Bates-McAllister.”
The second lawyer’s name was Ace. He sounded about nineteen years old. Uncomfortably, Sylvie explained what she knew all over again—that Scott had coached this boy, that there was a rumor floating around that the coaches might’ve been negligent or even encouraged the hazing. “Though I can’t imagine how,” she added. “Certainly the coaches wouldn’t be stupid enough to whisper terrible things into boys’ ears just to see if they’d do them. Boys look up to their coaches, sometimes even more than their parents.”
