The next morning Justine was at my door bright and early. We made a slow progression walking with the kids in tow, but we were sticking with our exercise plan. I noticed how easily I had allowed her exercise plan to become my own. Oh well, I rationalized, exercise was good for me, no matter how I came into the idea. I trudged on with determination, ignoring the boys’ requests to turn around and the girls’ complaints that it was too hot. We were a motley crew.
“You know who I shot pictures for yesterday?” I asked Justine, trying to swing my arms to get my heart rate up like Justine had instructed me. Walking and swinging my arms was, it turned out, like rubbing my head and patting my stomach. I could do it, but I really had to focus. If I started talking, I would forget all about it and my arms would fall to my sides, useless.
“Who?” she asked. Justine had no trouble keeping her arms moving, and she always outpaced me.
“Erica Davidson,” I said.
“Yes, I know Erica.” Justine’s tone changed from upbeat to strained.
“She’s very pretty. Exotic.” I had taken photos of her and Heather together, their hair the same inky black, their eyes the same unique shape, same gray color. Heather would one day be a beautiful girl when her braces came off and her acne cleared up. I wondered if her friends would still like her as much then.
Justine stifled a laugh. “Exotic is a good word for Erica,” she said, her fingers over her mouth as though she was holding in more words she wanted to say.
“What do you mean?” I asked. My heart began to pound as if in danger.
“Just keep her away from David,” she said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because she has a reputation. She can’t be trusted. I wouldn’t get too friendly with her if I were you.” She tugged the brim of her visor farther down on her head. “You’re not doing your arms,” she reminded me.
I thought of how Erica made me laugh, how she seemed to get the way things were around here. After yesterday and our night by the entrance, I had hoped we would be friends. And yet, the one friend I had made was telling me not to get close to her. I looked over at Justine’s determined face, the set of her jaw, the intensity of her eyes. She was not kidding.
“So you think she’s dangerous?” I pressed.
“I think Erica was married to a very sweet man who loved her very much. She wanted the divorce, and he did not. He even gave her the house out of the goodness of his heart. And now she flaunts her singleness and flirts with married men and drinks entirely too much. I am fine with a glass of wine now and then, but she drinks like a fish and acts like a college girl. It’s just not good. She’s not a good influence.” Justine put her hand on my arm, slowing me down. “I’m just trying to warn you, as your friend. It’s what I would want if the tables were turned. I would hate for you to ask me later why I didn’t warn you.” She smiled and began walking again. Her short ponytail bobbed in time with her steps.
“Of course,” I said. “I’m glad you told me the truth.”
“She was probably trying to buddy up to you before you found out the truth about her. She doesn’t have too many friends in this neighborhood, as you can imagine.” I thought about Heather’s words, how not many people were nice to her mom. It made more sense now.
I thought about the cracks Erica had made about the neighborhood, how she put down the people who lived here, but her reason for doing so became more suspect in light of what Justine was saying. Erica was not someone I should be talking to. I would be more careful in the future. I wouldn’t want my reputation around the neighborhood to be sullied by being linked to her. And I certainly didn’t want my husband exposed to more temptations that I had imagined he was already exposed to, thinking of the situation with the man in the restaurant. “Thank you,” I said to Justine. I was so glad I had her.
“No problem whatsoever,” she said. “What are friends for? Now let’s get that heart rate up. Move those arms.”
Our summer days fell into an agreeable rhythm. Mornings were spent walking and cleaning house. Lunch was packed and eaten at the pool, then home in the afternoons to play outside or watch a movie while I made dinner. It was Justine’s schedule, and I marveled at how easily I fell into it. Usually Cameron and Caroline were at my house or my boys were at Justine’s. It felt … comfortable, perfect, just what I dreamed of, except for the fact that my husband and I were barely speaking.
One afternoon I watched the boys jumping on the trampoline, their bodies lifting and falling like popcorn. They were getting tan from our afternoons by the pool, their olive complexions darkening a bit more each day. They looked healthy and handsome. I watched them as a stranger might. Lulled by their acrobatic dance, I found myself swaying by the window just like I used to when I held them as babies, the mother’s dance.
When I saw Cameron and Caroline begin to climb on the trampoline, the spell was broken and I flew outside, arms flapping like a fierce mother bird. “No, girls. You are not allowed to be on there,” I said.
Caroline pointed back toward her house. “Daddy said we could,” she said.
I followed the direction of her finger to find Mark standing on the deck with his hands on his hips. He waved. I relaxed and gave him the thumbs-up sign, guessing that he and Justine had decided trampolines weren’t so bad after all. A smile crept onto my face as I realized the boys and I were rubbing off on them, too. I helped both girls get on the trampoline and reviewed the safety precautions with them. They all stared up at the clouds overhead while I talked. Moms were boring, always fussing over safety. I gave up and went in the house where it was cooler. I could keep an eye on them from there.
The phone was ringing when I walked in, and I grabbed for it, hoping it was David calling. Instead I heard Kristy’s voice, just calling for our occasional chat. I looked out the window at the kids. They were trying to coax Lucky to jump up onto the trampoline, as if the poor dog could hope to jump that high.
After awhile I moved into the laundry room and was simultaneously chatting on the phone while throwing clothes into the basket to be folded, when I heard the screaming. “I have to go,” I said briskly and hung up. I ran out to the yard. Mark was running from his. I looked at the trampoline. Cameron was holding her mouth, from which blood streamed between her fingers. The boys and Caroline clustered around her with worried looks on their faces, the air around them charged with danger and fear.
“Mom,” Donovan said as I got to the trampoline, his hand on Cameron’s shoulder, “she’s hurt!” Thank you, Captain Obvious. Dylan was holding his knee, which was also bleeding slightly. He rocked back and forth and wouldn’t look me in the eye when I asked what had happened. “Dylan’s knee hit her mouth when they were jumping,” Donovan said. “Now she’s bleeding.”
I nodded and reached for Cameron, pulling her from the trampoline and cradling her as she cried. Mark joined us, panting. He smiled at me. “I need to exercise more,” he quipped as he reached for his daughter. “Shhh,” he told her, palming her face with his mitt of a hand, a gentle giant. “Let me see your mouth.”
Instead she opened her fist and presented him with her front tooth. “It’s gone,” she wailed.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay. You’re supposed to lose baby teeth,” he told her, ruffling her hair and holding her closer. “That just means the tooth fairy’s going to come tonight.”
I felt myself relax because he was relaxed. I had a feeling his calming presence was working on Cameron as well. She giggled as she tried to guess how much money the tooth fairy would leave her. I went in the house for some wet paper towels to mop up the blood, smiling to myself that the crisis hadn’t been worse, that Mark had handled everything so well.
By the time I got back with the paper towels, Mark was holding her, and Justine was bent over the two of them. She looked at me, and a flash of anger flickered across her face before she could compose herse
lf. I walked up to them, holding the wet towels out like an offering. “I’m so sorry,” I said.
“It’s fine,” she said stiffly. I could tell she wanted to say more but was restraining herself.
“I’d be angry at me if I were you. I let them do something you asked me not to,” I said. “Maybe we should just get rid of the trampoline.”
“Mom, no!” Donovan said. I narrowed my eyes at him, and he bent his head down. I noticed Dylan’s shoulders heaving, his head tucked between his knees.
“Dyl?” I went over to him and held out my arms as he crawled into them. From the corner of my eye, I saw Justine lead the still sniffling Cameron toward their house. Mark looked nervously between the two of them and us.
“It’s all my fault,” Dylan said. “I knocked out Cameron’s tooth.” I looked down at his knee. Blood dripped down his leg in a fine trickle. He would have a large bruise. I could see the mark the tooth had left, the beginnings of purple radiating out.
I laid the cool, wet paper towels on his knee. “There, there,” I said, just like I imagined a good mother would. “It’s okay. Cameron’s going to be fine,” I assured him. I smiled over his head at Mark. “She is,” I said to him.
He nodded. “Sure she will,” he said. “But Justine might be another story.” He ruffled Dylan’s hair and walked slowly across our yard and then his own, climbing his deck stairs with legs made of clay.
Chapter 14
Justine
As soon as I could, I was going to call Tom and tell him what had happened. Lately he was the only one I could be honest with. He would listen to how angry I was with Ariel for letting my girls on that trampoline, with Mark for standing by while they disobeyed the one thing I’d asked. And now my little girl was maimed. Okay, maybe not for life. But it could’ve been worse. And then what? What would Ariel’s apology do for her then? I paced around the kitchen, stewing. Cameron was settled in front of the television, her tongue continually feeling the space where her tooth used to be. I wanted to run from the house, jump in my car, and drive straight to him. I wanted to stop playing pretend in front of all the people who were standing in the way of us.
“I can see the steam coming out of your ears,” Mark said from behind me. He stood in the doorway that led to the deck. Caroline hovered behind him, looking scared. I pasted on a smile and pretended everything was fine.
“It’s fine,” I said to Mark. “It was an accident.”
He crossed the room and took me in his arms. “I’m proud of you,” he said, squeezing the breath from me in his strong embrace. His hugs always felt like he was choking me. Tears filled my eyes as I nodded and smiled.
“You’re changing,” he said. “You seem happier.” He pulled away from me, turned my chin to look in his eyes. His eyes were brown. Tom’s eyes were blue. “That makes me feel really good, to know you’re happy in spite of all that’s going on. You know that’s all I ever wanted for you, right?”
I nodded again, doing my best to meet his eyes. I wondered if he could see the pity in mine. If he only knew the real reason I was more at peace, happier. He pressed his lips to my forehead. “Thanks for not being angry. About any of this,” he added. “I promise I’m going to fix things for us.”
I pressed my lips into a smile. “No problem,” I managed. I had gotten so good at saying no problem. No problem that I feel nothing for you. No problem that our money never seems to last long enough. No problem that my entire life is an act and you don’t even notice. Later I would find an excuse to go to the store and call Tom as I drove, my new MO. I would cry to him, vent to him, give it all to him. Mark would never know what he was missing. I just wondered how long this strange limbo we were living in would be enough. Mark looked at me and smiled in that warm, genuine way that would charm any woman but me. “You’re so pretty,” he said, as if he hadn’t seen me in a long time. The truth was, he never had.
Tom was outside talking, “away from big ears in his office,” he had said. Whenever I called, he would stop what he was doing and find a quiet place for us to talk.
“Sorry to bother you in the middle of the day,” I said.
“You could never bother me,” he replied quickly. Birds were singing wherever he was. I wanted to be where he was, hear the birds’ songs together, lie back on a blanket, and feel the warmth of the hot sun on our bare skin. Desire rose up in me as it always did whenever we spoke, the sound of his voice an aphrodisiac.
“Is everything okay?” he asked, reminding me of why I’d called. “Where are you?”
“In my car,” I said. I was parked outside the grocery store. I had lied to Mark that we needed some obscure ingredients for a dish I was making. All I had to do was spout off some names of herbs and Mark would wave me out the door.
I sighed and told Tom about the trampoline accident, how it was something so simple but it felt like something more significant. How I had pretended not to be angry so as not to raise suspicion but what I really wanted was to cry and scream at all of them.
“I hold so much in so that I can hold on to you,” I said.
“What does that mean?”
“I can’t let on how unhappy I am. Mark thinks I’m so happy. He thinks we’re so happy. He doesn’t see and I can’t let him see. The fact that he’s not looking leaves an open door for … this. And Ariel, well, she’s my cover with him. He thinks I’m with her when I’m with you. He thinks I confide in her when I confide in you. She can’t know how unhappy I am either. I just have to keep up this facade so I can keep talking to you, keep seeing you.” I paused, exhaled into the phone. “But I don’t know how long I can keep lying.”
“You’re not really lying,” he said. “You’re just not telling everything. Does anyone ever really tell the people in their lives everything?”
“I tell you everything,” I said quickly.
“I’m sure you don’t. There are things you can’t say to me, things you don’t want to admit, things you’ve withheld because you’re unsure or you just don’t want me to know. It’s the nature of a new relationship, to keep things to yourself. I’ll bet you’re already thinking of something you haven’t told me.”
I thought of his wife taking my part, how mortified I’d be if he knew. I never intended to tell him, and I never wanted him to find out from anyone else either. “No,” I said. “There’s nothing I can think of.”
He chuckled. “You might think you’re a good liar,” he said, “but you’re not. That’s okay. You’ll tell me when you’re ready. Hey, I gotta go. You sure you’re good?”
“Yeah,” I said as I watched Erica and her daughter cross the parking lot into the store, which meant I wouldn’t be able to go in there. I laid my head on the steering wheel. “I’m good.” I was a better liar than he knew.
Chapter 15
Ariel
After mothers’ group the next day, I nibbled on fancy crackers and eyed Justine. She wouldn’t look at me, and I feared our friendship was over as soon as it had begun. I was about to give up on her when she showed up at my elbow, her smile as in place as her outfit. She was as good at being perfect as I was at being a wreck. I made myself smile back at her.
“I’m sorry,” I said after I swallowed my mouthful of cracker. “I should have told the girls they couldn’t be on the trampoline. I should have respected your wishes.”
She waved my words away like stinky cigar smoke. “Bygones,” she said. “I’ve already forgotten about it.”
“But—”
She patted my shoulder and pointed toward the emptying room. “Better go get your boys,” she said and whisked away. I slunk out of the room feeling chastised by Justine’s dismissal and unconvinced of her profession of forgiveness. She didn’t seem like one who moved forward quite so easily.
Later that afternoon I was calling the boys down to lunch only to be completely ignored except by
Lucky, who always showed up when food was being offered. I headed in the direction of their playroom, grumbling and snatching up stray toys and discarded items as I walked. “Always look for things you can tidy up while you’re on your way somewhere else,” Justine had instructed me. I carried the items up the stairs and moved to the doorway of the playroom to find Donovan with a flashlight looking up Dylan’s nose while Duncan sat beside them on his haunches, a worried look on his face. He glanced sideways just in time to spot me.
“Uh-oh, guys,” he said and pointed. Donovan dropped the flashlight and looked at his brother as if to say, “I tried, but you’re on your own.”
“Dylan, what’s going on?” I asked, not wanting to know the answer yet compelled to ask.
I looked down to see Dylan pointing to a Star Wars action-figure gun jammed halfway up his nose. “It’s way up there, Mom,” he said, sounding like he was afraid to breathe. He moaned. “Is it going to be stuck there forever?”
I resisted the urge to scare him by saying yes and instead walked to the phone to dial the number for the pediatrician. After I had made an appointment, I directed the boys into the minivan. I only thought I was going to have the afternoon at home. Not wanting to sit for an undetermined amount of time with three wild boys in a small waiting room, I impulsively dialed another number. Justine answered right away, as if she was waiting by the phone. I explained what had happened and asked if she would watch Donovan and Duncan while I took Dylan to the doctor’s office to retrieve the offending weaponry. Justine was only too happy to come to my rescue.
As I drove away from her house, I thanked God for good neighbors and hoped that, if nothing else, we could at least be that to each other.
She Makes It Look Easy Page 13
