Mrs. Fletcher

by Tom Perrotta

  “Thank you,” she told him. “You’re a lifesaver.”

  Eve barely recognized him when he appeared at the main entrance fifteen minutes later, toolbox in hand. He’d shaved off the reddish-gray beard that had been his most prominent feature for as long as she could remember. He looked younger without it, not nearly as imposing.

  “You’re lucky you caught me,” he said. “I usually go to yoga on Wednesday night, but I got hungry and ordered a pizza instead.”

  Eve was impressed. He didn’t seem like a yoga guy.

  “Bikram?” she asked.

  “Royal Serenity.” He rolled his shoulders and massaged his trapezius with his free hand. “Doctor recommended it for my back.”

  “Does it work?”

  “Sometimes. Gets me out of the house.”

  Eve nodded, murmuring sympathetically. She remembered that George’s wife had died in the fall, just a month after his father. She’d meant to send him a note, but hadn’t gotten around to it.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “About Lorraine.”

  “That was hard,” he said, shifting the heavy toolbox from one hand to the other. “Really tough on my daughter.”

  “How’s she doing?”

  “She’s back at school. It’s gonna take her a while.” He gave a vague shrug, and then put on his game face. “So what do you got for me?”

  Eve led him down the hall to the shit show. Rafael had made it more or less presentable—the walls had been scrubbed, the floor carpeted with paper towels—and had even posted a warning note on the door, complete with skull and crossbones: Broken Toilet!!! Do NOT Use!!! You WILL Regret! George peered inside and nodded with an air of professional melancholy.

  “All right,” he said. “Lemme get to it.”

  *

  Eve slipped into the auditorium and caught the tail end of the lecture. Russett was explaining the difference between Grade A and Grade B maple syrup, which was a matter of color and sweetness and the time of year in which the sap was gathered. Paradoxically, many syrup connoisseurs preferred the cheaper and darker Grade B to the more refined Grade A.

  “It’s a heated controversy,” Russett explained. “But whichever kind you buy, you can’t really go wrong. In my humble opinion, real maple syrup always gets a grade of D . . .” He paused, letting the audience wait for the punch line. “For Delicious.” He grinned and held up his hand. “Thank you very much. You’ve been a wonderful audience.”

  The post-lecture receptions never lasted long. Most of the seniors just grabbed a cookie or two on their way out the door; only a handful stuck around to chat with the speaker. By eight thirty the room was empty, and Russett was on his way back to New Hampshire.

  Eve tidied up a bit—she decided to leave the folding chairs for the morning—and went to check on the plumbing situation.

  “All set,” George told her, drying his hands on a paper towel. “You’re good to go.”

  “What was the problem?”

  “Adult diaper.” He tossed the crumpled towels in the trash can and wiped his hands on his pants. “Someone must have shoved it down, really wedged it in good. Maybe with a coat hanger or a stick or something. I don’t know. It’s way too big to flush.”

  “They get confused sometimes,” Eve said. “Or maybe just embarrassed.”

  “Poor bastards.” George shook his head. “That’s gonna be us one day.”

  *

  Eve locked up and walked across the parking lot to her minivan. The sight of it annoyed her—the bulging, shapeless body, the cavernous interior, all those seats that never got used.

  I need a new car, she thought. A tiny one.

  She sat in the driver’s seat for a minute or two and tried to compose herself, wondering why her nerves were so jangled. The lecture had been a success, the toilet was fixed, and it wasn’t even nine o’clock.

  Everything’s fine, she told herself. Right on schedule.

  It was just hard to switch gears, to make the superhero transition from her responsible, professional self to the beautiful older woman in the foreign movie, the one with the lacy red underwear beneath her sensible outfit.

  What she really needed was a drink. Just a quick one to clear her head, to get herself into a more relaxed and open frame of mind. She thought about stopping at the Lamplighter for a martini, but a detour seemed like a bad idea.

  Just go, she told herself. He’s been waiting all week.

  Maybe his parents had some alcohol on hand. It was probably good quality, too, given the neighborhood they lived in and the car the father drove. She could pour herself a tall glass of vodka over ice, Absolut or Grey Goose. They could sit at the kitchen table and talk for a while before heading upstairs.

  Nice, she thought. Raid their liquor cabinet before you sleep with their son . . .

  It was a bad idea to think about the parents. Mr. and Mrs. Spitzer, enjoying themselves in St. Barts, not a clue about what was happening in their lovely home.

  This had nothing to do with them.

  It was between her and Julian, and it was their last chance.

  She turned the key. The engine hesitated for a moment—it was long overdue for a tune-up—and then sputtered erratically to life. She shifted into reverse and started moving.

  *

  She circled his house twice—the first time she got spooked by a passing dog walker, the second by nothing at all—before finally working up the nerve to pull into the driveway. She sat there for a while with her foot on the brake, staring straight ahead, gathering her courage.

  An overhead light was on inside the garage, which made her a little uneasy. She was pretty sure it had been dark in there on Sunday night when she’d dropped off the cooler. But then it struck her that Julian was being polite, welcoming her into his home, rolling out the red carpet.

  The garage in Eve’s house was a disaster area, a jumble of broken and rusted and outgrown objects, the relics of Brendan’s childhood and her life with Ted. The Spitzers’ garage was enviably clean and well organized by comparison—bare cement floor, assorted tools hanging from a peg board, wall-mounted bicycles, shop vac and lawnmower, water heater with shining copper pipes.

  Julian’s skateboard, wheels-up on a workbench.

  The famous string with the key on it.

  Just reach up and give it a tug.

  The interior was spacious, the entrance wide. You could just glide right in, no worries about clipping your side mirrors or pulling up far enough for the door to close behind you.

  She would have done it, too, except that something smelled a little off inside the van, and she’d begun to wonder about the source of the odor. She brought the back of her hand to her nose and gave it a quick sniff, but all that registered was the sweet chemical tang of liquid soap—not a great smell, but nothing to worry about.

  Continuing her investigation, she tucked her chin and tugged at her shirt collar, sampling the air trapped between her skin and her blouse. A familiar, dispiriting fragrance wafted up, a distinctive compound of sweat and worry mixed with sadness and decay.

  Ugh, she thought. I smell like the Senior Center.

  Of course she did. That was where she’d spent the past twelve hours. It was always on her skin at the end of the workday, trapped in the fabric of her clothes. But today there was something else on top of it, the subtle but unmistakable scent of a plumbing emergency, a rotten cherry on the sundae.

  *

  She told herself she was just stopping at home for a quick shower, that she’d return to Julian clean and refreshed in fifteen or twenty minutes, smelling the way a seductive older woman was meant to smell. But this conviction faded as she drove across town. By the time she walked through her own front door and saw Brendan playing a video game on the couch, she knew she was defeated. All her courage was gone, replaced by a sudden wave of anger.

  “Don’t you have any homework?” she asked.

  Brendan didn’t answer. He was totally engrossed in his stupid game, flinching and
tilting his body from side to side as he banged away at the controller, trying to kill all the bad guys.

  “Turn that off,” she snapped.

  “Huh?” He looked up, more surprised than annoyed.

  “Now.”

  He obeyed. The gunfire ceased, but the silence that followed was just as unnerving.

  “You need to treat women with more respect,” she told him.

  Brendan blinked in confusion.

  “What?”

  “I’m not deaf. I hear the way you talk sometimes, and I don’t like it. We aren’t sex objects and we’re not bitches, do you understand? I never want to hear that word in this house again.”

  “I never—” he protested.

  “Please,” she told him. “Don’t insult me. Not tonight. I’m not in the mood.”

  He stared at her for a long time, still clutching his useless controller. And then he nodded.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean anything by it.”

  “Life’s not a porn movie, okay?”

  “I know that.” He sounded genuinely hurt that she might even think he thought it was. “Jesus.”

  “Good,” she said. “Then please start acting like it.”

  *

  Julian texted three times while she was in the shower, wondering where she was and what was wrong. Eve didn’t know what to tell him.

  I smelled bad.

  I’m a coward.

  I’m way too old for you.

  All these things were true, but none of them would make him feel any better. She remembered how awful it was at that age—at any age—to get your hopes up and then to come up empty.

  Poor kid.

  She lay down for a few minutes, but she wasn’t tired anymore. She got up and stood in front of the full-length mirror in her fuzzy pink bathrobe. Then she undid the belt of the robe and let it fall open.

  Not too bad, she thought.

  Her body wasn’t what it used to be, but she looked okay. Her stomach not so much, but it was easy enough to frame the image so only her head and chest were included.

  Not bad at all.

  The first picture was too dark, so she turned on her bedside lamp and tried again. This one was much better. Her hair was wet and her eyes were tired, but she looked like herself, which was a fairly rare occurrence.

  In real life, her breasts were a bit droopier than she would have liked—no longer perfect or amazing—but the way the robe fell alongside them, you couldn’t really see that.

  In the photo, her breasts were lovely.

  In the photo, she was smiling.

  This is just for you, she told him. Please don’t show it to anyone else.

  After she sent the text, she went to her contacts and blocked his number, so she could never do anything like that again.

  PART FIVE

  Lucky Day

  Red Carpet

  Eve got married in early September, around the beginning of what would have been Brendan’s sophomore year of college, if Brendan had still been going to college. The day dawned gray and drizzly, but the sky cleared in late morning and brightened into a glorious afternoon, which was a huge relief, because the ceremony was taking place in her own backyard.

  A few minutes after four o’clock, she stepped out onto the patio, wearing a pale yellow dress and clutching a bouquet of peonies and garden roses. The guests were gathered on the lawn, standing on either side of a narrow, slightly wrinkled red carpet that had been unfurled on top of the grass.

  She paused for a moment to savor the tableau, to imprint it on her memory. There weren’t a lot of people in the yard—only forty or so, with more on the groom’s side than the bride’s—but the faces turned in her direction formed a map of her life, old and new. Her sister and mother had made the drive up from New Jersey in the morning and had done nothing but complain about the traffic since their arrival. Jane and Peggy had come with their husbands; Liza completed the friend group, the self-proclaimed fifth wheel. She’d been sweet and supportive over the past few months, repeatedly congratulating Eve on her good fortune, though it clearly pained her to see her best divorced buddy rejoining the ranks of the married, leaving her to face the harsh world of middle-aged dating on her own.

  Don’t forget me, she’d whispered at the end of the previous week’s bachelorette dinner, after too many glasses of wine. Promise?

  I won’t, Eve told her, and it was a promise she intended to keep.

  Ted and Bethany had surprised her, not only by RSVP’ing an enthusiastic Yes!!!, but also by bringing Jon-Jon, who looked adorable in his little blue blazer, eyes wide, arms rigid at his sides. He was doing okay, observing the scene with some apprehension, but no outbursts or tantrums so far, knock on wood. And if he did start screaming, Eve thought, then so be it. She wasn’t some starry-eyed twenty-five-year-old who expected everything to be perfect on her Special Day.

  Aside from Jon-Jon, the only other child present was Margo’s eight-year-old daughter, Millicent, who’d come to the ceremony straight from a soccer game, in cleats and a blue-and-white jersey with HUSKIES on the front. She was tall for her age, with toothpick legs and long blond hair, wedged between Margo and Dumell. They looked happy and very much together, though Eve knew that they’d gone through a rough patch and had been broken up for most of the summer.

  There was also a small contingent from the Senior Center, among them Hannah Gleezen, the popular new events coordinator, whose energy and positivity felt like a force of nature, and the Gray-Aires, an a cappella group she’d created and coached over the course of the spring and summer. Eve had heard them from inside the house, serenading the guests during cocktail hour, harmonizing on “Going to the Chapel” and “Walking on Sunshine,” as well as an out-of-left-field version of “Beat It” that got a big round of applause.

  *

  The only person on Eve’s list who’d sent her regrets was Amanda, but she’d been so touched by the invitation that she took Eve out for a celebratory lunch the week before the wedding, the first time they’d seen each other since January. She was thriving, happy with her new job, and deeply in love with one of her co-workers, an excommunicated Mormon research librarian named Betsy.

  Unlike Eve, Amanda had kept in touch with Julian. She reported that he’d transferred to the University of Vermont and was really excited about starting the next chapter of his life, and especially about living away from home for the first time.

  “Good for him,” Eve said. “He’s a sweet kid.”

  Amanda did something sardonic with her eyebrows—just a subtle lift-and-lower, a brief acknowledgment of the inadequacy or absurdity of the bland phrase Eve had used—but it was enough to bring it all back into the open, the strange and intense half hour the three of them had spent together in Brendan’s bedroom, and the impossibility of integrating that episode into any sensible narrative of her life. Mostly she dealt with it by not thinking about it at all, or treating it like an erotic dream she’d had, an embarrassing one that refused to dislodge itself from her memory.

  “So this is a little weird.” Amanda leaned forward, dropping her voice into a more confidential register. “Julian and I . . . we kinda hung out for a while. Back in the springtime.”

  “Hung out?”

  Amanda’s face had turned a pretty shade of pink.

  “It was totally casual. He came over once or twice a week, after his night class. Just for a month or two, when I really needed the company. But then I started to get to know Betsy . . . Anyway, he was really cool about it.”

  Eve was surprised to feel a slight pang of jealousy, or maybe just possessiveness, as if Amanda had gotten hold of something that rightfully belonged to her. But it was a ridiculous, greedy feeling, and she banished it from her mind.

  “I’m just curious,” she said. “Did he ever show you any pictures of me?”

  Amanda opened her mouth, mock scandalized.

  “Ursula! Did you send him some pictures?”

  “Just one. I asked him not
to show anyone.”

  “Well, I never saw it.” Amanda shrugged, as if it were her loss. “Not that I would have minded.”

  Eve wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed.

  “Next time you talk to him,” she said, “tell him I said hi.”

  “I’ll do that,” Amanda promised.

  *

  Hannah Gleezen tooted on her pitch pipe and held up one finger, as if she were about to scold the singers. Then she brought it down and the Gray-Aires launched into “Here, There and Everywhere,” the song that had been selected as the wedding processional. Eve thought it was a little excessive, as if the woman in the song were a goddess—making each day of the year/changing my life with the wave of her hand—but George had put his foot down.

  Please humor me on this, he’d said, and of course she’d agreed, because she was flattered, and because he didn’t ask for much.

  Eve still marveled on a daily basis at the speed with which her own life had changed. A year ago, she’d been lost and flailing, and now she was found. She wanted to call it a miracle, but it was simpler than that, and a lot more ordinary; she’d met a kind and decent man who loved her. He was standing there at the end of the red carpet, handsome in a dark blue suit, a tear rolling down his cheek as he smiled at her and mouthed the words, You’re beautiful. His best man, Brendan, was standing right beside him, supportively squeezing his shoulder. It was almost like a fairy tale, Eve thought, a little too good to be true, and certainly more than she deserved.

  Of course, she hadn’t exactly met him. It was more accurate to say that she’d tracked him down, engineering a “chance meeting” at Royal Serenity Yoga a week after he’d fixed the toilet in the accessible bathroom. She’d acted like it was an unexpected treat to see him there—as if he hadn’t informed her that he was a Wednesday night regular—but he didn’t call her on the lie. He just told her how happy he was to see her, and apologized for his baggy gym shorts.