“Why don’t you invite her here instead, honey?” she suggested.
• • •
The following night, at precisely eight o’clock, their doorbell rang. Josie had been trying to put Zoe, who was then two years old, to bed. But Zoe wasn’t having any of it. She shot out of her toddler bed and ran to the top of the stairs, eager to meet their visitor.
Josie sighed, scooped Zoe up onto her hip, and headed to open the door. But Frank beat her there.
“M!” he boomed as he hugged their guest.
Josie walked up behind them as Frank released Monica. She held out her hand and smiled. “Hi. I’m Josie.”
Josie had done her best to make a good impression: she’d applied sheer foundation and mascara, she’d worn a flattering new top, and she’d thoroughly cleaned the house, shoving shoes and toys into closets and setting a platter of cheese and grapes on the dining room table, out of Huck’s reach.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Monica said.
Frank ushered Monica inside and Huck barked and everyone started talking all at once, including Zoe.
“It’s always a little chaotic here, sorry.” Josie laughed.
“Madhouse,” Frank agreed. But he didn’t laugh.
Frank reached for Monica’s coat, helping her shrug out of it. They all moved into the living room and Frank took drink orders, then grabbed the still-barking Huck by the collar to drag him into the kitchen.
“Give him a treat and he’ll quiet down,” Josie called after Frank.
“Your daughter is just beautiful,” Monica said in the ensuing quiet.
So are you, Josie thought. Monica wore a belted, silky black jumpsuit. It was an outfit very few women could pull off.
“Thank you,” Josie said. “So! Have you been to Chicago before?”
Monica shook her head. “It’s my first time. I thought it would be colder.”
“You came during the right week,” Josie said. “We’re having a warm spell.”
Monica’s cheekbones were truly spectacular, Josie thought. She was every bit as beautiful in person as she was in her Facebook pictures, but there was also a remote quality about her. She didn’t smile easily. She held herself somewhat rigidly. Josie couldn’t tell whether she was aloof, shy, or simply uncomfortable about being here.
“Please come sit down,” Josie said, gesturing to the couch. She remained standing, since she still had Zoe on her hip.
“Chardonnay,” Frank said, coming back into the room and handing a glass to Monica. He’d used their wedding crystal instead of their everyday wineglasses. Josie hoped he’d rinsed it out first; it was probably dusty. He set the second glass, for Josie, on the coffee table, out of Josie’s reach.
“Sweetie, were you going to put Zoe to bed?” Frank asked. The question felt abrupt.
“Oh.” Josie blinked. “Of course. She just wanted to say hi to our guest.”
“Don’t want bed!” Zoe said.
“Off you go, pumpkin,” Frank said.
“Want Daddy!”
“You can give Daddy a kiss,” Josie said. “Then it’s bedtime.”
Predictably, Zoe didn’t like that. She was overtired by now, along with being upset about missing whatever action was taking place in the living room. She wailed as Josie carried her up the stairs, screamed when Josie put her in bed, and wouldn’t be consoled even when Josie climbed into the toddler bed next to her.
Frank’s shadow appeared in the doorway a moment before he did: “Jeez, Jos! Can you at least shut her door?”
“I—” Josie started to say, but Frank closed the door on her words.
“I did,” Josie said anyway, into the darkness. “But it didn’t catch and it swung open again.”
Zoe’s screams trailed off into whines and then the occasional mutter before she fell asleep. Her entire performance lasted for less than five minutes.
Josie took a moment to freshen her lip gloss and fluff her hair in the bathroom before she went back downstairs.
“Sorry about that,” she said as she entered the living room. She took the spot on the couch next to Monica. Frank was seated across, in his favorite leather armchair.
“Oh, no worries at all,” Monica said.
“She’s a handful, but we kind of like her,” Josie said.
“Zoe usually doesn’t do that,” Frank said. “I don’t know what got into her tonight.”
Josie took a sip of wine to hide her confusion. Usually doesn’t do that? If there was one consistent thing about their daughter, it was her passionate hatred of bedtime.
“So, Charlie met her at a poker tournament?” Frank asked, turning to Monica. “I like her already. I’m giving the marriage good odds.”
Monica smiled and nodded.
“Charlie’s the cousin getting married?” Josie asked.
“Yeah,” Frank said. “I met him once. Good guy.”
There was a little pause.
“Josie, Frank, you have a lovely home,” Monica said.
Aloof, Josie decided, and overly formal. Monica was pleasant but not warm. Josie wouldn’t have thought she was Frank’s type—and vice versa—but maybe the old adage that opposites attract had held true for them.
Frank had also taken care with his appearance tonight, Josie suddenly realized. His hair was gelled, he’d shaved since work—she knew because he always sported a heavy five o’clock shadow by the end of the day—and he was wearing a black sweater that Josie always complimented him on.
“Cheese? Crackers?” Frank offered. He brought in the platter from the dining room and set it down on the coffee table.
“Huck! No!” Josie jumped up. “Hang on, I’ll put him out back.”
She grabbed a rawhide bone from the box in a kitchen cabinet, opened the sliding glass door, and tossed it into the backyard. Huck ran after it.
“That’ll buy us twenty minutes of quiet, at least if Zoe doesn’t wake up,” Josie joked when she returned to the living room. She pushed the platter closer to Monica. “Help yourself, please.”
“Thank you.” Monica took a cube of cheddar and nibbled it. Normally Josie would’ve dived into the Brie but in the face of Monica’s restraint, she held back.
They all chatted for a while longer, then Monica declined Frank’s offer of a second glass of wine. “I’m driving,” she said with a smile.
“Ice water?” Frank suggested.
“Sure,” Monica said. “That sounds good. I’m a little dehydrated from the flight.”
“Where do you live again?” Josie asked, as if she hadn’t creeped Monica’s Facebook page just that morning.
“San Francisco.” Monica accepted the glass of water from Frank—he’d selected an actual glass, not the plastic stuff they usually used because Huck’s wagging tail was a threat to anything resting on the coffee table.
Most people would’ve added a detail or two, something that would inspire further conversation—“I love it there” or “I just moved three years ago”—but Monica let her responses lie flat.
And just like that, Josie could suddenly see how the dynamic between Monica and Frank must have worked. He was a people pleaser, and she didn’t seem like someone who was easily pleased. She would have been a constant challenge to Frank, who was always driven to win others over, to make friends with everyone in the room.
“San Fran is gorgeous,” Frank said. “That bridge, the piers . . . One of the world’s great cities.”
“Beautiful,” Josie agreed. “The restaurants are amazing, too. And your work, Monica? What do you do?”
The conversation went on like that, with Josie and Frank peppering Monica with questions, then supplementing her answers with their own commentary. Josie wasn’t exactly sure how it had happened, nor was she sure she liked it. It felt a little bit like Monica was a queen, and they were her subjects.
“Sweetie?” she said, and her husband turned to her. “I’m going to get more wine. Would you like another beer?”
“Yeah, sure,” Frank said.
Monica still had more than half of her glass of water left, and Josie didn’t offer to refresh it, as she might have with another guest. Josie was aware of what she was doing: She was trying to show that she and Frank were equals. That he might have served her the first glass of wine, but she was returning the gesture. It was a message she wanted to send not only to Monica but also to Frank.
It made her feel as if she and her husband were a team, at least until Monica left at a little after nine. Josie had been surprised to see how early it was; she’d thought a good two hours had elapsed since Monica’s arrival.
After they shut the door behind Monica, Josie turned to Frank, ready to rehash the evening. She was going to be careful about criticizing Monica—she’d suppress the term “ice queen” that yearned to spring to her lips—but she wanted to be honest. What did you see in her, beyond her looks? she planned to ask Frank.
But Frank spoke first. “Jeez, Jos, why’d you think it was a good idea to have drinks here? With Zoe and Huck and everything, it was a disaster.”
Josie felt as if she’d been slapped. It wasn’t a disaster, she thought. It’s our life.
She thought of how she’d spent a long time cleaning the house, and how she’d asked Monica a dozen questions about herself but fielded only a couple in return. Frank hadn’t appreciated any of that. All he’d cared about was impressing Monica.
She blinked back tears. But Frank didn’t notice. He was already walking upstairs.
• • •
The next morning, Josie tried to continue their conversation.
“I worked really hard to make everything welcoming for her,” she said. “I bought expensive cheeses and good wine, not the stuff I usually get . . .”
Frank was making coffee at the kitchen counter. He turned around and dropped a kiss on Josie’s forehead. He’d already moved past his irritation. “I know, babe. Look, all I’m saying is it would have been easier if we’d gone out somewhere.”
Josie felt deflated; that wasn’t the point, even though Frank was right. He’d wanted to meet Monica at a restaurant, and Josie was the one who’d changed the plan. But the overtures Josie had made weren’t exclusively for Monica’s benefit. They were for Frank, too.
“It just would have been nice if you’d said thank you, that’s all.”
“Thank you,” Frank said, so reflexively it defeated the purpose.
Things still didn’t feel right to Josie, even though Frank kissed her again when he left for work and said he’d be home early. But then the dishwasher flooded the kitchen and Huck simultaneously became violently ill—the vet suspected he’d chased and eaten the frothy bubbles spewing all over the floor—and they never did have a longer conversation about the night. It seemed easier to let it go.
Monica still posted a message on Frank’s page every year, the same simple “Happy Birthday Frank!” But she never came to town again.
• • •
Early in their marriage, Josie and Frank fell into the habit of divvying up the holidays like a pie. Her parents lived less than an hour away, and his lived closer to two, which meant it was possible to celebrate with everyone. Josie always viewed this as a mixed blessing.
They traditionally spent Thanksgiving Day with Josie’s family. Josie’s mother’s table could’ve graced the cover of a magazine, and her sister’s twin daughters always wore pretty matching dresses. They drove to spend the following Friday night with Frank’s parents and brothers, for an “Un-Thanksgiving” that included a touch football game, turkey and cranberry sauce sandwiches, and an Adam Sandler movie—usually Happy Gilmore.
They spent Christmas Eve with Josie’s parents, then went home after dinner so the girls could wake up in their own home and open presents (at least, that was the excuse Josie used with her mother; she still harbored clear memories of those single-present Christmases). Early in the afternoon on Christmas Day, they drove to Frank’s parents’ again.
“Merry, merry!” Frank’s mother shouted when she opened the door of her big colonial-style home to them. Zoe was six that year, and Izzy was almost three. “Doc, the kids are here!”
Frank’s mother, Susie, always called her husband Doc, as did everyone in the family. Frank’s father looked as if he could be the kindly neighborhood pediatrician, but he was a respected oncologist.
“Get out of the cold!” Doc urged as they stamped their snowy boots on the front mat. “Come on, we’ve got towels down on the floor for that.”
“How was traffic?” Susie asked, as she always did.
“God-awful, Mom,” Frank said, kissing her on the cheek. He and his father gave each other a handshake that turned into a hug.
“I’ve got hot buttered rum on the stove, shall I get you each one? And warm cider for the girls,” Susie said, already moving toward the kitchen. “I’ll put it in big mugs, you need to warm up.” Susie always narrated her actions. Josie found it comforting.
“Hey, hey, look who’s here!” Frank’s oldest brother, Stu, came into the hallway. Frank was standing on one leg, trying to wrestle off his boot, and Stu gave him a shove, nearly toppling Frank over before Frank caught himself on the wall.
“Funny guy,” Frank said, shoving Stu back, before they hugged and slapped each other on the back.
“Have you gotten shorter?” Frank asked.
“Just handsomer,” Stu said.
Stu bent down and picked up Izzy and swung her around. “Wow, she’s light. Not like my thugs.” Stu had three sons, all two years apart. “Aren’t you feeding my little niece? Come on, let’s get you some cookies. Uncle Stu’s got you covered.”
They headed into the family room, where there was a huge sectional couch. The rest of the family was already ensconced there. “World War Two, you moron!” Bob—Frank’s middle brother—shouted as Josie and Frank walked into the room.
“You’re the moron. It’s the Korean War,” Frank said as he glanced at the TV screen.
Watching Jeopardy! was another family tradition.
Josie sat down next to Lena, who was married to Stu. Lena passed her a bowl of popcorn. “Drive okay?” she asked as Josie dug in.
“Oh, the usual holiday traffic and whining kids. Delightful,” Josie said.
Lena laughed and patted her hand. Lena, who was born in Bombay and had studied at Oxford and then Yale for grad school, might have been intimidating if she weren’t so thoroughly lovely.
“Ha! World War Two! Wrong again, punk,” Bob said, picking up a piece of popcorn and throwing it at Frank, who caught it in his mouth.
Izzy and Zoe were beelining toward the sugar cookies Frank’s mom had baked—the same ones she made every year and always set out on a giant Santa platter—and two of Stu’s sons were wrestling on the floor. Bob had a boy and a girl who were already tweens. His son was asleep by the fireplace—someone had draped a purple ruffled boa around his neck—and his daughter was helping Izzy pick out a cookie.
An hour later, as Josie sat at the card table with two rum punches warming her stomach, watching Bob teach Zoe how to play poker, she thought for the hundredth time how much she wished Bob and Stu and their families lived closer so that they could all be together more often. But Bob had moved to Northern Virginia directly after college, where he’d begun to work for a computer technology company that specialized in database software. Through the years, he’d risen in the ranks quickly, and he was now a senior vice president. Stu was on the opposite coast, in Seattle, where he had his own real estate firm. He was also quite successful, and his brothers loved teasing him about the fact that Stu personally appeared in local ads for his firm. Once, they’d blown up a newspaper ad and made a Flat Stanley figure that they’d slipped into Stu’s seat when he briefly left the room.
“This kid is a shark,” Bob said now, helping Zoe scoop up a pile of chips. “You must get that from your mom.”
“I’ve been teaching her to count cards since she was six months old,” Josie said. She picked up Lena and Stu’s youngest, a deli
ciously chubby toddler named Sam, and settled him on her lap.
She always had a wonderful time when they were with Frank’s family. And she’d always assumed Frank did, too.
“This is what’s at stake,” Stu said the next day, holding aloft a trophy made of tinfoil. It was shaped like a baked potato, and Izzy had decorated it with a Cinderella sticker.
Stu gestured to the two checkers games set up on the dining room table. “I’ve made a spreadsheet. And I’ve got a timer. If you take longer than thirty seconds to make a move, you forfeit your turn.”
“Anal,” Frank muttered, at the same moment Bob said, “OCD.”
“We start with our youngest and oldest pairs of contestants. Izzy and Stu Jr. will face off at one end of the table. At the other end, Doc and Susie will be locked together in combat for marital bragging rights.”
“Is that your radio announcer voice?” Bob asked.
“Can you not say ‘locked together’ and ‘marital’ when you talk about our parents?” Frank asked. “It’s traumatizing.”
“Winners will advance to the next round,” Stu said. He held up a stopwatch. “Players, take your seats.”
Frank went over to stand behind Izzy—Stu had explained parental assistance was allowed for kids younger than six—while Stu took a spot behind his son.
“And . . . go!” Stu shouted.
“Men are so competitive,” Lena whispered to Josie. “Too much testosterone.”
“I think I’m going to hide in the kitchen,” Josie whispered back.
Josie ended up doing the dishes and wiping down the counters and making a fresh pot of coffee, then she went back into the dining room to check the progress of the tournament. Izzy had advanced to the second round, but was clearly about to lose her next match. Susie had already trounced Doc and was taking on Bob.
“You can cut the tension in here with a knife,” Frank told her, accepting the cup of coffee she handed him.
“It’s riveting,” Josie responded.
“Okay!” Stu said as Susie cornered Bob’s final piece, causing him to surrender. “Me and Frank are up next. Lena, baby, I need you to be my cheerleader.”
The Ever After Page 11