Switcheroo

by Olivia Goldsmith

  “What are you talking about?” Sylvie snapped, relieved but confused. Maybe they hadn’t been busted.

  “I left John at the club but I can’t seem to find my way to you. I’ve wanted to live in a place like the Heights all my life, but now I can’t get out! How many cul-de-sacs are there in this place? I’ve passed our street four times already. Oops. There it is again.”

  Sylvie tried not to implode. She had to be patient to get Marla here. Then she could kill her.

  “You know, our husband has to mow the lawn,” Marla was saying. “Say, hey, people around here are so rude! This lady that lives two houses down just flipped me the bird. Boy, does she give off bad karma. I can feel it from here and I’m protected by steel and glass.”

  It must have been Rosalie, Sylvie realized. Marla would need lead to protect her from poor Rosalie’s “karma.” “Just get on Lee Road to the bridge and get over here,” she said, sounding as desperate as she felt.

  “Lee Road? I’m on Lee Road. Or I was. I know I saw it,” Marla said. “Say, hey, your brother called. He called me here on the car phone. He said his nosy ex-wife saw me driving in circles and thought I might be looking for another pool to drive into.” Marla giggled. “He’s really sweet, isn’t he? He was worried about me.”

  “I’m more worried about me,” Sylvie snapped. “Simon Brightman’s feet won’t last forever.”

  “I’m just lost. I can’t get past Eaton and Carlton roads, and I’ve got to get out of here. People are looking. Please, be my control tower.”

  “All right. Calm down,” Sylvie reassured her. “Take a right at Carlton and a right on Eaton. Two doors down you’ll see a duck mailbox. Take a left. Go through two lights and you’ll see the shopping center on the right.”

  “You don’t really, really mean to go through the lights?” Marla asked. “What if they’re red? You’ll have a pimple on your license, remember?” Marla paused. Sylvie was silent. “I’m trying to be funny,” she explained.

  “And I’m trying not to laugh,” Sylvie said bitterly, drumming her fake nails against the phone. She waited.

  “I’ve been through four lights and I still don’t see any ducks,” Marla told Sylvie.

  “I said two lights,” Sylvie snapped, desperate. “Two.”

  “Okay. Okay!” Marla said. “I’ll hang a U-ee.”

  At that moment, Mr. Brightman stuck his head out of the door and looked around. He spotted Sylvie and motioned for her to rejoin him. He pointed down at his watch. Sylvie smiled and nodded.

  “Hurry up, Marla. Mr. Brightman’s getting really impatient,” Sylvie begged. “And what’s ‘the full treatment,’ anyway?”

  “I’m out! I’m out!” Marla cried triumphantly. “I see the bridge. I’ll be there in four minutes. Boy, I’d hate to have to try to get out of the Heights in an emergency.”

  “This is an emergency!” Sylvie said with clenched teeth, and hung up the phone. She started back to the room and Mr. Brightman. As she approached him Sylvie shrugged and smiled, Marlaesque. “I’m sorry about that. I was getting bad vibes about my sister and I just had to call her.” She sat on the stool at his feet. “Uh…your toes look particularly adorable today.”

  Mr. Brightman leaned back and closed his eyes. “That’s what I like to hear. Change the polish. I want something…youthful.”

  “Well, you’ve come to the right place. I mean, I have. Come, I mean. I mean, come here.”

  “My insteps are killing me. Why don’t you give them a try? But first put on new polish. You know I like a lot of color.”

  It took everything Sylvie had to get even her hands and his toes in close proximity. She had Marla’s kit, but it wasn’t a pedicure kit…it had essential oils and cream but no Revlon Fire and Ice. Sylvie took out some massage oil and dripped a little onto Simon Brightman’s foot.

  “Haven’t you forgotten to take something off?” Mr. Brightman asked, his voice low.

  “Take something off?” Sylvie inquired, staring at his horny toenails. It seemed to her that it wasn’t just his nails that were horny.

  “My old polish. And say the poem. I want the full treatment. Are we playing coy? Please, Miss Molensky, I’m losing patience. I’ve got only twenty minutes left.” Sylvie, not knowing what to do, started to rise. Enough was enough. She simply couldn’t do this. She’d leave.

  “Go behind the drapes, like you always do,” Mr. Brightman said, his voice commanding. Without thinking about it, she did. She’d stood there for a moment, almost in tears, when she heard Marla dance into the room from the outside door. Sylvie peeked out from behind the velvet curtains.

  “One little piggy goes to market,” Marla cooed to Mr. Brightman, “one little piggy stays home.” Marla ducked behind the other drape, pulling it in front of her while she searched her bag for something. She pulled out a Day-Glo-pink Hard Candies nail polish, which she held out from behind the curtain with a practiced stripper’s gesture and shook before she tossed it across the room. Mr. Brightman groaned. “Oh, yeah!” he said. “It’s perfect. You little tease!” Marla danced out from behind the curtain. “Go out the side door. Now,” Marla whispered as she passed the drape that Sylvie still clutched in front of herself. Marla retrieved the polish and squatted at Mr. Brightman’s feet. He closed his eyes and Sylvie slipped gratefully out of the room.

  21

  Sylvie pulled up to her house, parked the car, and looked around the cul-de-sac, checking it out through her rearview mirror. She certainly didn’t want her neighbors, including her mother and Rosalie—above all, Rosalie—to see her. Bob had always complained about the garage being separate from the house, but this was the first time that Sylvie herself minded making the walk from the driveway to the back door.

  She stepped in through the French doors to the music room. She froze, then gasped. The disorder was amazing. Her beloved sheet music was spread in messy piles on the settee, on the window seat, with the biggest pile on the floor, far too close to the fireplace. Some of those arrangements were irreplaceable, done by her professors at Juilliard, long dead now. Didn’t that girl know anything? Aside from the music morass there were two or three half-filled mugs and an empty soda-water bottle sitting on the end tables but, worst of all, there was a vase full of dying chrysanthemums and lilies—a vile combination—on the piano. Sylvie couldn’t tell how long it had been there, but the flowers were drooping and, when she rushed over to it, Sylvie could see the fetid water within the vase. Yellow-brown pollen from the stamens of the lilies blotched the surface of the baby grand. Holding her breath, Sylvie lifted the vase. Thank god, there was no water ring under it, but somehow she was sure that wasn’t because of Marla’s care. Sylvie caressed the unblemished smoothness of the top of the piano. She’d missed playing almost as much as she’d missed Bob. She wished she had the time right then to sit down and play—even for just a few minutes—but it was a luxury she couldn’t afford.

  Sylvie tried to remember the last time she’d gone this long without playing. Maybe right after the twins were born, but not since then. Reluctantly, she forced herself to leave the desecrated music room as it was but she did carry out the vase. She’d have to tell Marla—if she hadn’t told her already—never to put anything on the Steinway’s ebony lacquer.

  Sylvie walked through the dark hallway. She felt like a ghost, haunting her own home, carrying the dying white mums and lilies before her. She walked by the bookshelf and noticed a photo at eye level. She stopped. Bob stood with the twins on a beach in South Carolina. The photo was in an old silver frame that Sylvie had been given by Bob’s mother just before she died. No one looking at the picture, except for her and Bob, would know that she had snapped the photo, or that just minutes before Kenny had been caught in an undertow that had nearly pulled him out to sea. Sylvie had seen it happen, quick as a flash, and screamed: Bob had raced into the waves, crossed the current, and managed to pull Kenny along with him. Now Sylvie looked at the children’s smiling faces. They were completely unruffled but, d
espite Bob’s tan, Sylvie knew he had been, at that moment, pale beneath the sun’s ruddiness. Her finger had trembled on the shutter, and when they had gotten the photos back both of them had looked at this one together silently for a long time. Then Bob had mouthed her thought: the picture on the roll before this one might have been the very last one of the twins together.

  Sylvie clutched the dying flowers to her. She didn’t want to lose Bob. It was more than just love and it was more than lust and it was more than pride. He shared memories and experiences of her whole adult life, things she would never be able to share with anyone again. She wanted to get to keep her life and his reflection of it, just as she was willing still to reflect his. If her marriage ended, Sylvie knew she would never marry again. Not because she would continue to love Bob and moon over him, and not because this possible dissolution would turn her into a man hater, but because it this union failed, she would know that all unions could fail. She would never want to go through another, a false union doomed to disappoint and unravel. Rather than that she would turn to God, a love that would always be returned. That or she would get those golden retrievers.

  She pushed open the swinging kitchen door with her hip and stopped dead in her tracks. Every surface of the kitchen—the counters, the table, the island—was covered with food. It looked as if Marla was about to open a farm stand at the back of Sylvie’s home. Pumpkins were set on the table, tomatoes lined the windowsill, an entire net of garlic—at least a two-year supply—hung from the pot rack, and three sacks of potatoes were leaning against the basement door. There were also cans of baked beans, bowls of yams, boxes of Pepperidge Farm cookies, a huge pile of Indian corn, two or three tins of anchovies, a tray of baked cookies…just doing an inventory would have taken Sylvie all day. What in the world was Marla doing?

  Sylvie was a fanatic for putting things away and keeping her kitchen cleared and organized. She didn’t go as far as alphabetizing the canned goods, but she did keep them stacked, with the soonest expiration dates in the front, the later purchases in the back. She put down the vase, having to push over a stack of mail to find the counter space. Then she took a deep breath and scratched at her inner elbow. This chaos was enough to give her hives. And Bob hadn’t even noticed? Didn’t the man have eyes? Sylvie wondered for a moment why she had bothered fighting the daily tide of entropy for the last two decades. Certainly the kids had never minded disorder. Apparently Bob didn’t either. Had she been doing it all for herself? Sylvie thought of those hours—hundreds of hours—of unpacking and folding grocery bags, organizing and putting things away. She could have spent the time playing the piano. She could have spent the time with the children. Or exercising and having her hair streaked blonde. Maybe, if she’d spent the time on her appearance and with Bob instead of working in the house, she’d still be in this house, happy and loved.

  Sylvie looked up at the kitchen clock, a clock that had measured out her life for almost twenty years. She didn’t have much time, and thought it best to not even look at whatever other changes Marla had wrought. Instead, Sylvie just turned and opened the door to the laundry room, shutting it behind her and simultaneously turning on the light.

  She almost screamed. Here, confronting her, was the most enormous pile of laundry she’d ever seen, except maybe for that time when the kids came home from camp on same day Bob came back from a business convention. But this wasn’t just kids’ T-shirts and shorts. There were sheets and towels from all of the bathrooms. There were Bob’s sweaters, his polo shirts, his chinos and socks. There were dishcloths and washcloths, dress shirts and her cloth napkins. The biggest pile had obviously towered too high on the counter and had fallen onto the floor, creating a cloth swamp. Worst of all, there was no separation between the delicates and the permanent press, hand washables, or even the whites and colors. It was a stew.

  With a sigh Sylvie cleared the top of the washer so that she could at least begin the first load. As she pulled open the top the mildew smell that came from the darkness of the washer’s hold nearly knocked her over. She looked inside, her heart sinking, knowing what she’d see. A wash—god knew when it was from—was still in there, along with plenty of old water. Sylvie looked up at the control dial to discover that it was on the presoak cycle. God! How was she going to get the heavy, wet clothes out without touching the slimy soap-scummed water? Sylvie looked around the kitchen and managed to find her long-handled wooden spoon. She was curious as to why it would be in the pot cupboard when it belonged in the utensil drawer, but she couldn’t help but be grateful that whatever Marla’s housekeeping habits, she’d managed to find the thing.

  Sylvie pulled out nasty sopping rags for ten minutes and piled them next to the sink. Then she put the machine on the spin cycle to drain it while pulling out all the whites she could find. She began throwing sheets, towels, and the like into the now drained machine. She grabbed a pair of Bob’s briefs and then, beside them, a pair of her panties. They were panties that Marla must have worn. Sylvie stopped dead. Holding both pairs of underwear in her hands, Sylvie knew in a more visceral sense that Marla was not just in her shoes or in her house, but in her bed, on her sheets, and in her panties. It seemed, all at once, way too much for Sylvie.

  What had she done?

  Her hands began to shake. She threw the underclothes into the washer as if they were contaminated. The tears that trembled on her lower lids were hot. She bent down to gather more clothes, coming across her blue silk nightgown. What was this doing here? It needed to be dry-cleaned, not washed. Sylvie never wore that unless…

  No way, Sylvie told herself. Bob was too occupied with her—the faux Marla—to even think about having sex with his wife—the real Marla. Right? Right! Sylvie tried to shake the thought out of her head but the fact that she—as Marla—hadn’t made love with Bob yet didn’t make it any easier for her. Would her hesitation and teasing him cause him to have sex with his wife—faux Sylvie? Perhaps not; Sylvie couldn’t remember Bob coming home to her in the past few months after “a meeting” and being interested in sex. Now that Sylvie thought about it, he always just opted for a shower.

  With tears now running down her cheeks, Sylvie finished loading the machine, added the detergent, and closed the lid. She felt more pathetic than Cinderella, but she continued to sort the remaining dirty clothes into their respective piles, automatically emptying the pockets of Bob’s chinos, wiping away her tears as she went. I wonder, she thought, how many women are weeping in laundry rooms all over this country right now.

  She put her hand in all the pockets. She found the usual: change, crumpled dollar bills, business cards, and gum wrappers. Then, in the last pair of pants, she felt a larger object, almost billfold size. Bob normally carried his wallet in his jacket pocket; she put her hand into the slacks and found a tightly folded color pamphlet. Probably specs on a new car at the lot, Sylvie thought.

  But as she unfolded the Hawaiian brochure she couldn’t help but notice the colors. “Oh my god!” Sylvie said out loud. The crumpled bit of paper, which had been delivered only weeks ago, reminded her of how simple things had seemed and what a simpleton she’d been. Sylvie had thought Bob loved her and that the two of them would find their place in the sun. Now she found a place on the floor amid the drift of dirty laundry and, clutching the crumpled brochure in her hand, she wept aloud to the hum of the washer.

  22

  Marla was prepared to get prepared for Thanksgiving. She had a list. She’d used Sylvie’s cash card and had loved it—it was like going to Las Vegas and winning a jackpot every time. Now, with several hundred dollars in her purse, plus the tip from Mr. Brightman, she entered Food Universe. It was one of those stores with giant everything; there were mayonnaise jars the size of coffee tables. Marla wasn’t even used to regular supermarkets—she bought all her stuff at either the Vitamin Cave or the 7-Eleven.

  Marla was already pushing two huge carts and was only halfway down her list. She had institutional-size cans of cranberry sauce, a huge
box of stuffing, and sweet potatoes. She stared at a gigantic bag of marsh-mallows that could supply a university. What was that about? Luckily, an employee passed her and she stopped him. “Excuse me. I would like to see something smaller in a marshmallow.”

  “Sorry, that’s the only size we have.”

  Marla threw the huge plastic bag into her cart and continued down the aisle of the supermarket. She was searching out turkeys. She felt like a hunter. She was going to get the best, biggest bird for her family. She rounded the corner and was forced to steer her cart to the left to avoid running into the back of a lady waiting in line. It seemed they’d been there a long time. They were all talking to help pass the time. “Last year they ran out, just fifty people ahead of me,” the woman in front of Marla said.

  “Me too. And all the supermarkets were out too. I had to go to the children’s petting zoo and kidnap one,” a red-headed lady admitted.

  “You kidnapped a turkey?” another asked. “Then what?”

  “I was ready to wring somebody’s neck,” the redhead said with a laugh. “So it was the turkey’s.”

  Marla started to sweat at the thought of not getting a turkey for her family. She tried to sneak up the line, and got four or five places up, but an angry woman saw what she was doing. “Line cutter!” the woman yelled. All the other women caught on to what she was doing and pushed her all the way back to the end of the line.

  “You don’t understand!” Marla cried. “It’s my first Thanksgiving. I’ll do anything to get a turkey. It’s worth cutting in or strangling your own bird. Because when the table is set and beautiful, and the whole family sits down, they’re going to be really, really grateful for all the work I did.”

  Every woman who heard her started to laugh. They looked at Marla as if she were insane.