“Oh, yeah!” Kate’s face lights up at the prospect of good gossip. “You won’t believe this.”
Kate starts to ramble, but my eyes are locked on Amy. It’s almost too dark to make out her face, but when she shifts in her seat and the patio light flashes across her like a lightning burst, I can tell that she’s upset. Kate was rude, but it’s not as if her distaste for Mike is any big secret, so it strikes me as odd that Amy looks as distressed as she does, and I wonder if something else is going on with her.
The next morning, I’m sure that something’s really wrong. I’m lying in the king-sized bed in one of the several bedrooms that make up the guest wing of the house, my head pounding from the alcohol the night before. I’m trying to will myself to get up and walk across the plush carpet to the marble bathroom to brush the rotten taste out of my mouth. The bedroom that I’m in looks like it’s straight out of Dynasty—mauve and pink silks, gilded furniture, a brassy chandelier over the bed that’s about the size of a carousel. Kate’s mother apparently hasn’t bothered to redecorate these rooms since the eighties.
I’m lying there in the quiet, mindlessly counting the crystal droplets on the chandelier above me, when I suddenly start to hear something. At first I think it’s a bird chirping outside, but then I realize that it’s somebody crying—Amy. I sit up and press my ear to the wall behind my bed—her bedroom is right next door. These aren’t soft little cries. They’re full, from-the-belly sobs. I jump out of bed and pull on my sweatpants and rush into the hall. I knock softly on the heavy wood door.
“Just a minute,” I hear Amy say.
She opens the door in her lavender nightgown. Her cheeks are slightly sunburnt from the day before and her eyes are puffy, of course. There’s no way she can get around the fact that she’s been crying.
“Are you okay?” I say, reaching out to touch her arm.
“Fine.” She forces a smile and then, just as quickly, looks away from me.
“Are you sure? It sounded like you were crying pretty hard.”
“I just miss Emma,” she says, grinning again. “I don’t know why it’s so hard on me this year. I know it’s silly…”
“No, it’s not silly at all,” I lie. I actually think it’s completely odd—and I don’t buy her story for a second. I may not be a mother, but I know Amy, and she’s not the kind of woman who would get this worked up over being away from her child for a few days.
“Are you sure it doesn’t have something to do with last night?” I say.
“Last night? Oh, no.” She laughs unconvincingly. “That was just Kate being…”
“Kate,” I finish for her.
“Yeah,” she says.
“Are you sure everything’s all right, Amy?” I say again. What I heard was full-on breakdown crying. It sounded like she was flipping out.
“Yeah, yeah,” she says. “I’m really fine. In fact, I’m actually pretty hungry. Are you?” She raises an eyebrow at me and forces another smile. “Any chance you feel like cooking?”
The rest of the weekend is downright weird. Kate’s huffy and agitated. She buries herself in her magazines and goes out shopping, leaving Amy and me back at the house, where we mostly lounge by the pool. On Saturday night, her birthday, we give her the double-chocolate birthday cake that I had shipped down from the bakery, and Amy presents her with a gift—pretty monogrammed cocktail napkins that I’m sure she fretted over. Kate’s gracious enough, but the celebration lasts all of twenty minutes before she says she wants to take a long bath and go to bed.
Moodiness isn’t all that unusual for Kate, but it is strange for Amy, who continues to be a black-and-white version of her usual self all weekend. She insists that she’s fine—she is just hungover, or she’s tired, or she’s had too much sun—all lame excuses that I don’t believe for a minute. Every time I ask her about missing home or if she’s talked to Mike, a shadow falls over her face. “I’m fine, Waverly, really,” she says.
By the time we’re on our plane back on Sunday, I can’t wait to get home, no matter the problems that will greet me as soon as we touch down in D.C. I’m not returning home relaxed, with color in my cheeks and the residual scent of suntan lotion on my skin. Instead, I feel edgy and tired. Kate is softly snoring in the seat across the aisle from me. Amy is in the window seat to my right, dog-earing recipes in Cooking Light. On the way to the airport earlier, the three of us kept saying that we were sad to leave, but it was bullshit and we all knew it.
“Hey.” Amy taps my arm and points at a page in the magazine. “What’s crema mexicana?”
“It’s kind of like sour cream, but thinner.”
Amy isn’t fine, no matter how many times she says it. I’m as sure of that as I am of my own name. Something is up, and the more that I think about the way she reacted when Kate asked her about Mike, and the more I think about how Amy and Mike interact when I’ve seen them lately, I start to wonder: What if he’s cheating on her? I can’t imagine why any woman would fall for him, but maybe he’s channeling all of his long-lost charm to someone else and that’s the reason why he acts the way he does around us. Maybe someone at work—I know that Mike’s partner is an elderly man, but maybe there’s a young nurse in the office…or even a patient? A lot of women swoon over a white coat. The more that I think about it, the more plausible it seems, and by the time the pilot announces that we’re beginning to make our approach into Dulles, I’m convinced. As the flight attendants walk up and down the aisles, collecting trash, Kate finally stirs. I check to make sure Amy’s still busy with her magazine and then I reach across the aisle and poke Kate. “Need to talk to you,” I mouth, turning in my seat so that Amy can’t see me.
Kate furrows her brow, annoyed.
“Have a theory,” I mouth and glance toward Amy.
Kate sighs deeply, rolling her eyes, and turns her back to me.
CHAPTER SEVEN
After we get our bags, Amy and I say good-bye to Kate and head to my car, wheeling our suitcases behind us. It’s just dusk and it’s nearly sleeting outside, and I’m dying to get home, put on my ratty sweats, and avoid reality for the last few hours before work tomorrow. I’ve missed Larry, and it’s a welcome feeling. I want to settle in with him on the couch. And I want scrambled eggs. I’m obviously the expert in our kitchen, but Larry is undeniably the king of eggs. It’s his thing. I try to remember whether we have a carton in the fridge.
In the car, Amy asks me if I have a big week coming up, and my stomach drops when I think of the meeting I’m having with my accountant tomorrow to talk about freezing my salary.
“Just the usual stuff,” I lie. She is so excited to see Emma that she’s the most animated that I’ve seen her all weekend. She talks the whole way to her house—a forty-minute trip because of the traffic that never lets up in this part of the world, even on a rainy Sunday night—and when we pull into her driveway, she asks me to come inside and say hello.
“Oh, no, it’s okay. I’m sure they’re dying to see you. I don’t want to interfere.” I am so desperate to get home that the seven-mile drive between our houses already feels like it will take days.
“Oh, come on. Just a minute?” she says, gathering up her things. “Just for a minute,” she says again, this time definitively.
I reluctantly turn the key to shut off the ignition and we run in the rain up her front walk. It’s odd that she wants me to come in so badly when she hasn’t seen her family all weekend, but she’s so keyed up I guess she assumes it would be fun for me to say hello, too.
When Amy opens the door, Emma tackles her before she’s over the threshold. She drops her purse and keys on the floor and hugs Emma close.
“Oh my goodness, you smell so good,” she says, burying her nose in Emma’s neck. “I missed you so much!” Living here has washed most of the drawl out of Amy’s voice, but you can hear it when she’s baby talking to Emma.
“Mommy, I have something for you,” Emma says when they let go. She grabs Amy’s wrist with both hands an
d pulls her toward the living room.
“Wait, now, hold on a second, honey. Say hello to Aunt Waverly. She came in to see you.” I should have left the car running, I think. Then I could have had a quicker escape.
“Hi!” She smiles up at me and waves quickly. “Come on, Mom. Come on!” she says, yanking Amy’s wrist again.
Amy rolls her eyes at me. “Come on in for a second.”
“No, it’s okay, Amy. Really…”
“Waverly, just for a second,” she says, letting Emma pull her through the arched entryway to the living room.
Mike is on the sofa reading the paper. A basketball game is blaring on the television. Several of Emma’s stuffed animals are lined up on the floor, with a plastic tea set arranged carefully in front of them.
“Hey,” Mike says halfheartedly, looking at Amy over the top of the paper. He gives her a once-over.
What a welcome, I think.
“Hi!” Amy smiles at him.
“Waverly, hey,” he says to me, with somehow even less enthusiasm.
“Waverly just came in for a minute to say hello, Mike,” she says. I can tell she’s disappointed with the way he’s acting, and it makes me want to get out of here faster. I wonder if he saw his mistress this weekend. I wonder if he’s had the gall to bring her around Emma.
She tugs on Amy’s arm again. “Mommy, I have to show you!” she whines.
“Okay,” she says, running her hand over Emma’s hair. Mike’s looking at her expectantly, his eyebrows raised, like, “Well, what are you waiting for?” Welcome home, Amy, I think again. I missed you so much. It’s so nice to see you. How was your trip?
“Mommy,” Emma pleads, shaking Amy’s arm.
“Okay, baby, okay.” I follow behind the two of them as Emma leads us to the kitchen.
“Close your eyes,” Emma instructs. Amy squeezes them tight, scrunching up her face. “You, too, Aunt Waverly!”
I do as I’m told.
“Okay, now! Look!”
Emma holds over her head a piece of pink construction paper on which she’s painted a red house, several orange hearts, and a yellow sun in the top right corner.
“I made it for you,” she says, beaming at her mother.
“Oh, thank you, honey! It’s beautiful! I love it,” Amy says, bending down to kiss her.
I look at the thick finger-painted images. Hearts. A house. During college, I took an Intro to Psych class where we did a section about art therapy. The professor was an elderly man with horrible eczema who spent most of the quarter enjoying the fruits of his tenure by reading The Nation at his desk while we watched videos of troubled kids drawing pictures about what they were feeling. I look at Emma’s picture and wish I’d retained something from that class. Amy’s obviously an incredible mom, but now I wonder what that little girl’s experienced with a dad like Mike, no matter what Amy says about him being a great father. Kids can sense things.
“Did you and your daddy have a good time?” Amy pulls Emma toward her for another hug.
“Uh-huh,” Emma nods. She has red stains around her lips. Fruit punch.
“What did you do?”
I feel Mike walk up behind us. He stands next to me and leans on the kitchen counter. I scoot over a step to put some distance between us. I’m on to you, I think.
“We went to the park…umm…we went to the children’s museum,” Emma says, ticking off the places on her fingers. She pauses for a moment, looking up at the ceiling with her head cocked to the side and her hands on her hips. A three-year-old’s thinking pose.
“We went out for pizza,” Mike offers.
“Yeah, pizza!” Emma yells, jumping up and down.
“Well, that sounds great,” Amy says. “I missed you sooo much!” She pulls Emma in closer. “It’s soooo good to be home!”
“Did you miss Daddy?” Emma says.
Amy glances up at Mike. “I did, I missed you both very much,” she says, cupping Emma’s face in her hands.
I notice that Mike doesn’t even look at Amy. His eyes are locked on Emma. Asshole.
“Mommy! Now you hug Daddy!” Emma says excitedly, jumping up and down.
Amy glances at me, then stands and gives her husband, the father of her child, the most awkward, formal, un-Amy-like hug I’ve ever seen her give anyone. It’s the robotic kind of hug you’d give to a distant cousin you rarely see. Is it possible that Amy actually knows or at least suspects something?
I watch her walk to the refrigerator and slide Emma’s masterpiece under a magnet that says, “Martha Stewart Doesn’t Live Here.” Yeah, right.
“Did you eat?” she asks Mike.
“We did,” he says. “There’s leftover pizza in the fridge if you want it.”
“Waverly, do you want some pizza? We haven’t eaten since this morning. You must be starving.”
I am actually ravenous—so hungry that I could eat the cardboard box it came in, much less the pizza—but I have to escape this crazy house before I witness any more of this. I feel awful for Amy—I’m going to have to think long and hard about how I’m going to bring it up—but right now, I just need to get home. My relationship with Larry is beginning to seem over-the-top wonderful to me now. I make a mental note to remind myself of this when I actually see him.
“No, no. I’m fine. I should really—,” I start.
“Did you have a good time?” Mike interrupts. He hops up onto the kitchen counter.
“Yeah, we did,” Amy answers. Emma’s playing with her alphabet magnets on the fridge. “It was about what you would expect, a lot of time lying by the pool. You would have hated it.” She forces a laugh. “I know how restless you get just lying around.”
“Did you go out at all?” He drums his fingers along the countertop. I start to rattle my keys in my hand, trying to subtly signal that I need to go.
“No, not really. We walked around town a little bit late Saturday afternoon, but we mostly hung around the house. Was everything okay here? No problems with her?”
“Everything was fine. We had a good time,” he says. “Last night, she came into our room in the middle of the night. Had a nightmare.”
“Our room?” Amy says. She looks confused. Whoa.
“Yeah, you know, our bedroom?” Mike says.
“Oh, yeah,” she laughs. “Sorry. I am really tired.” She looks at me and shakes her head at herself. She’s blushing. “Wow. I’m out of it.”
“I have to go do some bills,” Mike says, out of nowhere. He leaves the room without saying good-bye to me.
“So, I’m going to go,” I say, trying to be casual.
“Okay,” Amy says. “Are you sure you don’t want to take some pizza with you?”
“No. No, thanks.” I rattle my keys.
“Emma, say good-bye to Waverly.”
“Bye-bye,” she sings.
At the door, I give Amy a hug. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” I say.
“Sounds great. It was so fun!” she says.
I nod back. Not really.
“Okay, see you,” I say, and then turn to run to my car.
An hour later, I am sitting on the couch with a plate of scrambled eggs and toast in my lap. Larry pushes the Sunday paper aside to put a cup of chamomile tea on the coffee table for me and then sits down. He has had a do-nothing weekend—grabbed a burrito lunch with a buddy, finished the book he was reading—and the house reflects it. Four pairs of his shoes and a sweatshirt dot the living room floor, and it annoys me more than it should but I don’t say anything. I am happy to be home and I don’t want to fuck it up by nagging him.
“Good eggs,” I say, placing a forkful onto a piece of toast and taking a bite. He somehow always gets the salt and pepper ratio exactly right.
“Thanks,” he says, shifting closer on the couch and stretching an arm behind me to rub my back. “So tell me why the trip was weird.”
When I’d walked in and dropped my suitcase by the stairs, he’d asked, “How did things go in the Sunshine State?”
“Not so sunny,” I’d replied.
“It was just weird,” I tell him now. “Mostly because of Amy.” I tell him about the sullen mood and the crying. I leave out Kate’s crankiness, which isn’t exactly breaking news, and forgo telling him about Brendan wanting kids, which has the potential to lead to a talk about our future as parents. We both want kids, but like everything else concerning our relationship, it’s something we act like we’ll just ‘get around to,’ as if I’m twenty-five instead of thirty-five and we have all the time in the world.
“I developed a theory on the plane,” I say.
“What’s that?” He reaches to wipe a toast crumb off of the corner of my lip.
“I think Mike’s cheating on her.”
“Really?” He looks skeptical.
“Yeah, you don’t think it’s plausible?”
“I don’t know. He’s not exactly Casanova. I can’t picture how he would meet someone.”
“I know, but think about it: He’s a decent-looking guy, he’s a doctor, and he used to have a normal personality. It would explain why he’s such an ass to Amy and why he seems so tortured when he’s with us.”
“Yeah.” Larry shrugs. “I guess I always assumed he was just kind of a miserable person. He’s been like this for years. Do you think he’s had a girlfriend all that time?”
“Who knows? Maybe he’s had lots of them. I don’t know, but the more I think about it, the more it all makes sense.”
“I can see where you’re going with this, but I hope it’s not true,” Larry says.
“Yeah,” I say. “I wonder if Amy knows.”
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