“Did you see what the Alexanders have done to their garden?” Cynthia said.
“Ridiculous,” said Mary. “So de trop.”
Diana pushed at the skin around her mouth. “It’s time to take care of this, don’t you think? There’s that place in West Virginia where they coddle you afterward.”
“It costs a fortune,” said Cynthia.
“Dickie said for my birthday I can have whatever I want.” She cupped her breasts and lifted them a few inches, squeezing to create a deep cleavage. “Of course, this is what he wants. And I might just. Wouldn’t that be a surprise!” She turned to Anne. “Dickie said I should go to your guy. What’s his name again?”
Anne wrote down the name and number on the back of a napkin. Diana folded it into her purse.
“Expensive?” she asked.
Anne nodded.
“Good, Dickie won’t be happy unless I tell him I’m going to the most expensive guy there is.” She repeated the name. “Not Jewish, right?”
“I’m not sure, I don’t think so,” said Anne.
“Can you find out?” Diana asked. “My podiatrist is Jewish, but Dickie doesn’t want them touching my face.”
“I love watching you and Bill dance,” Cynthia said. “You’re the perfect couple. Everyone can see how much you’re in love.”
“He’s so sexy,” Mary said. She sighed. “Oh, to be a newlywed again. Of course, all that will change once you’re married. You can kiss the sex goodbye!”
“Mary, stop,” Cynthia said. “Not around Anne.”
“Oh, pooh,” Mary said. “I can say whatever I like.” She turned to Anne. “I’m so glad you quit that awful job. It’s so much fun to have you around all the time. At long last. You’re one of us now. Welcome to the club!”
Diana blotted her lipstick. “This is too brown. Isn’t this too brown? I don’t know why I always let them talk me into brown lipstick. It washes me out. I should stick to coral.”
“They say it’s coming back,” said Cynthia. “Anne, you have such pretty lipstick. Is it new?”
“Oh, this,” Anne said. “I’ve been wearing the same color for years. They sell me something new, and I try it for a while, but I always go back.”
“Let me see,” Cynthia said. She held the tube far from her face. “I can’t read this without my glasses. What is it?”
“Same old same old,” Anne said. “Barely Pink.”
The next day Anne took the train into the city. When the taxi pulled up to her apartment, a doorman rushed up to her.
“Miss Welles, I hope it’s okay, we weren’t sure what to do, it was such a big delivery,” he said. “There was so much, we had to put it in your apartment.”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure whatever you did was fine,” said Anne. She slipped him a ten-dollar bill. “Thank you,” she said.
He waved off the bill. “It was taken care of,” he said. From his expression Anne could tell he had been tipped far more than ten dollars.
Her apartment was filled with flowers, hundreds and hundreds of flowers. Roses, on every surface. In the hallway, on the dining room table, on her dresser, red roses in blue glass vases. There was a separate card with each one, with numbers written on the envelopes.
Anne collected all the cards and read them in order. Each one was signed simply “T.”
“Let’s drive each other crazy,” the first one went. “We were made for each other” was next. Anne flipped through the cards once, twice, and then again. “You’ll love Wyoming.” “I’m a terrible husband!” “But I promise you, it will never be boring.” “Sixth time’s a charm.” The final card was simply a cell phone number. She went to the kitchen and tossed them all into the trash.
She called Bill at his office. “Change of plans, I’ll just meet you at the restaurant,” she said. They went to an Italian restaurant down a side street. It was summer, and the place was practically empty. Anne had steeled herself with five milligrams of Valium.
She waited until the coffee arrived. There was no easy way to say it.
“I can’t marry you,” she said.
He didn’t believe her at first. “My God, you can’t be serious. The invitations have already gone out.”
“I’ve been thinking about it for weeks.”
“Look, Anne, everyone gets all worked up after funerals, questions what they’re doing with their lives. It will pass.”
“It’s not just pre-wedding jitters. This is different.” She watched his face fall as he realized she wasn’t going to change her mind.
“All right, then,” he began. “You understand, there’s no going back.”
She took off the ring and laid it in the palm of his hand, watching him shrink a little at her touch.
“Dickie was right about you,” Bill said. “They were all right.”
“Oh Bill, don’t. Let’s end this as friends.”
“Friends? You must be joking. You’re about to humiliate me in front of the entire world, and you want to be friends. I don’t think so. Tell me,” he said. “What has changed?”
“Nothing has changed. Do you remember when you proposed? And you said the kind of love I’m looking for doesn’t exist? That this was as good as it gets?”
“I remember.”
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe this is as good as it gets. But it’s not for me. I can’t walk down the aisle and say those vows feeling the way I do.”
“And all those times you said you loved me.”
“I do love you. But not the way you want. And it does exist, I know it does. I’ve felt that way before. I want to feel that way again. I just have to believe I can feel that way again.”
“My God. You’ve met someone.”
“Not really.”
“Don’t lie to me. You owe me that much.”
“I had … there was something. Just one night. Someone I’ll probably never see again. But it … I don’t know, it woke me up somehow. What we have, it isn’t enough for me. And it can’t be enough for you. We both deserve more.”
“What a pretty speech,” he said. “From such a pretty mouth. But so ugly on the inside.”
“You hate me.”
“I don’t hate you. What I feel is something else. You disgust me. To go from one man’s bed to another like a common whore, as if it all washes off in the bath.” He picked up the ring. “Did you take this off when you were with him?”
“Yes,” she lied.
He slipped the ring into his pocket. “You’re making a mistake,” he said. “Women like you end up alone, unhappy and alone. I know where I went wrong. I treated you too well. Women like you are all the same. You can’t feel love unless some bastard is mistreating you. That’s what you’re all about, isn’t it. You only want what you can’t have. The more unavailable a man is, the more you love him. That isn’t love. That’s just sickness.” He threw some money on the table and left.
What had she done. She went home and washed a Valium down with two inches of a good Pinot Grigio. She sat by the kitchen window. It was a clear night. Airplanes circled in from the west. Beyond the East River, the city spread out like a twinkling carpet. Every light was a story, and every story was a woman, someone who was perhaps just like her: waiting for happiness, waiting for the dream of the city to come true. A million women, having a drink or taking a doll, looking out of their windows, thinking about the man who had left or maybe the man who was just around the corner. The airplanes looked so tiny in the distance. She realized she had no idea what kept them aloft. You just got on, and decided not to be afraid.
She remembered a piece she had done years ago, about the euphoria people felt doing dangerous things. Someone who ran a skydiving business had explained to her that it was an addiction just like anything else: you learned to love the chemicals that your body produced when you conquered the fear. Every day hundreds of people jumped out of airplanes just for the fun of it, just to feel alive. Some said the moments before you pulled the ripcord were the best.
> She fished the cards out of the trash. The one with his number was on top. She picked up the telephone and dialed.
Epilogue, 2001.
Whatever happened to Anne Welles? It was a game people played at the very end of parties, when they had stayed too late and all the good booze was gone.
No one had to ask what had happened to Neely O’Hara. Her air-brushed story ran every few months on one of the cable stations. She was living alone in Malibu, almost a recluse. She went into Los Angeles every so often, for a fund-raiser or to present an award. She hadn’t released an album in years. The program had included clips from a carefully scripted interview. Neely still looked good. It wasn’t just the soft lighting. She seemed happy and calm, her expression rarely changing. Or perhaps that was just the surgery. Everyone said she had had so much work, some of her muscles didn’t move right anymore. She could smile a little, but she could not frown.
The tabloids still published the rumors, running grainy photographs shot from behind hedges with special long-range lenses. Neely in gay marriage pact with English rock star! Neely wills fortune to household pets! But the fortune was mostly gone. The genius from Wharton had played the wrong cards the year before.
Twice a year she flew to Las Vegas for a five-night engagement. She didn’t dance, didn’t tell jokes, she just sat on a stool and sang her heart out. Her voice was as glorious as ever. It was the same show every time, but her fans didn’t care.
Jenn was in the tabloids now, too. She was engaged to an actor, a Hollywood bad boy with too many cars and a famous tattoo. She was taking acting lessons in the Village. She had a knack for accents, and the camera had always been her friend.
But where was Anne Welles? There were so many television channels now. No one retired anymore, they just moved up the dial. If you flipped around long enough, surely you would find her.
Anne Welles Abernathy was forty-eight years old, but she didn’t look it. Every morning she covered herself with sunscreen, tied back her hair with a red velvet ribbon, and took her horse for a ride across her husband’s ranch. In the winters, when it was too cold to ride, she went down to her narrow lap pool and swam for precisely forty-five minutes. The pool was a wedding present from Terry. Back and forth, back and forth, it was boring, but that was exercise. She would always miss the ocean.
In the summer evenings she would wrap herself in an old plaid blanket and take a light beer out onto the porch. The sun set so late in Wyoming. She watched it fall behind the mountains, breathing in the piney air. And she said to herself: Ours, all ours, as far as the eye can see. She was going to be the last Mrs. Abernathy. She was far too expensive to divorce.
Sometimes, those rare weeks when he wasn’t away on business, Terry joined her on the porch. He would smoke an unfiltered cigarette and tell her about a deal he was working on. The deals were endless, and the deals were all the same. The chase was the part he liked. Anne knew there were women on the road, but she was no longer bothered.
Nothing bothered her anymore. She felt as calm as a sleeping animal. She had gotten what she wanted: peace of mind. Two baby dolls a day was all it took. Terry was a big man, he needed three.
They took them together, just before bed.
“What did people do before?” Terry asked her.
She pulled back the covers. “Who can remember,” she said.
About the Author
RAE LAWRENCE is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Satisfaction. She lives in New York City.
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