The Housewife(30)

Dolores is telling me stories of growing up (picture-book family, lots of siblings getting up to lots of mischief) and I’m telling her my stories of growing up, and she thinks I’m making it all up. (In the cellar? You are throwing me Chinese tales! You are inventing me a film!) And the best part? Dolores is an amazing cook. She and I are like two chefs in a five-star restaurant. We are so in tune with each other’s movements, you’d think we’d been working together for years. And then she brings up her son, Mikey.

“You have a son? That’s so sweet. How old is he?” I ask, putting sliced spring onions on a canapé.

“He’s eleven. He’s a good boy. ”

“I bet he is. Where is he now?”

She flicks her head toward the ceiling. “In our rooms.”

“He’s here?”

“Yes. We live here.”

“Oh, right. And does he go to school around here?”

Her face darkens. “He doesn’t go to school. It’s complicated.”

“Oh?”

“He’s deaf,” she says. “It’s hard to find a school for him around here, so I teach him.”

“You homeschool him? Here?”

“Yes.”

“That’s amazing. And is he a good student?”

She smiles while trying not to, and her face is awash with pride. “Very. He’s a very good student. He knows all about math, and history, and geography, and literature…”

We don’t stop talking. Not for one minute. Another hour later, we have prepared a spread incredible enough to make a French chef eat his hat and cry into his velouté de champignons. By the time we are done, we have a large plate of poached salmon filet with dill crème fra?che, a million different salads, each more succulent than the other, fresh fruit platters, freshly made dips and God knows what else.

And then, something occurs to me.

“Dolores, did you know Deborah? The first Mrs. Davies?”

She nods, and her eyes water. “Yes. She was very kind. A very kind person. She was very fond of Mikey, too.”

I nod. “I can imagine that.”

She gives me an odd look, a tilt of the head .

“I mean, the way everyone talks about her. Did you know her well?”

“No. We are not, you know…of the same… How do you say? Stock?”

“Stock’s a good word,” I say. I wash a bowl and set it to dry on the rack. “Did you see her before she died?”

Silence. I turn around. “Are you all right, Dolores?”

“Yes, yes.” She shakes her head. “It was very sad.”

“I know. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I didn’t see her, no. I didn’t see her often, only when she came here, but she stopped coming, and then she was dead.”

I nod. Then I hand her a tiny slice of salmon on a crostini with a dollop of crème fra?che and a pinch of dill.

She shakes her hands in front of it. “Oh, no!”

“Why not? You don’t like salmon?”

“I never eat the salmon. It’s too good.”

“But you must try it, you made it.”

“No.” She shakes her head. Then in a low voice she says, “Not allowed.”

I’m about to ask what is not allowed when Meredith bursts into the room, tittering on her high heels.

“How are we going in here?” she asks, slurring her words.

“We’re about to serve,” I say.

“Right! Well?” She claps twice. “Let’s go!”

I tilt my head at her. Some people are like that, I guess. They go through life secure in the knowledge that everyone else is there to serve them. And I have to say, that makes Meredith a hard person to like. In fact, there was a moment earlier, when Dolores disappeared to let the guests in, where I briefly considered pushing my finger deep inside my throat and vomiting into the salsa, but I didn’t, for Dolores’s sake.

And anyway, revenge is like honey: it doesn’t matter how long you leave it, it never goes bad.

We bring out the food. Barb is here, as is Eileen, but I never met any of the others. They glance at me oddly, with up and down looks, like they already know all about me and they are gauging whether their impressions were right.

As Dolores and I put the food down on the dining table—this is self-serve buffet style, so we don’t have to serve anyone—Eileen comes up to me.

“How wonderful of you to do this, Jodie. It’s so generous of you to give your time like this.” Her smile is broad, almost too broad, and I wonder for a moment if she is afraid of me.

There’s a collective clearing of throats. “We give our time to charity all the time,” Meredith says, smiling broadly.

“All the time,” Barb adds.

“It’s nothing,” I say. “And I didn’t do it alone. Dolores was a great help.”

“Exactly,” Meredith says.

“Well, good for you!” Eileen beams. She hooks her arm into mine. “I didn’t say anything,” she whispers. “To anyone. I didn’t want Roy to get upset.”

“Thank you,” I say.

“And look at you, how pretty you are. Now. What will you have to drink?”