I spoke to Laura. Rebecca was thrilled at the prospect of seeing you. She asked me to pass along that she is hosting a party for Dana Johnston today at 4:00 P.M. She invited you!
570 Second Avenue.
We are off to a charity auction in Carlsbad.
Home late.
Frankie glanced at the clock on the stove. The party had started fifteen minutes ago.
She didn’t want to go to Becky’s. In fact, the thought of going made her feel vaguely ill. Could she handle seeing old friends?
No.
But what was the alternative? Sit in this mausoleum of a house alone, waiting until long after dark to go to work? Or be here when her parents returned? Her mother eyed her nervously all the time, as if she feared Frankie was wired with explosives and one wrong word would set her off. And Dad seemed determined not to look at her at all.
She’d promised Barb and Ethel that she would do more than endure, that she would engage.
This was as good a place to start as any.
She ate a piece of Wonder Bread slathered with butter and sprinkled with sugar, and headed back to her room for her shoes and handbag. It occurred to her that she should expend a little effort with her hair and makeup. Maybe wear a dress. Several of her old high school friends would be there, after all, most of whom had grown up swimming at the country club and learning to play golf.
But Frankie couldn’t do it. The Army nurse’s death had stripped her defenses down to nothing. She was barely hanging on as it was. She started the Bug and backed out of the garage and headed across the island, drove up Orange Avenue, and turned left on Second, just a street from the park.
The house was a bungalow from the 1940s; small and perfectly kept up, gray paint, a bright red door. Flowers grew in neatly tended window boxes on either side of the stone path that led from the sidewalk to the front door.
Frankie got out of her car and walked very slowly to the gate, opening it—click—shutting it behind her—click.
The stone path was lined on either side with flowers in bright pink bloom.
She stopped at the front door, knocked, and immediately heard footsteps on the other side.
Becky answered the door. For a split second, Frankie didn’t recognize the beautiful young woman with bouffant blond hair, who carried a plump, blue-eyed toddler in a sailor suit on her hip.
“Frankie’s here, everyone!”
Becky shouted so loudly that the baby in her arms started to cry.
Frankie was pulled through a house cluttered with children’s toys, out to the patio, where a dozen well-dressed women were sitting in folding chairs, drinking champagne. A silver coffee service sat on a slim wooden table; beside it, an array of hors d’oeuvres: pigs in a blanket, ants on a log, nut-covered balls of cheese encircled by Ritz crackers.
It felt strangely discordant to Frankie that this staid, unchanging world of flowers and champagne and women in summery dresses persevered while men—and women—were dying in Vietnam.
Frankie recognized several high school friends, girls she’d played volleyball with and gone on double dates with, a few of the cheerleaders, two or three older women—the mothers—and also saw some young women she didn’t know. College friends of Dana’s or relatives, perhaps.
The patio was decorated with balloons; a large table held beautifully decorated gifts. It was a birthday party, she supposed. Had her mother told her that?
“I … should have a gift,” Frankie said, feeling out of place. She didn’t belong in this party full of pretty housewives who wore pressed dresses and smoked Virginia Slims.
“Don’t give it a thought,” Becky said, taking her by the arm, leading her through the party to a chair near a fragrant, laden orange tree.
Dana began opening gifts.
Frankie tried to smile in admiration at appropriate times. She saw the way the other women oohed and aahed over household items. Silver candlesticks. Waterford glasses. Sheets from Italy.
Dana, whom Frankie barely remembered from grade school, smiled brightly at each present and said something special to the giver. Her mother sat beside her, making notes about each gift, so that short work could be made of the thank-you notes. A maid in a black-and-white uniform bustled from table to table, freshening drinks and delivering canapés.
A wedding shower, Frankie realized slowly. Oh God.
Frankie snagged a glass of champagne from a nearby tray.
She drank it quickly, put her empty glass down, and picked up another, and then lit up a cigarette, trying to smoke herself to calm. Then she remembered that she had to be at work at 2300 hours.
She shouldn’t drink before her shift at the hospital.