“Stop it.” A phantom wisp of pain echoes around Mary Beth’s head, and she winces, but barely. “That’s got nothing to do with it. Doug volunteered to do drop-off a couple times last week.” She hears how it sounds as soon as she’s said it.
“That’s very generous of him.” Darby feigns wide-eyed innocence.
“She’s not his type,” says Mary Beth, not minding if she sounds clueless.
The three of their kids—Noelle, Lola, and Bodhi—were in the same infant class, and they’ve grown up together ever since, year after year, lockstep, the best of friends. Or at least that’s the way it has been up until recently.
The waitress with the nose ring pierced through her septum comes to collect their orders, and Darby takes the opportunity to pick up her phone and scroll through work email. She’s from Los Angeles and has a background as a high-powered PR executive but took a step back when she had Lola. Now she’s overqualified for her job as a crisis manager for the county, where Mary Beth can only assume there are no pressing crises to manage today.
Rhea’s background, on the other hand, has always been more of a mystery. She pulls a gauzy orange wrap around her shoulders, obscuring the little hummingbird from view.
“If Miss Ollie spent half the amount of time and energy she spends nosing into how I parent my kid on her own teaching,” says Rhea, “then she might be able to control what goes on in her class. It makes me question whether our kids are even safe.” She levels her mossy green eyes at them. “I’m thinking about filing a formal complaint with the school.”
“Rhea.” It comes out more chiding than Mary Beth intends and indignation flashes across Rhea’s face.
“What?” Rhea blinks hard. “You think because maybe I don’t pay as much tuition as you I don’t get as much say?”
“No,” Mary Beth stammers. “Of course not.” She feels her face flush. She knows Rhea accepts some sort of financial aid package from the school even though, as she understands it, Bodhi’s father, Marcus, offered to pay the difference, no problem. For whatever reason, Rhea preferred to take out the loan instead and so naturally Mary Beth hadn’t been thinking about money when she made her comment. Anyway, she thought maybe Rhea’s business was doing quite well these days. Terrene. You’ve got to extend the e when you say it, like serene.
“I just think being a teacher is a really challenging job,” Mary Beth says gently.
“And maybe not everyone’s cut out for it.”
Mary Beth presses her lips together. She tries very hard to see it from Rhea’s point of view. Rhea’s feelings are … valid. Her child was harmed. Emotions are high. Of course they are.
“Care to jump in here, Darby?” Rhea sets her water down too hard and the ice tinkles against the glass. “Anything to add?”
Darby glances up from her phone. “Sorry, what are we talking about?”
Rhea rolls her eyes. They both know Darby has a tendency not to pay close attention, though Mary Beth sometimes suspects it’s a selective strategy more than a condition.
How long can it take to make raw food? she wonders a tad miserably.
“I’m talking about how I saw Griff at school.” Rhea leans back in her chair like she rests her case.
Darby puts down her phone. “I doubt that. What would he be doing there?”
Not that it would prove any point, but Mary Beth would like to know the same thing. Of all her friends’ husbands, Griff Morton is, by far, her least favorite.
Rhea purses her lips, like she’s not sure how much she should say, but now that she’s started, the lid has been good and lifted and what else can she do? “I only bring it up because he didn’t look too happy with Miss Ollie. He was, you know … They were arguing.” She watches Darby, they both do, searching for a glimmer of recognition. This is ringing a bell, right? You know about this, surely? But Darby’s face remains disturbingly blank. “I figured,” Rhea presses, “that something must be going on with Lola.”
Yes, Mary Beth thinks. There. Finally. Something is going on with Lola Morton. And now someone has finally had the guts to say so.
* * *
After dinner, Mary Beth takes an Oreo out of the package. Then she takes three. She eats them standing over the freshly wiped counter in her modern farmhouse.
Sooner or later, she and Darby will have to face the conversation about their daughters head-on. Of course, Mary Beth will be exceedingly gracious; she’s already been practicing in the shower how gracious she’ll be because it’s important not to gloat, never to gloat. It’s not her own daughter who’s been turning into a little monster （no wonder Noelle no longer wants to be friends with her）， but it just as easily could be.
Well, maybe not just as easily. No judgment （Verse 7:1）。
She scrapes the crumbs from the countertop and dusts them from her palms into the sink. Then she climbs the stairs to her master bedroom and rustles in the back of her closet for a shopping bag. Out from it, she pulls what the saleswoman called a red “cocktail lace playsuit,” which sounded promising.
She musses her hair, the way the models do in Victoria’s Secret ads. Better.
Swear on the Holy Bible, she never would have thought to buy lingerie if it weren’t for Pastor Ben.
Pastor Ben is new. Pastor Ben has tattoos. And wears hats indoors. She wasn’t even intending to pay attention to the sermon. Many Sundays, she tunes out, enjoying the forty-five or so minutes of her week during which no one is asking for chocolate milk at the exact same moment she sits down, or wondering whether she’s seen the remote, or talking to her while she’s on the toilet, asking her what smells.
Pastor Ben came onstage to the tune of “SexyBack” and Mary Beth was alerted to the movement of his firm biceps, his swaying hips, and his lack of forehead wrinkles. The point of the talk was to encourage married couples to have sex and, at the end of it, he announced the 30-Day Challenge with a zingy exclamation mark.
A spark plug shot off inside Mary Beth. When was the last time that she and Doug had had sex? Three months ago? Four?
But now, as she stands in front of a mirror in desperate need of a good Windex, wearing some unmentionables, a swell of pride rushes into her rib cage. She can do this. A starting point. A fighting chance. Carve out a place for herself, away from her crippling headaches and her nibbling volunteer work and her adorable children. She can take back her life.
* * *
“You didn’t need to do all that for me.” Doug’s put the kids to bed and, finally, the house is quiet. He peels off his socks and drops them into the hamper.
And suddenly, Mary Beth feels silly, and silly is not what one wants to feel in a cocktail lace playsuit. “I know.” She sounds dull, not vixen-y at all.
But need had nothing to do with it. Of course she didn’t need to wear new lingerie. What she’s after is desire. Now she doesn’t know what, exactly, she was expecting.
Or maybe, worse, she does.
She hoped her husband’s eyes would widen, caught by surprise, like a camera flash had gone off two inches from his nose. She imagined him crossing the room without a word, wrapping his fingers in the hair at the base of her skull and tipping her head back so that he could lower his mouth onto hers. That had never happened to her before and it sounded nice, like something she should experience at least once.