In other words, why was Larry always jerking himself?
Here’s a story: One time, Rhea, Fritz, and the kids were at the Wildes’ for dinner. It was its usual mess. Greasy dishes and thumbprints on the wineglasses. So Rhea’d washed while Arlo had cut vegetables, and Gertie had poached eggs. Even Fritz had helped out; for maybe the first time ever, he’d set the table. Until then, she’d never have guessed he knew how!
They’d all had so much fun and felt so close. On their way out the door, saying their good-byes, Arlo had leaned into Rhea, hugging her a beat too long. “Thanks for being so good to Gertie,” he’d said, and then he’d kissed her cheek but gotten the corner of her lips, too. Dazed, she’d looked to Gertie to see if her friend was jealous, only Gertie’d acted like it was nothing.
At the time, Rhea’d felt flattered. But later she’d wondered: Had Arlo been hitting on her? And if a wife can ignore something like that, what else can she ignore?
She’d related her observations to Linda Ottomanelli, who, most likely, had spread it around to the rest of the neighbors. And then, last week, she’d been planning the barbeque, and she’d known that if Gertie and her family showed up, that the neighbors might ask questions, compare stories. If Gertie found out about the rumors Rhea had spread, she might get mad enough to retaliate. Spill beans she had no business spilling. So she’d eliminated the problem, and excluded the Wildes.
The exclusion didn’t feel cruel. It felt like self-preservation. And if the murk had unfurled again, more rage-filled than ever, at least she’d found the proper target against whom to direct it.
* * *
F, Rhea wrote along the top of the final paper. It argued that heroin should be legal, since it would garner more tax revenue to fight the immigrant crisis.
“Mom?” a voice asked. Thirteen-year-old Shelly stood in the kitchen, just at the edge of Rhea’s alcove office, calling in. No one but Rhea was allowed in here. It was her solitary place.
“Yeah?” Rhea asked.
“Can I go outside with the Rat Pack?” Shelly was wearing her hair in a long braid down her back that ended at her hips. The edges were snarled. Even with a bottle of conditioner, tonight’s brushing session would be a long one. “They’ve got this yellow thing. They’re sliding on it.”
“It’s a Slip ’N Slide. They’re from my day. I think they stopped making them ’cause kids crash and get paralyzed,” Rhea answered.
“Oh. Can I go? I won’t get paralyzed.”
“You’ll get cancer, which is worse. You know why that sinkhole happened? Because people like the Wildes don’t pay taxes.”
Shelly mumbled something under her breath. Presumably it was contrary. The girl was a disturbing cocktail of meekness and fury, uneven since birth, in ways that kept Rhea awake nights with worry.
“Your trouble is that you sympathize with everybody. But not everybody deserves it. Now help me out and set the table,” Rhea said as she made a pile of her papers and set them aside.
Shelly’s eyes got full. “She was my best friend.”
“We’ve been through this. It’s not Julia. It’s her parents.”
“You should trust me, Mom.”
“I do trust you. I don’t trust them. I’ve told you this. I don’t like repeating it. I don’t ever want you in that house, especially not sleeping over. Gertie and Arlo are strange. I don’t like the way he looks at me. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yeah. I know. You said. But he looks at me normal.”
“He doesn’t,” Rhea said, which did not feel like a lie. More like a perceptive extrapolation. “He’s got his eye on you. You’re just too young to understand it. Do you promise you’ll keep away?”
Shelly nodded, blushing softly.
Rhea set her papers aside and retrieved the Crock-Pot dinner she’d made. Shelly set the table: plates, utensils, and glasses. When both were finished, Rhea leaned down and held her daughter’s slender shoulders, kissed her graceful neck.
Of all her children, Shelly was Rhea’s greatest burden and her greatest gift. The child could be impossibly sweet, volunteering for the first flu shot of the season so her little sister could see that they didn’t hurt. She cried at the sight of homeless people. She could also be terrible, hitting Ella hard enough to bruise, mouthing off to teachers, screaming loud enough to hurt Rhea’s ears. She tended to fixate on Rhea’s moods, twinning her own to them in ways that were both flattering and alarming. Though she was the brightest Schroeder child by far, Rhea had recently concluded that she would go to community college, and then live at home after graduating, too. People with her kind of fragility needed a strong foundation from which to grow. It would be Rhea’s privilege to scaffold this child. To keep her close until she was strong enough to stand on her own.