James continues to arrive on Tuesdays and Fridays, his glove compartment a treasure trove of clear plastic baggies. He says nothing more about cutting her off, and she, in turn, brushes away any further thoughts of firing him. Yes, yes, his presence on her property is risky—
Lizzie,
she remembers sometimes,
they could take Lizzie
—but she cannot seem to let James go. Where else would she get It? She fantasizes about buying a year’s supply all at once and then sending him off until a less hazardous time, but this is implausible. (The cash outlay would be far too large, at least until she wins her case against Paul, and what if they are monitoring her bank account?) Her blood surges at the sound of his truck in the driveway; a whiff of chlorine makes her light-headed with anticipation. She is so
alive,
which just goes to show how dead she had been for so many years without realizing it.
Still, Janice senses the wolves outside, circling her house, waiting for her to make a fatal mistake: the lawyers, and Paul, and, now, the credit card companies pursuing her daughter. The phone rings constantly with collection agencies calling for Margaret, who has stopped answering the phone entirely. Instead, Janice takes down alarming messages in all capitals that she hopes convey to Margaret the urgency of the situation. She leaves these on Margaret’s bed or tucks them under her door:
“MASTERCARD TWICE—WOULD LIKE YOU TO CALL THEM BACK IMMEDIATELY” “COLLECTION AGENCY/VISA: WANT TO TALK SETTLEMENT” “AMEX: HAVE YOU CONSIDERED CREDIT RATING? 1 WEEK TO PAY MINIMUM BALANCE, THEN THEY WILL PURSUE LEGAL REMEDY.”
When Margaret first told Janice that she was behind on her credit card payments, Janice assumed it was a manageable sum. Ten thousand dollars, maybe—nothing insurmountable. But then Janice answered the first call, and the second, and the fifth. She has done the math, by this point, and has totaled up a sum of over a hundred thousand dollars. The figure seems implausible. Margaret had mentioned financial problems with
Snatch
but this,
this
feels so much bigger. She is horrified by her daughter’s situation—hadn’t they always told Margaret to pay her balance off immediately?—but the clawing avarice of the collection agencies also brings out Janice’s most protective instincts. How could her straight-A daughter have gotten herself into so much trouble? Janice knows that she should feel the helium lift of victory—she was right, right about the prospects of that magazine, right about Margaret’s misdirected career path, probably even right about Bart too—and yet she can’t derive any satisfaction from this knowledge. Is her daughter’s irresponsibility a result of her own failings as a parent? She is aghast that her daughter would have concealed her situation, would have put herself at the mercy of these sharks rather than turning to her own mother for help. This wounding realization—that her daughter didn’t want her around in a time of crisis—is what deters Janice from just outright offering to help Margaret pay off her debts; that, and the fact that unless the lawsuit is settled in her favor, she doesn’t have a hundred thousand dollars in cash to give Margaret anyway. Yes, she could pay off the minimum balances to keep the collection agencies at bay—but would Margaret even let her do that? Somehow, she doubts it. Otherwise, what can she do? Nothing except take down the messages, each one noted in slightly larger letters than the last.
Margaret appears to be doing nothing to address her situation, either. Since their fight about the Gossetts’ dog, Margaret has been downright petulant—drinking beer in the middle of the day, spending hours in her bedroom with the door closed and the music loud, reading Lizzie’s trashy magazines out in the garden. The only person her elder daughter speaks to anymore is James, which causes Janice no end of concern. Sometimes, Janice spies on them through the blinds as they chat by the pool. Once, Janice was convinced that she saw Margaret follow James back toward the pool shed. Could he be giving Margaret It, too? The thought appalls her, but she can tell from Margaret’s behavior that this is not the case. If anything, Margaret seems to be sleeping even more than she did at the beginning of the summer.
There are so many questions Janice wants to ask Margaret: What happened to
Snatch
? How did she end up so deeply in debt? Does the fact that Bart hasn’t called once mean they’ve broken up? What is she doing out there in the shed with James? But Margaret’s confession about her poverty and Janice’s residual anger about the dog-walking mess have, together, broken apart some tenuous peace, so that Janice is now left distant, watching her daughter drift away on an invisible tide. Margaret no longer talks about assisting Janice with her lawsuit. In fact, she no longer talks to Janice at all, whereas Janice communicates through stiff, inch-high capitals.
And now this, from Janice’s friends at the club. She looks down at the invitation and realizes that it has been addressed solely to “Mrs. Janice Miller.” It should hurt to see that but, oddly, it doesn’t. Yes, she feels more utterly alone than ever before in her life, but is it so bad? No, not at all. In fact, her fortress of solitude is what makes her feel safe, untouchable, removed from the grasping fingers of useless emotion. She is fine as long as she has
It,
the icy bright powder that lights up inside of her brain.
Of course she will go to the party, she thinks. She will prove to everyone that she is doing just fine on her own.
Better
than fine. She’s terrific.
on the evening of the party, janice sets aside three hours to gird herself. She takes an hour-long soak in champagne bath salts and moisturizes with cardamom cream. She unsheathes a black Diane von Furstenberg silk wrap dress from a bag hanging in the cedar storage closet and freshens it up with a spritz of Evian spray. The special-occasion crystal-encrusted Ferragamo pumps are exhumed from their tissue-lined tomb on the closet shelf. From the safe in the floor of the linen closet Janice lifts the Tiffany necklace from its velvet box, a Christmas gift from Paul a few years back, and clasps the cold circlet of diamonds around her throat.
Standing before the mirror, she is pleased with her armor; the dress hangs on her a bit more than she remembers—well, she has lost weight!—but it shows off just the right amount of leg and cleavage. The wreaths of black exhaustion under her eyes are another matter; they require two coats of foundation to conceal. Her pupils have shrunk to pinpoints; the irises around them are enormous pools of fierce, furious blue. As she brushes on her mascara, her hand jitters so much from It that she has to reapply the black goo three times. There is nothing she can do about the red welts on her forearms from her fingernails, but the sleeves cover those. When she examines the result in the mirror, she is satisfied. She does not look like a retiring divorcée. In fact, she looks better than she has in years. In the mirror she sees sharp angles, lean lines, a point to her chin that lets the world know she is not to be taken lightly.
Before she goes downstairs she pauses in her bathroom to do a quick line of It for extra fortification, tilting her head back to enjoy the tickle in her throat, and stashes the baggie in the lining of her Judith Leiber clutch, just in case.
as she enters the kitchen, she sees lizzie sitting at the island eating a bowl of Corn Pops for dinner. Lizzie is clearly once again losing her battle with obesity, and Janice’s first impulse is to blame Paul for this, for upsetting a kind of precarious balance in their daughter’s metabolism. One step farther into the kitchen and she realizes that a boy is perched on the bar stool next to Lizzie. Janice stops, mid-stride, as his face comes into focus. It is none other than Mark Weatherlove, Beverly’s son, eating a bowl of sugary cereal with a spoon—the good wedding silver, the handles engraved with the Miller family initials. The logic of this stumps her: her best friend gone, and yet her son inexplicably here.
She stands there, taking in his alien presence in her kitchen, trying to grasp what it might portend. Lizzie and Mark have never been particularly friendly, a fact that she and Beverly delicately used to avoid mentioning, each convinced it was
her
child that was shunning the other’s less socially apt one. Now she wonders whether Beverly has sent Mark as a spy. Is he here to find out whether Janice is still consorting with James, information that he will pass on to his mother, who will deliver it to Paul? (
Wolves! The wolves are in the house!
) Or perhaps he’s looking for legal documents? She glances around the room, trying to locate any legal papers she might have left sitting around, but the counters are still sparkling and bare from her cleaning last night. The paperwork is all filed in a drawer in the study.
She examines Mark, taking in the dirty sweatshirt and the scuffed tennis shoes. He sees her staring at him and jumps up from his seat.
“Hi, Mrs. Miller,” he says. He grips the spoon in a fist.
The sanctity of her cloister has been disrupted; she feels his unwanted presence in every pore of her body. How can she get him out? He is here as Lizzie’s guest. It would be rude to eject him—and word would surely get back to Paul and Beverly about that, too. Her limbs vibrate with tension. She longs to scratch at her tingling forearms, but the dress sleeves are in the way.
“Mark,” she says, and her voice comes out chillier than she intended. “How are you.”
This question seems to petrify Mark, who says nothing. Next to him, Lizzie shovels the last bite of cereal into her mouth and wipes the milk from her lips with the back of a hand. “Maphhffphhf,” she says.
“I can’t understand you with your mouth full,” Janice says. She watches Mark lick a dribble of milk off the handle of his spoon—tongue running slowly across the embossed initials—and quivers with fury. “Why are you using the good silver, Lizzie?”
Lizzie stares down at her spoon. “Oh. It was sitting out.”
“I was polishing it,” says Janice. She shifts nervously forward and backward in her already uncomfortable heels. She yearns to snatch the spoon right out of Mark’s sticky little fist. Mark just stands by the stool, as animated as a clod of dirt.
Lizzie puts the spoon down and finishes her cereal by tilting the bowl up to her lips and gulping down the syrupy milk. “We gotta go. We’re going to smash,” she says.
“Smash what?” Janice says, alarmed. Smash? The china? She looks around her for breakables.
“Smash, the church youth group thingy,” continues Lizzie.
Janice is only momentarily relieved. Church? When she let Lizzie go to church with Barbara Bint’s son she had imagined that it could be a healthy social environment where her daughter might make some friends. She had not imagined that those friends would include Mark Weatherlove. Maybe the whole thing was a conspiracy on the part of her enemies? Barbara and Beverly and Paul and Noreen colluding together to drag Lizzie to church, where Mark would befriend her and infiltrate the family? Did hapless Lizzie fall right into a trap? Or, God forbid, has Paul brought her in on his plot?
She shakes her head. No. Of course that’s not it. Mark is just a boy. A child, like Lizzie. He is probably just as nervous seeing her as she is seeing him. She remembers his bleary face at the door of the Weatherloves’ house the day Paul left her and feels a pinch of remorse. Surely, this hasn’t been easy for him either, poor boy. She gazes at Lizzie and wonders whether she will someday be buying Lizzie self-help books so she can “process” the divorce. But if Lizzie is traumatized, she is hiding it well—there have been no tears. Janice wants to believe that through sheer will, she has held her household tenuously together. She looks back at Mark and forces a cheerful smile.
And yet,
the niggling voice at the back of her head says.
And yet.
“Church. Well,” she says. “You kids say hello to God for me, okay?”
Lizzie looks Janice up and down. “You look pretty,” she says. “Why are you so dressed up?”
“I’m going to the silent auction at the club,” she replies. Mark Weatherlove drops his spoon with a clatter. The piercing ring of silver hitting tile makes Janice’s teeth hurt. There will be a dent. Mark scrambles to pick up the spoon, stands up, and avoids Janice’s gaze. He carefully wipes the spoon on his jeans leg and examines it.
“The party at the country club?” he says.
“Yes,” replies Janice.
“Oh,” says Mark. He looks green.
Janice wants to tear herself away, but remains rooted in place. Mark has inside information, she realizes. Her mind reels with the questions she wants to ask him: Is your mother still living at home? Has she moved into the Four Seasons with Paul? Do you see Paul a lot? At all? How is your father taking it? What does your mother say about me? Does anyone say anything about me at all? Do I even exist anymore, or have I vanished entirely into an imaginary world of my own design?
But she says nothing.
There is the sound of footsteps behind her. Janice turns just as Margaret marches into the room, an
Us Weekly
under her arm. Janice watches as her daughter walks to the fridge, opens it, takes out a beer, twists the top off, and blithely pours the whole thing down her throat without even pausing for a breath. When she’s done, Margaret drops the bottle into the garbage with an alarming crack, then takes another from the fridge. She turns toward Mark. “Wow, a visitor,” she says. “We haven’t had those in a while. Are you a friend of Lizzie’s?”
Her daughter speaks! She moves! Janice is gratified by the temporary détente, but her relief is undermined by Margaret’s strangely aggressive behavior and bedraggled appearance. Two beers? Is her daughter becoming an alcoholic? She longs to say something about that, but the weight of Margaret’s question is still hanging heavily in the room. Lizzie shifts in her seat. “This is Mark,” she says.
Margaret looks at Mark again and then recognition dawns on her face. “Mark
Weatherlove
?” she asks, her eyes darkening with animation.
Janice wants to blurt out
Yes! And using the good silver!
but she realizes that if she remains quiet and just watches she might glean valuable information. Lizzie and Mark look at each other, each waiting for the other to respond. Mark seems incapable of movement. Lizzie manages a cautious nod.