At work the next day, Dana planned to call Grady’s teacher around lunchtime to see if there was anything going on at school that might be causing this funk he was in. Was he having trouble with his work? Was he being picked on? Her cell phone rang a few minutes before the lunch hour, and Mrs. Cataldo was on the other end of the line, as if she had read Dana’s mind.
“No emergency!” Mrs. Cataldo sang out, her words trilling in a manufactured levity that made Dana cringe. Maybe no bones had been broken, but something was up if the teacher was calling in the middle of the day, her voice coated in sweetness like caramel on an apple. “I’m just calling to check in,” said Mrs. Cataldo, “see how things are going at home.”
“I was actually going to call you in a few minutes and see if everything’s okay at school.”
“Isn’t that a funny coincidence!” chirped Mrs. Cataldo. “Let me tell you what I’m seeing here.” Her description made Dana’s chest ache. Quarreling with friends, shoving in the lunch line, tipping out of his chair and causing a commotion. “And he’s been insisting on staying in at recess. He says he needs to get his homework done because he’s too busy after school.”
“Well, that’s strange,” said Dana. “Unless he has a play date, he has plenty of time after school. I have a new job, but it’s just part-time, and I’m almost always home to help him.”
“Ohhh,”
Mrs. Cataldo said sagely. “A new job.”
Dana felt her face go hot.
Yes,
she wanted to say,
I went back to work because my husband left me, then his commissions dropped off and we were going broke. So I found a job that hardly affects the children at all, and I’m KILLING myself to make it all go smoothly. So don’t you dare insinuate . . .
“Thanks so much for calling,” she said to Mrs. Cataldo. “I’ll talk to Grady’s dad, and we’ll work on it from our end. Let’s check in next week, okay?”
They said good-bye and Dana dropped the cell phone on her desk. She took a deep, cleansing breath, the kind they talked about in labor-and-delivery classes, as if the excruciating pain of childbirth could simply be blown out of the body on a gust of carbon dioxide. But the ache in her chest stayed firmly embedded behind her solar plexus.
“Am I eating alone?” Tony’s low voice sounded from the kitchenette at the back of the office.
“Be right there!” she called, but she didn’t get up. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes. She had to leak just a little before anyone saw her.
Suddenly he was there in the doorway. “Hey,” he said gently, questioningly.
“I’m sorry . . . I shouldn’t be . . .” She picked up the end of her scarf that fell in a lariat around her neck and dabbed at the drips on her cheeks.
“What’s this about?” he murmured.
She shook her head in aggravation.
Stop crying,
she told herself.
Stop right now.
He moved toward her and reached for her hand, his warm tan fingers curling around hers and drawing her up out of her chair. “Let’s go into my office in case someone comes in,” he said, and led her to the overstuffed upholstered chair. He drew the wooden chair up beside her and sat down, reaching across to his desk for a box of tissues.
She blew her nose—a juicy, messy sound—and muttered, “This is so embarrassing.”
“I spend my day in people’s
mouths,
” he said, smiling. “You think a nose blow grosses me out? Besides, someday it might be
me
crying to
you,
and
I’ll
be the one honking like a congested goose.”
A quick laugh erupted from her then, and she felt better. She told him about the call from Mrs. Cataldo.
“Okay, first of all, I thought the generation of teachers who blamed the mother for everything would’ve retired by now,” he said. “And second of all, it doesn’t make any sense that the sole reason for Grady’s being out of whack is your part-time job. I mean, maybe there’s no reason at all. Sometimes we just get in a funk for a few days, and then we snap out of it.”
“But Grady’s not a moody kid,” she said. “This seems like something more.”
“And if you say it is, then it is, because no one knows him better than you. But you can’t just immediately assume it’s all your fault, Dana. It’s not your job to keep them from ever being sad or angry. It’s your job to help them deal with it when it happens.”
She nodded. Of course he was right. She fingered the soft, thin scarf, the ends now damp from her tears. “But it hurts when they hurt.”
He patted her knee. “And what kind of mother would you be if it didn’t?” He leaned back in his chair. “You know, let me suggest something. It’s just an idea. But I’m remembering that after Ingrid died, of course my girls were completely miserable. We cried every day. Every single day for months. Then they stopped crying quite so much and slowly got back into the swing of their lives—middle school, high school, it’s all very compelling, right? But about six months later, Lizzie, the younger one, started crying all over again. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why—and neither could she! Finally we figured it out together. It was almost the end of school, and she couldn’t imagine what summer would be like without Mom. How would she know where to go and what to do without Mom to help her organize it? Who would ditch everything and take them to the beach while I was at work?”
Tony’s eyes got a little shiny then, and Dana felt another tear slide from the corner of her eye. But it didn’t embarrass her the way its predecessors had. A commiserating tear was nothing to be ashamed of. “So,” she said, “maybe Grady’s just feeling it again, that Kenneth’s not living with us anymore.”
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “Hard to say. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
“Thank you,” she said, and she wanted to say more, but he was getting up and it seemed as if the opportunity had passed. “I guess we’d better have our lunch,” she said.
“Yeah, nothing like a good cry to work up an appetite.” He wagged his finger at her. “And listen, don’t cry in the reception area anymore, okay? People will think I’m mistreating you. Do all your crying in here with me.”
At nine that night, Dana pulled her car in to the parking lot of Keeney’s Lakeside Tavern. Grady and Morgan were in bed, and she’d left Alder in the kitchen finishing her homework. Gazing out over the shadowy waters of Nipmuc Pond, she realized she hadn’t been there since Victor’s birthday several years ago. Polly had surprised him by having all his friends waiting for him in the wooden booths. Victor loved the place, and he and Kenneth used to go often to have a beer and watch a game in the bar. Dana wondered if that was still the case, now that Kenneth lived in Hartford. With Tina.
Nora pulled up in her little silver BMW and seemed to emerge almost before it had come to a complete stop. “God, it’s so great to be
out
!” she said as she clutched Dana against her. The buttery softness of her leather jacket smelled like the interior of a foreign car misted with perfume. She planted a light kiss on Dana’s cheek and steered her toward the door of Keeney’s.
Dana could feel the interest from the sparsely populated room as they entered. The volume of the general murmuring rose slightly, and she heard the word “wives” and a burst of laughter from a group of men at a booth by the windows who all seemed to have dressed from the same REI catalog.
Nora ignored it and told the bartender, “Two Amstels, please.” Turning to Dana, she asked, “That okay with you?” It was fine with Dana—beer was cheaper than wine and lasted longer.
They made their way to a booth away from the other patrons and chatted about their daughters’ plan for Halloween. Dana admitted she was sad not to have Morgan trick-or-treating in her own neighborhood for the first time. “Though I know she’ll have a great time with Kimmi up by your house,” she added.
“Oh, I know,” Nora sympathized. “A little piece of your heart tears loose when they start doing things on their own.”
Their conversation tumbled congenially over a variety of matters. There was the upcoming sixth-grade dance. And the confusing grading practices of the Spanish teacher. (“It’s not her fault,” said Dana. “I don’t think she speaks that much English.”) Then Kimmi’s insistence on getting a puppy for Christmas. (“Over my dead body,” said Nora. “There’s no smell I hate worse than a wet dog.”)
For Dana there was a delicious sense of having been admitted to an exclusive club, the membership fee waived by the club’s president. Dana could feel herself warming to the honor, her responses growing looser and more confident as they talked. Almost an hour had passed before she realized that their beers were empty, and it was her turn to get the next round.
Nora took a long sip from the new beer. “You know why I like this place?” she said. “It’s real. It’s a cruddy old tavern, and it’s not trying to be hipper or younger than it is. I’m so sick of that crap, aren’t you? You know, how everyone our age is starting to dress too young? You can get away with it in your thirties, but not once you cross that steel bridge into Fortyland.” She laughed humorlessly. “No
way.
”
Dana was stumped as to how to respond. While she didn’t think Nora dressed
too
young, she certainly seemed abreast of the latest fashions, with her cropped leather jacket and designer jeans. Also, Dana didn’t feel that “everyone” was doing it. Yes, there were a few women trying far too hard to present themselves as fresh and hip, and this was clear in the way they talked and dressed and entered every room as if it were some sort of stalled frat party where people were just waiting for them to arrive so the good times could roll. But most people responded to these women as if they
were
the main attraction. And if that’s what you said you were, and everyone seemed to agree, then what was the harm?
“It is kind of annoying. I just wish I could pull it off myself,” Dana joked, trying to inject a little levity.
“No you don’t—
trust
me.” Nora’s thumbnail worried the metallic edge of the beer bottle label. “It takes way too much effort, and it’s pathetic, and it doesn’t really work anyway. The husband still wants the newer model.”
She’s right,
thought Dana, and a vague sense of futility began to lap at the edge of her newfound confidence. She looked down at her hands, resting idly on the table. Her skin was dry, scored with tiny white lines like threads across her knuckles.
“
You
know better than anyone,” Nora said, anger sparking in her tone. “It doesn’t even matter if they aren’t as pretty as you. It’s just that they’re new. And you’re not.” She scraped harder at the label until an edge peeled off. “And you can’t compete with that.”
So Nora knew about Kenneth’s infidelity.
Polly must’ve told her,
thought Dana, and the idea sent a prickle of anger across her skin.
It doesn’t matter,
Dana told herself,
everyone knows.
But Nora seemed to have some personal experience of it. Dana glanced up into her sullen gaze. “Carter . . . ?” she asked.
Nora looked out the window to the night-blackened surface of Nipmuc Pond. “Not that there’s any proof,” she said. “No satin thongs in his suit pockets or anything.”
“Then why do you think . . . ?”
“Because the guy’s a hound!” Nora said irritably. “He was a hound when I married him, and I was an idiot because I thought I was so
all that,
he’d never want anything else. He picked
me.
I won. I’m the lucky fucking winner of a
hound.
”
Dana’s hands felt cold; she slid them between her knees to warm them. And she was suddenly so tired. She wanted to lie down right there on the dusty floor of Keeney’s or walk out the door and into the murky waters of Nipmuc Pond and submerge herself in blackness. Nora’s anger and despair amplified her own. Men left. It had always been so in her life. Apparently it was a universal truth.
Nora patted the table to get Dana’s attention. “Hey,” she said. “I apologize. I just killed a nice evening. Two friends getting together for some girl time.”
“No, it just—”
“Sucks.”
“Yeah,” Dana admitted. “It does.”
“And that’s why women are as strong as they are and why we have such great friendships. Because we don’t fool around on each other.” Nora laughed, and the sound sent a breath of relief through Dana. “Well, that’s not true. There’s plenty of
biatches
in this town who’d be happy to stab you in the back. But not you.” Nora grinned. “Polly always says you have a pure heart.”
Dana laughed. “She does not!”
“Well, something like that anyway. True heart or true blue . . . grand ol’ flag . . . Halls of Montezuma.” Nora’s grin was so wide she could barely make her lips pucker around the rim of her beer bottle to take another gulp.
“Very funny,” said Dana, feeling her hands warm up again.
Nora finished her swig and let her bottle land heavily on the table. “You’re the Top Gun of friendship, that’s what you are!”
CHAPTER
23
W
HEN THE ALARM WENT OFF AT SIX THE NEXT morning, Dana felt as if she were being defibrillated. Her body tensed against the attack, hand striking out to subdue the rogue appliance. It had been a late night.
Not all
that
late,
she told herself. Eleven forty-five was only slightly beyond the point of tame, even for a school night. It was probably the third beer that had made her put her pajama top on backward when she got home—she noticed this as she rose and caught sight of herself in the mirror over the bureau. She knew she had not gotten drunk. Three beers was only one past her usual limit, though it was true that without Kenneth to accompany her to dinner parties or the occasional restaurant her opportunities for maintaining a respectable tolerance for alcohol had dwindled. She had gotten a little silly, maybe. Drunk, no. Definitely not.
She did remember laughing and telling Nora things about Kenneth that weren’t flattering, such as his love affair with his pillow. She had mimicked him in a child’s voice, calling it a “wittle piddow,” throwing Nora into such a fit of giggles that the group of men had looked over at them.