Some Women (19 page)

“I can't believe you're going to eat all of those.”

Annabel's eyes were fixed on the brimming plate of onion rings the waitress had just placed in front of Mackenzie. She was determined to lose ten more pounds by March if it killed her, which it might. There was no one that reviled food deprivation more than Annabel did, which was precisely why she permitted herself one cheat day every week and, therefore, spent Monday through Saturday fantasizing about what she'd allow herself on Sunday. Though she'd never admit it to anyone, sometimes she'd even make a list of all the trigger foods she'd been craving, so as not to be remorseful the following Monday when she realized she'd meant to have a glazed doughnut. Or three.

“By now you better believe it.” Mackenzie shoved a whole onion ring into her mouth to further her point. “I've lost a few pounds
in the past couple of weeks, unintentionally, so I'm trying to reverse that.”

“Poor you,” Annabel teased, before staring down at her pitifully sparse bowl of mixed greens with vinegar only. She'd been told that olive oil contained good fat, but since Annabel had never met a fat that seemed good in any way, she chose to ignore that particular morsel of information.

“I knew you'd say that.” She slid her plate toward Annabel. “Go ahead. What's the worst that could happen?”

“Well, let's see. My ass could get bigger than it already is. Or the bulging muffin top that spills over the top of my jeans could bulge a little more. That would be awesome, don't you think?”

“Would you quit your moaning? I've told you a thousand times you look great, and you know I wouldn't bullshit you.”

“Yes, but would I look better fifteen pounds thinner?”

“Is it worth being miserable in order to make that happen?”

“You didn't answer the question.”

“Neither did you.”

“Fine, I'll let you off the hook.” Annabel pierced a cherry tomato with her fork and lifted it to her mouth. “So, what happened with the acupuncture?”

“It was fine, I guess. It definitely didn't hurt the way I thought it would, which is so odd, considering you just lie there, stiff as an erection, while someone jabs you with needles. Still, it was a little weird. He said I have low kidney energy.”

“What the hell does that mean? And, by the way, I'm totally stealing that line.
Stiff as an erection.
” She giggled girlishly.

“Steal away.” Mackenzie took a sip of her water. “That's what
I asked. Apparently, it has nothing to do with my kidneys, but everything to do with why I haven't been able to conceive.”

“Really? Dr. Ho said that?”

“Not in so many words. But that seemed to be the gist of it. He wants me to come back every week.”

“Until what?” Annabel could tell Mackenzie was incredulous. If she was being honest, so was she, even though she was the one who'd originally suggested it.

“Your guess is as good as mine. I suppose until my kidneys get their energy back.”

“And then he thinks you'll get pregnant?”

“Unclear. Although I believe that's the idea.”

“Interesting.” Annabel thought about this. “I'll go with you next time. You know, if Trevor doesn't want to.”

“I don't think Trevor has any plans on coming anytime soon.” Mackenzie looked down.

“What's going on there? I thought he was so gung ho about knocking you up.”

“So did I.” Mackenzie sighed, visibly dejected. Annabel had never seen her this way before. Not in the nearly five months they'd known each other. Well, she'd been beside herself when she'd lost the baby, but that was an extenuating circumstance. Normally, Mackenzie could be counted on for her chipper demeanor, which, in turn, boosted the spirits of those around her. She was typically the one lifting her friends up, not the other way around. It was disturbing and, surprisingly, somewhat of a relief at the same time, confirming to Annabel that everyone had their personal struggles and no one's life was as rosy as it appeared from the outside looking in. “He's been distant lately. Something is off.”

“Did you ask him about it?”

“Yup. He said it's nothing. All in my mind.”

“I love when men say shit like that. As if we're looking for there to be a problem.”

“Speaking of problems . . . Did you say anything to Henry about Lillian Duffy?”

“No, I didn't.” Annabel shook her head.

Annabel's realization that she actually knew the woman Henry had been dining out with for the past few months had paralyzed her. Why hadn't she expected that? It was entirely unlike Henry to go out and pursue meeting someone new, much less allow a friend to set him up on a blind date—if he had any friends whose wives weren't close with Annabel and would permit their husbands to do that to her.

And even if she had considered the possibility that the mystery woman had been someone she was familiar with, Lillian Duffy would have been the last person on her radar. Sure, she was tall and slender with willowy limbs. Sure, she was attractive—beyond attractive, really. Some might even say beautiful. But she was also cold and calculating, if Annabel remembered correctly how she'd savagely manipulated a situation on Henry's behalf. He'd hired her as a consultant three years ago when he'd decided to acquire yet another in a long line of smaller technology companies in order to strengthen his position in the fiercely competitive digital marketplace. Henry had dubbed Lillian a tiger—or maybe it was a piranha, those infamous predators known for their razor-sharp teeth, their taste for blood, and their penchant for consuming most anything they could find. He'd said she was the ace in his pocket. Or something like that. And he'd been right. Lillian had vetted the competition and
demolished them within a week's time, paving the way for Henry to move full speed ahead. Annabel had met her on only two occasions, neither of which had been especially memorable. After that, to the best of Annabel's knowledge, Lillian had moved on to act as someone else's hired gun, at which point Annabel had erased the thought of her from her mind.

“Good girl.”

“You told me not to,” she reminded Mackenzie, who continued to urge her to stay out of it until there was something worthy of her involvement.

“I know, but I didn't think you'd listen.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“I hope you don't feel like I'm trying to work against you. I want you to be happy, and I think for now that means letting me and Piper get to the bottom of it.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Annabel waved her hand in the air. She'd heard Mackenzie's spiel before. “He's coming by to pick up the kids tonight. Don't worry—I'll be on my best behavior.”

“I have faith.” Mackenzie smiled.

“Oh, sure. Now you do!” Annabel laughed playfully.

“Remember: think demure. Relaxed. Calm.”

“But I'm not any of those things.”

“You've come a long way—trust me.”

“How so?” Annabel was skeptical, fairly certain that no one had ever called her demure.

“Are you kidding? You're
way
less uptight than you were a few months ago,” Mackenzie avowed.

“You think?” Annabel considered this. She had felt lighter lately, less encumbered by the daily minutiae. She was no longer
checking and double-checking her to-do list every five minutes. In fact, come to think of it, she'd forgotten to make her monthly list altogether, and it was already midway through February.

“I don't think; I know. Piper commented on it too, and she's known you for longer.”

“Really?” Unpredictably, this instilled Annabel with confidence and the desire to let up on her stringent way of doing things even more. What would happen if the laundry didn't get done until one day later than it normally did? Or if she was three minutes late to drop the boys at school? Would the world come to a screeching halt if the kids left their toys littering the family-room floor at night before going to sleep? Certainly they wouldn't burn holes in the ground. It wasn't that she was necessarily willing to change her entire personality, but she was beginning to see, with Mackenzie and Piper's help, that there was a distinct line between being type A and being type C—the C standing for
crazy
.

“Really.” Mackenzie bit into another onion ring, leaving only two. “My mother used to tell me that if you want to live and act a specific way, you should just do it, whether it feels right at first or not. Either it never will or quite the opposite will happen and you'll start to become the person you want to be without having to put forth a huge effort. I'm pretty sure the latter is the case with you.”

“So, in other words, if I push myself to appear relaxed, I'll become a naturally relaxed person?”

“Exactly. I mean, it's obviously not so cut-and-dried, but you have the basic concept.” Mackenzie placed her hand on top of Annabel's. “You may not have realized it, but I think you were miserable before. Not a miserable person, as Henry suggested. Just miserable in how you felt about things at home.”

“Before Henry left?”

“Yes, before Henry left. And I'm not saying he was the reason why. But he was tangled up in it somehow. By stepping away from the relationship, in a sense, he's allowed you to find out who you are again, beyond being a mother and a wife. I have a hunch you're going to like this version of yourself much more.”

“I think I already do.” Annabel grinned. “Are you going to eat that last onion ring?”

“I wouldn't dare.” Mackenzie grinned back. “It's all yours.”

•   •   •

“You are so very handsome, you know that?” Annabel knelt down on the cold Neptune blue pebble mosaic floor tiling in her bathroom and ran a comb through Hudson's stubborn blond curls. “And I'm going to miss you while you're at Daddy's.”

“I'm going to miss you too, Mama.” He hugged her spontaneously, which caught Annabel off guard, sending both of them tumbling to the ground. “I knocked you over!” Hudson laughed raucously, as Harper swept into the room to find out what all the commotion was about. Harper, her angel, had, postbath, gone straight to his room to dress himself in his favorite pair of fireman-themed pajamas. Hudson, on the other hand, while passionately independent in many ways, typically more so than his brother, still insisted that Annabel attend to him whenever humanly possible. There was nothing he relished more than his mother's exclusive attention, which, these days, there was more of to go around. Now that she didn't have to address Henry's needs anymore.

“My two gorgeous, sweet boys.” Annabel got to her feet and opened her arms wide for both of them to hug her around the
middle, affixing their warm, still somewhat damp cheeks to either side of her body. “Are you hungry? Would you like to have some dinner before Daddy gets here? He seems to be running a little late.”

“Daddy's always running late,” Hudson lamented. Until recently, Henry and Hudson had butted heads in the worst way, probably because they were the same person. Dogged. Inflexible. Entitled.

Henry had once spent an hour at the dinner table with Hudson, both of their arms folded across their chests, until Hudson had consumed every last bite of food on his plate. Annabel, for her part, would have given in after ten minutes, allowing him to leave three-quarters of everything uneaten—a point she knew Henry resented. And he wasn't actually wrong. “They're going to walk all over you if you don't put your foot down,” he'd impressed on her countless times. She'd ignored his overtures, insisting that they were too young to be held accountable for every little thing. Of course she'd regretted this assertion about six months later when the boys had, in fact, come to the conclusion that Mommy was the pushover. The one who would make threats she'd never follow through on, such as, “If you don't clean up all of your toys right now, there will be no television for two days!” As if. The truth was that plopping them in front of
Yo Gabba Gabba!
for half an hour was probably more valuable to her than it was thrilling for them. Thirty minutes of peace. Thirty minutes during which she could check her Facebook page, pour a glass of wine, and maybe even return a few e-mails before the pitter-patter of four little feet came in search of her.

“And he's always on the phone when we're at his house,” Harper added. “Doing work stuff.”

“He never plays with us,” Hudson chimed in again. Annabel
was neither astonished nor alarmed by their assertions. Henry had never been one to set aside work once he walked through the front door at the end of a long day. He lived and breathed it. It was part of who he was, which was one of the things that had drawn her to him. She appreciated a man with a burning fire in his gut, even if she didn't appreciate the size of his actual gut. And Henry was a good father, despite the limited time he had available to spend with his kids. When he did engage, he was there completely, unlike Annabel, who was always available but not always present in the moment. It was something she'd been working on now that she was, effectively, a single mom.

To Henry's credit, she had noticed—now that he had the kids two weekends a month on his own—that he was pitching in much more than he had when they were all under the same roof. Perhaps not in a way that was identifiable to the kids—as in getting down on the ground and constructing LEGOs with them—but he was doing their laundry and filling their bellies. So that was a step in the right direction.

“Well, your daddy is a very busy man. But he still loves you more than anyone in the whole wide world. I know that. Because I feel the same way.” She dotted each of their foreheads with a kiss. “Let's go downstairs and talk about what you might like to have for dinner. Okay?” They both nodded.

“I want chicken nuggets and fries with chocolate milk.” This was Hudson.