Smart Women (32 page)

Not that they’d been giving her any trouble. Stuart more or less ignored her, but Michelle had been nice once. She had baked a cake in honor of Sara’s first period. And later that same night Michelle had come to her room. “What would you do if your mother got married again?” she had asked.

“I don’t know,” Sara said, thinking that was a weird question since her mother was in the hospital and Michelle knew it.

“Would you like it if she did?” Michelle said.

“It would depend on who she married,” Sara told her.

“What about Lewis?”

“He’s okay, I guess. But I doubt that my mother would marry him. I doubt that she’d marry anybody right now. What about your mother? Do you want her to get married again?”

Michelle seemed really surprised by Sara’s question. “My mother?” she asked.

“Yes,” Sara said.

“Well . . . I used to hate the idea of my mother remarrying, but now I don’t care that much, as long as she marries someone I like.”

“What about my father?” Sara asked.

“Your father is okay.”

“Do you think they will . . . get married, I mean?”

“I don’t know,” Michelle said.

S
ARA WROTE CAREFUL LETTERS
to her mother. She did not write anything that she thought would make her mother feel bad. She did not even write about her first period because she knew how sad her mother would be to find out that she missed a really important event in Sara’s life. She wondered what life would be like when her mother returned. She did not know what to expect from her mother. She was not even sure of her father anymore, except that deep down inside she did not believe that he would leave her and sail off to Bali.

Every night, before Sara got into bed, she took her mother’s blue silk blouse out of her drawer and held it to her face. She forced herself to think first of something good about Mom and then something bad. Because she knew it was important to hang on to the truth.

To help her remember, Sara went home one day after school. The neighborhood was so different from Margo’s. She missed the wide streets, the big old trees, and the Victorian houses. She sat on the swing on her front porch for a minute. The swing squeaked. It needed oiling. It always did after winter. Then she got up and rang the doorbell. The house sitter answered. He was a tall man with a gray beard and he had a yellow pencil tucked behind his ear. He seemed to know who she was.

It felt so strange to be home, mainly because it didn’t feel like home anymore. Sara thought about throwing herself across her bed and just crying for as long as she felt like it, until her throat was sore, until she couldn’t catch her breath. Instead, she took the photo album out of her mother’s closet and left quickly. The house sitter told her she could come over any time, but that she should call first, to make sure he was at home.

Sara did not answer him.

That night, when her father came to her room to kiss her goodnight, Sara was on her bed, thumbing through the photo album. Her father lay down next to her and pointed to a picture. “I remember the day that was taken. You had just come out of the bathtub and . . .”

“What’s happened to all the pictures of Bobby?” Sara asked.

“I have some of them,” Daddy said, “and Grandma Goldy and Grandma Broder have some too.”

“How come Mom had to pretend that Bobby was never born?” Sara asked.

“So she could pretend that he never died,” Daddy answered.

37

F
RANCINE AND
D
R.
A
RNOLD
walked along the garden path on the grounds of the hospital. “Is my mother dead yet?” Francine asked.

Dr. Arnold looked up at her. “No, she’s partially paralyzed, but she’s improving.”

Francine nodded. “Is my daughter all right?”

“Yes.” Dr. Arnold smiled at her.

“Do you know what’s happened to me?”

“Do you know?”

“Sometimes I think I do and sometimes I don’t.”

Dr. Arnold reached over to a hibiscus bush and plucked off a flower. “I’m going to try to help you figure it out,” she said, handing the flower to Francine.

Francine held it to her nose. “When I married Andrew I carried a single rose.”

38

M
ICHELLE DECIDED NOT
to go skiing with the family even though it was a beautiful day and she enjoyed spring skiing best. The snow would start off like icy corn, turn soft by noon, and wind up slushy. Her face would get sunburned and that night Margo would give her a combination skin cancer/aging lecture that she would ignore.

But as tempting as the idea was, the idea of spending the day alone in a quiet house appealed to her even more. Maybe she would ski next weekend, even though her frostbitten toes still hurt in the cold. It would be her last chance before Eldora closed for the season. Andrew’s parents were coming to town next weekend and Margo had already informed her that she and Stuart were expected to be at the family dinner she was planning, a sort of Passover Seder, but without the religious ceremony, since Passover would be over by then.

Margo had also made it clear that the family dinner she was planning was for family only. Not even Puffin was to be invited, which wasn’t exactly breaking Stuart’s heart, since he and Puffin were on the verge of breaking up. But of course, Margo didn’t know that. Margo didn’t know anything, not even about the abortion. Maybe someday Stuart would tell her.

Michelle decided to do some work on her World Cultures paper. She sharpened six yellow pencils and began to make an outline when the doorbell rang. She ran down the hall to the front door with Lucy at her heels. She opened the door and this gorgeous guy was standing there. He was big and blond and suntanned and when he saw her he smiled.

“Hi . . . is Margo here?”

“No, she’s not. Not now, anyway.” His eyes were as blue as the sky. “Can I help you?”

“I’m Eric. I met Margo last summer in Chaco Canyon. She said if I was ever in town I should come by, so here I am.” He rested one hand against the house and leaned forward. He had a hole in the left thigh of his jeans and Michelle had to resist the urge to put her finger into it.

“Well,” Michelle said, “she should be home by five. You want to wait?”

“Could I?”

“Sure . . . come on in.”

39

M
ARGO WAS NOT
really listening to the conversation between Andrew and Sara as they drove back from Eldora. She was thinking about the hot tub, about how satisfying it would feel to peel off her clothes and step, naked, into the steaming water. The perfect end to an almost perfect day. She had taken one bad spill, on a fairly easy trail, winding up with a faceful of snow and a brief pounding in her head, but after she’d rested for a few minutes she’d felt better. Andrew had been loving and concerned and had wiped off her face with his bandanna. The fight on the night of Early Sumner’s dinner party, as painful as it had been at the time, had cleared the air between them. They were no longer walking on eggs. They were talking and laughing and making love again. Sara seemed relieved too. And today, during lunch on the slopes, Sara had been friendly. She had even laughed, making Margo believe in the possibility of a positive relationship with her after all.

Now, as Andrew pulled the truck into their driveway Sara pointed to a motorcycle parked next to the house. “Who’s here?”

“Probably one of Stuart’s friends,” Andrew said.

“No, Stuart’s still skiing,” Sara said. “He passed me on our last run and said he’d be home around six-thirty.”

“Well, maybe one of Michelle’s friends, then,” Andrew said.

“She doesn’t have any friends who ride motorcycles,” Sara said.

Margo hated the idea of motorcycles. She’d known a boy in college who had been killed on a motorcycle.
Decapitated,
the headlines had said. She’d had nightmares about that boy, whose name she could no longer remember. She had forbidden her own children to ride either mopeds or motorcycles.

As soon as Andrew unlocked the front door Sara tore up the stairs, calling, “I’m dying of thirst.”

“Me too,” Andrew said. “You want a drink, Margarita?”

“Grapefruit juice,” Margo said. “I’ll get the tub going.” She went to her bedroom, stripped down to her longjohns, slid open the glass doors, and stepped outside.

“Oh, Mother! I didn’t expect you so soon.”

Michelle was in the hot tub. Michelle, who was so modest she would not even undress in front of Margo, was naked and in the hot tub with some boy. Margo froze.

“Hey, Margo . . .” the boy called. “How’re you doin’?”

Jesus Christ! It was not just some boy. It was Eric. What the fuck was he doing here? What the fuck was he doing in the hot tub with her daughter? “What are you doing?” Margo asked.

“We’re soaking,” Michelle answered. “What does it look like?”

“I was passing through,” Eric added. “You said that any time I was . . .”

“Yes, I remember what I said,” Margo caught a whiff of marijuana.

She had shared a joint with Eric last summer in Chaco Canyon, and afterwards, she had become paranoid. “Are you going to kill me?” she had asked timidly, as Eric had caressed her neck. She’d thought he was going to strangle her.

“No, baby,” he had answered. “I’m going to fuck you.”

She had nodded, as if it were okay either way.

Now he was smoking with her daughter.

“Here’s your juice, Margo,” Andrew called from the bedroom.

“I’m out here,” Margo called back.

Andrew joined her, took in the scene, and looked confused.

“This is Eric,” Margo told him. “He was just passing through, so he decided to drop in.” She could tell that Andrew still didn’t get it. “Eric,” she said, again. “From Chaco Canyon . . . from last summer . . .” She and Andrew had once exchanged lists of their former lovers, discussing each of their sexual encounters late into the night.

“Oh,” Andrew finally said, nodding. “Eric.” He handed Margo the glass of grapefruit juice.

“This is Andrew,” Michelle said to Eric. “My mother’s boyfriend.”

Margo cringed at the word. It sounded so childish.

“Hey . . . how’re you doin’, Andrew?” Eric said. “You guys want to join us?”

“No!” Margo answered quickly.

“Could you toss us the towels?” Michelle said.

Andrew handed each of them a towel. Eric stood and stepped out of the tub first. Margo turned away.

When Michelle and Eric had disappeared into the house, Margo jumped into the hot tub, still wearing her longjohns. “Can you believe this,” she said to Andrew. “Can you believe what’s going on here?”

Andrew eased himself into the tub. “I think you’re overreacting,” he said.

“Overreacting!” She pulled off her sopping longjohns and tossed them out of the tub. “I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”

“They were just soaking,” Andrew reminded her “Aren’t you the one who told me that hot tubbing is not a sexual experience?”

“Sure, that’s what I told you, but that doesn’t mean I believe it.”

Andrew laughed.

“Did he have an erection when he got out of the tub?” Margo asked.