Wife 22 (10 page)

“Peter has a beard,” I cry. I don’t have to explain to Nedra that I’m not talking about facial hair.

“A beard? Well, good for him! It’s practically a rite of passage. If he
is
gay, that is.”

Nedra, like William, is still on the fence about Peter’s sexuality.

“So this is normal?” I ask.

“It’s certainly not
ab
normal. He’s young and confused.”

“And humiliated. I just completely embarrassed him in front of the entire seventh grade. I was going to ask him to help me color my hair and now he hates me, and I’ll be stuck doing it myself.”

“Why aren’t you going to Lisa?”

“I’m trying to cut back.”

“Alice, stop catastrophizing. Things are going to turn around. Does the beard have a name?”

“Briana.”

“Lord, I hate that name. It’s so—”

“American, yes, I know. But she’s a sweet girl. And very pretty,” I add guiltily. “They’ve been friends for years.”

“Does she know she’s a beard?”

I think of the two of them nestled together. Her eyes half closed.

“Doubtful.”

“Unless she’s a lesbian and he’s her beard, too. Maybe they have some sort of an agreement. Like Tom and Katie.”

“Yes, like ToKat!” I say. I hate the thought of Briana being duped. It’s almost as sad as Peter faking he’s straight.

“Nobody calls them ToKat.”

“KatTo?”

Silence.

“Nedra?”

“I’m getting you another subscription to
People
, and this time you’d better damn well start reading it.”

“Y
ou are so sweet to let me stay with you until I get settled,” says Caroline Kilborn.

I stand in the doorway, unable to mask my shock. I expected a younger version of Bunny: a blond, elegantly dressed and coiffed young woman. Instead a bare-faced, freckled redhead beams at me, her hair scraped back impatiently into a ponytail. She’s wearing a black formfitting skirt and a loose tank that shows off her toned arms.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” she says. “You told me I looked like a doll. Like Raggedy Ann.”

“I did?”

“Yes, when I was ten.”

I shake my head. “I said that? My God, that’s so insensitive. I’m sorry!”

She shrugs. “It didn’t bother me. It was your debut at the Blue Hill Playhouse. I’m sure you had other things on your mind.”

“Right,” I say, wincing, trying to shake the unwanted memory of that night from my head.

Caroline smiles and rocks on her heels. “It was a great show. My friends and I loved it.”

Her friends, her fellow third-graders.

“Are you a runner?” She points at my dirt-encrusted sneakers, which I’ve thrown into a planter, which contains nothing but dirt because I can’t seem to remember to water anything I plant.

“Uh, yes,” I say, meaning twenty years ago I was a runner but now I’m really more of a jogger, okay, a walker, okay, a person who strolls to her computer and counts it as her daily 10,000 steps.

“Me, too,” she says.

Fifteen minutes later Caroline Kilborn and I are going for a run.

Five minutes later Caroline Kilborn inquires as to whether I have asthma.

Five seconds later I tell her that wheezing sound I’m making is due to allergies and the fact that the acacia has just bloomed, and perhaps she should run ahead as I don’t want to prevent her from getting a good workout on her first day in California.

After Caroline has sprinted out of sight, I step on a pinecone, twist my ankle, and fall, tumbling into a pile of leaves while praying,
please don’t let me get run over by a car.

I needn’t have worried. A car does not run over me. A far worse thing happens—a car stops and a kindly old man asks me if I need a ride home. Actually, I’m not really sure what he asks because I am wearing my earphones and desperately trying to wave him on, in the way that you do after you fall, saying things like
I’m fine, I’m fine,
when it’s clear you’re not. I accept the ride.

When I get home I ice my ankle, then head upstairs, but first make a detour into Zoe’s room. I see her latest acquisition from the vintage clothing store, a 1950s crinoline, thrown over the back of a chair, and I remember the pair of striped bell-bottoms I had in high school and wonder why I didn’t have the courage to dress like she does, in one-of-a-kind clothes no other high school girl has, because as far as my daughter is concerned following the trends is as bad a sin as saying “plastic” when they ask you what kind of bag you want at the grocery store. I open her closet door and while I’m rifling through her size-4 shift dresses I wonder what is going on in her life, why she won’t tell me, how she can be so self-possessed at fifteen, it’s unnatural, it’s intimidating—is that
my
yellow cardigan?

I have to stand on tiptoes to reach it and when I grab it, a box of Hostess cupcakes, a box of Ding Dongs, and a box of Yodels come tumbling down, as well as three pilled, oniony-smelling cardigan sweaters. One should not buy vintage sweaters: BO never comes out of the wool—I could have told Zoe that had she asked.

“Whoopsie.” Caroline stands in the doorway.

“Zoe’s door was open,” I say.

“Sure,” says Caroline.

“I was looking for my sweater,” I say, trying to process the fact that Zoe has secreted away boxes of bakery products in her closet.

“Let me help you put those back.”

Caroline kneels beside the boxes, her brow furrowed. “Is Zoe a perfectionist? So many girls her age are. Would she have alphabetized them? Cupcakes, Ding Dongs, obviously Yodels go last. Can’t hurt to alphabetize just in case.”

“She’s got an eating disorder,” I cry. “How could I have missed it!”

“Whoa,” says Caroline, calmly stacking the boxes. “Hold on. I wouldn’t jump to that conclusion.”

“My daughter has a hundred cupcakes in her closet.”

“Uh—that’s a bit of an exaggeration.”

“How many in a box?”

“Ten. But all of the boxes are opened. Maybe she’s got a business. Maybe she sells them at school,” says Caroline. “Or maybe she’s just got a sweet tooth.”

I imagine Zoe cramming Ding Dongs into her mouth at night after we’ve all gone to bed. At least it’s better than cramming Jude’s ding dong into her mouth at night after we’ve all gone to bed. Yes, God help me, this is what I think.

“You don’t understand. Zoe would never eat junk food.”

“Not in public, anyway. Maybe you should see if she shows any of the signs of an eating disorder before you say anything,” she suggests.

There was a time not so long ago when Zoe and I spent every Friday afternoon together. I’d pick her up from school and take her somewhere special: the bead store, Colonial Donuts, to Macy’s to try on lip gloss. My heart would seize with happiness the moment she climbed into the car. It still seizes with happiness, but I have to hide it now. I have learned to ignore her blank stares and rolling eyes. I knock when her door is shut and I try not to eavesdrop when she’s video chatting. My point is, other than this closet transgression, I am usually very good at letting her have a life—but I miss her terribly. Of course I heard the war stories from parents with older children. I just thought, as every parent smugly does, that we would be the exception; I would never lose her.

“You’re probably right,” I say. “I’ll do some research.” I wince. My ankle is throbbing. It’s black and blue.

“What did you do to your ankle?” asks Caroline.

“I fell. After you left. Tripped on a pinecone.”

“Oh, no! Did you ice it?” asks Caroline.

I nod.

“For how long?”

“Not long enough, apparently.”

Caroline jumps to her feet and stacks the boxes in Zoe’s closet. Expertly she folds the sweaters—“The Gap, every summer in high school,” she explains—and stacks them in front of the boxes. I hand her my yellow sweater. Caroline takes it wordlessly, puts it on the pile, then shuts the closet door. She holds out her hand.

“Now. Let’s go get you some more ice.”

“V
egetarian or meat eater today?” I ask Zoe, approaching the table with a platter of roasted chicken and potatoes.

“Carnivore.”

“Great. Breast or thigh?”