The Light of Paris(25)

My mother drove us to the genteelly aging hotel where the Ladies Association met, and I chewed another batch of antacids before summoning up the strength to go inside. Despite the stream of women heading into the ballroom, Ashley Hathaway spotted me immediately. “Madeleine,” she said in a breathy voice as she approached, as though my presence had literally knocked the wind out of her. “Why, I haven’t seen you for ages. Don’t you look just the same?”

“You look exactly the same too,” I said, unsure whether either of us meant it as a compliment. Ashley was wearing a twinset and little pearl earrings to match her pearly white teeth, and her hair was a perfect pale bob, exactly like my mother’s. She leaned forward and slipped her arm around me as she brushed an air kiss toward each of my cheeks. I awkwardly returned the gesture. I wasn’t a good hugger. Graduating from college had been a relief for all sorts of reasons, including not having to endure the frequent hugging all my sorority sisters seemed to do on a whim, as though they had magnets implanted in their bellies and couldn’t keep away from each other. Those hugs always made me feel uncomfortably large and self-aware, my hand on the back of someone like Ashley, delicate as a bird.

“Where have you been? I don’t think I’ve seen you since your wedding! How’s that handsome husband of yours?”

The mention of Phillip made me feel queasy, and I clenched my left hand with its bare fingers, sliding it behind my back. “Oh, you know,” I said, which didn’t really answer anything. “How are you?”

“Absolutely run off my feet. Grayson and Hunter are in fourth grade, if you can believe that! And Graham’s practice is just exploding.” She made a face of pretend exhaustion that made me feel exhausted for real.

“That’s great!” I said, wondering why I was congratulating her on her schedule.

“So you’re in town visiting your mother? Aren’t you the sweetest?” I narrowed my eyes at her. What was this? Was this an act? She looked at me with those wide blue eyes, as if her entire happiness hinged on my answer.

“She’s getting ready to sell the house. I thought I’d help her get it ready.” I had thought no such thing until right that moment, but it made me sound altruistic, and I found I rather liked the idea. It made me feel like I had a purpose other than avoiding my own life.

“She did mention it,” Ashley said, putting her hand over her heart as though the news had wounded her. Ashley had known about my mother’s selling the house before I did? “Poor Simone, and she’s already so busy. Well, bless your heart for coming to help. Come in and say hello! There are so many Country Day girls here!”

Following Ashley into the ballroom, I endured a series of air kisses and half hugs from women I did indeed remember from school. Of course all of them were here. Our mothers had been in the Ladies Association together, and now they were in the Ladies Association together. Their children were going to the schools we had gone to, would take piano from Mrs. Miner and ballet at Miss Patty’s Academy of Dance as we had, would learn to waltz at the Magnolia Blossom Cotillion and debut at the country club, and then they would repeat the process with their own children.

Three other former classmates, Emma Fischer, Ellen O’Connor, and Audrey Alexander, followed Ashley like a sorority Secret Service, a bouquet of thirtysomething perfection in matching sweater sets. We had all been friends in school, I was sure of it, but I couldn’t remember doing anything with them that felt friendly. I could picture myself at Emma’s birthday party and standing behind Audrey during our debutante ball, waiting to be presented, but I couldn’t remember any conversations between us, any secrets shared, any real connection. Had I spent my entire life without any real friends?

Before I had gotten married, I had seen these women all the time, been in their weddings, attended their housewarming parties, endured their baby showers. As I sat in the chilly ballroom, looking around me at the women hovering and chatting between the tables, I felt like a visitor from another planet. They had all managed to perfect the look I never could, until they were one undifferentiated mass: untanned white skin, smooth, chin-length hair, sweater sets and slim skirts. We all worked so hard to look exactly like each other, and though no one ever would have spoken the words, it was clear that anyone different—in race, religion, taste, opinion—was Not Allowed.

Being around them, I felt a little shabbier, a little chunkier, a little frizzier. This was the way it had always been with those girls and me—especially Ashley. I couldn’t even blame her, or resent her, really—it was nothing she did. It was just that she was a litany of all the things I wasn’t—petite and pretty and well put together and efficient and so very normal, and I had always been galumphing and sloppy and uncomfortably different. Maybe if I had gone to public school, or if my mother hadn’t been so wedded to the Garden Society and the country club and all the markers of polite society, I could have been different. I could have found a group of friends whose presence didn’t make me think less of myself, didn’t make me ache to be someone else, coating me with a thin layer of self-loathing that made my skin greasy in the humid summers. It seemed so unfair to have been born into this life and not have been given the tools to mine it properly.

“If I can have your attention.” Ashley was standing on the stage, tapping the microphone with one French-manicured finger. A spray of forsythia behind her set off her yellow sweater perfectly. “Attention, ladies. Thank you so much for coming today.”