A Good Marriage(24)
Once Amanda was safely within arm’s reach of the Gate, she paused and looked back over her shoulder one last time. But no one was behind her, at least no one that she could see.
Amanda spotted Maude and Sarah huddled at one of the worn mahogany booths in back. Maude’s head was tipped back, and she was laughing hard, feet tucked up on the seat next to her in a feline way. Sarah was leaning in close, saying something with one of her trademark wicked grins. Already, Amanda was glad she’d come. Snuggled back there in that dark corner were her friends. Not sister-friends, maybe, not friends like Carolyn. But friendships like that were a lifetime in the making. And after such a short time, Sarah and Maude were already so much more than Amanda ever could have hoped for.
Amanda had met Sarah outside Henry and Case’s classroom, and they’d hit it off instantly. Amanda did best with very confident, outgoing women like Sarah who weren’t bothered by the way she looked, or how much money she had, or how fit she was. Amanda didn’t consider herself an athlete by any stretch, but she could run ten miles without much thought, and even she had to acknowledge that she was rather fast. Over the years, many women had been eager at first to be Amanda’s running partner or her coffee date or her friend. But sooner or later those women always began to eye Amanda up and down, jockeying to stand farther away from her so as not to suffer in the comparison. Inevitably, that jealousy would sharpen into something they’d used to poke at Amanda, cutting her down to size.
Had she really not gone to college? How interesting. Had she really never been anywhere in Europe? Such a shame. Did she really have so little say in the things her husband did? How … unusual. And how old was she anyway?
Twenty-eight. Amanda was twenty-eight years old; often as much as fifteen years younger than mothers with children Case’s age. But sometimes the gulf between them felt even greater. It felt infinite, and impenetrable.
Standing in the doorway to the Gate, Amanda glanced down at her crisp white blouse and the platform Prada sandals the salesman at Barneys had convinced her were so very New York when she went to buy yet more clothes she hoped would be the right ones. But Amanda hadn’t clarified that by “New York” she had meant “Park Slope mom,” which was a different uniform altogether. Calculated indifference, that was the look. Park Slope moms were beautiful and fashionable and fit, but they were above caring too much about silly things like fashion. They had more important things to worry about, like causes or children or their meaningful careers. In other words, Amanda needed to master the application of the exact right amount of concealer and precise coating of mascara to appear flawlessly barefaced.
Unfortunately, Amanda continued to make her fair share of mistakes in this regard. That was the problem with pretending to be someone—not even someone else, just someone. It was so easy to overshoot the mark.
Amanda smiled hard as she made her way over to Maude and Sarah’s booth, pulling her long hair down and rolling up her white sleeves in an effort to appear more casual.
“So sorry I’m late.” Amanda motioned to her outfit by way of explanation and then offered her go-to white lie. “I had a donor meeting.”
It said so much and so little at the same time.
“Look at the shoes, Maude!” Sarah cried, pointing at Amanda’s heels. “I love them!”
Maude pressed up in her seat. “Let me see.” She tipped over to look. “Wow, amazing. Someday you do need to take me shopping, Amanda.”
This was her friends being kind. They knew exactly where to shop and had the means to do so anytime they pleased. They chose not to because they, too, had more important things to do.
Maude was an art dealer, her husband a well-respected ob-gyn, and they had a teenage daughter, Sophia, the same age as Sarah’s middle son, Will, who was a sophomore at Brooklyn Country Day—which was how those two knew each other. But the age of their children was all Maude and Sarah had in common as parents. Sarah liked to joke that Maude wasn’t just a helicopter mom, she was a kamikaze pilot. But Maude and her daughter were extremely close, and Amanda saw Maude’s hovering for what it was: love.
In addition to having a successful business and being a devoted mother, Maude was also effortlessly sexy in a way Amanda found especially intimidating, with ivory skin with just the right smattering of freckles, intense brown eyes, and a head of long reddish-brown curls. Her husband Sebe was French, though he’d attended medical school in the States. Amanda had met him a couple times when he’d dropped Maude at the Gate. Tall and extremely well built with light brown skin and bright hazel eyes, Sebe was shockingly handsome, especially with his accent. The first time Amanda met him, she’d been unable to stop herself from staring.
“You should see your face,” Sarah had said, laughing, once Sebe had gone.
“My face?” Amanda had asked.
“I mean, no judgment, but you’re drooling. Don’t worry, that was my reaction, too, the first time I saw Sebe.” She’d turned to Maude, who’d been focused on her phone. “It’s like a joke, how good-looking your husband is, Maude. And talented and charming and he births babies. And now he’s doing that tech start-up thing with the online genetics testing, what is it called again? Digital DNA or whatever. Sebe will probably also end up a billionaire. It’s almost too much to take.”
“First of all, he doesn’t birth the babies,” Maude had corrected good-naturedly. “The women give birth. Also, he’s only a medical adviser to that company. There’s not going to be some huge payout. Anyway, he still won’t pick up his socks. Husbands are husbands, no matter what they look like.”