Life and Other Inconveniences(87)

The cool factor was choking me. I knocked.

Almost immediately, Jamilah opened the door, wearing a long, flowing red dress with spaghetti straps. I guess motherhood hadn’t done to her boobs what it had done to mine. Her earrings were simple, thin gold strands. Did she have to be dazzlingly beautiful and stylish on top of everything else? (Also, where could I get that dress?) “Hi,” she said.

I fixed my face. “Hey! How are you? What a lovely home! It’s amazing! So tasteful.” Muzzle it, London, I said to myself.

“Great to see you, Emma,” she said. “Come on in. I’ve made us tea.”

Of course she had. I didn’t even like tea, but I suspected I would soon be converted.

“Where are the boys?” I asked.

“They’re at karate,” she said. “Jason will bring them home by six, but of course, Riley is welcome anytime.”

“Uh, yeah, um . . . I guess Jason will swing by and get her? Or I can drive her up.”

“No need for you to make another trip,” she said. “Unless you want to. Um, I guess you want to make sure it’s okay for her to stay here?”

The house was just as gorgeous on the inside. “I’m sorry to be a dork about this. It’s just that we don’t really know each other that well . . .”

“I’d do the same thing,” she said. “Have a seat.”

I did. “You have two sons and a white couch. Are you magic?”

She laughed, and I felt the tug of liking her. A tea tray was set on the coffee table, as well as a plate of pastel-colored macarons. “Sugar?” she asked. “Milk, lemon, honey?”

“Just black is fine.”

She poured me a cup. “I’m a little nervous,” she said. “Sorry if I’m overcompensating.”

“No, no! It’s fine. It’s great. It’s lovely. Genevieve would heartily approve.”

Jamilah looked up and smiled a little. “I guess I want to impress you.”

“Really? I want to impress you, too!”

She smiled. “Well, you’ve raised the world’s most perfect child, and you’re Jason’s first love, so . . .” She raised an elegant eyebrow at me, and I wondered when I’d last plucked mine. They tended to resemble large, scary caterpillars if I went too long.

“That’s very nice of you,” I said. “You’re pretty damn impressive, too, Jamilah.” I took a sip of tea. Yes. It was delicious, damn it. “I guess I just wanted to ask the usual questions for sleepovers. You’ll be here the whole time?”

“Of course.”

“Any other adults?”

“No, just me.” She sipped her tea. “We don’t have any guns in the house, and we have a cat but no dogs. The pool has an alarm on it in case anyone falls in. No drugs in the house, maybe half a bottle of white wine, and we don’t use Tide Pods.”

Well. That about covered it. I felt a little stupid.

“Let me show you around,” Jamilah said, and so I saw the guest room where my daughter would stay. There was already a framed picture of her, Owen and Duncan on the bureau, and a framed print of Paris—Riley was taking French. She had her own bathroom. The boys shared a bedroom, appropriately sloppy but clean. There was a finished basement with a huge TV.

“I limit the boys to an hour of TV and another hour of screen time,” Jamilah said. “On school nights, they can’t watch TV, but in the summer . . .”

“Sure. Loosen the rules a little.”

“Do you think that’s too much?”

She was asking my opinion! “No, that sounds good. What about you, though? You work for Google, so you must be on the computer all the time.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I only work part-time, though, and I try to compartmentalize it so I’m not always checking.”

“That’s very healthy.”

We nodded at each other, that awkward moment when we’d run out of compliments. “Well. I guess I’ll be going, then.”

“Did Jason tell you why we’re separated?” she asked.

Ah. The good stuff. “No, not really. Just that things were . . . hard.”

She looked out the window and toyed with the ring on her finger. The huge wonking diamond engagement ring on her finger, to be exact. I wondered how much tuition that would cover. “He had a . . . what did he call it? An emotional affair.”

“Oh, fuck.” Bad answer, Emma! “Sorry. I mean, that must be hard.”

“I like your first answer better.” She sighed. “It’s so embarrassing. A Facebook affair with his college girlfriend.”

I flinched, then pushed my hair back to cover.

I had been Jason’s college girlfriend. Or so I’d thought. Not the only one, apparently.

“I probably shouldn’t have told you that,” Jamilah went on, “but I didn’t want you to think it was over something frivolous. I mean, your daughter is part of our family, even if she’s not here. If Jason and I divorce, that will still be true.”

“That’s very kind of you. She likes you a lot, Jamilah.”

“I don’t believe in evil stepmothers. She was here first. I mean, I hope Jason and I will get through this, but . . .” Her eyes teared up, and on impulse, I gave her a hug. She smelled fantastic (of course).