Lovely Girls(10)

“Alex is good,” I said. “She practices a lot.”

“I’m sure she’ll do great,” Emma assured me.

“We should probably get started on today’s agenda,” Ingrid said. “I have a one o’clock appointment.” She glanced at me. “I’m a therapist.”

“Oh, that’s interesting.”

“Really?” Ingrid lifted one narrow shoulder. “Mostly it means I spend all of my time listening to other people talk about their problems.”

“But it must feel good to know that you’re helping people,” I said.

“In my experience, people are rarely actually open to change,” Ingrid replied. “They want to complain, have me validate their feelings, and then take no action at all to improve their lives for the better.” She shrugged again. “It’s good for business.”

“What do you do, Kate?” Emma asked. “Or aren’t we supposed to ask that?”

“Why can’t we ask that?” Genevieve replied.

“Doesn’t it suggest that being a stay-at-home mom isn’t enough?” Emma asked. “Like those women who go around calling themselves domestic goddesses to make it sound more glamorous.”

“You don’t call yourself a domestic goddess, do you?” Genevieve turned to me in mock horror. “I’m not sure we can be friends with you if you do.”

“I don’t.” I laughed. “I promise.”

“Thank God,” Ingrid said.

“Although it is a good litmus test,” Emma chimed in. “Like when the girls were little and we made a pact not to be friends with anyone who had those family stickers on the back of their car.” She turned to me. “You know. Mom, dad, a boy with a soccer ball, a girl in a tutu. Gag.”

“I promise I don’t have those on my car either,” I said. “But to answer your question, I had a consignment furniture store in Buffalo. I sold it when we moved here.”

I felt a familiar pang when I thought of my beautiful store. It had been a warren of rooms that I set up in an ever-changing series of vignettes—a midcentury modern–inspired living room, a nautical-themed kid’s room, a formal dining room. I always liked to imagine who would live in the room and then design it around the fictional person. I loved it when someone would come in and buy the whole room of furniture, wanting to set it up in their home exactly as I had in the store. It had been harder to let go of the store, with its happy memories, than it had been to sell our house.

“You should totally open one down here!” Emma raised both of her hands, palms facing outward. “We don’t have any good consignment stores in Shoreham.”

“I have thought about it,” I said. “I’m just not sure what I want to do yet. I’m still in the unpacking-boxes phase at our new house.”

“Where are you living?” Ingrid asked.

“On Collins Street. It’s just down the street from that big old Victorian house with the pink shutters,” I said.

“The Ainsley House,” Emma said. “That’s a bed and breakfast.”

“Isn’t that the street Lita Gruen lives on?” Genevieve asked.

“She’s my next-door neighbor,” I confirmed.

“Yikes. You need to watch out for her. She’s batshit crazy,” Genevieve said.

“I ran into her at Publix the other day, and she was a mess. She was wearing a stained shirt, and her hair was like a rat’s nest, and worst of all—” Emma paused for effect. “She smelled.”

“Gross,” Genevieve said.

“I heard she’s a hoarder,” Ingrid said. “Like the kind they have on that television show, where they can barely move around their house, it’s so packed with junk.”

“You watch that show?” Emma asked, surprised.

“Don’t judge me,” Ingrid said.

“You should stay away from Lita,” Genevieve advised me. “She’s not the kind of person you want to be associated with.”

I was frozen with discomfort. Genevieve’s words were an echo of Lita’s warning on the night of the school assembly. Clearly the two women didn’t like one another. And yet the way the three women were talking about her, commenting on her appearance and mental state, seemed unkind.

“I don’t know her very well,” I said cautiously. “She brought us over a basket of muffins to welcome us to the neighborhood.”

“I hope you didn’t eat them.” Genevieve shuddered. “I’d toss those right in the garbage.”

“Is it just you and Alex?” Emma asked.

I was grateful for the change of subject, even if it was one with a land mine. “Yes, it’s just the two of us.”

“Oh, good, I’ll finally have a single friend,” Ingrid said. She stretched her thin arms over her head luxuriantly and smiled at me. “I’m divorced, and I swear everyone else in this town is married.”

I smiled back. I knew that there was a question within her statement, but I wasn’t ready to share my history with these women.

“Joe Miller was chatting Kate up at orientation,” Genevieve informed the other two with a knowing tone that made me flush.

“He’s cute,” Emma said.