Want to Know a Secret? (62)

She rolls her eyes. “Come on. April deserves it. She’s awful. You know it better than anyone.”

I have some idea what she’s talking about. Obviously. That incident at the preschool—which we both got into, incidentally—was just the tip of the iceberg. April has an edge. Most people who know her well enough find out about it. Although most people just think she’s very sweet.

“I just think,” I say, “it’s better not to mess with April.”

Kathy snorts. “Please. If there were anything she wanted to do to me, she’d be doing it. I’m not worried.”

I can’t help but think that she’s wrong. She should be worried.

_____



Today April and I are on our way to see her mother at the nursing home.

I met Janet Portland a few times before she became ill. She reminded me a lot of April. Very sweet and friendly and pretty for her age, with a similar build to April, even though she was thirty years older. One night a few months after I moved to the neighborhood, April and I went for drinks while Janet stayed behind to watch our boys, and I completely trusted her. She seemed very sensible and trustworthy.

That’s why I was surprised when barely six months after I moved in, April tearfully told me she had to put her mother in a nursing home. “The doctors diagnosed her with early-onset dementia,” she says. “She just can’t be alone anymore. I had to get power of attorney.”

April ends every single episode of her show by telling her mother goodnight. It’s very sweet. It even melts my own icy heart a bit.

Now Janet lives at Shady Oaks, a nursing home about forty minutes away from where we live. We’re driving down there because April got the brilliant idea to include her mother in an episode. I have to admit, she has a lot of clever ideas. That’s why her show has taken off as much as it has, although it’s not nearly as successful as she likes to pretend it is.

“You remembered the extra butter, right?” April asks as we merge onto the highway.

“Check,” I say. April cooks with a horrifying amount of butter. It’s one of the reasons why I try not to eat her delicious treats anymore. Just because I don’t go to work anymore, it doesn’t mean I’m okay with not fitting into any of my suits.

She turns the radio down a notch as she glances at me. “Have you heard the horrible rumor Kathy Tanner is telling everybody about me?”

I toy with a loose thread on my blouse, debating whether I should tell the truth. “Yes. I heard it.”

April lets out a huff. “The nerve of her! It’s not true you know.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s not,” she says more firmly. “It’s pure fiction Kathy made up just to make me look bad.”

“Right. I assumed.”

She flashes me a grateful smile. “I knew you wouldn’t believe it. Honestly, I don’t know why Kathy hates me so much.”

“She’s jealous,” I reply honestly.

“Well, she’s horrible.” April speeds up a bit to pass an SUV. “I don’t understand what Mark sees in her. She’s so vile, and he’s such a hottie. Don’t you think so?”

“I guess so.” Vaguely, I’m aware that Mark Tanner is attractive. At least, I know all the other mothers think so. But it’s not something I think about.

April is silent then for the rest of the drive, lost in her thoughts. It makes me a little nervous to wonder what she’s thinking about.

Shady Oaks is surprisingly dreary and depressing. In the past, April has gone on and on about how lovely the nursing home where her mother lived was. But the reality is nothing like that. The walls of the home have peeling paint and flickering lights. If my parents ever needed to be in a home, I never would put them in a place like this.

Of course, Keith and I are far wealthier than the Mastersons. Keith is a partner in his law firm in Manhattan, whereas Elliot works for a dinky firm on the island, where he’s been for the last decade, and they won’t promote him after the mess with Courtney Burns. According to Keith, that incident has left an indelible mark on his reputation, even though he was never charged with anything. Surely this is not the life April imagined when she married an up-and-coming lawyer.

When we get inside, I get another shock when I see Janet.

She looks like an entirely different person than she had when she had watched Bobby and my boys only a few years ago. For starters, she looks twenty years older. Her honey-blond hair is now completely gray, although presumably it had been dyed the last time I saw her. She has a vacant look in her blue eyes. There’s a big glob of drool in the corner of her mouth.

“Hi, Mom!” April encircles her mother in a giant hug. Her mother seems only vaguely aware she is being hugged. “How are you doing?”

Janet doesn’t answer. She just stares distantly at a wall.

The filming is being overseen by a nurse named Peggy. It’s quite obvious from the moment we walk in that Peggy despises April. It’s strange. Most people like April, at least at first. And Peggy seems like one of those nurses who truly cares about her patients, and April is quite doting on her mother.

We record the episode without any difficulties. I have to say, it was a brilliant idea on April’s part. The whole thing is incredibly heartwarming—April concludes the episode by throwing her arms around her mother’s shoulders and planting a kiss on her cheek. I find myself tearing up.