Other People's Houses(55)
She looked around, hoping the soccer game was nearly over, or that Lally had been mildly concussed, or something that would end this stupid conversation. But no, Lally was now running in a different direction, still wrong, but different. Over on a nearby pitch Milo was playing a real game of soccer, as the difference between four and ten years old was significant when it came to rules and balls. Ava had loved soccer. Frances suddenly had a vision of the little trophies she used to bring home proudly, the slices of orange making her wrists sticky, the bouncing ponytail as she pelted across the grass. That nine-year-old was long gone now and Ava seemed to barely remember her, or even care about the things that used to matter so much. Dinosaurs. Doll clothes. Horses. Legos. Drawing was the only one that stayed, the one passion that had yet to wane.
“Frances?” Shelly was still looking at her, a deeper wrinkle between her eyebrows. Shit, apparently she’d drifted off there for a moment. She looked at Shelly and smiled vaguely.
“Sorry, Shelly, got distracted. What were you saying?”
But Shelly herself was suddenly distracted by something behind Frances, and the way her eyes widened suggested it was way more interesting than Frances’s apparent descent into dementia. Frances turned, guessing before she saw her that Anne Porter had just arrived.
* * *
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Anne realized as she got closer that this was a major mistake, but she had told Charlie she would show up and there was no turning back. She couldn’t have chosen a more public place to appear, as pretty much everyone she knew was there, or at least enough of them that everyone she knew would get a firsthand account.
She felt like crap. Apart from the eggs at Frances’s she’d barely eaten in the last few days. She still hadn’t called her parents: Her mother didn’t enjoy bad news. Or maybe she did enjoy it, but whoever brought the bad news lived to regret it. Anne decided to wait until she had a better story to tell. Rather than, “Hi, Mom, I fucked up massively and now my life has shattered into a million pieces,” she wanted to be able to lead with, “Hi, Mom, Charlie and I have been having some problems, but it’s all better now. How are you?” It might take a while, but she was going to wait for that. Her mom preferred to parent the good parts of her children only.
Now Anne was standing in the heat of the soccer fields in the park, looking around for her kids and trying very hard not to make eye contact with the parent body of her school. It was hard because although a generous third of them were doing her the courtesy of pretending she wasn’t there, the other two-thirds were avidly watching and hoping she was either drunk or insane. Some of them were looking behind her, hoping she’d brought the eighteen-year-old she was supposedly sleeping with.
Suddenly she saw Frances, and instinctively started walking toward her. Frances was looking at her, but with a question in her eyes, rather than judgment: Are you OK? Anne walked toward her resolutely, avoiding any other eye contact. As she got closer, though, she realized Shelly was standing with Frances and nearly stopped. Shelly was absolutely the worst possible person to run into, but fortunately Frances was stepping around her and walking to meet Anne in the middle, curving her body as she walked to suggest a bench off to one side as a meeting point. It was like semaphore: Don’t panic, we’re heading for that bench, we’re going to make it, keep going. Anne had started to feel tingling in her hands, and pulsing nausea; she was going to have a panic attack.
“You’re fine,” was the first thing Frances said as they got close enough to hear each other. “You’re fine, just sit down on the bench. I’ll get out the taser and keep the bitches at bay, OK?”
“OK.” Anne’s voice was a whisper.
They were now walking together, and Frances added, “Lili’s here somewhere, and so are Jim and Andy, and between us we will create a human shield if we have to.”
They reached the bench and sat down. Anne was breathing rapidly, her color very bad, her nausea worsening.
“I’m going to throw up.”
Frances shifted her purse on her shoulder and let it fall to the ground. “Oh dear, I dropped my purse. Quick, bend down and help me pick up my shit. Keep your head lower than your knees.”
Anne did as she was told. Frances, it turned out, had a great deal of stuff in her handbag. Toys, sweets, coins, a pack of cards that spilled helpfully across the grass, a little Hot Wheels car, a bottle of bubble solution, several pens, several pen lids, none of which went together, and so on and so forth.
Frances knelt on the grass in front of the bench, shielding Anne while they picked up the contents of her bag. “Feeling better?”
Anne kept her head down, and a sob escaped her. “No.”
Frances made a soft noise of support, such as one might make to a child, and touched Anne on the knee. “Anne, you messed up, but you’re here now for your kids, and you need to pull it together. You are not going to throw up or freak out, you are going to let the blood flow back into your extremities and once you’re able to stand up again we’ll find the kids and you will be good once you see them, alright?”
“If they want to see me. If Charlie will let me.”
“He told you to come here, right?” Frances looked worried, suddenly. “You’re not just turning up unexpectedly?”
Anne shook her head, gathering the playing cards together and searching for a rubber band or something to keep them together. Frances handed her a black-covered hair elastic, which worked just fine. “No, I’m invited.”