The Better Liar(70)

No—it was Dave’s turn. I opened my car door. Taryn, who lived next door, waved at me from her yard. She was barefoot, aiming a kid’s lime-green squirt gun at the succulents. “Hi, Leslie!”

I lifted my head, and there was a brief moment before I remembered to reply. “Oh, hi, Taryn,” I said, running a hand through my hair.

“This is Austin’s.” She laughed. “Couldn’t find my spray bottle.”

I didn’t know what she meant, and it showed on my face.

The gun. Right. The squirt gun.

I laughed back.

Taryn cocked her head. “Have a good night!” she said after a second.

    “Oh, thanks.” It wasn’t quite the right thing to say. I went into the house.

The stairs were strewn with fresh socks. A stack of mail sat on the floor next to the door. From the back of the house, muffled laughter issued. I took off my shoes and followed the noise into the kitchen.

It was brighter than the rest of the house, full of sun, and it smelled like someone had been cooking—curry, maybe. Pots and bowls crowded the sink, and the counter was covered in yellow splotches and fat, soggy grains of rice. The back door was open and the air from outside hung in the house. I stepped out onto the back patio.

Neither of them saw me at first: Mary in a blue-and-white-striped bikini top, the strings trailing into the waistband of her cutoff jeans. She was cross-legged on the grass, my sunglasses propped on top of her head, laughing, holding out her hands. The garden hose snaked over the ground beside her, parting the grass. Dave, his back to me in a lawn chair, sprawled out, still in his office clothes, tie missing.

“Come on,” Mary said, and Eli, wearing Dave’s tie around his neck, came hurtling across the lawn toward her, his legs so rubbery that his entire body was jostled from side to side with every step. He fell into her arms giggling, and Dave clapped.

“Five point four seconds,” Dave called. “Necesitas trabajar más, mijo.”

Mary rocked Eli from side to side and said into his ear, “Ready? Three…two…” She pushed him out of her arms so that he had a nearly airborne head start into his next dash toward the edge of the lawn.

“Leslie,” Dave said, twisting around. “You’re home.”

Mary looked up and pulled my sunglasses onto her face.

“You’re not ready,” I said. “We have to go to dinner.”

“You can stay out here and play for a second,” Dave told me. “Eli, look, Mommy’s home.”

Eli, distracted, tripped over Dave’s tie and fell hard. He let out a wail, coming up grass-stained.

“Oh, no,” Mary said. “Party’s over. You want to take him, Leslie?”

    Dave glanced up at me. “I can do it,” he said. “She just got home.” He heaved himself off the lawn chair and went over to scoop Eli off the grass.

“Guess it’s time,” Mary said, raising her eyebrows at me over the sunglasses.

I shut the door to the patio behind us when we were inside. “You have to take this seriously,” I said.

“I am taking it seriously,” Mary replied. I couldn’t see her eyes.

“You’re wearing cutoffs,” I said. “You’re playing with the baby. Where’s the dress I left for you?”

She sighed. “It’s upstairs. It doesn’t fit. I got another one.”

“Another dress? From where?”

“Does it matter?” She took off my sunglasses and set them on the counter. I snatched them up. “I’m going to get ready,” she said. “You should have a glass of wine or something.”

When she turned around I saw that the backs of her thighs were pink and crazily patterned where she’d been sitting on the grass holding my baby, pretending to be his aunt. I stood there for a second, listening to Eli and Dave chattering on the back porch. Then I went to the sink and put on my yellow dish gloves.

I scrubbed every bowl, waiting for her, and then I wiped down the countertops. Dave was back on the lawn chair now, Eli draped over his chest, both of them asleep. I went to the bottom of the stairs and called, “M—Robin?”

No answer.

I climbed the stairs, picking up socks as I went. “Robin?” I said, once I’d reached the landing. The guest bedroom door stood open. I went inside with my handful of socks.

She’d made a mess of the room. Covers and sheets strewn across the floor, clothes hanging from the bedposts, dirty plates and glasses on the bedside table. The dress I’d left hanging neatly from her doorknob that morning was lying in an inside-out heap on the bare bed. The door to the bathroom was ajar, and I could see her moving around in front of the mirror.

“What’s taking so long?” I asked, sitting gingerly on the bed, next to the rejected dress. I made a neat pile beside me of the socks.

    She pushed the door open farther and leaned out. Her mouth was a bright vermilion, matching her painted nails, and she’d curled her hair, except for a long limp hank that hung down behind her ear.

“You’re still in, aren’t you?” I said. “I mean, everything is still…” I stopped speaking.

Mary let the door fall open farther, and I saw that she was in a neon-yellow cocktail dress, strapless, her feet bare. Against the wood and ceramic of the bathroom she looked hyperreal, like a cutout from a magazine. I could see myself in the mirror behind her, almost a shadow in the dim bedroom. “Yeah,” she said, white teeth showing. “Everything’s good. What’s up?”