What's Mine and Yours(11)

Noelle rolled her eyes. “Short war,” she said. “What a stupid story. They rode all that way and learned all those things, and then it doesn’t even matter.”

Lacey wanted to explain that you should never give up a prince if the prince really loves you, but Noelle plugged her ears, and Margarita shouted that she wanted to be a princess, and Diane stood solemnly and asked for someone to go with her to the bathroom because she had to throw up.



After the girls nodded off, Lacey slipped out from under the blankets. She shut off the light and went out to the back porch with one of the leftover lollipops from the supermarket. She cracked the hard candy between her front teeth and counted the days on her fingers since she had sent Robbie the money—five, and he still hadn’t called. Goddamn you, Robbie, she thought. Goddamn.

She went back in the house, and she didn’t feel a difference anymore between inside and out. Lacey found her old address book in a drawer, and she went flipping through the pages until she found him there, alphabetized by last name. Gibbs, Hank. She carried the address book and the phone out to the living room. She muted the TV and dialed, waited for the ringing to stop.

“I knew you’d change your mind,” he said, and Lacey, with her free hand, turned up the thermostat a full ten degrees.





3



September 2018


The suburbs north of Atlanta, Georgia

The sun wasn’t up yet when Noelle went out to the porch to decide what to do about the party invite. The Suttons threw this party every year, and she’d gone to the first with Nelson when they moved into Golden Brook. It had been exciting, all their neighbors’ German cars, the crystal wineglasses, the women and men in crisp, creamy-colored clothes. They talked about local government, the community initiative to build a bigger dog park. It was like being cast in a minor role in a dull but pleasant movie.

The shimmer was gone now—from the Suttons, their gabled house, and all of Golden Brook. Even the cottage she and Nelson had bought looked too small to her now when she drove up. The lawn, where she’d said she wanted to plant a garden, was bare except for the signs they’d driven into the grass to announce they leaned left, voted blue.

It was warm, even in the early dark, and Noelle went out with her coffee, bottle of vitamins, a nail file, the invitation. She laid it on her lap while she scraped her nails into shape. How many things about herself did she no longer tend to? She hardly exercised; she drank too much; her hair was thinning at the ends. She took the vitamins, still, at least. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d read a play.

This curve of Golden Brook was shaded by oaks so tall they must have been older than seemed possible. “From slavery times,” Nelson had said when they moved in. It was the kind of joke she had learned to laugh at over the years but would never make herself.

If she went to the Sutton house tonight, at least she’d look the part. She’d put yogurt in her hair, shave her legs, smear on one of those citrus-smelling serums that promised to lift and tighten and erase. When she looked at Nelson, she could see the old adage was true—black don’t crack. She, on the other hand, had a fan of lines around her smile, her eyes. It didn’t bother her, really, to look older. It was more what the wrinkles signified: time was running out.

It was noon in France, too early for a lunch meeting, too late for a morning shoot, so Noelle called Nelson. The phone rang and rang.

“Sweetheart,” she said when she got his voicemail. “I’m almost happy you’re not here. If you were, you’d be stuck going to the Suttons’. You’re the lucky one, yeah? Love you.”

She’d expected him to call more, even with the time difference, his work. But the way they’d left things—she couldn’t blame him. She dialed again. “I guess you’re working. I missed your voice yesterday. Call me soon.”

Noelle felt her chest draw inward, as if she were getting narrower, shrinking. It was a sick feeling. She texted him. I can’t go to the Sutton party alone. These people make me feel like I’m in high school again. He would know what she meant. It was like keeping a secret, like passing, like choosing between getting along and being clear about who she was. She stared at the phone for a few minutes. Maybe he couldn’t talk, but he could text. She took her prenatal. She finished her coffee.

She went back inside, turned her phone volume all the way up so she wouldn’t miss him while she was in the shower. When the phone rang, it startled her. She hadn’t really expected Nelson to call. She rushed out and saw that it was her mother, Lacey May. Noelle didn’t answer.

It was a sick chain, she thought. Nelson ignores me; I ignore my mother. I hunt after my husband; my mother hunts after me.

Noelle left the house in her exercise clothes. She knew exactly whom she’d ask to go with her to the party, to help her get through. And Inéz would say yes. She was sure. They had forged their friendship in that golden stretch of years in college when they would do anything for each other, when nothing was more solid or mattered more than the love of your girlfriends. They’d pierced each other’s ears, taken the bus to Babeland to buy dildos together. They had forgotten their families and clung to one another, as if their old lives might not ever resume.

In the car, she tried Nelson once more—“Headed to the city, hope you’re getting the best pictures of your life”—then hung up and turned onto the freeway.