If You Only Knew(70)
“Hooray! I’ll call her later and congratulate her, okay?”
“You bet. I have to go. Cookies to bake, laundry to fold.”
“Okay, Martha Stewart. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
I realize the question about the girls was a peace offering. Jenny does adore them, that’s for sure.
My mind goes back to Mommy and Me swimming today. Elle complimented me on my weight loss and asked me which diet I was on. Acid stomach, I wanted to say. You should try it. I can introduce your husband to Emmanuelle if you want.
Still, the sight of my hip bones is strangely pleasing to me. And to Adam, who bit one last night when we were f*cking.
A sudden wave of grief rocks me on my feet, a hard, fast rogue wave.
And then I hear the girls stir over the monitor, and I’m so glad they’re awake I run up the stairs.
* * *
A few days later, Jared calls and asks if I can have lunch with him. I arrange for Donna to pick up the girls from nursery school—Mom would, she said wearily when I asked her first, but she hates driving with the girls and can never figure out the car seats, and what if something happened? She is both jealous of Donna and grateful for her.
I leave the minivan with Donna and take Adam’s fortieth birthday present to himself, a two-seat convertible Jaguar—red, of course. We take it on date nights and to country-club functions. I’ve never driven it, and I don’t ask permission to take it today. What’s mine is yours, after all.
I remember the joke someone made at Adam’s fortieth—better a sports car than a mistress, ha ha ha.
New Rachel looks past that. New Rachel doesn’t bother telling Adam she’s going out to lunch with a male friend.
It takes me a minute to figure out how to start the car, but I manage. It’s a gorgeous May day, and with the top down, I can smell the lilacs and apple blossoms. The minivan smells like apple juice and Goldfish crackers—eau de maternité. At least it no longer smells of vomit. Adam took the car to be detailed after the girls exploded that day.
I never did tell him about Gus and how he rescued me.
The truth is, I love having a secret from Adam. Gus and his smiling eyes are hardly Emmanuelle’s vagina, but the memory of him is comforting and a tiny bit thrilling.
My hair whips around, so I shove my sunglasses on my head to keep the strands out of my face. Very New Rachel of me, driving the Jag. I pass Bliss, whose windows glow with the beauty of my sister’s work. The latest display dress is a blush ball gown covered in tiny sparkles, and it looks as though it could float away, it’s so light and airy.
The shop is the jewel of the downtown shopping district, the newspaper article said, and at the time, I felt a pang of jealousy. My sister’s been here for a month, and already people are flocking to Bliss, standing in front of the windows. Rumor at Mommy and Me said that a Roosevelt descendent is going to have Jenny make her dress. She hadn’t mentioned that to me.
In some ways, Jenny belongs to Cambry-on-Hudson more than I do. She knows the baristas at Blessed Bean by name, went to a gallery opening one night, joined a Zumba class at the rather gritty YMCA. One day when we went for a walk with the girls, she was called by name by the old black gentlemen who sit in front of the barbershop every day. I’ve never talked to them, which made me feel racist at that moment. But Jenny’s always been like that, able to make friends just by walking into a room and saying hello. I also say hello, but my stupid, unavoidable shyness keeps me from actually making the kind of connection Jenny does.
I know the other moms. I know some of our old classmates, I know the country-club crowd. I know the children’s librarian, but not the other adults who work there, even though I go in at least once a week.
It occurs to me that I’d like to have more friends.
I’ll stop by Bliss after lunch, if I have time. Or not. I might do something else. Get a facial, maybe, at Vous, the day spa around the corner. Maybe I’ll buy some new shoes, the kind that Jenny wears. Not flats. No way.
Or I’ll just go home and plant the pansies the girls and I picked out the other day. That’s what the old Rachel wants to do. But maybe it’d be good to have some true Me Time.
I go into Hudson’s, the sweet little tavern that was formerly a dark and sticky bar patronized by hardcore alcoholics. There’s Jared, waiting for me, a smile on his face. “Hey, Rach!” he says, and we sit down, getting a table by the window so we can admire the mighty river.
“Thanks for meeting me,” he says.
“Of course!” I say. As always, Jared reminds me of the dogs his family used to have—Golden retrievers, always happy, always wagging. Jared is like his dad, who’s the minister of our church. Not like his mother, who has never once invited me to call her by her first name, never once acted happy to see me in town or at the club.
Jared makes up for it. He’s one of the few people I feel really comfortable with.
“Got any new pictures of the girls?” he asks, and I comply, whipping out my phone so he can admire. The girls worship him; they call him Uncle Jared, and he always manages to find strange and wonderful presents at holidays and their birthday. “God, they’re so cute!” he says. “Look at Charlotte. She looks just like you. And Grace is the spitting image of Adam, isn’t she? Aw, look at Rose! Bet she enjoyed that... What is she eating, anyway? Mud?”