Bridget, looking harried, finally arrives with her four boys, but Sam does not accompany them and I wonder if we’ll be graced with his presence at all; I can’t remember the last time I saw him.
Skip calls out that the meat is done and everyone lines up. I make sure Josh and Jordan eat something other than potato chips and add some fruit and baby carrots to their plates. Justin brings me another Diet 7Up, smiling and popping the top before handing it to me.
After dinner I coat my children in a heavy cloud of bug spray, which they protest against. Loudly. “You’ll thank me tomorrow when you’re not covered in mosquito bites,” I tell them. “We’ll make s’mores and light sparklers in a little while, okay?” I send them off to play with the rest of the kids.
Fourteen-year-old Sebastian, Bridget’s oldest, has become our de facto DJ, and the iPod blasts a variety of tunes, everything from Skip’s classic country to Elisa’s adult contemporary and Travis’s hip-hop.
Chris stands in the yard next to Skip and Justin. The smell of cigar smoke permeates the air, and their laughter mingles with the music. It’s nice to see Chris with a smile on his face, even if it isn’t for me. He’s gained back a little of the weight he lost and his shorts don’t look so baggy anymore. His body language—shoulders back, head held a bit higher than before—tells me he’s feeling a little better about himself. Watching Chris interact with the other men is bittersweet. Six months ago he might have stayed home, but now that he’s here I can’t help but wonder how he can effortlessly return to the way things were with his friends yet find it so difficult to get into some kind of groove with me.
The sun sets, and Justin finds me on the patio. He sits down in the chair Julia vacated when she went in to use the restroom. He says something, but I can’t hear him over the music. Leaning over, he brushes my hair out of the way and says, “Julia won’t mind if I take her chair.” His lips graze my ear, and his fingers trail down my neck, unnoticed in the darkness.
I’ve known Justin for two years, ever since he and Julia moved into the neighborhood, and he’s never paid this much attention to me before. Can men sense when a woman is sexually frustrated? Maybe it’s like those high-pitched whistles only dogs can hear.
Justin looks up when Julia comes back outside, but he doesn’t move away. I fidget and check to make sure my body language isn’t giving either of them the wrong idea; I don’t want Julia to think I’m remotely interested in her husband. Then again, she doesn’t appear to be all that observant right now. She trips and I’m embarrassed for her, so I don’t say anything. She sits down next to me. “What’s going on?” She’s slurring a bit and has the hiccups. I don’t say anything about that, either. Justin pretends not to notice any of this, though how he can ignore it I’m not sure. “Do you want some water?” I ask, as the hiccupping sends her into a fit of giggles.
“Nope,” she says, with the cheerful disposition of someone who has bypassed buzzed and is heading full speed toward blissfully wasted.
Julia never used to act this way, but in the last year her drinking has increased dramatically. I’m certain there’s a reason, something it can be attributed to. None of us are doing her any favors by pretending not to notice, and someone really needs to say something. I vote for Justin. Maybe he’s already tried.
Elisa brings out marshmallows, chocolate bars, and graham crackers, and Skip threads the marshmallows onto skewers and toasts them over the grill. The music is way too loud, and Bridget tells Sebastian to turn it down, threatening him with his life if he so much as glances at the volume dial on the iPod. “Where did you say Sam is?” Elisa asks when Bridget plunks herself down in the nearest chair.
“At the track.” She shrugs. “Or the casino. I don’t know. Does it matter?” Bridget glances over to where Chris is helping the kids with their sparklers, making sure they put the burned out ones in a metal bucket so no one will step on them. She watches as Skip hands Chris a skewer and he slides off the toasted marshmallow and sandwiches it between a chocolate bar and a graham cracker, handing it to whoever is next in line.
“I wish Sam was more like Chris,” she says.
No, you don’t.
But Bridget can’t see the forest for the trees and doesn’t realize there’s a big difference between a good father and a good husband, and she probably doesn’t care. Greener grass and all that. She doesn’t know the mess Chris and I have made of our marriage. Neither does Julia. Elisa is the only one I share my secrets with. I’ve worked hard to keep the facade of this marriage, this life, intact, but only to avoid becoming fodder for the neighborhood gossip mill.
Frankly, I’m exhausted.
It’s late. We gather up our children, who are tired and sticky with marshmallows and chocolate, and say our good-byes.
We’re the Cantons. Sun-kissed, all-American, picture-perfect. By all appearances, we’re the ideal suburban family.
As long as you don’t look too closely.
2
chris
On Monday morning, I stop for coffee on the way to the airport. The line for the drive-through at Starbucks reaches clear around the building and tapping impatiently on the steering wheel does nothing to make it move faster. I take a deep breath and remind myself that I’ve allowed plenty of time to get to the airport, and I’m in no danger of missing my flight.
Stopping at this Starbucks has become part of my new routine, and worrying about my rapidly increasing caffeine consumption accomplishes nothing, so I don’t. I don’t let myself worry about all this travel, either. I didn’t have any choice. Claire understands; she gave me her blessing. Reluctantly, but still. The kids, though. That’s another story. I try my best not to think about it.
I’m grateful to be able to spend one day at company headquarters, but my cube’s chest-high walls provide zero privacy. I loathe open-plan offices, but a lot of the big software companies have embraced it like it’s the next big thing. Whoever said it was better for company morale and collaboration has never tried to get anything done. The constant interruptions are a productivity killer, at least for me, which is why I don’t arrive at the office earlier than 8:00 A.M. on Fridays; I get more done at home.
I miss my old company, which had one thousand fewer employees than this one. I miss my old office, with its four real walls and a door that closed.
I miss my kids and my house, and even though she probably wouldn’t believe me if I told her so, I miss Claire.
I miss a lot of things.
3
daniel
Traffic is light on the parkway a little after 10:00 A.M. on Monday morning. Drivers who aren’t speeding slow down anyway, and the ones who are going too fast slam on their brakes when they notice my police car in their rearview mirrors. I pull them over and listen to the same worn-out excuses before I write them a ticket. A man wearing a three-piece suit and driving a BMW rolls his eyes and mutters under his breath when I hand over the citation for speeding. I stand there until he looks at me. “Slow down,” I say, and I don’t smile when I say it.
The next car I pull over has a woman behind the wheel. She gets pissy almost immediately, exhaling loudly and glancing at her watch like I’ve ruined her morning on purpose. “Do you have any idea how fast you were going, ma’am?” My guess is no, because using her rearview mirror to apply her makeup and talking on the phone probably used up all her awareness. “The speed limit on this stretch is fifty-five. I clocked you going seventy.”