“Oh. All right,” Claire says, mentally adjusting her cooking schedule. “Is that all?”
“And Mom wants to come over for dinner tonight, so I’d like you to make something nice,” Pete continues, crushing Claire’s shifting plans into dust with just a sentence. “She’ll be by around the same time.”
Claire’s stomach drops, and the can of peas along with it. It almost hits her foot, and she twists and dances out of the way as it rolls across the floor, gripping the phone tightly. “Your mother is coming? You didn’t tell me that this morning. And your father, too?”
“Of course.”
“I didn’t plan for that,” Claire says. She picks the dented can up, already running through a mental checklist of the ingredients in her cupboards. She has nothing suitable for a dinner party for four, especially to the standards of Rita Davis. “I already did the shopping, and I don’t have any budget left.”
“I’m sure you’ll whip something up,” Pete says easily. “You always do.”
“Does she like pea soup?” Claire says, growing desperate now. With some fresh bread, it could be a nice last-minute supper.
“You’re not making soup,” Pete says. There are voices in the background of the call. “We don’t want to drink our dinner. I have to go, honey. I’ll see you tonight.”
Claire digs her fingernails into the soft skin of her palm again, finding the same scabbed grooves from earlier in the day. The pain grounds her. She swallows down the frustration, and nods.
“Yes, dear.”
The phone cord is stretched across the kitchen, and in her tizzy Claire has apparently gotten herself tangled in it. For a few moments after Pete hangs up, Claire simply stands in the jumble she’s made.
There’s no chance that she’s going to get something on the table that Rita won’t turn up her nose at. If she had more than eight cents left in her budget she could walk to the store again and get something up to her mother-in-law’s standards, but that wouldn’t leave her much time to cook, and the pennies sitting on the countertop won’t get her far. She never should have gotten the Ovaltine, or dallied in the park.
After quietly untangling herself, Claire puts a record in the player. She turns the volume up enough to be heard in the kitchen, and she turns the faucet to get a start on the dishes left over from breakfast. While the sink fills, she leans forward ontothe countertop, letting her breath out slowly until her lungs start to burn.
Rather than cheering her up, the upbeat, familiar pop song playing from the den grinds against her nerves. She wonders, in some idle part of her brain, how long she could actually go without air. A minute? Two? How long before the world goes black?
Three sharp knocks on the front door startle Claire enough to inhale again.
She waits a beat. She turns off the faucet, and tangles her fingers in her necklace—the pearls are cool and smooth under her worried touch. She doesn’t feel up to entertaining this afternoon. Perhaps if she’s quiet enough, they’ll think she’s out.
She stays stock-still, straining her ears, until the knocks sound again.
“Are you going to leave me waiting on the doorstep like a vacuum salesman?”
Claire relaxes somewhat.
Martha Robinson from across the street is maybe the only person in the neighborhood that Claire would consider a friend. She’s always had a penchant for midday visits, but lately she’s been coming over more frequently. Martha and her husband Walter announced her pregnancy a few months ago, and Pete has been effusive ever since about how wonderful it all is. How well Martha is doing as a wife. How perfect a mother she’ll be.
There’s no way that Martha doesn’t know Claire is home. She knows everything in this neighborhood. Luckily for Claire, Martha could just be the solution to her dinner woes.
Claire re-affixes her smile, and heads to the door to let her in.
“Martha! Good afternoon,” Claire says.
“We have new neighbors,” Martha says before she’s even crossed the threshold. She’s on the stoop poised to come inside, framed by the yellow acacia tree that gives their street its name.It towers in the center of their cul-de-sac, taking up most of the grassy circle there. It’s just starting to explode into its golden spring flowers.
The moment Claire moves aside, Martha heads straight to the kitchen table to make herself comfortable. Her hand sits perpetually over her belly, framing the baby bump under her dress—she’s only barely started to show recently, and, ever since, she’s made sure to emphasize it.
“New neighbors?” Claire says, setting the kettle on to boil for some tea. “Whereabouts?”
“Look outside.”
A quick glance out the kitchen window reveals that Martha is right. There’s a moving truck parked in the driveway of the bungalow next door. It must have pulled in right after Claire got home. The movers are just opening the back of the trailer.
She hadn’t even been aware that the house was for sale. She certainly hasn’t seen the original owner in some time, a quiet elderly widower that Claire used to have pleasant conversations with at the mailbox. It’s been under renovation through the winter, and Pete complained endlessly about the painters’ trucks parking on the street all through Christmas. Claire hasn’t seen a For Sale sign on the lawn, though.
“We should be hospitable. Go over and say hello,” Claire says, craning her neck to get a better view. She can’t see anyone in the front yard.
