“Were you spying on me?” Claire whisper-shouts back.
“I was minding my business buying maternity clothes, thank you very much!” Martha hisses. “You were the one who was—you were—cavortingaround the department store.”
That word feels like a slap to the face. It brings to mind the changing-room—Jackie’s nails brushing Claire’s scalp. The absurd, shameful electricity of it all. It felt forbidden, somehow, but inexplicably right.
“Martha, please,” Claire says, setting the plate down but clutching the towel in shaky hands. “Don’t tell Walter. He’ll tell Peter, and then—”
And then Claire really won’t be able to see Jackie anymore. The thought is intolerable, now. Untenable.
Martha washes a wine glass with gusto, frantically running the sponge over every inch. “Why cause issues with your husband over a friendship? And with someone like her? There’s absolutely no reason, Claire, no reason at all.”
No reason. As if Jackie has given Claire nothing in their months of friendship, rather than showing her the mostkindness she’s ever experienced. As if the balm Claire feels every time Jackie is near is anything short of miraculous.
“Jackie is wonderful,” Claire says indignantly. “She’s just misunderstood.”
“She associates with freaks. That makes her just like them.”
The indignation swells into a burst. Claire throws down her damp dishtowel so hard that itsmacksagainst the countertop, turning on a wide-eyed Martha. “Do you know it was my birthday?”
“Excuse me?” Martha says.
“The day you saw me with her. It was my birthday,” Claire says fiercely. She sets her hands on her hips—the effect is stifled by her dress, but she feels almost as she did when she first wore the outfit Jackie bought her. Confident. Powerful. “You didn’t remember.Petedidn’t remember. But Jackie did. She bought me a gift.”
Martha swallows. Suds drip from her hands back into the sink.
“I give you and Walter cards for your birthdays every year. I give Pete a gift for his,” Claire continues, letting the anger sweep her up. She can’t say these things to Pete, or risk losing Jackie forever. Instead, she’s turning the geyser on Martha. “Do you know how long it’s been since I got a birthday gift?”
“I didn’t…realize,” Martha says faintly.
Martha looks as if she might cry. Claire has never taken this tone with her, not once in their years of being neighbors and friends. When Martha spilled the beans about Jackie the first time, when she invited Jackie to Memorial Day out of spite, every time Martha has made Claire feel inferior or small since the start of her pregnancy—Claire has always quietly taken it on the chin.
Claire sighs. She braces her hands against the counter, letting her head drop forward.
“Martha. Please. If you’re truly my friend, if you’ve ever cared for my happiness at all, do this for me,” Claire says quietly. “I’ll never ask you for anything else. I swear.”
When Claire turns to her again, Martha looks stricken.
Walter’s head pops through the kitchen door.
“You ladies about finished in here?” he says, blithely unaware of the tension in the room. “We’ve got a game of parcheesi set up.”
“We’ll be there in just a moment,” Martha says. Her voice is measured. After a few seconds of silence, she bustles out to the den.
Martha is quiet for the whole game. She sends them on their way home without saying a word about Jackie, and though Claire is quite aware that she could blab the whole thing to Walter the moment they leave, she has the strange feeling that her secret is safe, for now.
The house is just barely cooler than it was during the day. Pete is insistent, tonight, on lovemaking, and the suffocating heat makes it more uncomfortable than usual. Claire does her duty, thinking all the while of the appointment on the horizon.
Once he’s snoring consistently, she rises and starts her routine—face washed. Jewelry in the case. Hair unpinned.
While she waits for the bath to fill, Claire wanders to the window.
The pool lights are on, and Jackie is in the water. She’s in a bathing suit this time, at least, but she’s not swimming so much as she’s floating underwater, the shape of her body flickering with the surface movement. She’s still. Her limbs are splayed, her dark hair fanned around her, and she stays under for a worrying amount of time. Long enough for a pit of fear to form in Claire’s stomach.
Claire finally breathes again once Jackie surfaces. She slicks her hair back, her feet finding the bottom, and in a strange echoof the last time this happened, she looks up towards Claire’s window.
This time, Claire waves. Jackie only pauses for a moment before she waves back.
After a tepid bath, Claire slips into a night of fevered dreaming.
