“I’m making cookies. I’ll bring them by once they’ve settled. Who do you think is moving in?” Martha asks. Her foot bops gently in the air to the beat of the song from the den. “That house can’t have been cheap. It’s the only one on the street with a pool.”
“Another retired couple?” Claire suggests.
Martha scoffs. “With three bedrooms? Too much space for that. I’ll bet it’s a family. Some richy-rich lawyer from the cityand his pretty little wife. Everyone who’s anyone is leaving San Francisco for the suburbs. I’ll need to make sure Walter’s eye doesn’t wander.”
Claire hums. She isn’t concerned in the least about Pete’s eye wandering.
“Neighbors aside, it’s a stroke of luck that you came along today,” Claire says, turning her attention away from the window as the kettle starts to whistle. “Pete’s parents are coming for dinner tonight, and he’s only just told me.”
Martha makes a sympathetic noise. “Oh, you poor thing. And I’ll bet you don’t have anything ready?”
“You know how critical my mother-in-law is,” Claire admits.
For Martha a change in dinner plans would only mean a quick jaunt to the store in her station wagon with her husband’s checkbook in hand, so she’s always been helpful when Claire needs to borrow something. She’s even given Claire a lift to the big box store further into town a few times, on account of Claire not having a driver’s license. Pete has always insisted she doesn’t need one, but on a day like today it’d sure be nice.
“These husbands of ours—Walter did the same to me just last week. We just have to grin and bear it, don’t we?” Martha says, standing up and abandoning her untouched tea. “Come on, you’ll shop in my pantry. I’ve got enough to feed an army.”
“You’re a peach,” Claire says, breathing a sigh of relief. “What would I do without your help?”
“Struggle endlessly, I’m sure,” Martha says, with a light laugh.
It’s meant as a silly joke, of course, but Claire can’t help but feel the sting of truth in it. She really would struggle without Martha. Pete’s expectations are high. They should be, of course, as the breadwinner of the household, but Martha’s help is sometimes the only reason Claire can meet them.
Martha has one of the nicest houses on the block, and a happy husband. She’s younger than Claire by four years, though Walteris a bit older than Pete. She has a lovely figure, where Claire has always been long-limbed and thin with no curves to speak of. Martha’s red hair is always in a tidy beehive. If there were a class somewhere on how to be the ideal wife, Claire would be the cautionary tale; Martha would be the exemplar.
As she follows Martha across the street, Claire’s mind drifts again to the grocery store.
Why would you want to blend in?
An easy thing to say, coming from someone as pretty as that cereal-aisle woman. Standing out has never gone well for Claire. Standing out meant scoldings, and judgement. It meant rocking the boat for no reason. Ordinary people aren’t destined for the spotlight. Martha, maybe, with her effortless perfection, or someone like that glamorous woman from the store.
Claire needs to keep her head down.
~ ~ ~
A chicken is in the oven and the table is set by the time Rita arrives. The house is perfumed with cleaning products, Claire’s hair and makeup have been fixed after her stressful and sweaty afternoon, and she’s wearing the newest dress Rita sewed for her a few months ago when the doorbell rings.
“You must have lost weight again,” Rita says, before Claire can even get out a greeting. She steps past Claire and into the foyer, handing over her coat and plucking at the places where the fabric of Claire’s dress is loose over her chest. “I tailored this perfectly, and now it’s hanging off you, dear. Send it over later this week and I’ll make some alterations.”
Claire frowns. Rita says this kind of thing often, but Claire has been the exact same size for the last ten years. Rita’s dresses just never quite fit. It’s as if she makes them for curves thatshe’s hoping Claire will magically grow, and then clucks with disappointment when they don’t appear.
“Thank you, Rita,” Claire says, stifling a sigh. “Pete should be home any minute, and dinner will be ready in a jiffy. Why don’t you make yourselves comfortable in the den?”
“What’s for supper?” Pete’s father says, following Rita to the den while Claire hangs their coats. He hardly looks Claire in the eye.
“Something substantial? I hope you’re not feeding my son some kind of rabbit food,” Rita says. While Pete’s father sits heavily on the couch, Rita doesn’t join him—she walks towards the nearest shelf, swiping her finger across it.
Claire lets out a small breath of relief when the finger comes away without a speck of dust.
“Only if rabbits eat roast chicken,” Claire says.
Pete’s father is already absorbed by the television and pays her joke no mind, but Rita’s lips purse.
“Make sure you eat plenty,” Rita says. “If you’re going to be having my grandchildren, you’re going to need some more meat on your bones. We make healthy babies in this family.”
Claire grits her teeth. After this morning’s appointment, the very mention of grandchildren makes her stomach roil.
It’s not that Rita is viciously unkind, exactly, but she’s never been warm with Claire. Rita is capable of it—she dotes on her existing grandchildren, and she’s more affectionate with her four sons than Claire’s mother ever was with her only daughter. But there’s always been a layer of ice between Rita and each of her sons’ wives. Claire has always suspected that she resents the women who took her boys away.
