“I should run and check on dinner,” Claire says. “If you’ll excuse me for just a tick?”
She ducks out of the room before anyone can protest. Her hope that Pete might be home before Rita arrived is dashed, butshe can at least retreat to the safe haven of the kitchen until he gets here. The blast of hot air against her face when she opens the oven door to peek at the chicken makes her wince, but she stays there for a few extra moments until her skin starts to tingle.
For once, the sound of Pete’s car pulling into the driveway is a relief.
Dinner is a strain on Claire’s patience. Rita comments on the cooking—too much salt, and she prefers corn to peas. She points out a stain on the tablecloth. Towards the end of the meal the spotlight is taken off Claire when Pete announces his recent promotion at work, but by the time the dishes are done Rita has already insisted on taking Claire’s measurements for the hundredth time and bringing the dress home to fix.
The dark and quiet of the bedroom is a balm once the company has gone home and Pete has fallen asleep. Claire goes through her usual quiet routine, brushing her frazzled hair out of its updo and removing her makeup. Every piece of jewelry has its place on her vanity, and the orderliness of it calms her.
Lost in thought, Claire glances out the window at the neighboring yard.
She’s gotten used to it being dark, but tonight the pool lights are on. There’s lawn furniture out—two reclining chairs, and a table with an umbrella. The windows are lit up. Occasionally a dark silhouette passes by the sheer curtains, but Claire can’t make out any details.
Tomorrow, Claire should go meet the new neighbors.
Chapter 3
“Honey! Where’s my good tie?”
Claire flips Pete’s eggs, turning the burner off and reaching into the oven for the bacon. “It’s on the hanger behind your suit jackets, dear. Right next to your other ties.”
“Don’t be smart,” Pete calls down the stairs. “Why aren’t they in the drawer?”
“I’ve started hanging them, remember? To stop them wrinkling?”
“I want you to put them back,” Pete says, his footsteps thundering down the stairs. “I liked them where they were.”
Claire sets out the Tuesday morning paper next to Pete’s bacon and eggs, pressing her usual quick peck to his cheek as he sits down to eat with his good tie now fastened. He smells strongly of aftershave and hair oil, as always.
“Protests again,” he says, putting on his glasses to gesture at the newspaper headline. “At the college, this time. Going to be more of that going into the ‘70s. Hippies and fruits. Soon it’ll be draft-dodgers.”
“Nobody wants to be drafted,” Claire says.
“Then they should be signing up, so we don’t need the draft in the first place,” Pete says. “Serving their country, instead of running to Canada with their tails between their legs.”
Rather than speaking the first thought that comes to mind—I don’t seeyourenlistment papers in the mail—Claire presses her lips together and hums wordlessly. Pete often talks this way, and Claire knows he just needs a wall to bounce against. Whether she agrees or not, he’d never expect her to have an opinion on the matter.
“Bunch of degenerates. This is why we don’t live in the city. Don’t want to be raising kids in an environment like that,” Pete says.
Claire’s stomach lurches. She almost pours coffee all over Pete’s lap but catches herself just in time.
He doesn’t even notice. He just flips to the sports section, snorting loudly. “Look at this—at this rate, the Mets are going to the top of the league again this year. Someone’s got to give them a run for their money.”
“Quite right,” Claire says quietly, refilling Pete’s coffee cup with a steadier hand.
By 8:15 Pete has bustled out the door with his briefcase and lunch bag, and Claire’s shoulders relax as his noisy black Cadillac trundles out of Acacia Circle. She never feels quite settled into the day until he’s off to work.
First on Claire’s to-do list today is to make a welcome gift for the new neighbors. The leftover chicken from last night’s dinner makes a perfect quick and easy casserole, and while it’s baking and cooling Claire fixes herself a bowl of shredded wheat and finishes up the dishes. Once she finds herself with a few minutes to spare between dusting and ironing, she puts on her nicest dress and picks her way between the lawns with the casserole in hand.
It's a lovely day to be outside. The sun is shining in a vivid blue sky, warm without being too hot yet. The honey-sweet smell of acacia is in the air. The birds that nest in the tree are singing, fluttering around each other in a state of spring twitterpation. With most of the husbands in the neighborhood off at work, the birdsong isn’t interrupted by the sputtering of lawn mowers at this time of day.
It looks like Martha might be right about the richy-rich theory, at first glance. The car that Claire passes in the driveway is a Mustang, a powder-blue convertible with beige leatherseats. To have a sports car with no backseats could mean that the new couple doesn’t have children, or that the lady of the house doesn’t drive, like Claire. Either way, the idea of having a kindred spirit in the neighborhood is a nice one. The Mustang is shined up like a new penny inside and out. The man who drives it must take a lot of pride in keeping it nice.
There’s loud music coming from an open kitchen window when Claire climbs the three steps up to the bungalow’s porch, something mellow and haunting with a female singer. It’s completely unfamiliar, but intriguing. Claire adjusts her tight grip on the casserole dish as she knocks soundly on the door. They’re a double set, wood with clouded glass inserts that obscure the movement inside.
The music stops.
The act of bringing a welcome gift should be an innocuous one. It’s something Claire has done dozens of times for families moving into their suburb over the years they’ve lived here. A slight deviation to her daily routine, but not an unfamiliar one.
