Lacy threw an arm around the older man and pulled him close. He wasn’t a family man, but he was considered an unofficial adopted uncle to most Aubergine residents under forty years old. He responded to Lacy’s affection with a single pat on the back, which was basically the equivalent of picking her up and spinning her around.
“Thanks for staying open late for us,” Lacy said, giving him a grin that seemed much more like herself. Though in our childhood Lou had shown late-night Friday films, he’d begun pushing them earlier and earlier as he aged. Now, at almost seventy-five, his lastweekend showing was usually at 7 p.m.
“Anything for you,” he said in his raspy register. “You practically kept me in business by bringing all of your starving classmates here each week.”
I’d never thought of it that way, but Lacy had been our high school’s unofficial social director. She’d planned, contacted, and coordinated, making sure each person in our class had a personal invite to the Friday night films after the home games.
I let the women know that snacks were on me, and Lacy grabbed a box of Junior Mints while Savilla and Jemma loaded up on peanut M&Ms and popcorn. When it came time for Bella and the cousins to order they hesitated, before landing on a bag of gummy bears to split between them.
As we made our way into the dark theater and took our seats, Lou went into the projection room and started the movie, skipping previews and commercials altogether. A quiet settled across our group, the only sounds the occasional rustling of a plastic bag or the shaking of a box of candy, and I began to breathe more easily. Maybe the invasion by the random cousins and Anton’s ex-girlfriend would be something Lacy and I could laugh about sooner rather than later.
As Jude Law professed his love to Cameron Diaz halfway through the film, I was feeling good about having turned this weekend around—which should’ve been a flashing warning sign to me that something else was coming. We’d gone an entire hour and some odd minutes without incident.
It started with a noise coming from the back of the theater: a woman’s voice calling for help. All seven of us spun around and Charlotte actually stood up from her aisle seat, but all we saw was a frowning Lou holding his bucket of popcorn. He lifted a hand to let us know he had it under control and then stepped into the lobby. I turned back around, watching Diaz’s character try to cry, but the real-life woman’s voice grew louder and, even more startlingly, a few seconds later, a baby began to wail.
“What in the—?” Lacy started.
“I’ll go see what’s happening,” I said, catching Savilla’s eye and motioning for her to come with me, then giving Charlotte a dagger-like look that told her to stay seated. Surprisingly, she obeyed.
The sound of the baby’s cries grew louder. Almost as if pulled by a magnet, Savilla rushed forward, pushing the door wide open to find Valerie Hurt holding a red-faced and wriggling newborn. Valerie had been very pregnant two months ago at the class reunion, and this crying infant was apparently the end-product.
Savilla elbowed me, and I realized that I’d been grimacing at the sight before us. I couldn’t help it. The child was making an incredibly high-pitched noise despite being so tiny, and Valerie looked unkempt—so unlike any other time I’d ever seen her. Always so prim and proper, tonight she had a kind of drowned-cat appearance, a bedraggled countenance, and a sunken face. Dear Lord, was this motherhood?
“Lacy invited me to the party,” Valerie said, almost defensively, as she set eyes on me. I hadn’t even had a chance to ask a question.
“Oh, yeah, I know,” I hedged, vaguely recalling that Lacy had mentioned that we should invite Valerie to the bachelorette party since Will was a groomsman. In the busyness of the end of the semester, I had forgotten to extend the invitation, but Lacy had been in touch with Valerie anyway. Of course, that was before I realized that Will was somehow involved with the Swanson family.
“My sitter fell through, but I was at home, listening to him scream and worrying about…” Valerie hesitated. “Lord, I don’t know, worrying about everything.” She motioned with her chin to the baby in her arms as if she couldn’t quite believe that he belonged to her. “So I thought I might as well come here.” She glanced at Lou behind the counter and the candy in front of him with a mixture of vacancy and longing. “It was a stupid idea. You don’t want to listen to my baby lose his mind for the next few hours.”
Valerie tightened her arms around the baby and slowly started toward the door, her expression resigned—and also slightly distraught. For the firsttime, I noticed that she was wearing sweatpants with frayed edges at the bottom, and her shirt was stained with a murky green color that I didn’t want to guess at.
On a recent phone call, Aunt DeeDee had mentioned that Will and Valerie had been struggling since the baby had arrived. Apparently he had been in NICU for ten days. “You know,” she’d tisked, as she’d prepared them a casserole dinner, “with Will out of a job and Valerie quitting teaching, their health insurance isn’t great, not to mention their bank account. I wish either of them had family who could help.” At the time, I’d let the comment pass me by as part of the list of updates on Aubergine residents. I’d certainly had no idea things were this bleak for my former classmate and her husband.
Lou raised his eyebrows as if I should know what to do, but I’d never spent time with a screaming infant—and on top of that, I’d never cared much for Valerie anyway. Even back in high school, she’d always seemed uppity and judgmental.
After a bit of pronounced head-jutting from Lou, I stepped forward. “No, stay,” I said, not adding what I was really thinking: that this night couldn’t get much worse—or weirder. What would adding a belligerent newborn and exhausted mother really do to our odd little band of women?
“Really?” Valerie put the baby on her shoulder and bounced him while he continued to wail.
“Really,” I said, swallowing back my concern about including a rowdy infant in our night’s festivities.
“I’d love that,” Valerie exclaimed, upsetting the infant once again. She lowered her voice but continued, her words coming faster as she began to speak in a monotone hum that quieted the baby. “I told Will that he should be the one to stay home, but no, he always gets to go out without the baby and have a grand ol’ time. He’s off doing God knows what while I take care of everything at home. Do you know how much babies spit up?” Valerie’s face contorted into a look of disgust, and she peered down at the baby as if not quite sure to whom he belonged. “Anyway, Will said he absolutely couldn’t miss the bachelor party tonight, that if I wanted tobe a stay-at-home mom, he had to pursue ‘new opportunities.’” Valerie spat the last two words as if they were distasteful. “What kind of man doesn’t want to sacrifice one evening so he can let his wife have a few hours to herself? Tell me, what kind of man?”
My mind snagged on her claim about Will’s near-mandatory attendance at the bachelor party. Why would his absence impact Valerie’s ability to be a stay-at-home mom unless he was indeed working some kind of job for the Swansons? Otherwise, he totally could’ve missed the party tonight—he was the third groomsmen, the one invited just so there would be an equal number to the bridesmaids. Anton barely knew the guy.
Questions surged through my mind, but I reminded myself that no one was under investigation here. No one had died. Nothing tragic had happened. And, after all, this didn’t seem like the time to pry into Valerie’s marriage, especially with the haggard look in her eyes—and the finally calm baby.
“You’re welcome to join us,” I said, trying to channel Lacy’s brand of hospitality. “You and the… baby.”
I nearly stumbled over the last word, not used to saying it. Like, ever. Bringing a kid to something like this was foreign to me, but also, when I talked about the young, I was always referring to animals. Puppies, kittens, calves, foals, hatchlings. I wasn’t familiar with babies, but that was apparently about to change, I realized, as Valerie shifted the infant and the diaper bag from her arms to mine so quickly that I didn’t have time to protest.
“Perfect,” Valerie said, as she eyed the counter full of snacks. “Are these free?”
I nodded, surprised by the question, and she grabbed three packs of M&Ms and a bottle of soda from the counter, already opening one package and throwing a fistful of candy into her mouth. Finished, she cracked the soda and took a long swallow, before taking a deep breath, her tone authoritative as she gave me directives. “Bottle is in the bag. Just bring him in when you’re ready.”
And then Valerie was gone, leaving Lou, Savilla, and me tostare at one another in bewilderment. This was not the Valerie any of us knew.
I only broke our gaze when the infant made a gurgling noise. I looked down at the bundle that weighed about as much as a full-grown chihuahua, which is not my favorite dog. The yippy bark climbs up my spine just like the baby’s earlier cries.
