“Milly, it’s been a busy week. You know how demanding Beverly Douglas can be; she wants to be treated like royalty, go to the most fashionable dinner clubs. You know what she’s like.”
“I have no idea what she’s like,” Milly said, cringing as she heard her husband casually drop the name of a beautiful actress into his conversation, as if this were normal.
“Well, let me tell you,” he went on. “She’s brilliant on screen, just brilliant. Everyone is awed by her, but when the camera is off, she’s a child; she needs a chaperone, she wants to see everyone, everywhere.”
“Your children would like to see you now and again,” Milly said, thinking of her husband and Beverly Douglas snuggling in together in a booth, ordering martinis, eating dinner, laughing, drinking, and worse.
Lloyd looked at her crestfallen—so handsome, a face so perfect, eyes a clear, piercing blue. Milly always thought he should have been in front of the camera, not behind the scenes.
“Do you think I want to be away from my children?” he asked in a low whisper.
“I don’t know, Lloyd, I don’t know what you want. We moved here so we could get away from all that and start acting like a family again.”
“‘All that’ is my work, Milly, my work that pays the bills around here and pays for this house. I can’t just get away from that.” He picked up his glass and took a swig. “If anything, being all the way down here is just making it harder. The commute, the traffic.”
“You said you wanted to move,” Milly said.
He shook his head. “Let’s be honest; you were the one who wanted this. You insisted.”
Now, Milly picked up her gin and tonic and took a gulp. “You agreed to it, Lloyd. You even seemed excited about finding the house. If you thought you’d never be home you should have said something; we wouldn’t have moved.” She slammed the glass on the counter harder than she intended, sending it spilling over the rim.
“You made it clear you couldn’t stay in Los Angeles anymore. What was I supposed to do, force you to stay? I don’t want to see you unhappy all the time, not again.” Lloyd shook his head, and Milly knew he was referring to those months after Jack’s birth when she’d been so out of sorts, anxious one minute, unable to get out of bed the next. “Look, I’m here now, aren’t I?” he said softening, as he reached over and squeezed her arm. “Let’s not argue; the children will hear.”
Milly took a deep breath and tried to focus on that; she never wanted to fight in front of the children. She tried to ignore the thoughts of where he’d been and with whom. She tried to erase the image of Beverly Douglas seared in her mind.He’s here now, she repeated in her head as she turned away from him, stirred the sauce in the pan, and turned the heat down. That’s something.
At the table—Jack in his high chair, though way too big for it now, and Debbie seated next to Lloyd—Milly served the barbecued steak with potatoes and Lloyd dug in. “Nothing like a home-cooked meal.” He looked up at Milly and smiled.
“I chose a new book at the library today,” Debbie said, grinning.
“Is itBambi?” Lloyd asked. Debbie shook her head. “Is itLassie?”
“No,” she said.
“Is itThe Red Balloon?”
“No, Daddy,” Debbie said and laughed. “You’re not going to know it. It’s a grown-up book, a ladies’ book for children.” She waited to see if he’d guess it anyway.
“Jiminy Cricket?”
“No. Daddy,” she said, laughing again and pulling it up from herlap and holding it up.Mary Alden’s Cake and Cookie Cook Book for Children. “I’m going to make the Angel Puffs and the Snowman Cookies and the Polka Dot Roll and the Wonderland Bars. Right, Mommy? Can I make them?”
“Yes, darling, but not all at once,” Milly said.
“Do we have marshmallows and chocolate pieces and almond extract?”
“Smarshmallow?” Jack repeated, looking up from the food on his tray. “I want smarshmallow.”
“Debbie, let’s look at the recipes later,” Milly said, hoping to avoid an escalation into a tantrum about “smarshmallows.”
“I really want a smarshmallow,” Jack whined as if on cue.
“Maybe for dessert, if you eat all your dinner,” Milly said calmly.
Lloyd reached over and gave Debbie’s hand a squeeze. “It sounds like a wonderful book. It’s going to teach you how to become a real little lady.”
Debbie beamed at him, while Milly shuddered at the thought of Debbie’s early interest in domesticity. She hoped that by the time Debbie was of marrying age there’d be more for her than this.
“Well,” Milly said, not looking up from her plate, “today we joined the club.”
