“Why don’t we let them sleep a little while?” Rebecca said. She led Sherri to the living room and pointed at the couch. “You wouldn’t know it by how they’re sitting, but I think they’re actually comfortable. I’d hate to disturb them. You could stay for a drink? I’ve got some really nice tequila just begging to be mixed with seltzer and a little bit of lime juice. We’ll sit outside, by the pool.” Sherri hesitated and Rebecca said, “Comeon! Please? You’d be doing me a favor; I’ll drink far too much if I open this tequila when I’m on my own.”
“Okay,” said Sherri finally. She set her lips together and nodded her head sharply, as though giving herself permission. “Okay, I will. That sounds really nice. Thank you.”
Glasses, ice, limes, seltzer, bottle: together they carried everything out to the pool and set it up on the small table that sat between two lounge chairs, and Rebecca mixed the drinks. A brief evening shower had driven out the day’s humidity, leaving the air crisp and almost cool. The moon was a pale, distant wafer, and there were a few stars scattered about. From the far edge of the lawn Rebecca could hear the gurgling of the small stone fountain Peter had installed for her for Mother’s Day three years before. He’d been so proud of that fountain—she’d always said she wanted a water feature for the yard. He had wanted to get a little gnome to stand beside the fountain “for good luck,” but she’d thought the gnome was creepy and had put her foot down. Now she wished she hadn’t been such a grump about it. If someone had only told her, “He’ll be dead in less than two years!” of course she would have let him get the gnome.
“This tequila is really good,” said Sherri.
“Have more,” said Rebecca. She’d almost finished her drink already. The danger with good tequila was that it went down clean and easy.
“I have to drive Katie home,” said Sherri. “I really shouldn’t.” She tugged again at her ponytail.
“Just take it out,” suggested Rebecca. “Don’t you get a headache, wearing a ponytail all day?”
Sherri shrugged. “No. Sort of. Yeah, I guess.” She reached up and pulled the elastic out. Her hair fell around her shoulders. It was wavy, like Katie’s, and thick, with no sign of a telltale ponytail bump.
“Your hair is so pretty,” said Rebecca. “How come you always wear it pulled back?”
Sherri grimaced. “Oh, I don’t know. I guess it’s just easier, nothing to mess with.” Because of the way the outdoor lights fell, her face was half in shadow and Rebecca couldn’t read her expression. “My husband really liked my hair, and after—after everything that happened, I just sort of wanted to forget. I wanted to be a different person. I almost cut if off! But I settled for a different look. Does that make sense?”
Interesting,Rebecca thought. “That definitely makes sense,” she said. “Thatdefinitelymakes sense.” Emboldened by the tequila, she felt like reaching over and wrapping Sherri in a bear hug and telling her that everything was going to be okay. She settled for mixing her another drink. “Did he cheat on you?”
There was a pause, during which Rebecca wondered if she’d gone too far.
“Something like that,” Sherri said finally. “It’s complicated.”
“It’s always complicated,” said Rebecca. “Marriage. Right? What’s that thing Dostoyevsky said, about happy families? ‘Happy families are all alike.Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’ The same thing goes for marriages, don’t you think?”
“I think so,” said Sherri. “I guess.” Rebecca pushed Sherri’s drink closer to her, in case she hadn’t seen the refill. “I really shouldn’t have another,” said Sherri. “I have to drive Katie home.”
“Let her sleep here,” said Rebecca. “And honestly you can too. We’ve got a guest room that nobody ever uses—it’s all made up.” She belched softly and added, “Whoops.” Then: “The guest room hasreallynice linens. It’s perennially made up with nice linens.” She hesitated. “Wait, does that mean it’s always made up? Or it’s made up once a year?”
Sherri appeared to consider this question seriously. She took a sip of her drink. “I think once a year would be annually made up,” she said finally. “But I don’t know for sure.” After a moment she said, “In our old house we had a really nice guest room. We hardly ever had guests, but I loved that room.”
Rebecca listened for a moment to the gurgling of the fountain, and something about the moment made her think of earlier friendships, high school and college friendships, when you exchanged confidences with ease, and intimacy was measured by depth rather than longevity.
“If you tell me the bad stuff about your marriage, I’ll tell you the bad stuff about mine,” she said. It must be past ten now, and High Street was quiet. This was an early town, even in summer; by ten o’clock the traffic was sparse, and most of the restaurants in town were finishing up for the night.
“But your marriage wasn’t unhappy,” said Sherri. “From everything you’ve said.”
“Not my marriage to St. Peter,” said Rebecca. “Thatmarriage was happy.”
Sherri’s laugh was a genuine, unexpected sound, like the trill of a bird in the dark. She seemed like someone else entirely when she laughed. “Are you serious, did you really call him St. Peter?”
“Not out loud,” conceded Rebecca. “But in my head—sometimes, yes. He really was the definition of a good person. Kind and funny and thoughtful and sweet. Never in a bad mood. Everybody loved him. I mean it:everybody.Dogs and little kids at the grocery store and old people and people who worked for him and people he worked for.”
“Oh come on now,” said Sherri. “Neverin a bad mood?”
“Never.”
“Everybody is in a bad mood sometimes. It’s human nature.”
“Not Peter.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Rebecca sighed. “Okay, maybe very occasionally, if he got overwhelmed at work, or if he didn’t get enough sleep. If he was jet-lagged.” She smiled. “He really liked his sleep. Once he had the flu, and he was in a bad mood for about two weeks. But that was unusual, and in his defense it was a really bad year for the flu. But honestly, that was rare. The minor irritations in life, the crap that gets me cranky? It didn’t even faze him.”
“I’m jealous,” said Sherri. “There are days when I feel like everything gets me cranky.”
