Back in the Burbs by Tracy Wolff
Chapter Fifteen
Angela practically frog marches me up the driveway to her friend’s house. “Don’t be nervous,” she says as we climb a porch that looks very much like mine is supposed to. “They’ll love you. Especially Christee—”
“Who’s Christee?” I ask.
Angela laughs. “My bestie, of course.”
She knocks on the door, then throws it open without waiting for her friend to answer—and we walk straight into a Pottery Barn catalog. Seriously.
And I’m shaken with envy. Not gonna lie. After spending a day surrounded by clutter, this is like a breath of fresh air. Everything perfectly matched and in its place. Nothing extra would dare invade this space. The only nod to personalized items is the enormous oil painting hanging over the fireplace of what is probably her and her husband and their five children of varying ages, magazines about parenting scattered on the large wooden coffee table, and random small, framed photos atop a short bookcase near the front door that features the family doing various activities together.
A birthday party. New puppy. Camping trip. School play. Paris.
I swallow the sudden lump in my throat. They took their kids to Europe.
I wrap my arms around my waist and stare at the picture, their grinning faces in front of the Eiffel Tower blurring as tears well in my eyes. Christee is living my anti-Karl life. The life I naively thought was mine for the taking if I didn’t make a fuss, did what was expected, made everyone comfortable.
I desperately want to go home now, but I know I won’t. A masochistic bitch has control of my body, and she greedily glances around with a macabre fascination to see what else I missed out on.
A woman whose hair is stick straight, parted down the middle, and as black as the mental hole I fell down rushes up to Angela and pulls her into a huge bear hug before leaning back again and giving me a wide, toothy smile.
“Wine or whiskey?” the grinning woman asks as she loops her arm through mine and guides me across the giant foyer.
My gut—obviously still horrified by last night’s bender—gurgles. “Water, please?”
“Water?” She raises an impeccably groomed eyebrow and smooths her fingertips over her shiny hair as if she needs a moment to process. “Tap or bottled or sparkling? Perhaps tonic with just a splash of vodka?”
“You two are going to love each other.” Angela squats down and scratches a mop dog who trails behind our host before standing back up and waving an arm between us. “Mallory, Christee. Christee, Mallory. And if she doesn’t want that vodka and tonic, I’ll take it.”
“Nice to meet you?” It comes out sounding way more like a question than I intended. But that’s only because Christee is dragging me down her picture-filled hallway like she’s a prison guard and I’m the most reluctant inmate in the yard—which, as I think about it, might be a fairly accurate summation of the situation.
As we make our way into the family room, my gaze widens at the massive kitchen in the open floor plan. It has enough French country decor to have been Julia Child’s wet dream. Christee snags a glass of white wine off the makeshift bar on the counter and hands it to me.
“It’s so light, it’s practically water,” she says with a wave of her hand.
After foisting the wine on me, she doesn’t even wait for me to take a sip before dragging me into the center of the family room where at least thirty women—not the fifteen or twenty Angela said might be here—are gathered.
“Everybody,” she says in a voice loud enough to be heard back in Manhattan. “This is Angie’s friend Mallory. She went to school in Brunswick with Angie back in… Well, we don’t talk about anything that could give away our age, now, do we?” Everyone chuckles. “She’s spent the last several years living in the city, but she’s back home now. So let’s everybody give her a warm welcome, okay?”
“Hi, Mallory,” answers all the other thirty-some women in one breath—which isn’t creepy at all.
I wave a little nervously, then step back to hang with Angela as Christee starts chattering to the group about all the great Stella & Dot merchandise her “oldest and dearest friend Valerie” brought to share with us.
A huge “ooh” goes up from the crowd as Valerie opens her trunks. Then Christee announces that everyone gets to pick one piece to take home for free with a one-hundred-dollar purchase and, just like that, there is a high-heeled stampede to the center of the room, with Angela leading the charge. While a few toes get stepped on and more than a few elbows get thrown, it only takes about two minutes before women are settled, shoulder to shoulder, around all four of the different trunks.
I, on the other hand, ease backward a little, until I can find a place to drop my unwanted glass of wine. If I’m lucky, the riot over the jewelry will last awhile, and I can just hang here on my own and observe.
Besides, it’s a lot of fun to watch the blonde in the tiger-stripe sequins go at it against the brunette in the red sequins over a heavy gold chain necklace with a multi-stoned pendant. I’m putting my money on the brunette. She’s shorter but definitely scrappy, and—
“Looks like I’m not the only one afraid to dip my toes in the Stella and Dot pool,” says an amused voice from directly behind me. I turn to see a much younger woman with her hair pulled into a no-nonsense ponytail practically the same shade of brown as mine and, shockingly, there is nary a sequin to be found on any item of her clothing. In fact, she seems a little shy for this group.
“It’s a pretty intense group,” I say, and we both laugh. “My great-aunt Maggie would have loved these women, though Angela seemed to think she was taking a chance inviting me, since she said the jewelry wasn’t exactly Aunt Maggie’s style.” I thought the comment was odd at the time, but admittedly, nearly everything about Aunt Maggie was a little odd.
“Definitely an intense group. Then again, Christee is intense about everything. She always has been.” It’s said without an ounce of malice.
Considering Christee is currently involved in a tug-of-war with one of her guests over a silver necklace loaded with rhinestones, I’m not about to disagree.
“How do you know her?” I ask.
“We used to work together at the salon. She managed the place, and I do hair.”
“Oh, you’re a stylist!” I say. “I’ve just moved back to Jersey to live in my aunt’s house, and I’m definitely in need of a good salon. Plus, I’m thinking about doing something new with my hair. If you’re taking on first-time clients, that is.”
She smiles, and then a woman squeals in triumph so we both look over at the scrum. The woman raises a pair of dangly earrings above her head like a trophy, and we both chuckle. “Breakup or baby?”
I glance back at her. “I’m sorry?”
She gives me a slow up-and-down, her head slightly tilted. “Your hair looks great. It’s healthy and shiny and the style is super flattering on you. So why change it unless—”
“Breakup or baby,” I repeat, nodding slowly as realization dawns. “I get it.”
She lifts a brow. “So which is it?”
“Breakup.” I reach for my discarded wineglass and take a sip, then instantly regret it. “Divorcing my husband, actually.”
“Fuck him,” she says with surprising vehemence. “You seem like a great person, and if he let you go, then I say fuck him. He’s not worth it.”
“Oh, well…” I search for something polite to say but end up just grinning instead. “Yeah, pretty much.”
She reaches into her bag and pulls out a card. “I’m not taking a lot of new clients right now because I’m super booked up. But I like you, so give me a call, and we’ll work something out.”
Her card is sleek and black, with silver writing on it. “Sarah Bianchi?” I read aloud.
She raises one brow. “And you are…?”
“Oh, right. Sorry. I’m Mallory Martin Bach. Well, soon to be just Mallory Martin.”
“Mallory Martin.” For a second, a look of shock flits across Sarah’s face, but then it disappears as quickly as it came. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“It’s nice to meet you, too. Thanks for saving me from becoming a wallflower.”
She takes a long sip of her wine, eyeing me over the rim of her glass. And in that moment, as her hazel-colored eyes stay leveled on me, she looks really, really familiar. I don’t know why, though. I’m 99 percent sure I’ve never met her before, and yet something about her tugs at something inside me. Most likely, Karl’s law office did some work for her at one point—which would also explain her weird reaction to my name.
That has to be it—maybe I even validated her parking or helped her with paperwork at one time or another. I dealt with so many clients through the years that they all blend together. God, I hope she didn’t sleep with my husband. That would really be a setback to this whole making-friends thing we have going on. Plus, I really do need a new stylist.
“So,” she says as we both look back toward the women and the jewelry chests. “The skirmishes seem to have died down some.”
“They have,” I agree.
She smiles hesitantly and takes a step closer to the melee. “Want to wade in, see what’s left?”
With visions of my meager bank account floating in my head, I start to tell her to go ahead. But then it hits me just how long it’s been since I bought anything for myself just for fun. At least a year, maybe—probably—more.
Karl was always the one with the expensive tastes. I got his leftovers when it came to things like phones and computers, and as for the rest? I stopped shopping for myself years ago because every time I spent so much as $100, Karl would lambast me about how much money I was spending and how he had to sacrifice because I couldn’t be frugal.
Standing here, I inventory all the stuff my ex bought himself through the years, and just the idea of denying myself anything seems ridiculous. But at the time, I believed him. Every time I tried to argue about anything, he twisted my words and the facts into so many knots that I couldn’t keep my own arguments straight, let alone his.
And even though I knew I was right, it was impossible to argue with him because he would just keep hitting me with half-truths, like why did I need a new dress when I really preferred to skip social functions? I mean, it is true that I don’t enjoy parties. I like trying a new recipe and then curling up on the couch with a glass of wine and the latest show to binge on Netflix. So I would shrug and wear something from my closet instead. But now the blinders are off, and I’m seeing every interaction differently. And myself, too.
Deep down, I know he couldn’t have bullied me if I didn’t let him. There were two in that marriage, and as much as it pains me to admit, someone can only walk all over you if you let them. I traded my agency for a wedding ring the day I agreed I should drop out of law school and help him build his practice instead, agreed it would be harder to get established if one of us didn’t already have a job and less student loans. It all sounded so reasonable at the time. And if Karl was anyone other than the selfish prick he turned out to be, I’d still think it made sense.
But tonight—tonight I’m buying some damn earrings, whether it’s a smart purchase or not. They are freedom earrings, and I need them more than my next breath.
I just hope I survive the jostling mob of earring-starved women. I know exactly how they feel. This is Braveheart-level shit.