been sleeping with Cal on a regular basis, and it seemed that Maeve was the only person who hadn’t known.
Maeve wished she had taken the bag. It was worth twenty grand on eBay, its salmon color making it a rare and exotic breed of designer handbag. She had looked it up.
The baby was strapped to Cal, as usual, Gabriela’s crisp white dress shirt not the place to put a baby whose reason for being was to dribble and drool as much as possible. Cal’s second wife looked up as Maeve climbed into the bleachers, taking a seat behind them. She was happy to notice, looking down at Gabriela’s head, that a thin spot had begun to appear right at the crown of her former friend’s head, pink scalp starting to peek through black tresses. Karma really was a bitch. That, or Gabriela’s aggressive straightening treatments were wreaking havoc on her scalp.
Gabriela’s modus operandi was to behave as if nothing had changed between them. She looked behind her and gave Maeve a big smile. “I left work early so I could see the game,” she said, her Portuguese accent covering every word like a cashmere blanket, soothing and comforting. Maeve knew better, though; beneath the earth mother persona lay a spoiled, rotten witch who got what she wanted, when she wanted it, regardless of the cost. Like the bag. And Cal.
The baby was the icing on the cake. Sure, he was adorable and completely innocent in this whole situation, but watching Cal parade around like Father of the Year when he had been completely absent for the better part of his first two daughters’ fleeting childhoods, was hard to take. Cal decided right around the time that Gabriela announced her pregnancy, with some creative math that made Maeve realize in hindsight that perhaps Gabriela had been pregnant before Cal had really bolted the family nest for good, that he was burned out on corporate law. That plus the fact that he now had a wife, two children, and a pregnant mistress was enough to burn anyone out. It was depressing him, making him question if he really was living his best life, sentiments that were the hallmarks of a traditional midlife crisis. Maeve watched from the sidelines as he struck a deal with his new wife to stay home and take care of little Devon while she continued her career at a second-tier women’s magazine— Frou Frou was no Vogue and never would be—dispensing advice as to how to wear the newest nail polish colors and when to wear fishnets. Her magazine was for women with a lot of time on their hands and even more disposable income; it didn’t interest Maeve in the slightest.
So why had they been friends? Maeve asked herself that every day. They had met at church, when Maeve was still going, and served on the hospitality committee together. From what Maeve knew, Gabriela still went to church every Sunday and, like some of her Donovan cousins, was quite the donor. The church benefited from a beautiful statue of Our Lady of Fatima, which Maeve knew that Gabriela’s ex-husband had paid for but for which she took complete credit.
Maybe Maeve, like her former husband, had been a little bit in Gabriela’s thrall, her beauty making her overlook what turned out to be an indefatigable shallowness hidden beneath a thick layer of gloss and shine, two things that Maeve had lost so many years before. Maybe she hoped that Gabriela was only kidding when she called her first husband’s children the “little rotten bastards,” or that she really didn’t mean it when she’d called her former husband—while they were still married—“the troll.” When the dust had settled and Gabriela had ridden off into the sunset with Cal, Maeve came to the conclusion that what she had once written off as witty insouciance turned out to be a deep-seated maliciousness that Cal seemed to take to like a bee to honey. While Maeve had tried so hard to be the good girl, it seemed that her former husband was drawn to the bad girl.
To this day, she had never seen Gabriela
Maeve wished she had taken the bag. It was worth twenty grand on eBay, its salmon color making it a rare and exotic breed of designer handbag. She had looked it up.
The baby was strapped to Cal, as usual, Gabriela’s crisp white dress shirt not the place to put a baby whose reason for being was to dribble and drool as much as possible. Cal’s second wife looked up as Maeve climbed into the bleachers, taking a seat behind them. She was happy to notice, looking down at Gabriela’s head, that a thin spot had begun to appear right at the crown of her former friend’s head, pink scalp starting to peek through black tresses. Karma really was a bitch. That, or Gabriela’s aggressive straightening treatments were wreaking havoc on her scalp.
Gabriela’s modus operandi was to behave as if nothing had changed between them. She looked behind her and gave Maeve a big smile. “I left work early so I could see the game,” she said, her Portuguese accent covering every word like a cashmere blanket, soothing and comforting. Maeve knew better, though; beneath the earth mother persona lay a spoiled, rotten witch who got what she wanted, when she wanted it, regardless of the cost. Like the bag. And Cal.
The baby was the icing on the cake. Sure, he was adorable and completely innocent in this whole situation, but watching Cal parade around like Father of the Year when he had been completely absent for the better part of his first two daughters’ fleeting childhoods, was hard to take. Cal decided right around the time that Gabriela announced her pregnancy, with some creative math that made Maeve realize in hindsight that perhaps Gabriela had been pregnant before Cal had really bolted the family nest for good, that he was burned out on corporate law. That plus the fact that he now had a wife, two children, and a pregnant mistress was enough to burn anyone out. It was depressing him, making him question if he really was living his best life, sentiments that were the hallmarks of a traditional midlife crisis. Maeve watched from the sidelines as he struck a deal with his new wife to stay home and take care of little Devon while she continued her career at a second-tier women’s magazine— Frou Frou was no Vogue and never would be—dispensing advice as to how to wear the newest nail polish colors and when to wear fishnets. Her magazine was for women with a lot of time on their hands and even more disposable income; it didn’t interest Maeve in the slightest.
So why had they been friends? Maeve asked herself that every day. They had met at church, when Maeve was still going, and served on the hospitality committee together. From what Maeve knew, Gabriela still went to church every Sunday and, like some of her Donovan cousins, was quite the donor. The church benefited from a beautiful statue of Our Lady of Fatima, which Maeve knew that Gabriela’s ex-husband had paid for but for which she took complete credit.
Maybe Maeve, like her former husband, had been a little bit in Gabriela’s thrall, her beauty making her overlook what turned out to be an indefatigable shallowness hidden beneath a thick layer of gloss and shine, two things that Maeve had lost so many years before. Maybe she hoped that Gabriela was only kidding when she called her first husband’s children the “little rotten bastards,” or that she really didn’t mean it when she’d called her former husband—while they were still married—“the troll.” When the dust had settled and Gabriela had ridden off into the sunset with Cal, Maeve came to the conclusion that what she had once written off as witty insouciance turned out to be a deep-seated maliciousness that Cal seemed to take to like a bee to honey. While Maeve had tried so hard to be the good girl, it seemed that her former husband was drawn to the bad girl.
To this day, she had never seen Gabriela
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