cats did in the dark, via the pet door.
It had been a hard day. Margaret’s funeral had been difficult. They had been friends for many, many years—good friends—before she started to piss her off, then topped it with a betrayal that got them all in trouble. But it wasn’t worth thinking about anymore. The point was to move forward.
Izzy sat at her dressing table and creamed off her makeup. Her skin was very good, very receptive to repair. The girl at the MAC counter had said so. Izzy smiled as she remembered the girl at the MAC counter. A silly, silly bitch.
You look just wonderful for your age , the silly bitch had said.
Izzy had reacted hardly at all to the comment and, in fact, she had bought many more products than she had ever planned to buy, or certainly to use, and had thanked the girl with a nice, wide smile. Oh, thank you, dear, you’ve just been such a love .
The MAC products were sitting on her dressing table. She quite liked the eye pencil.
When Izzy dropped in at the MAC kiosk a week or so later, she asked about the girl and was told that she had quit. For personal reasons.
I’ll bet . Taking pains to appear concerned, Izzy gently asked what had happened, and the girl leaned in and whispered, I’m not supposed to tell but … her face, something horrible happened to —but then the counter manager had come around and she couldn’t finish, which was such a shame. But she bet the girl’s face was … well, just awful .
A cup of cold tea she’d forgotten about had formed a skin, but she didn’t have the energy to carry it down to the kitchen. There was still a counter and sink full of dishes down there she needed to clean up after the wake …
She imagined Audra in her hospital bed, unable to sleep for worry about what Izzy was doing with her precious daughter and her precious daughter’s daughter. It would be good for her, that kind of worrying, a proper penance. Marla would call it karma. But that wasn’t really what karma was. Karma was a more complicated comeuppance. This was more like Jainism … all Audra’s doing. Marla wouldn’t know about that, nor would that crowd of hers. They weren’t readers, those girls.
A book lay invitingly open on the bed: Carol Karlsen’s history of New England. She’d only just started it and it hadn’t quite grabbed her yet. The good stuff, she suspected, happened around the late 1600 S , so to speak.
In the privacy of her bedroom she let herself admit that it had been a difficult day. It was unfathomable, really, that Chick had crawled into bed and lit herself on fire. How was that even possible? How could she?
She would have a shower and then take the teacup down to the kitchen and make herself a fresh cup. Sleep, she knew, would be reluctant to come. Memories had been unavoidable all day. They’d been such a close-knit gang once, the whole lot of them. The husbands too. When they’d all been young and the children had been at home
hey Mom, I need five bucks
and they’d spent whole weekends together at each other’s houses. Drinks and cards and
what’s this scar here, Iz?
backyard barbecues.
When she forced herself to think it through from Margaret’s point of view, she guessed she understood it well enough. Margaret was a (foolish) romantic, unfashionably in love with her husband, enough to take a great risk, make a great sacrifice. Audra had got caught in that (foolish) romanticism.
Over the past year things had been changing. She couldn’t put her finger on it; it was sort of a constant loose feeling, like a button hanging by a thread, a wobbly heel on a shoe, a pot handle shifting. Their solid group was wiggling and slipping, and that was what was wrong. They had to stick together, they had to maintain. Margaret had broken the rules. It was good, in a way, that she was dead.
Stupid, stupid woman.
a stupid woman gets what she deserves
Her grandmother used to say that all the time. It was all spinning out of control. If
It had been a hard day. Margaret’s funeral had been difficult. They had been friends for many, many years—good friends—before she started to piss her off, then topped it with a betrayal that got them all in trouble. But it wasn’t worth thinking about anymore. The point was to move forward.
Izzy sat at her dressing table and creamed off her makeup. Her skin was very good, very receptive to repair. The girl at the MAC counter had said so. Izzy smiled as she remembered the girl at the MAC counter. A silly, silly bitch.
You look just wonderful for your age , the silly bitch had said.
Izzy had reacted hardly at all to the comment and, in fact, she had bought many more products than she had ever planned to buy, or certainly to use, and had thanked the girl with a nice, wide smile. Oh, thank you, dear, you’ve just been such a love .
The MAC products were sitting on her dressing table. She quite liked the eye pencil.
When Izzy dropped in at the MAC kiosk a week or so later, she asked about the girl and was told that she had quit. For personal reasons.
I’ll bet . Taking pains to appear concerned, Izzy gently asked what had happened, and the girl leaned in and whispered, I’m not supposed to tell but … her face, something horrible happened to —but then the counter manager had come around and she couldn’t finish, which was such a shame. But she bet the girl’s face was … well, just awful .
A cup of cold tea she’d forgotten about had formed a skin, but she didn’t have the energy to carry it down to the kitchen. There was still a counter and sink full of dishes down there she needed to clean up after the wake …
She imagined Audra in her hospital bed, unable to sleep for worry about what Izzy was doing with her precious daughter and her precious daughter’s daughter. It would be good for her, that kind of worrying, a proper penance. Marla would call it karma. But that wasn’t really what karma was. Karma was a more complicated comeuppance. This was more like Jainism … all Audra’s doing. Marla wouldn’t know about that, nor would that crowd of hers. They weren’t readers, those girls.
A book lay invitingly open on the bed: Carol Karlsen’s history of New England. She’d only just started it and it hadn’t quite grabbed her yet. The good stuff, she suspected, happened around the late 1600 S , so to speak.
In the privacy of her bedroom she let herself admit that it had been a difficult day. It was unfathomable, really, that Chick had crawled into bed and lit herself on fire. How was that even possible? How could she?
She would have a shower and then take the teacup down to the kitchen and make herself a fresh cup. Sleep, she knew, would be reluctant to come. Memories had been unavoidable all day. They’d been such a close-knit gang once, the whole lot of them. The husbands too. When they’d all been young and the children had been at home
hey Mom, I need five bucks
and they’d spent whole weekends together at each other’s houses. Drinks and cards and
what’s this scar here, Iz?
backyard barbecues.
When she forced herself to think it through from Margaret’s point of view, she guessed she understood it well enough. Margaret was a (foolish) romantic, unfashionably in love with her husband, enough to take a great risk, make a great sacrifice. Audra had got caught in that (foolish) romanticism.
Over the past year things had been changing. She couldn’t put her finger on it; it was sort of a constant loose feeling, like a button hanging by a thread, a wobbly heel on a shoe, a pot handle shifting. Their solid group was wiggling and slipping, and that was what was wrong. They had to stick together, they had to maintain. Margaret had broken the rules. It was good, in a way, that she was dead.
Stupid, stupid woman.
a stupid woman gets what she deserves
Her grandmother used to say that all the time. It was all spinning out of control. If
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