pregnancy, perhaps there was a reason, and I ought not to force the situation. I expressed this belief to Charlie, though what I didn’t express was a deeper sense that to push for a second child might be greedy, more than I deserved. There was a bitter-sweet symmetry in having had one abortion and one child; to try so hard for another might have been to press my luck. I’m sure Charlie was disappointed—an only-child family was, to him, an aberration—but beyond a few conversations, he did not insist, and he found as much joy in Ella as I did.
I turned left out of the parking lot, still behind Beverly Heit; the Heits lived about half a mile from us, and I’d probably be following her all the way home. “Ladybug, how was school?” I asked.
“Mrs. Turnau sent Megan to the principal because she wouldn’t quit asking people if they wanted a poop sandwich.”
“A what?” I said.
“A poop sandwich. Oh, I love this song!” “So Emotional” had come on the radio—a few months back, Ella had bought the new Whitney Houston cassette, the first music she’d ever purchased with her own money—and she leaned forward, turning it up. I reached out and turned off the radio altogether.
“Mommy!”
“Ella, you need to be respectful when someone is talking to you.” I glanced over at her. “Now, what on earth is a poop sandwich?”
Ella shrugged. Megan was Megan Thayer, the daughter of Joe and Carolyn, who were another Halcyon family. They had separated in the winter, and I’d heard from Jadey that Carolyn had recently filed for divorce; the rumor was that Carolyn had come into some family money and felt freed to end the marriage. Charlie and I weren’t extremely close to either Carolyn or Joe, but we ended up seeing a fair amount of Halcyon people in Milwaukee because, like us, they belonged to the Maronee Country Club, I was in Garden Club and Junior League with the wives, and our children all attended the same school. This meant that on a regular basis, Charlie and I would share a blanket with Carolyn and Joe at one of Ella and Megan’s soccer games, or chat with them at a fundraiser. When the news had broken that they were splitting up, I’d had the impression that most people were shocked, but I really wasn’t. Joe was a gentle, slightly dull man thought by many women in Maronee to be quite handsome in a classic way: He was tall and slim, with a long, dignified nose and a full head of gray hair with a wave in front. Meanwhile, Carolyn was a complicated and not particularly happy-seeming woman. The famous story about her was that once when they were hosting a dinner party, she’d brought out the main course, a duck cassoulet, and one of the guests, a fellow named Jerry Greinert who was a good friend of theirs, had said jokingly, “Not that again,” and Carolyn had proceeded to throw the serving dish on the floor, turn around, and storm out of the house.
“Can I turn the music back on?” Ella said.
“Not yet. Do people pick on Megan?”
“If you would like to know the answer to that, then you can only find out when I turn on the radio.”
“Be nice to her,” I said. “When you and Christine are playing at recess, see if she wants to join you.” Although Megan and Ella knew each other well—there were only forty-four students in the third grade, plus they spent a good deal of the summer mere houses apart—they had never been real friends. Megan was a tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired girl, a strong athlete, but she had that overly watchful, overly eager quality that’s off-putting to adults and children alike; the previous summer, in Halcyon, she had asked me whether Ella would be having a slumber party for her next birthday, and if so, whether she, Megan, would be invited.
I said to Ella, “But if Megan offers you a poop sandwich, tell her no.”
With great exasperation, Ella said, “Mother, I
told her no.”
“Oh,” I said. “Good. But still be nice to her. You have such a big heart, ladybug.”
“Can I turn on the radio?”
We were a mile from our house. “Not too loud,” I said.
DESPITE THE ONGOING
investigation by the USDA, it still wasn’t clear how the meat in Indianapolis had come to be contaminated. That evening, Charlie got home from work at a reasonable hour, and out of either habit or defiance he lit the grill. (He still insisted on using a charcoal one for flavor.) I had planned a quick walk with Jadey, and after I called her, we met halfway between our houses and cut onto the golf course’s cart path. On the weekend, this route had its risks—about five months before, by the seventh hole, a ball had hit Lily Jones in the shoulder—but I loved the green grass, the groves of pine trees, the spring sky at dusk. Golf balls aside, it was all incredibly calming.
Jadey was wearing white sweatpants, a red T-shirt, and a white sweatband that held back her blond hair; we both had shorter hair now, about chin-length, though hers was more layered than mine. We had just passed the duck pond when she said, “So I’ve figured out how to get back at Arthur. First I’ll lose weight, then I’ll have an affair. Want to go on a diet with me?”
“I hope you’re kidding.”
She lifted her left arm and pinched a bunch of flesh beneath her bicep. “Arthur’s right. I mean, who’d want to commit adultery with
?”
A few weeks earlier, Arthur had, according to Jadey, announced that she needed to lose weight; since then she’d refused to have sex with him. Although I sided with her, the story felt incomplete. As off-color as Arthur could be, he wasn’t cruel, and I couldn’t imagine he’d expressed the thought as bluntly as she claimed; I even wondered if he’d been answering a question she’d asked. In the time since I’d met Jadey, it was true she’d gained about thirty pounds, but she was still very pretty. She’d become softer, less girlish, but she
a girl, she was thirty-eight years old, and what was wrong with looking the age you were? I myself had gained probably ten pounds in the last decade, mostly weight that I’d never quite lost after Ella’s birth, and it seemed like a worthwhile trade-off. I said, “Do I dare ask who it is you’re planning to have an affair with?”
