Sharp_Objects

“Why not?” Katie said with impressively strident outrage.

“He says three’s enough.”

“Enough for him or for you?” Katie snapped.

“That’s what I said. I want a girl. I want a daughter.” The women pet her hair. Katie pet her belly. “And I want a son,” she whimpered, staring pointedly at the photo of Angie’s three-year-old boy on the mantel.

The weeping and fretting went back and forth between Tish and Mimi—I miss my babies…I’ve always dreamed of a big houseful of kids, that’s all I’ve ever wanted…what’s so wrong with just being a mommy? I felt sorry for them—they seemed truly distraught—and I certainly could sympathize with a life that didn’t turn out as planned. But after much head nodding and murmurs of assent, I could think of nothing useful to say and I ducked into the kitchen to slice some cheese and stay out of the way. I knew this ritual from high school, and I knew it didn’t take much for it to turn nasty. Becca soon joined me in the kitchen, began washing dishes.

“This happens pretty much every week,” she said and half rolled her eyes, pretending to be less annoyed than bemused.

“Cathartic, I guess,” I offered. I could sense her wanting me to say more. I knew the feeling. When I’m on the edge of getting a good quote, it seems like I can almost reach inside the person’s mouth and pluck it off their tongue.

“I had no idea my life was so miserable until I started coming to Angie’s little get-togethers,” Becca whispered, taking a newly clean knife to slice some Gruyere. We had enough cheese to feed all of Wind Gap quite prettily.

“Ah, well, being conflicted means you can live a shallow life without copping to being a shallow person.”

“Sounds about right,” Becca said. “Was it like this with you guys in high school?” she asked.

“Oh pretty much, when we weren’t stabbing each other in the back.”

“Guess I’m glad I was such a loser,” she said, and laughed. “Wonder how I can be less cool now?” I laughed then too, poured her a glass of wine, slightly giddy at the absurdity of finding myself plopped right back in my teenage life.

By the time we returned, still lightly giggling, every woman in the room was crying, and they all stared up at us simultaneously, like a gruesome Victorian portrait come to life.

“Well, I’m glad you two are having such fun,” Katie snapped.

“Considering what’s going on in our town,” Angie added. The subject had clearly widened.

“What’s wrong with the world? Why would someone hurt little girls?” Mimi cried. “Those poor things.”

“And to take their teeth, that’s what I can’t get over,” Katie said.

“I just wish they’d been treated nicer when they were alive,” Angie sobbed. “Why are girls so cruel to each other?”

“The girls picked on them?” Becca asked.

“They cornered Natalie in the bathroom after school one day…and cut her hair off,” Mimi sobbed. Her face was wrecked, swollen and splotchy. Dark rivulets of mascara marked her blouse.

“They made Ann show her…privates to the boys,” said Angie.

“They always picked on those girls, just because they were a little different,” Katie said, wiping her tears delicately on a cuff.

“Who’s ‘they’?” Becca asked.

“Ask Camille, she’s the one reporting this whole thing,” Katie said, lifting her chin up, a gesture I remembered from high school. It meant she was turning on you, but feeling quite justified. “You know how awful your sister is, right, Camille?”

“I know girls can be miserable.”

“So you’re defending her?” Katie glowered. I could feel myself getting pulled into Wind Gap politics and I panicked. Catfight began thumping on my calf.

“Oh, Katie, I don’t even know her well enough to defend or not defend her,” I said, faking weariness.

“Have you even cried once about those little girls?” Angie said. They were all in a bunch now, staring me down.

“Camille doesn’t have any children,” Katie said piously. “I don’t think she can feel that hurt the way we do.”

“I feel very sad about those girls,” I said, but it sounded artificial, like a beauty contestant pledging world peace. I did feel sad, but articulating it seemed cheap to me.

“I don’t mean this to sound cruel,” Tish began, “but it seems like part of your heart can never work if you don’t have kids. Like it will always be shut off.”

“I agree,” Katie said. “I didn’t really become a woman until I felt Mackenzie inside me. I mean, there’s all this talk these days of God versus science, but it seems like, with babies, both sides agree. The Bible says be fruitful and multiply, and science, well, when it all boils down, that’s what women were made for, right? To bear children.”

“Girl power,” Becca muttered under her breath.

Becca took me home because Katie wanted a sleepover at Angie’s. Guess the nanny would deal with her darling girls in the morning. Becca made a few game jokes about the women’s obsession with mothering, which I acknowledged with small croaks of laughter. Easy for you to say, you have two kids. I was feeling desperately sulky.

I put on a clean nightgown and sat squarely in the center of my bed. No more booze for you tonight, I whispered. I patted my cheek and unclenched my shoulders. I called myself sweetheart. I wanted to cut: