Brenda looked skeptical. “Oh, yeah, it’s us.” Her cel phone started its strangled jingling. “I’m certainly not going to answer that.”
“What if it’s Josh?” Vicki said.
Brenda checked the display. “It’s not Josh.”
“Not Mom?”
“No.”
“Your lawyer?”
“Mind your own business, please.”
Melanie came bouncing up, swinging the shopping bag in her hand. “Okay!” she said. “I’m ready!”
Brenda furrowed her brow. “If you’re taking happy drugs, it’s time to share.”
“What?” Melanie said.
“Onwards!” Vicki said.
They hit Vis-A-Vis and Eye of the Needle, Gypsy, and Hepburn. Brenda looked long and hard at a reversible Hadley Pol et belt at Hepburn but then declared loudly that she couldn’t afford anything new. Vicki thought this sounded suspiciously like fishing, but she let it go. They moved on.
Vicki bought a straw hat at Peter Beaton. The salesgirl was careful not to stare at Vicki’s head when the scarf came off; Vicki could feel her not-staring, but she didn’t care. She caught up with Brenda and Melanie at the top of Main Street. Melanie was standing outside Ladybird Lingerie, gazing at the door as if waiting for it to magical y open.
“Do you want to go in?” Vicki asked.
“No, no,” Melanie said. “What use do I have for lingerie?”
At Congdon’s Pharmacy, the three of them sat at the lunch counter and ordered chicken salad sandwiches and chocolate frappes. Brenda’s cel phone rang again. She checked the display.
“Not Josh,” she said.
“I feel guilty,” Vicki said. “Having this much fun while someone else is watching my children.”
“Get over it,” Brenda said. “You deserve a morning like this. We al do.”
Melanie lifted her frappe in a toast. “I love you guys,” she said.
Brenda rol ed her eyes and Vicki almost laughed. But this was the old Melanie. Before Melanie became obsessed with having a baby and devastated by Peter’s betrayal, she had been one of the finest girlfriends around. She was always up for a twirl outside the dressing room and for cozy lunches where she would propose lovey-dovey toasts.
“Cheers!” Vicki said. They clinked glasses. Brenda joined in reluctantly.
“Oh, stop being such a sourpuss,” Melanie said. “I got you something.”
“Me?” Brenda said.
Melanie pul ed the Hadley Pol et belt out of a smal shopping bag at her feet and handed it to Brenda. “For you,” she said.
“No . . . way!” Brenda said. Her expression was one Vicki remembered from childhood: She was excited, then suspicious. “What for? Why?”
“You wanted it,” Melanie said. “And I know I horned in on your summer with Vicki. The house is yours, too, and I’m grateful to you for letting me stay. And you’re taking such good care of Vicki and the kids. . . .” Melanie’s eyes were shining. “I wanted to do something nice for you.”
Brenda cast her eyes down. She wound the belt around her waist. “Wel , thank you.”
“That was real y thoughtful, Mel,” Vicki said.
Brenda narrowed her eyes. “Are you sure there’s not something else going on?”
“Something else?” Melanie said.
S
Later that afternoon, the phone rang in the cottage. Vicki was in bed, napping with Porter, and the phone woke her up. She was the only one home; Melanie had taken the Yukon to her doctor’s appointment, and Brenda had walked with Blaine to the swing set on Low Beach Road. The phone rang five, six, seven times, was silent for a minute, then started ringing again.
“Hel o?”
There was silence. Somebody breathing. Then a young, female voice. “I know you’re sleeping with him.”
“
“You’re sleeping with him!”
Careful y, quietly, Vicki replaced the receiver. For this she had gotten out of bed? She poured herself a glass of iced tea and repaired to the back deck, where she stretched out on a chaise longue. The sun was hot; she should go back inside and put on lotion, but she was so dopey from her nap that she indulged herself for a few minutes. She thought about the phone cal and laughed.
A little while later, the phone rang again. Vicki opened her eyes. Took a deep breath. She had been working
