Chapter 11
Martha and Walter’s Memorial Day party is a yearly occurrence. Every year it’s the same potluck food, the same conversations, the same neighbor kids running through the same sprinklers. Claire makes the same potato salad, and puts it on the same folding patio table.
What is not the same is Jackie Callas strolling across the lawn with an armful of sodas.
Pete, thank heavens, is too busy at the grill with Walter to notice. Claire darts over to Jackie quickly, taking some of the bottles before Jackie drops them.
“Thanks,” Jackie says, chuckling a little at what she’s sure is a flabbergasted expression on Claire’s face. “Trust me, I’m as surprised as you are. I found an invite from Martha in my mailbox. Wasn’t sure I should come, but then I saw you were here.”
Claire wants nothing more than to preen, but she has more prescient issues. Martha is across the lawn refilling the beer coolers, but more accurately Claire would say that she’s holding a bag of ice while staring at the two of them with narrowed eyes.
“Can I find you again in a few minutes?” Claire says quietly, trying to show as little emotion on her face as possible. Nothing that could be interpreted one way or another.
Jackie looks perplexed, but she nods. “Oh. Sure. I’ll just…mingle.”
Claire heads straight to the coolers. She helps Martha lift the last few bags of ice, distributing more beers throughout, and when Claire is crumpling up all the plastic bags Martha clears her throat pointedly.
“I’m surprised she actually came,” Martha says, nodding in Jackie’s direction.
Jackie is drifting through the party, looking a little lost—she’s very clearly out of place amongst groups of people who already know each other, not wanting to force herself into conversations, and she gives the kids a wide berth.
“I’m surprised you invited her,” Claire says.
“You seem to like her so much, I thought I’d give her a chance.” Martha’s words seem like a peace offering, but her tone says otherwise. This feels less like an olive branch, and more like a test. An experiment to see if Claire is maintaining her now-forbidden friendship.
“I was only being polite. We haven’t talked in weeks,” Claire shrugs. A careful lie, one more barefaced than she’s ever dared before. “We don’t have much in common, to be honest.”
Claire’s suspicion is confirmed when Martha smiles.
“Good. That’s good,” Martha says, pouring out two glasses of fresh lemonade. “You know, I think I should apologize, Claire.”
“You do?” Claire says blankly. In all their years as friends and neighbors, this might be Martha’s first-ever apology.
“For that friction with Pete, over dinner the other day. It was for your own good, you must see that now that you’ve put aside this business with Jacqueline,” Martha says.
She’s strangely earnest as she hands a cup of lemonade to Claire.
“You aren’t upset with me, are you? I was only trying to help. ”
Claire takes the lemonade. She takes a sip—it tastes more sour than usual.
“Of course not,” Claire says. The words feel hollow. A script laid out for her, as if none of her thoughts matter. “It’s for the best.”
“I’m glad you’ve seen the light,” Martha says. She pats Claire on the shoulder, her other hand resting on her belly—she’s really starting to show, these days. “Now we can go back to the way things should be, after this silly little speed-bump. Right?”
Claire bites her tongue.
Martha looks as if she might say more, but she stops mid-sentence, her eyeline focusing on the group of kids somewhere over Claire’s shoulder.
“Miss Jane, is that a frog in your hand?” Martha says, pulling out a perfect parental tone that Claire is sure she’ll be hearing from across the road for the next eighteen years. “And dirt all over your pretty dress—where is your mother?”
Martha bustles off to deal with the situation. Pete is on his fifth beer of the day, loud and boisterous and entirely distracted at the other end of the lawn. Jackie, having probably been frozen out of any conversations, looks like she’s heading home.
In this small pocket of opportunity, Claire slips away.
She catches Jackie’s arm near the side of the house, pulling her into Martha’s well-maintained bushes. Jackie whirls on her, looking ready to defend herself until she sees that it’s Claire who pulled on her sleeve.
“Oh. Claire,” Jackie says. She looks around them—they’re shielded from the party here, but Jackie doesn’t seem particularly happy about it. “I was just leaving. This feels rather…clandestine.”
“I thought we could have a little privacy here,” Claire says, keeping her voice low.
“So you want to spend your Memorial Day in a shrub?”
Claire doesn’t answer. She doesn’t know what to say—the answer is yes, she’d spend her Memorial Day just about anywhere if it meant spending it with Jackie.
In Claire’s silence Jackie seems to sink deeper into herself, averting her eyes and gnawing at her lower lip. The leaves are casting dappled shadows across her face, shifting and cascading over each other in the breeze.
“Pete told you not to see me anymore, didn’t he?” Jackie says.
She sounds tired. Resigned. Claire should have known that Jackie would suss it out immediately. She’s too smart to have the wool pulled over her eyes.
“He did,” Claire says. She lowers her voice as the group of kids sprints by, shouting about starting a game of tag. “But he isn’t home during the day, he doesn’t know where I go. As long as I can keep Martha from seeing –”
“I don’t want to cause marital issues,” Jackie interjects. She’s pulling away, as if she’s going to step out of the bushes. “Or issues with Martha. This is all getting very complicated.”
“You’re my friend. You’re worth it.”
Jackie shakes her head. Her brow is furrowed. “I should go. I shouldn’t have come, really. You don’t need me waltzing in and messing up your life.”
Jackie takes a step backward, but Claire reaches out to grab at her hands.
She’s never been a particularly physical person, in her friendships or in her marriage, but it feels so much more natural with Jackie.
Easy. Jackie’s soft hands cling to Claire’s in return, even as the rest of her tries to leave.
“Mess up my life?” Claire says, aghast at the very idea. “You’ve made my life better.”
“I’ve gotten between you and your best friend. I’ve caused fights with your husband,” Jackie says. “You’re a good person, with a good life. I’m not.”
Claire is startled to see tears gathering in Jackie’s eyes. She’s reminded of Jackie’s words from their last visit—I knew I wouldn’t fit in here. I guess I thought I deserved it.
“I don’t think that’s true,” Claire says.
Jackie only shrugs her off. She won’t quite look Claire in the eye, and Claire comes to the uncomfortable realization that she’s done it again.
She’s made Jackie feel as if she’s ashamed to be her friend.
“I want you in my life,” Claire says clearly. It’s maybe the first time she’s ever felt completely sure about something. “Whether that means hiding it from Pete, or fighting with him every day about it. You’re—”
Claire’s voice falters. What she wants to say is, you’re my best friend, not Martha. I never knew friendship before you. Nothing else matters.
“You’re too important to me,” Claire says instead. “I don’t want to stop being friends. Do you?”
Jackie’s eyes are wide. She looks down at their hands, and then back up; there’s something strange in the air between them, an intensity that makes Claire want to move closer. Jackie’s skin is so, so soft.
“No. I don’t,” Jackie says quietly.
“Then let’s not stop. Okay?”
Jackie nods silently.
“Okay,” Claire says. She squeezes Jackie’s hands, but doesn’t let them go. She doesn’t want to. “Good. That’s settled. Now. Hot dog, or hamburger?”
Jackie laughs a little. It breaks the strangeness still hanging between them like cobwebs. “Neither. I really should go. I don’t feel like being glared at by Martha all day.”
It’s understandable, if disappointing. “Will I see you this week?”
Jackie swallows. She glances back towards the party, where Pete’s voice can be heard above the others. Her hands are still held in Claire’s.
“I’d like that,” Jackie says. She finally squeezes Claire’s hands, and before she drops them, she flashes a smile that holds at least a hint of her usual vivaciousness. “Give me a call on Monday?”
The fact that Claire never visits, can never visit, on the weekend when Pete is home remains unspoken.
Claire stays in her little hidey-hole for a few long, quiet minutes after Jackie has headed home.
She can hear Pete calling for her, wondering where she is—that it’s taken him this long to realize she’s gone isn’t surprising.
Claire ignores him until a small child sprints through the bushes, barreling into Claire’s middle.
“Oh. Sorry, Mrs. Davis,” the girl says—it’s Jane, the one Martha scolded not long ago. She does have grubby hands and scraped knees at the hem of her skirt. “We’re—um, we’re playing hide-and-seek.”
Jane shifts from foot to foot. There’s a hole in one of her stockings, and a toe is poking out. She looks an absolute mess, like she’s been tumbling through the dirt with the boys. She also looks supremely nervous. She must be expecting another scolding.
“Don’t let me get in your way,” Claire says, smiling down at her. “This is a good hiding spot.”
Jane relaxes immediately. She’s all long limbs and knobbly elbows, scrappy and tomboyish; Claire is sure her mother must be frustrated to no end by it, much like Claire’s once was, but Jane doesn’t seem to care.
She crouches down in the mulch with no regard whatsoever for her nice dress.
“Thanks! Don’t tell Darren I’m here, he thinks a girl can’t win. ”
“Mum’s the word,” Claire says, pressing a finger to her lips. She moves to slip through the bushes and back to the party, but she stops just short. “And, Jane?”