Chapter 22
Slowly, carefully, Claire plans her exit strategy.
She gathers her few precious belongings together, and the bare minimum of clothes she might need—undergarments, pajamas, and a few of her old dresses that Rita didn’t make for her.
Photos of her own family, always tucked away in an album rather than on display with Pete’s.
A few of her favorite books, including the one where she hid Jackie’s three photos.
A few precious knickknacks, and her art supplies.
Everything else can be left behind. Her makeup, her kitchen tools, her jewelry. The baubles that Pete has bought her as gifts over the years. All of it is dust to her.
She starts to put away as much of Pete’s grocery money as she can into that envelope to use as an emergency fund, pinching pennies and cutting coupons to keep him from noticing.
She digs through the couch for forgotten dimes.
The weeks press on, and what was at first a contingency starts to become a reality.
The straw that breaks her back is surprisingly mundane.
Martha’s Halloween party is a mainstay of the neighborhood.
Claire half expected it to be cancelled this year, what with the baby, but apparently, he’s sleeping better these days—Martha has his little pumpkin costume all sewn up by the time the day comes.
Helping in the party planning gives Claire something to direct her energy toward.
She helps to decorate. She washes and irons her usual costume (a black dress and little homemade cat ears) and Pete’s (he refuses to dress up any more than a tie with tiny bats on it).
She gives out bags of homemade cookies to trick-or-treaters, and when the kids have retired, she brings her potato salad across the road on Pete’s arm, trying not to think about the fact that there’s clearly also a party going on at Jackie’s house and she hasn’t been invited.
Sure, Pete wouldn’t let her attend, but Jackie always used to invite her.
The evening seems to drag by. Claire feels as if she’s having the same conversation over and over again—how are you?
How’s your husband? Is the bathroom renovation going well?
Oh, yes, he’s getting so big, last I saw him he was crawling—no, Pete and I aren’t expecting any time soon—no reason, just not the right time—Sharon’s Swedish meatballs are delicious, what’s the recipe?
It’s exhausting. A never-ending performance that she’s not sure she can keep doing.
Where Martha’s party gets more subdued as the night presses on, Jackie’s seems to ratchet up in intensity.
Claire can see the activity from Martha’s front window, where she takes up residence to get away from the excruciating conversations.
There are lights in the windows, bent by the shadows of dancing people.
She can’t hear the music, but she can imagine what it sounds like.
Not the Monster Mash currently grating on her ears, but loud rock and roll.
There are even some people out on the front lawn.
Claire is sure someone in a Dracula costume is vomiting in Jackie’s hydrangeas.
Pete’s cologne fills Claire’s nose before she hears his voice.
“Why are you sulking over here? It’s not very sociable.”
“I’m not in a very sociable mood,” Claire says flatly. A woman with dark hair is stumbling down the street arm-in-arm with another woman, and Claire watches them intently until they pass under a street-lamp and it’s made clear that it isn’t Jackie.
Pete lowers his voice. “Then get in one. This is a party.”
Claire squeezes her fist until pain shoots up her arm. “I’ve been on all night. I’m tired.”
“What are you talking about? On?” Pete says, his volume rising a little. “How hard is it to make conversation? Stop embarrassing yourself and come back to the party.”
Someone is comforting the vomiting Dracula across the street, rubbing his back and pulling his long hair out of his face.
It looks to be a tall woman with an impressively voluminous hairstyle.
Claire isn’t doing anything embarrassing like that, is she?
She’s not vomiting in Martha’s rose bush or drinking too heavily.
She’s just asking for a minute to compose herself.
Claire has been actively trying not to bring Jackie to mind too often lately—it hurts too much. But Jackie’s words come back to her now. There’s nobody to embarrass here, Claire.
Claire runs her tongue along her teeth, finding the familiar groove of the chip on her incisor, and she whirls around.
“I said no, Pete,” Claire says loudly.
All heads turn towards them. It isn’t just a small dinner party with Martha and Walter, this time—half the neighborhood is here. At least, the half that isn’t at the party across the street.
Pete’s neck turns fuchsia.
“We’ll talk about this later,” Pete says, as always. He’s still speaking quietly, but Claire is done with being quiet.
She’s been quiet her whole adult life. She’s put on masks, always adding new things to her repertoire, assuring herself that someday, it would get easier.
It would become natural. But meeting Jackie changed everything.
With Jackie, she didn’t need to perform.
Claire got a taste of what a maskless life might be like, and she wants it back.
“I’m tired of talking about it,” Claire says, not bothering to quiet her voice even as Pete fumes. “I’ve been about as perfect a wife as I could these last few months, and it’s still not enough for you, is it? Will it ever be?”
“Claire,” Pete hisses.
“When will it end? When I finally have your children and give you what you really want? When I’m old and tired and used-up and you still get to live your perfect life at my expense?” Claire says. Her voice is getting louder with every word, and Pete is starting to look a little panicked.
“Stop this,” Pete says. “A tantrum at home is one thing, but this is just immature.”
But Claire can’t stop. It’s all bubbling over, everything that’s been building in her since Jackie froze her out—since before, even, since the moment Jackie stepped foot in Acacia Circle and gave Claire a glimpse of what things could be like outside of this.
Like a school science project Claire is finally erupting, spilling all over Martha’s pristine carpeting and not bothering to hold it back.
And Pete sees it as a tantrum. The temporary outburst of a spoiled child. No matter how she talks to him, he’ll never understand her discontent. For as long as she stays in this marriage, she’ll be alone.
“I can’t do this,” Claire says, with a clarity that hits her all at once. “I won’t. I’m done.” To have the last straw be something so simple is somehow fitting. She laughs, a quick and quiet thing that builds as a wave of relief hits her all at once. “Oh, I’m done.”
Claire turns on her heel, tears the cat ears from her head, and marches out the door.
She’s halfway across the lawn when Pete catches up. The air is humid, but she hardly feels it as Pete grabs her arm to turn her back around.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m not doing this anymore.”
“Doing what?” Pete says, letting go of Claire’s wrist when she wrenches it out of his hand. “What the hell has happened to you lately? I’ve never seen you act the way you have been in the last year. What happened to my wife?”
“Your wife never existed, Pete!” Claire shouts.
It feels good to air it all out, not in the stifling hallways of their house but here under the open sky.
The people milling about Jackie’s front lawn are watching, and she doesn’t care a bit.
“Your wife wasn't a person. She was a paper doll that you plugged into your perfect life and didn't expect to have her own thoughts and feelings.
But, I do. And I'm not happy. I've never been happy.”
“Happy?” Pete says, his voice rising to match hers. “Have you ever not had a roof over your head, or food in the fridge? Have I ever not provided for you?”
“Don't you see that I need more than that?”
“What more is there?”
Claire takes a breath. She tilts her head towards the sky, closing her eyes. “There's partnership. Understanding. There’s love.”
Pete scoffs. “Now you sound like one of those hippie freaks next door.”
“Maybe I am one of them. Did you ever think of that?” Claire says, opening her eyes again.
Pete’s coiffed hair is in disarray.
“You are my wife,” Pete says. He says it as if it’s an anchor, a single solid truth in a sea of uncertainty, and perhaps for him it is.
But Claire doesn’t want an anchor. She wants to float away.
“You're not happy, either,” Claire says.
“I'm perfectly content.”
“You married me because I was the first girl who said yes. Do you even like me, Pete? Don’t you want to be married to someone whose company you actually enjoy?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
It’s never been more obvious that Pete will never understand. He looks more baffled than angry, standing on Martha’s lawn in his Halloween tie, and in looking at him Claire feels nothing but pity.
“I deserve something more,” Claire says. She takes a step toward him, now, but for a single reason—to twist her wedding and engagement rings off her finger, and press them into his hand. “I deserve to love and be loved properly.”
Pete holds the rings in his palm, staring down at them with a furrowed brow.
Claire has never felt lighter.
“Claire, this is—this is absurd,” Pete says.
He tries to shove the rings back into Claire’s hand, and when she doesn’t take them he slips them in the front pocket of her dress.
“You’re getting overexcited. Go home and get some sleep.
We’ll talk about this properly in the morning, when you aren’t feeling so hysterical. ”