Bonnie is a lawyer and lives on the East Side in Providence, in a condo in what used to be a church. She and her husband—a lawyer too—sank all their money into a beach house, where they disappear every weekend. All of these things make Marjorie proud of her daughter.
This morning Bonnie has brought Portuguese sweet rolls to have with their coffee.
“Daddy and I are just having salads for dinner these days,” Marjorie tells her daughter. “This way I don’t need to turn on anything—oven, stove, nothing. It’s really made life simpler.”
Bonnie smiles in a way that makes Marjorie think she has a secret.
“What?” Marjorie says. “I know you’ve got something up your sleeve.”
Bonnie grabs both of her mother’s hands. “I told Ted I’d wait because he thinks it’s bad luck to tell too soon. But I can’t keep it from you.”
Marjorie gets a sick feeling in her bones. She knows, of course, what Bonnie is about to tell her and she knows it should make her delighted—a grandchild!—but she feels awful, like Bonnie is about to tell her bad news.
“You’ve guessed, haven’t you?” Bonnie says, slightly deflated. “It’s just six weeks. Hardly pregnant at all.”
“There’s no such thing as hardly pregnant,” Marjorie says. “At any rate, Ted is right. Things can go wrong early on.”
Bonnie looks horrified.
Marjorie pats her daughter’s hand. “I’m sure you’ll be fine,” she tells her. Then takes their coffee cups to the sink. She wants Bonnie to leave. She says, “Rhoda Harris and I are going to play tennis today. Then have lunch.” It’s all a lie. She has no plans today. Rhoda Harris is in England with her husband.
Bonnie has come up behind her. “If I didn’t know better,” she says, “I’d think you weren’t happy about my news.”
“Don’t be silly,” Marjorie says, letting the water run too hot and plunging her hands under it. “It’s just that if we get all excited and something goes wrong, we’ll feel just terrible.” Saying this, Marjorie realizes it is exactly what she wants, for something to go wrong, for there to be no baby. “It’s wonderful news,” she says, forcing herself to turn around and hug Bonnie. “Imagine! A new little person running around.”
Happy now, Bonnie says, “I guess I should get to the office. I wish I’d get some morning sickness or something. I mean, I feel really wonderful.”
Marjorie has always heard that’s a bad sign, to have no symptoms. “You’re sure?” she says.
Bonnie nods. “Positive.”
Marjorie turns back to the dishes in the sink.
“Mother,” Bonnie says, standing on tiptoe and peering over Marjorie’s shoulder to see out the window. “Who is that young man?”
Marjorie glances up. “That is your father’s idea of a gardener.”
“What’s happened to Phong?” Bonnie asks.
“He went and got sick and this is who Daddy replaces him with.”
They both watch Justin push the lawn mower. He has on cutoff jeans and nothing else.
“He’s like a Greek god,” Bonnie says.
Marjorie laughs. “Hardly. He’s practically illiterate and he has these terrible tattoos everywhere.”
“I think he’s very handsome,” Bonnie says. “Maybe he can come and cut our grass at the beach.”
“You would be very disappointed,” Marjorie tells her.
Still, long after Bonnie leaves, she stands at the sink looking out, watching the way his muscles push against his skin. He hesitates at the white fence that separates their yard from the O’Haras’. Marjorie cranes her neck to see what it is he’s doing there. For a moment she thinks he’s pissing—his hands seem to flutter somewhere in front of him, his back arches oddly. There is a flower bed there, but he isn’t stooping. The boy is pissing on her flowers, on the neat rows of anemones and petunias that she herself planted and that Phong tended for several summers. Marjorie isn’t certain what she should do. But then the boy, with an elaborate shudder, moves away, lugging a large garbage bag. Still, Marjorie stands there until the doorbell rings, and leaves to answer it, disappointed.
Marjorie doesn’t recognize the woman standing on her doorstep. But she recognizes the little girl clinging to her leg. These are the people next door, from the O’Haras’ yard. The woman is pregnant—God! Marjorie thinks. Is everyone pregnant these days?—all white doughy flesh and bumpy cellulite thighs. She shouldn’t be wearing shorts. Her toenails are bright pink. And the little girl has that same tangled hair, screaming for a good brushing. She’s the one with the IOI Dalmations bathing suit.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” the woman is saying. “But I can’t find my little girl. Jessica. The older one?”
Marjorie waits. The woman’s hair is the color blond you get when you do it yourself.
“I was on the phone and she wandered off.”
“Again!” this little girl blurts. “Mommy says stay in the yard or in the pool and Jessica just doesn’t listen.”
“Ashley does,” the woman says, touching the top of her daughter’s head. “But Jessica has a mind of her own.”