“I am not,” Valerie retorted, turning the term around in her brain, sheepishly admitting to herself how often she drove past the stately homes on Cliff Road and assumed that the people inside were superficial at best, and at worst, unflinching liars. It was as if she subconsciously equated wealth with a certain weakness of character and shifted the burden of proof on these strangers to show her otherwise. It wasn’t fair, she knew, but there were a lot of things in life that weren’t fair.
In any event, Daniel and Romy Croft had done nothing to prove her wrong the night she met them at the open house at school. Like most families at Longmere Country Day, the private elementary school in Wellesley that Charlie was attending, the Crofts were intelligent, attractive, and affable. Yet as they skimmed her name tag and made adroit small talk, Valerie had the distinct feeling that they were looking past her, right through her, scanning the room for someone else—someone better.
Even when Romy spoke of Charlie, something rang false and patronizing in her tone. “Grayson just adores Charlie,” she said, purposefully tucking a strand of white-blond hair behind her ear, then pausing, hand in the air, seemingly to showcase the mammoth diamond on her ring finger. In a town full of big rocks, Valerie had never seen one quite this impressive.
“Charlie really likes Grayson, too,” Valerie said, crossing her arms across her flamingo-pink blouse and wishing she had worn her charcoal suit instead. No matter how hard she tried, how much money she spent on her wardrobe, she always seemed to choose the wrong thing from her closet.
At that moment, the two little boys ran across the classroom hand in hand, Charlie leading the way to the hamster cage. To even a casual observer, they were best buddies, unabashed founders of a mutual admiration society of two. So why, then, did Valerie assume that Romy was being insincere? Why couldn’t Valerie give herself—and her own son—more credit? She asked herself these questions as Daniel Croft rejoined his wife with a plastic cup of punch and rested his free hand on her back. It was a subtle gesture she had come to recognize in her relentless study of married couples, one that filled her with equal parts envy and regret.
“Honey, this is Valerie Anderson . . . Charlie’s mother,” Romy prompted, giving Valerie the impression that they had discussed her prior to this evening—and the fact that there was no father listed in the school directory alongside Charlie’s name.
“Oh, sure, right.” Daniel nodded, shaking her hand with boardroom vigor as he made fleeting, apathetic eye contact. “Hello.”
Valerie returned the greeting, and a few seconds of empty chitchat ensued before Romy clasped her hands and said, “So, Valerie, did you get the invitation to Grayson’s party? I sent it a couple weeks ago?”
Valerie felt her face grow crimson as she replied, “Yes, yes. Thank you very much.” She could have kicked herself for not RSVPing, feeling certain that not responding in a timely manner to an invite, even to a child’s party, was among Romy’s chief pet peeves.
“So?” Romy pressed. “Can Charlie come?”
Valerie hesitated, feeling herself caving to this impeccably groomed, endlessly self-assured woman, as if she were back in high school and Kristy Mettelman had just offered her a drag of her cigarette and a ride in her cherry-red Mustang.
“I’m not sure. I’ll have . . . to check the calendar . . . It’s next Friday, right?” she stammered, as if she had hundreds of social engagements to keep track of.
“That’s right,” Romy said, her eyes widening, smile broadening, as she waved to another couple just arriving with their daughter. “Look, honey, April and Rob are here,” she murmured to her husband. Then she touched Valerie’s arm, flashed her one last perfunctory smile, and said, “It was so nice to meet you. We hope to see Charlie next Friday.”
Two days later, holding the tent-shaped invitation, Valerie dialed the Crofts’ number. She felt a surge of inexplicable nervousness—social anxiety, her doctor called it—as she waited for someone to answer, followed by palpable relief when she heard the automated recording prompting her to leave a message. Then, despite all of her big talk to the contrary, her voice rose several octaves as she said, “Charlie would be delighted to attend Grayson’s party.”
Delighted.
This is the word she replays when she gets the call, only three hours after dropping Charlie off with his dinosaur sleeping bag and rocket-ship pajamas. Not accident or burn or ambulance or ER or any of the other words that she distinctly hears Romy Croft say but can’t begin to process as she throws on sweats, grabs her purse, and speeds toward Massachusetts General Hospital. She cannot even bring herself to say them aloud when she calls her brother from the car, having the irrational sense that doing so will make everything more real.
Instead, she simply says, “Come now. Hurry.”
“Come where?” Jason asks, music blaring in the background.
When she does not answer, the music stops and he says again, more urgently, “Valerie? Come where?”