For me, she means.
Her mother doesn’t particularly like her, but she doesn’t want to go through the fussy burden of death again, either. Losing her first husband was just so inconvenient—her word—especially when his kids got all his money and she had to find a newer, richer husband in time for the country club’s summer gala. If something happened to Chelsea or her girls, her mom might have to cancel her standing hair appointment.
Having delivered her message, Patricia spins back around and hurries to her sleek white sedan.
She doesn’t wave as she leaves, but she does run over the newly planted begonias.
2.
Patricia checks her makeup in her rearview mirror, deciding that she’ll give her next Estée Lauder free gift bag to Chelsea, as the poor girl desperately needs a more expensive mascara and some sort of color on her cheeks. The thing about Chelsea is that she’s been weak, sullen, and resentful from the moment she was born, kicking and screaming, but is it really so hard to try a new lipstick? Patricia has always been open to those handy little women’s tricks and is satisfied with what she sees in the mirror, although her forehead needs a touch-up. She puts her car in reverse and backs up, letting out a ladylike gasp as the tires bump over something inconvenient in the driveway, probably a hose or a newspaper or something else that should’ve been put away. If Rosa or Miguel left something like that in Patricia’s driveway, they’d get a good talking-to.
Chelsea’s neighborhood isn’t too horrible, but the gate takes a terribly long time to rattle open. As Patricia drives, other motorists honk behind her for doing something as reasonable as going the speed limit on a curving lakeside road. Annoyed, she switches through radio stations, but they’re all shouting and grousing and moaning about that unfortunate incident down at the warehouse store, some sort of violence that’s unusual in this kind of area. Not that Patricia would ever be in such a store, fighting over toilet paper and cheese puffs with some overstuffed housewife. That’s what the help is for.
Patricia barely misses a green light and is forced to stop her car at a big intersection, and there facing her across the road is a little yellow building, barely a shack. It has a faded sign reading Big Fred’s Floors and crudely built displays out front with ragged versions of what might’ve once been functional if gauche floor coverings, linoleums and tiles and fake wood. But they’re all faded and degraded, and no one in their right mind would be enticed to stop and go into the tiny shop to talk to Big Fred. Jerking red letters tick by on the scrolling digital sign outside.
IF YOU’RE IN THE DOGHOUSE, GET HER WHAT SHE REALLY WANTS. NEW FLOORS!
Patricia raises an eyebrow. Like she needs the doghouse excuse if she wants new floors. She would like new floors in the sunroom, actually, but Randall is still complaining about the dust from the last bathroom remodel. She’ll have to wait until he’s on his next two-week fishing trip to the Bahamas with the boys from the courthouse if she wants to get anything done. And she most certainly won’t get her new floors from anything as shabby as a swaybacked shack that resembles all too closely the one-room millhouse she lived in when Chelsea was a baby. She’s done her best to forget those days, the struggle and mess and noise. She’s risen above it. It’s over. The shack is simply a grotesque reminder of how hard she’s worked to get here.
The light finally, thankfully, turns green, and she’s no longer forced to stare at the scrolling words prodding her inelegantly to move forward with her next remodel. Her visit with Chelsea was just too tiresome, so now she’s early for her weekly lunch with Randall, but there’s always plenty to do at the club, especially now that she’s a member of the charity auction committee. Her first husband was a member at Emerald Cove Country Club, too, and so she’s enjoyed uninterrupted service here for almost twenty years. Hank waves her through at the gate, and she parks farther away from the clubhouse than she’d like, but at least she finds a spot in the shade. As she walks up the sidewalk, she subtly touches her bracelet, necklace, earrings, hair. She straightens her cardigan and runs a hand down the pleats on her slacks and looks down at her pedicure as she steps onto the curb. Patricia is not a religious woman, but this is her sign of the cross. This is how she blesses herself, how she keeps herself together. If everything is in place, if everything is perfect, then she’ll be safe.
The automatic glass doors slide open, and her eyes close as cold air billows over her as if washing off the oppressive heat, sweat, and misfortune of the world outside. Within, everything is just so, and Patricia feels very at home here. Inoffensive artworks in pastels with gold frames line the buttery-yellow walls, and the patterned carpets are always spotless and stainless. Plastic plants never die, never wither, never go brown at the tips—and get dusted daily, unlike Chelsea’s chandelier. Barbara Chatham tried to bring a service dog in here once and everyone got so upset that she had to move. That’s how clean it is. No wonder she feels at home.
“Good morning, Mrs. Lane,” some young person with a fake grin says from the front desk. Patricia lifts a hand the minimum amount and holds her public smile in place. With so many years here at the club, she sometimes forgets she’s Mrs. Lane and not Mrs. Worthington. Or, going further back, a young, unwed mother with a greasy plastic name tag that just said PATTY.
The doors of the dining room aren’t open yet, and she frowns just a little before pasting her smile back into place and heading for the lounge. She hears the noise before she sees it, the musical murmurs of many women having polite arguments bracketed by I really just think and Wouldn’t we rather consider and That’s how it’s going, but of course I’m not in charge, so what do I know? The little hairs on the back of her neck prickle. Something is occurring in her kingdom without her knowledge. She rounds the corner and peeks in the open French doors to find a conference room filled with familiar faces, led by someone she once considered a friend.
“Patty, is that you?” says an altogether too-triumphant voice. “I was wondering where you were.”
Patricia steps into the open space as the room goes quiet and twenty women look her up and down, their eyes crawling over her like ants looking for some vulnerable crack in a castle. She keeps her chin up and smiles that practiced smile, the one that suggests that those in power have never doubted themselves.
“Well, I would’ve been here if I knew you were throwing me a party, Karen,” she all but purrs.