The Smart One

Chapter 6





When you live in a house your whole life, you know all of its noises. You know that two short buzzes is the end of the dryer cycle, that one short buzz is the back doorbell. You know that when the furnace kicks up, it starts with a clank, waits about thirty seconds, and then you hear the air coming out of the vents. You know every corner and twist in the house, that it takes sixteen steps to get up the stairs, three large leaps to get down the hall. You could find your way around the whole place blindfolded if you had to.

Claire loved this about going home—loved that she knew every corner, that everything was familiar, that the house would creak and groan her to sleep. But this time, the noises were not comforting. Each squeak of the floor made her want to cover her ears. She could hear her father breathing heavily as he walked down the hallway (was he that out of shape?), could hear her mom humming as she made coffee, could hear Martha in her room, thumping her feet against the headboard as she always did when she read, so that it bumped against the wall, over and over, until Claire was sure she was going to scream.

This reaction shouldn’t have surprised her, but somehow it still did. Moving home wasn’t exactly what she wanted; it was just the only possible way out of her mess. When she’d finally gotten the courage to call Weezy, she didn’t waste any time. As soon as Weezy answered, she said, “I’m having money issues.”

She had sounded like a polite older woman who didn’t want to give the specifics of her financials, who thought that talking about money was rude. But at least it was out there. It had taken almost an hour for Claire to fully explain the situation, to really make it clear that she was in trouble. And still, when she’d said, “I think I have to move home for a while,” Weezy was surprised.

Once things got moving, they happened quickly. Claire gave her landlord notice and said she’d be using her security deposit as her last month’s rent. It was unclear if this was legal or not—everyone had a different opinion—but it didn’t matter. If they were going to come after her, let them. She just needed to get out of this city. She figured she wasn’t even staying the whole month of September, so maybe they’d look the other way.

At work, they weren’t all that surprised. Amy had nodded like she’d seen it coming. “Sometimes you just need a change of scenery,” she’d said. Claire had agreed and quickly left the office. Becca and Molly were surprised, but not sorry. They wished her luck and said they’d miss her, but didn’t sound very convincing.

On her last day, they all stood around and ate cupcakes, as was the tradition, and they all said things like, “Enjoy those cheese steaks” and “Bet you won’t miss the crowded subways in the morning!” At the end of the day, Claire wasn’t the least bit sorry to leave the office and never go back.

Her apartment was packed up easily, partly because it was still almost empty from when Doug left, and partly because she sold what little was left of the furniture on craigslist. She didn’t want to pay for storage and didn’t want a bed—or anything else—that she and Doug had shared. She was happy to open her door to strangers, let them come in and give her cash, and watch them leave carrying her possessions.

Martha had warned her to have someone else in the apartment with her and to leave the door open while the buyers entered. “You should also alert your doorman to the situation. Make sure he knows why they’re coming to see you.”

“Why?” Claire asked.

“Claire. Come on. People looking to murder innocent people use craigslist all the time.”

“Right,” Claire said. “I’ll be careful.”

There was no good-bye party, no send-off with her friends like they’d done for everyone else. “I’m not really leaving,” she kept telling everyone. “I’m just figuring stuff out.” Her friends nodded like they didn’t quite believe her and hugged her like she was never coming back.

It shocked her, really, how quickly it had all been done, how fast she’d ended up back home and sleeping in her bed. For the first few days, she felt relief. Her debt was still with her, but at least she could stop worrying that she was about to get evicted. The worst was over, and she started to make a plan, set up an interview with a temp agency, and unpacked her bags. Then on the fourth day, she’d woken up and listened to all the noise around her. And that was when the panic had started to set in.

Her bedroom still had faded stuffed animals on the shelves, collages of old high school friends that she hadn’t seen in years, plastic glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling (why had she thought that was so cool?), and a poster of Dave Matthews on the back of the door. It was like moving right back to high school. Nothing had changed.

There was a point each morning (and this had been happening since the breakup) when Claire first woke up and didn’t remember what had happened. It was about a thirty-second window, give or take, when her mind was free of everything, when she didn’t think about the wedding’s being called off, about Doug’s moving out, about her mounting credit card debt, about moving home. It wasn’t that she forgot exactly—it was just that her mind didn’t remember right away, and for those seconds she felt normal. And then it all came rushing back in, her head filled up with the events of the past year, and she was embarrassed and horrified all over again, like it had all just occurred. She’d lie there as it happened, roll over so that her face was in her pillow, and start thinking about how she was going to undo everything, how she was going to go about fixing the mess that was her life.

At night, she would look at the stupid plastic stars and think, What the hell was I thinking? She let the thought run through her head over and over. She let herself repeat it, stressing different words each time—What the hell was I thinking? What the hell was I thinking? What the hell was I thinking?

Even the dog seemed confused by the situation. Ruby walked around at night, poking her head into each room to make sure all of the family members were there. She’d go to look in Max’s room, staring at the bed as if she just wanted to make sure that he wasn’t there. When she came to Claire’s door, she’d perk up, her ears springing alive, and she’d wag her tail and come to greet her. But Ruby seemed overwhelmed by this change, and she’d sometimes tilt her head at Claire before leaving the room, sighing as she walked away to continue her inspection.

Claire’s first night home, Weezy made a special dinner and they all toasted, “Welcome back,” like Claire’s return was something to be celebrated, like it wasn’t a total failing of her attempt to live as a successful adult.

AT THE TEMP OFFICE, CLAIRE TOOK a typing test and a computer proficiency test. The woman kept looking up at Claire and then back down at the résumé like it was going to answer the question of why Claire was here in the first place.

“Now, why did you leave your last job again?” she asked.

“I’m looking for a change and I thought it would be easier to figure out what I wanted to do if I took some time off and moved back home for a little while.” Claire had said this exact sentence to her about four times now. She was pretty sure the woman thought she was lying.

“Well, we shouldn’t have any trouble placing you. There’s a spot I’m thinking about that’s just a three-month placement.”

“That would be great. I’m not looking for a permanent job.”

“Right.” The woman nodded. She looked again like she didn’t believe Claire. “Well, I think it would be a great fit. It starts in a week or two, and I can get you in there to meet them tomorrow if that works?”

Claire nodded. They set up the appointment and shook hands. Then Claire went back home, took off her skirt and jacket, put on pajama pants, and got back into bed.

WEEZY WAS TRYING TO BE HELPFUL, but it was getting on Claire’s nerves. Which of course made her feel awful, since Weezy had been so nice about everything, had accepted Claire back home like it was no big deal. But still, every time Weezy asked about her plans or asked her how she was feeling, Claire thought she was going to lose it.

The morning that Claire was scheduled to meet with the office, she and Weezy sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee together in their pajamas.

“Are you nervous?” Weezy asked.

“No.”

“Not even a little?”

“No. It’s not a real job. It’s just a temp job.”

“Still,” Weezy said. “It can be scary to interview.”

“I guess.”

“You know,” Weezy said, “there are so many kids your age that have moved back home. Remember Mark Crowley? You went to first grade with him, but then he transferred to the public schools because he had all those learning problems? Well, anyway, I saw his mother in the grocery store last week and she told me that he’d lost his job in New York and moved home. Just like you.”

“I didn’t lose my job,” Claire said.

“Well, you don’t have one. You know what I mean,” Weezy said. Claire was sitting in her pajamas at ten thirty on a Tuesday morning, drinking coffee with her mom. Yes, it was pretty clear that she didn’t have a job.

“I’m just saying,” Weezy continued, “that it’s an epidemic, a trend. It’s the economy, of course, but still it’s interesting, isn’t it? All these adult children returning home again? Moving back in with their parents? It says something about this generation, I think. And our generation for welcoming you back.” Weezy looked off into the distance, thoughtful with this new revelation.

“You sound like Dad,” Claire said.

Weezy leaned forward in her chair and looked out the window at the house across the street. “For a while, I thought the younger Connors girl was living at home, but now I think she just stays there sometimes. I think she brings things to her parents, their groceries and all of that.”

“Hilary?” Claire asked. “Hilary still lives around here?”

Hilary and Sarah Connors had grown up across the street. They’d never been friends, but they knew each other and played with each other sometimes out of convenience. When Sarah went to college, she started dating this boy and eventually dropped out. There were rumors that he was a drug dealer, but no one really knew what was happening. Then Sarah and her boyfriend went on a crime spree through a neighboring suburb, shooting a gas station clerk and robbing seven different people, before the two of them holed up in an old hardware store that had closed down. The police surrounded them, until they heard a gunshot and then they stormed in to find that Sarah had shot her boyfriend in the head. It made national news, and reporters and police cars were outside of the Connors’ house for months.

“I can’t believe they still live there,” Claire said. She looked out at the house, a normal two-story brick house with yellow awnings. It looked dark and quiet.

“It’s their home,” Weezy said. “They shouldn’t feel like they have to run away.”

“I would. I would leave the town, leave the whole state, probably go all the way across the country. I’d go somewhere where people didn’t recognize my name and my face. Wouldn’t you?”

“Maybe.”

“It has to be so miserable there. To stay in that house with all of those memories.”

“Maybe they remember the good things that happened there.”

“Would that really be what you remember?”

“Some people don’t have the tools to start over when something like that happens,” Weezy said. “Some people could, but other people—they just stop, and stay where they are and that’s that.”

“Sarah was always weird,” Claire said. It was the first thing that she and Martha had agreed on after the strange and tragic day happened. “She was always a little off,” Martha had said. Sarah had been a year ahead of Martha in school, and Hilary was a year younger than Claire. There was one picture of the four girls playing in the backyard one summer, all in bathing suits, laughing and running through the sprinkler. Claire couldn’t remember it.

“It was the drugs,” Weezy said. “She got mixed up with the wrong people.” They’d had this exact conversation dozens of times since the whole thing had happened, but somehow it never got old.

“I guess,” Claire said. “Poor Hilary.” She imagined the girl grocery shopping, lugging bags over to the house that her parents didn’t leave. How creepy.

Sarah had once stolen a toy of Claire’s, a little plastic Care Bear that had been a Valentine’s Day present. Claire had asked Weezy if she could take it to school to show her friends, and Weezy said no, so Claire snuck it in her backpack in the morning. That night, when she realized that she’d forgotten it in her desk, she started to cry.

The next morning, Weezy walked into the classroom with her, assuring her that it would still be there, but it wasn’t. That day, on the playground, Sarah Connors had a little blue bear in her hand.

“That’s mine,” Claire yelled. She told the teachers, but no one could prove that Sarah had walked through the classroom and stolen the bear. She told Weezy that night, but there was nothing to be done.

“I told you not to take it to school,” Weezy said, as Claire cried. She was firm on this point, although when Claire woke up that Saturday, there was a new little blue bear on her nightstand.

But it wasn’t the same. Claire wanted the original bear, the one that had been taken. She hated the thought of it’s being at the Connors house, which was dirty and smelled like mothballs. “Your sister stole my bear,” she said to Hilary once. Hilary just shrugged and looked embarrassed. You couldn’t blame her, Claire knew. She couldn’t pick who her sister was.

CLAIRE PUT ON THE SAME OUTFIT that she’d worn to the temp interview and drove to the office of Proof Perfect, where she was set to meet the woman she’d be filling in for and a few others.

Amanda Liebman met her at the elevator, looking like she was about to give birth right there in the front lobby. She had both of her hands on her back, and was red in the face. “Claire?” she asked. Claire nodded and Amanda puffed a little as she turned and motioned for Claire to follow.

Amanda sat at a desk at the front of the office. Behind her, on the wall, hung letters that spelled out PROOF PERFECT. There was a hallway to the right and left, but all the offices that Claire saw had their doors closed. Once they were seated at her desk, Amanda seemed a little calmer. “I’m carrying around so much extra weight at this point that even standing feels impossible.”

Claire nodded again. “When are you due?”

“In two weeks, but I want to keep working up until the very end so that I can take all of my time with the baby. I’ve already saved up all my vacation and personal and sick days, which wasn’t easy, so I don’t want to waste it now just lying around and waiting.”

“Right.”

“So, my title is Office Manager and Senior Executive Assistant. Basically, that means that I answer the phones, and then do whatever the account managers want me to do, or don’t want to do for themselves. It’s a lot of Xeroxing and other random stuff. All the higher-up people have their own assistants, so you don’t have to worry about them.”

“Okay.”

“Some of the managers are a pain in the ass, but it’s not rocket science, so you’ll be fine.”

Amanda went on to show her the phones.

“So, will they let me know if I get the job?”

“Oh, you got it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Everyone else that comes in here wants a permanent job. They’re hoping to get placed here after this job is done. You’re the only one that wants it for what it is. So, congratulations, it’s yours.”

“Great,” Claire said. She wasn’t sure that it was.

Amanda started to get up to walk her to the elevator, but Claire told her she could get there on her own. She was just walking out into the lobby when Amanda called her name.

“One more thing,” she said. She stuck out her foot from behind the desk. “The dress code says no sandals, but my feet are too fat to wear any of my shoes right now, so f*ck it. But if you come in wearing sandals, they’ll go ape shit.”

“Got it. Thanks.”

CLAIRE WENT OVER TO LAINIE’S that night to drink wine. It was still pretty warm out, even at the end of September, and the two of them sat on chairs on the porch, a bottle of wine between them. Brian was inside on the couch, asleep with his mouth open and the TV on.

She couldn’t get over the fact that Lainie lived with her husband and three children in a house that was down the street from where Claire grew up. How had this happened? Lainie became more adult every day, and Claire was back sleeping in her childhood bedroom.

“So you got a job already,” Lainie said. “That’s good news.” She held up her glass and Claire clinked it, then the two of them drank.

“I guess so. The thing is I don’t start until this lady has her baby. It could be tomorrow or it could be in three weeks, which sort of sucks.”

“Then just relax. You’ve been not working for like a week. You should sleep in and enjoy yourself.”

“I can’t. At least not in that house. I just feel like I should be doing something, not sitting around all day with my parents and Martha. It’s driving me crazy.”

“Really? It sounds amazing. You can do whatever you want.” Lainie had grown up in the middle of five sisters, who shared everything from underwear to makeup. She’d never had her own room, and Claire was pretty sure she’d never want to.

“It’s not. It’s just really boring. All I want is to not stay there all day.”

Lainie looked sideways at her. “Do you want to babysit?”

“For you?”

“Yeah, for me. Our nanny’s mom is sick and she’s going home for a couple of weeks. I was going to ask Kristen to do it, and then get my mom and Brian’s mom to fill in, but if you’re really looking for something to do, that would be awesome. It’s just for the mornings, mostly, and some early afternoons.”

“Sure,” Claire said. “Why not?” She hadn’t babysat in years.

“Great,” Lainie said. She smiled and sat back like she’d figured everything out. “Plus I’ll give you free classes at the studio.”

“You already do that.”

“Yeah, but now you’ll really earn it.”

CLAIRE HAD FORGOTTEN HOW BORING babysitting actually was. She’d blocked out the way that when a four-year-old is building a tower out of blocks, sometimes all you can do is keep looking at the clock, sure it’s standing still or maybe even going backward. Babysitting could be so quiet, so devoid of conversation, and just when she thought she’d go crazy, it became loud, a fever pitch of whines and screams and toys hitting the floor.

Claire remembered babysitting for Bobby Foley once, the summer he was obsessed with Pokemon, and they’d been sitting on the floor in his bedroom playing. He started showing her all the Pokemon cards that he had, explaining to her the difference between the characters, how some could fly and some could run fast, and she’d been nodding and then just lay down on the floor while he went on, seriously, ranking his favorites, telling her what who would win in a fight.

She’d murmured, “Mmm-hmm” every once in a while, closed her eyes for just a second, and then woke up twenty minutes later when the door downstairs slammed shut. Bobby was still next to her, babbling on, and she didn’t even think he noticed that she’d been sleeping. Claire had shot straight up and wiped the drool off her face, her heart pounding as she tried to look awake before Mrs. Foley came in the room.

She’d been horrified after that, felt like the world’s most irresponsible babysitter. And now she was babysitting again, spending her days with three little boys, who seemed just as bored with her as she was with them, glancing at her every once in a while to see if she was still there. Tucker screamed every time Lainie left, and then spent the rest of the time wandering his pudgy baby body around the house, picking up anything that wasn’t nailed down—shoes, the remote control, cell phones, coasters—and rearranging all of it. Every once in a while he’d stop to stare at Claire, trying to figure out if she was responsible for the absence of his mother.

Jack didn’t seem to be taking to the situation any better. He was a judgmental child and always had been. When he was a baby, he’d look around the room at everyone, his mouth turned down, his dark eyes taking everything in. Lainie had taken Jack everywhere with her, to bars or friends’ houses, where they would put him to sleep in a bed, with jackets stuffed on either side of him so he wouldn’t roll off. He’d stare at them while they drank wine, his little baby lips pursing and un-pursing as he listened to them talk. Now, when Claire arrived, he gave her the same look, as though he couldn’t quite figure out what she was doing at his house. She wanted to tell him that she didn’t know what she was doing there either.

Each morning when Claire arrived, the boys were half-naked—sometimes in just a diaper, sometimes wearing a shirt, or one sock, or a pair of pants. Lainie was always rushing around no matter what time it was, pausing to put an item of clothing on one of the boys, or stopping to smell their butts to see if they needed a new diaper. Claire would stand in the corner and watch as Lainie raced around and finally ran out the door. It made her tired just to watch.

The third morning she was there, Claire poured Jack some cereal and leaned against the counter to watch him eat. Jack took a bite and then looked up at her. “This milk tastes spicy,” he said.

“It tastes spicy?” Claire asked and Jack nodded. Claire picked up the carton and sniffed it, and a thick, sour smell hit her nose right away. She gagged twice and ran over to the sink, sure she was going to throw up.

“What’s wrong?” Jack asked.

“Nothing,” Claire said. “Don’t eat that, okay? The milk is bad.” She took the bowl from him and poured it down the sink, holding her breath as she washed the little O-shaped pieces of cereal down the disposal. She went to the refrigerator and looked at the options. “Do you want some toast?”

“Are you having a baby?” Jack asked.

“What? No.”

Jack shrugged. “That’s what my mom does when she’s having a baby,” he said.

“Right,” Claire said. “It was just that the milk made me feel sick.”

“Milk is good for you,” Jack said.

“You’re right, it is.”

“Do you have any babies?”

“Nope. No babies.”

“Who is your mom?”

“My mom is Weezy. You know her, she lives down the street. And you know my dad, Will, and my sister, Martha. And you’ve even met my brother, Max.”

“Weezy is your mom?” Jack asked. He looked like he didn’t believe her for a second.

“Yep.”

“Do you live with her?”

“I do now. I was living somewhere else, but I moved back.”

“I’m never leaving my mom,” Jack said.

“Okay,” Claire said.

“I don’t think Weezy is your mom,” Jack said. “Because we see her when we go to the playground sometimes.”

“Okay,” Claire said. “Whatever you say.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Claire was exhausted by these conversations. Exhausted from sitting around and watching Jack and Tucker play. The one thing she did like about babysitting was holding Matthew. He was at a great age—small enough that he was nothing but a bundle of baby, but big enough that she wasn’t afraid she was going to break him.

She liked holding him while the other two boys napped, feeling his solid little weight in her arms. He was totally relaxed, his mouth slightly open, and every once in a while his chin would quiver, and he’d sigh. Claire was jealous of him while he slept, and hoped that if she held that warm little body, some of his calmness would rub off on her.

SOMETIMES AFTER LAINIE WOULD GET HOME, Claire would just end up staying at the house for a little while. It was so much easier to be there than to be at her own house. She’d watch as Lainie and Brian came back from work and still never stopped moving, making the boys dinner and getting them ready for bed. Claire at least liked the feeling of being able to sit and watch, knowing she wasn’t responsible for any of it.

It also amazed her how easily Lainie had become a mother. When she was first pregnant with Jack, Claire couldn’t believe it. But then Lainie had the baby, and she walked around with Jack popped out on her hip, like he’d always been there. Then she had the next two, and she was a mother of three. There was no adjustment period, she just did it. How had it been so easy for her? Claire had barely gotten to the first step of creating that life and it had all fallen apart.

“We’re going to have a party,” Lainie said one night. She was walking around the room, gathering all of the toys and shoes and socks that had been thrown around during the day. She picked it all up in her arms and then dumped it in the bin in the corner of the room.

Lainie loved having parties and used any excuse to do so. Claire suspected that she loved having everyone come to her, but no one minded because Lainie always threw a good party.

“Yeah, doesn’t that seem like a good idea?” Brian asked Claire. “Lainie just put a banana peel into the toy box and she wants to have a hundred people over here this weekend.”

“I didn’t put a—oh, wait. Yes, I did,” Lainie said as she pulled a banana peel out from the toys. “Why didn’t you tell me? Anyway, it’s not going to be a hundred people.” She turned to roll her eyes and shake her head at Brian. “Just a party for fall, one last time to barbecue before it’s too cold. Plus, Claire’s back, so we should celebrate that. We have to have a party.”

“Sounds like fun,” Claire said. It was her last day babysitting for the boys. The nanny had returned earlier in the week and was coming back to work. (“Thank God,” Brian had said. “I had this feeling she was never coming back to the country.”) Claire would be starting work soon anyway. Amanda had called to tell her that if she didn’t go into labor this week, they’d be inducing her on Monday.

“Do you want to come take a class tomorrow?” Lainie asked. She was always trying to get Claire to the studio, trying to convert her to the world of Pilates. But Claire was hesitant—the machines frightened her. Still, she agreed since she had nothing else to do.

AT THE PILATES STUDIO, LAINIE WAS treated like a celebrity. She introduced all the women to Claire as though they were her close friends. “This is Barbara and this is Joanie. I’m so glad you are getting a chance to meet!” She acted like these middle-aged women with fallen stomachs and wiggly arms were the same age she was, just a bunch of gal pals getting ready to work out together.

Lainie had started taking Pilates right after Jack was born, and the teacher was so impressed with her that she suggested she do the teacher training. “But you’ve been going to the classes for like two months,” Claire remembered saying to her.

“I know, it’s crazy,” was Lainie’s response.

And it was crazy, how Lainie stumbled onto this career. She’d never done well in school, which Claire thought was mostly because she never wanted to sit down long enough to study or do homework. She rushed through everything, scribbling down answers to tests, knowing that they were probably wrong. It was like she was just trying to get on to the next thing. She was never bothered by her grades; she’d just look at her B’s and C’s and nod, like Yep, that’s about what I expected.

But at the studio, Lainie excelled. She quickly became one of the most popular teachers there. Her classes were always full, and they kept adding more to her schedule. One day, a student of hers approached her and asked if she’d ever thought about starting her own studio. “I’d back you,” the woman said. “I’ll be an investor. I know you’d be wildly successful.”

And she had been. Lainie always called that woman her Fairy Godmother, which seemed perfect to Claire, because at least then Lainie was acknowledging that she was living in a fairy tale. Two years later, a large portion of the studio’s mortgage had been paid off, Lainie had hired three other teachers, and the place was thriving.

Claire was always amazed when she went to the studio. Amazed at the way these women flocked there, not for Pilates, but for Lainie. They seemed to think that if they remained devoted, they would one day turn into her. There were loads of women in their thirties who had just had children and believed that Lainie could save them, could get them back to the body they used to have. They’d look at her and think, Well, she’s had three children, and look at her. All I need to do is some Pilates! They were Lainie’s disciples, her faithful following. They believed.

Claire wanted to pull these women aside and whisper to them, leaning in close to say, “Look, I know you think you can have a stomach like that if you take these classes, that if you do enough Pilates, your arms will look just like hers. But they won’t be. She always looked like that, even before she ever started this, when she never exercised and ate fast food all the time. It’s not real.”

It was like when you were younger and believed that it was just a matter of time before you would become a gymnastics gold medalist, or a Broadway star. But then you got to a certain age, and you realized that the gymnasts at the Olympics were all younger than you, and that you couldn’t sing either; and just like that your visions of being a balance beam superstar or playing Annie onstage were gone.

Claire’s friend Allison, who was extremely flat-chested, once confessed that she’d believed for years that her breasts would grow. “In high school, I just thought I was a late bloomer,” she said. “In college, I just figured it would happen later for me. And now, I’m twenty-nine and I think it’s time to admit that this is it. I’m never going to have boobs.”

People couldn’t help but hope for what they wanted to become—even if it meant deluding themselves. And so Claire felt bad as she watched the parade of women that marched into Lainie’s Wednesday afternoon mat class, their bodies wrapped in expensive, cute spandex outfits, their hair pulled back in ponytails. Claire set herself up in the back corner, and as the class went on, as they all struggled through the exercises, she felt nothing but pity for these sweating women, who lay on their backs and sent their arms flying around, believing that they would be different soon.

THAT SATURDAY, CLAIRE WALKED OVER to Lainie’s to help her get ready for the party. Jack was on the sidewalk, drawing what looked like a monster with chalk, and when he saw her he stood up and said, “My mom’s not going to work today.”

“I know,” Claire said. “I’m here for the party.”

“The party didn’t start yet.”

“I know. I’m here to help. Plus, remember Silvia’s back. I’m not even babysitting you anymore.”

Jack looked at her, like he was trying to figure out if she was lying, if she was really there to babysit him again and just trying to trick him. Finally he nodded at her and went back to his drawing, and Claire walked into the house.

Lainie had invited a random group of people to the barbecue. There were some old friends from high school, her older sisters and their husbands and kids, her younger sisters and their boyfriends, some people that Brian worked with, some women that worked at the studio. Claire was enjoying this randomness, and was talking to a woman named Susan about New York, when the front door opened and Fran Angelo walked in wearing a Phillies T-shirt with a hole in the collar, and an old, faded Eagles hat, like he was an ad for Philly sports fans.

Fran was a friend of Brian’s in high school, but she hadn’t seen him in years. Probably not since she moved to New York. Was it possible that it was that long? She was trying to figure it out, thinking that he actually didn’t look all that different—a little older, sure, and maybe worn down, but no, not that different—when he took his hat off, pushed his hair back and then replaced it, and Claire realized that she was staring and looked away.

He had been a handsome teenager—the kind of boy everyone was in love with. His full name was Frances John Callaghan, and it said a lot that he was never, not once, teased for having a girl’s name. All through high school, Fran had dip in his mouth and a bored look on his face. He was tall, well over six feet, and had dark brown hair that was just long enough to tuck behind his ears.

Susan was still talking, but Claire had lost track of their conversation, and nodded energetically to make up for it. She was no longer staring right at Fran, but was tracking his movements from the corner of her eye, and watched him walk through the front hall and out the door to the backyard. Claire excused herself from Susan, and went upstairs to use the bathroom. She closed the door behind her and let out a breath that she’d been holding. She shook her head, telling herself that she was being really pathetic acting like this, getting all nervous just seeing a boy she used to like about a million years ago.

Claire and Fran had made out just once, during a party at their friend Brad’s house. She never really knew why Fran decided to pursue her that night. Maybe he knew that she had a crush on him, maybe she was the only girl there that hadn’t fooled around with him yet, or maybe he just didn’t feel like trying very hard. Whatever the reason, as soon as she got to the party that night, he’d called her name and waved her over to the couch where he was sitting, then pulled her down onto his lap. He put his arm around her waist, and used his other hand to hold the can he was spitting his dip into. Claire tried to suck in her stomach, tried to make herself lighter so that she wasn’t putting all of her weight on him, which just resulted in her body’s being completely stiff.

“Relax, babe,” he’d said.

They sat like that for a while, and Claire drank a beer, wishing to be drunk so she wouldn’t have to track every movement that she made, be aware of every single breath. They didn’t talk much, although she kept bringing up different topics, like where Brad’s parents were, and how he’d moved all the breakable things upstairs. Fran seemed bored, she remembered, just watching everyone at the party like he was waiting for something good to happen. That was the main difference between them, really. Claire was always excited to be at a party, and if it turned out to be fun, that was just a bonus. There was always the promise of a great night, always the chance that something good could happen, and so she was often visibly enthusiastic. Fran, on the other hand, looked like he’d done this a million times before, like high school was so boring to him he couldn’t even stand it, and like he had very little hope that anything truly exciting would happen.

Finally that night, Fran had squeezed her leg and said, “Come on.” They stood up and he led her out of the room and up the stairs, like he knew just where to go. Claire let herself follow behind him, holding his hand, and thinking, This is really happening right now.

His mouth tasted like cinnamon gum and tobacco, and she kept rubbing her hands on his face and through his hair. They basically just kissed—well, and she took her shirt off, which she confessed only to Lainie—and when the whole thing was over, Claire wondered if it had really happened.

The events of that night just made her crush grow, and for the rest of high school, she liked him so much that she found it nearly impossible to talk to him or be around him without losing her breath or having her heart beat so loudly that she thought people could see it through her shirt. He also made her sweat, which was the most unfortunate part, although it didn’t really matter, because he never seemed interested in her again.

Claire waited all through high school for something more to happen, or at least for someone to mention it to her. She thought maybe Brian would tease her about it, but he didn’t, which seemed like a bad sign since she figured that maybe Fran had said something bad about her and Brian didn’t want to get involved. Claire would have almost thought she’d made the whole thing up, until the end of senior year, when Brad told her that Fran had made a list of every girl he hooked up with in high school and had given them all grades. “You got a B-minus,” he told her. And Claire felt relieved, of all things, so happy that she was above average, that she hadn’t failed or done anything ridiculous that would have earned her a bad grade.

Claire washed her hands in the bathroom and talked to herself in her head. It was ridiculous, all of it. First of all, where did he get off grading girls? And second, how disgusting was it that she was happy about the grade? She dried her hands on the towel and walked back downstairs and into the kitchen, where Lainie was peeking in the oven.

“Fran Angelo is here,” Claire said. She said it quietly and looked around to make sure no one could hear her.

“Oh, good,” Lainie said. She leaned down and pulled out a tray of mini hot dogs wrapped in dough. “Brian thought it was dumb to make pigs in a blanket, since we have hot dogs for the grill too, but I told him he was crazy.”

“You never told me he was coming,” Claire said. She watched Lainie poke at the little hot dogs and start taking them off the cookie sheet with a spatula.

“So? What’s the big deal?”

“Nothing. I just haven’t seen him in forever.”

“Oh, yeah. Well, Brian’s been seeing a lot of him lately.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. And anyway, I thought you’d be happy to see him. You were the one that was obsessed with him.”

“Lainie, shhh. I wasn’t obsessed with him. I just, you know.”

“Yes, I do know. You were obsessed with him.” Lainie smiled and popped a hot dog in her mouth.

“Shut up. Anyway, he was such a jerk.”

“No, he wasn’t.”

“Yes, he was. Remember he graded me? He graded everyone?”

“Oh my God, Claire. That was like a million years ago.”

“Still.”

Claire found it fascinating how Lainie could distance herself so much from high school when she was married to her high school boyfriend. Did she really not care about any of that stuff? Because Claire felt each memory freshly, like it had happened just the week before, like it was still happening twelve years later.

“You know …,” Lainie said. Now she was the one to look around and lower her voice. “He was engaged to this girl, Liz. She broke it off a couple of months ago and now he’s living back at his parents’ house.”

Lainie finished arranging the hot dogs on a tray and filled some little dishes with ketchup and mustard. “Are you coming?” she asked.

“I’ll be right out,” Claire said. She poured herself a glass of water and drank it down all at once. So she was in the same position as Fran Angelo. She’d gone to a good college, and he’d gone to some random small state school. She’d moved to New York and gotten a good job, and then what did you know? None of it mattered. She and Fran Angelo were basically living parallel lives, tied in the exact same place in their lives. Well, wasn’t that just a pickle?

CLAIRE WASN’T AT ALL SURPRISED to learn that Fran Angelo still made her sweat. She walked outside and waved to him from across the lawn, and he smiled and waved back, so she walked over to him. They stood for a while, each of them holding a bottle of beer, and then they moved over to some lawn chairs that were a little bit out of the center of the party, and conveniently located next to the cooler. Claire watched as the table next to them filled up with their empty beer bottles, two at a time.

Maybe it was because she knew Fran’s situation, or maybe it was because she was getting drunk in the afternoon, but Claire felt free to share. It didn’t take long before she was telling Fran about Doug and the apartment and moving home. He’d nodded and then told his story. And before long, the two of them were deep in conversation, cutting each other off to tell the details of their own broken engagement.

“She kept the ring,” Fran told her. When he said this, it almost felt like he was sharing too much, but Claire didn’t care. She was fascinated.

“Did you ask for it back?” Claire asked.

“No,” Fran said. “That would’ve been a dick move. But she should have given it back anyway, you know?”

“I wonder why she wanted it.”

“Because she’s a bitch.” Fran was drunk now, and honest and angry, and Claire didn’t judge him one bit for it. They sat together and drank more beer, watching the party from the sidelines as it got dark outside, their own little angry team.

AFTER EVERYONE LEFT, CLAIRE SAT on the porch with Lainie and Brian, having a glass of wine and discussing Fran and the whole situation. Brian called Fran’s fiancée a bitch, and Lainie interrupted.

“You can’t just call her that because she broke up with him, like that’s the end of it. There’s a whole other huge part to the story.” Lainie’s teeth and lips were a little purple and she was speaking loudly.

“What am I leaving out?” Brian asked. He leaned back in his chair and lit a cigarette.

“Well, first of all, you know I love Fran and I’m on his side, but it’s not like he was the best boyfriend. He went out all the time.”

“Going out isn’t a reason to break up with someone.”

“Brian, come on. She told me once that he sometimes didn’t come home, and yeah, maybe he just got drunk somewhere and passed out, but maybe not. Who knows where he was? I’m not so sure he didn’t cheat on her.”

“What makes you think that?” Brian asked.

“Are you serious? Remember last Fourth of July? We were at the parade and then we went out with them after, and he was with that random girl at the bar?”

“So? Sometimes guys talk to girls in a bar. It doesn’t mean they’re cheating.”

“He was sitting there with his hand on her thigh. I’m just saying, you don’t sit there and put your hand on some other girl’s thigh, do you?”

“No, Lainie. I don’t. And I wouldn’t. But he did, and we don’t know what else happened. Maybe nothing.”

“Claire, wouldn’t that piss you off?” Lainie asked. “Wouldn’t that be totally out of line if someone you were engaged to did that?”

“Yeah,” Claire said. “I mean, I guess so.”

Lainie nodded and sat back in her chair and took a sip of wine. She looked satisfied that she had finally convinced them of something.

THAT NIGHT, CLAIRE HAD TROUBLE sleeping. She was a little drunk, and had been out in the sun and eaten too many little hot dogs and received too much disturbing information. The hot dogs and stories were swimming around in her head and threatening to make her sick.

The year she was in third grade, she had developed insomnia for no apparent reason. She would just lie awake at night, wondering and worrying why she couldn’t sleep. She’d read sometimes, and made her way through the Baby-Sitters Club books, one right after the other. “Don’t worry about sleeping,” Weezy always used to tell her. “Just lay there. Resting is just as good as sleeping.” The problem went away one day, just as quickly as it had appeared, but whenever Claire couldn’t sleep she always thought of Weezy’s advice: “Resting is just as good as sleeping.” (Which was total bullshit, by the way.)

Figuring she was less likely to get sick if she was sitting up, Claire finally got up from her bed and started looking through her dresser drawers. They were all still stuffed full of random things—a couple of the old Baby-Sitters Club books, collages made from magazines, notes from Lainie, a couple of games of MASH, and tons of those fortuneteller things, made by folding paper and filling them with predictions from the future.

It was around sixth grade when she and Lainie became obsessed with telling the future. They played games to find out what their professions would be, used a Magic 8 Ball, a Ouija board, whatever they could find. They never pulled a top off of a Coke can or the stem off an apple without believing that it would tell them the initial of their future husbands. Even now, sometimes, Claire would find herself twisting an apple stem around, silently saying the alphabet, waiting for the letter when it would fall off. It was funny to think of it now, the way they thought these things would just happen to them. You’ll be a Lawyer and Live in a Mansion and marry Michael Kelly! When did they start realizing that there was more to it than that?

Farther down in the drawer, Claire found a couple of mix tapes with titles like Claire’s Driving Songs and Spring Fling Mix. She wondered briefly what high school kids did these days instead of making mix tapes for each other. Did they trade playlists on their iPods? That seemed so boring and sad. They’d have nothing to show for their years in high school.

Claire sorted through all this stuff, and she thought about Fran and his ex-fiancée’s ring. She’d given her own ring back to Doug when things were final, handed it over to him and said, “Here,” like she was giving him a pen that he’d asked for. He didn’t insist that she keep it, and at the time she wasn’t sorry to see it go.

But now, she kind of wished that she’d kept it, just so she could hold the ugly thing between her fingers and know that she hadn’t made the whole thing up, that it had actually happened. She had all this shit in her room, all these pieces of paper with sixth-grade fortunes written on them, all these tapes in their plastic cases that were proof that her life had happened. But for Doug? For Doug she didn’t really have anything. Not even a stupid, dull ring.