“Okay, okay,” Joanna answered reluctantly, wondering if Catherine and this Robert guy were dating. She’d never considered the idea of her mother having a boyfriend before.
After she hung up, she walked around the house, antsy yet aimless. Her unopened boxes mocked her, a thin layer of dust on each. The packing tape that sealed them shut was beginning to peel away from the cardboard. What did Joanna own that she wasn’t using? What if she opened a box and found something unexpected inside, something that had been wiped from her identity? Something that reminded her, maybe, of how wonderful her life used to be? Only, had it been?
A few photo albums had been unpacked and were now sitting on a bookshelf. Joanna pulled them down and sat on the couch with the stack in her lap. The spine cracked as she opened the first page of the wedding book. There they were, Joanna in her silk sheath dress that now hung in plastic in the upstairs closet, Charles in a tuxedo with his hair pushed back off his face. They stood in the gazebo in Roderick’s backyard, white flowers all around them.
He looked happy, and so did she. Except for that one shaky moment where Joanna’s mother ordered her not to screw it up, Joanna really had been happy that day. She picked up the other book that showed photos of moments before their marriage. First were pages and pages of the trip they’d taken to Jamaica before they’d gotten engaged. After a series of shots of the dazzling pool and the thatched-roof tiki huts, there was a picture of Joanna and Charles sitting on a hammock, doodling pictures in the guest journal they’d found in their room. Next was a picture of Charles holding a literal log of marijuana, at least a foot of solidly packed weed. A waiter had procured it for them for a pithily small sum of money, maybe forty or fifty dollars. They’d giggled about how easy it had been to get it, how natural their butler seemed when presenting it to them, how their families, if they knew, would be horrified that they’d done this. Well, Charles’s family. Joanna’s mother would probably ask if she could have some.
“Watch, we’ll end up in a Jamaican prison,” Charles had joked. Back in the real world, he never smoked pot, never even joints that sometimes circulated at parties. But there he did, getting so stoned he could barely move. He was different in Jamaica, not bound to the rules of his life. She was probably different, too.
Next in the album were photos of their first Christmas together, just this past year. They’d been married for three months; Charles’s father hadn’t died yet. They hadn’t moved yet, either; the photos were from Charles’s apartment in the city. She’d gotten him a digital SLR camera, and he’d taken countless photos of her that day, holding up every present she’d received. A copy of the New York Times, symbolizing the weekend subscription he bought her. A running jacket and matching shorts, both pale pink. And then, one of the last photos, lacy black underwear and a matching bra. Her smile was wobbly, not sure if she should take it seriously or not, as she had considered wearing a sports bra under her wedding gown. While other women pranced around their Jamaican resort in string bikinis, thongs up their asses, Joanna wore a two-piece Speedo with thick straps and a very concealing bottom. It wasn’t that she was ashamed of her body; she just wasn’t an exhibitionist. Fancy underwear always made her feel like an actor in a bad play. She thought Charles understood this about her.
But maybe there was an implicit message in the gift. Maybe it signified the kind of woman Charles wanted her to be—a sophisticate who craved fancy undergarments, good-smelling soaps, and French perfume. A woman, say, like Mrs. Cox or Mrs. Batten, like the scores of ladies at La Marquette. Made-up even to do their weekly shopping. Preened even when drinking coffee. Not a shoelace untied, not a lash unpainted. Someone who would know how to dress for a dinner party. Someone who would wear a bikini without feeling self-conscious. Someone like Bronwyn.
Was that when things had begun to falter? When Charles had given her that underwear? And was that what was happening—were they faltering? She pressed a hand to her forehead. She was forever trying to define things these days. What had seemed so solid before was now so unclear.