Stacked neatly next to the diffuser is yesterday’s mail. She shuffles through the envelopes. There’s a credit card bill she would have liked to open. Sometimes she takes them home with her, betting nobody reads them anyway. A statement from the insurance company. And a postcard invitation for a shopping event at a department store where Blair can only browse.
She pulls on the stainless-steel handle of the paneled fridge. Louisa does the groceries on Wednesday evenings. The full shelves are organized by food type and then container size and then expiration date. She takes a green apple from the drawer and has three sour bites. She drops it in the organic wastebin and notices it’s empty—no soggy cereal, no strawberry tops. Like the kids hadn’t eaten that morning at all.
She scans the built-in desk next to the pantry. It is meant as a place for the children to do homework, although she has never seen Xavier sit there. There is a cup of fresh crayons for the twins. She wiggles the computer mouse, and the black screen disappears to a sign-in page. She had regretted the advice the second it left her mouth a few weeks ago.
By the way, are all your screens locked? Do you have parental controls on? They’re at that age now, they could find anything online.
She often mentions things Whitney won’t have thought of. Measures only an attentive mother would take. Whitney doesn’t waste energy worrying about what could go wrong.
She’s disappointed she can’t check the browser history or open Whitney’s personal emails. She likes to see what Whitney keeps separate from the work account her assistant manages. She once found the confirmation for a breast lift Whitney hadn’t told Blair about. But she takes the most pleasure in the exchanges she has with other friends. They are superficial and swiftly written. Those women don’t receive the time and attention that Whitney gives to Blair.
She has been coming here for just over a year, every couple of months. Each time, at the bottom of the stairs, lit from the flat skylight above, she stops to question: What if she is caught? What if someone sees her through one of the many expansive windows and asks Whitney about it later? Mara’s eyes have followed her across the street on several occasions.
She has a bank of answers prepared.
Desperate to pee, locked out of my house.
Thought I’d left my phone in your kitchen yesterday.
Could have sworn I heard your smoke alarm.
All plausible.
She doesn’t always go up to the third floor, where Xavier’s and Sebastian’s rooms are. There’s nothing interesting there, and it rests worst on her conscience to be snooping in a child’s space. But she’s particularly curious today, given the situation this morning. She opens Xavier’s door first. Cool air hits her right away, which is strange. The window is open. She nearly steps in something dark all over the hardwood. Coffee, she can smell it. The splatter covers the back of the door and some of the wall. The white ceramic handle is broken off the mug on the floor. Her nerves accelerate as she imagines what kind of anger sent Whitney’s coffee flying across the room. The duvet and the pillow are on the floor, too, in a heap. There are sheets of paper everywhere, pencil and markers scattered, an empty wallet. Several paper planes are folded and stacked together in a pile on the nightstand. And then something dark catches her eye—a black scribbled mess across the white wall. Paint. Or maybe ink. The room feels eerie now. Like she’s witnessing something she shouldn’t be.
She hates this about her friend, the frustration with her children, although she knows Whitney tries to temper herself around Blair. It’s uncomfortable, the whipping of her voice when she speaks to them, being privy to her frustration. The sourness they’re all left with in her wake. Blair’s own heart races when Xavier or the twins get a little too out of control, as kids are meant to do, the escalation of their energy, the cacophony of voices, a scream and then a cry and then one blames the other—Whitney up, grabbing an arm, pulling a child into another room with a force Blair would never use herself. She doesn’t like the thought of Chloe being around this when she goes over to play; she’s grateful for the buffer of Louisa being there most of the time.
And then, of course, there was what happened at the backyard party in September.
She wonders if she should leave, given the oddness of the morning. But instead, she stops on the second floor at Whitney and Jacob’s bedroom suite. She slides the door open, feeling the wooziness of doing something she shouldn’t.
She runs her fingers along the steel gray grass cloth on the walls. The white linens are tucked at the bottom of the bed with precision, but the spot where Whitney slept is still crumpled. That’s unusual—she’s heard Louisa say she does the bedrooms first thing. She smooths the bottom of the duvet cover and marvels, as she always does, at how buttery it feels. She scans the room, but it’s tidy, nothing else out of place.
In the walk-in closet, the clothing hangs from evenly spaced wooden hangers. Whitney’s wardrobe is too extensive to deduce what she might be wearing that day. Blair feels the ends of the wool jackets and the hems of the structured dresses. The cashmere is folded and stacked, the whites on the shelves like the gradients on a paint chip.
Blair’s favorite thing has slipped from the hanger and is puddled on the floor. A short silk robe with navy floral lace, something she would never think to own. She puts the robe on over her cotton shirt and leggings and ties the belt.
The robe mocks her in the mirror. Whitney has never looked better than she does at forty, despite giving birth to the twins four years ago. She wears clothing that shows off her back, her long lean legs, her smooth and unmarked skin. Blair feels juvenile in comparison. She is freckled in a charmless way. Her arms feel like inflatable swim floaties that need more air. Blair finds it hard to shift her eyes away from Whitney’s perfection when they’re together, especially when Whitney’s head is turned away from her. She’s become expert at consuming her swiftly, thirstily.
She puts the robe back on the hanger.
Jacob’s things are casual, monochrome, unvaried. His shirts line the smaller end of the closet and share space with Whitney’s handbags. She lifts the heavy cotton of his black crewneck to her cheek. She feels more uneasy touching his things than she does Whitney’s. She doesn’t think her attraction to him is inappropriate, considering how most women would feel if they saw Jacob. But she’s most attracted to the things about him that others wouldn’t notice right away. The way his stubble defines his jawline two days after shaving. The subtle dimple, only on his left cheek. That he’s quiet only because he’s a thinker.
There is a rush in the betrayal she feels, both of her husband and of her best friend, as she touches Jacob’s things. She lifts a pair of his white briefs from the drawer and pictures him getting hard, filling out the slouched pocket of Lycra. The bit of dampness he would excrete on the fabric. Her eyes fall to the pretty wicker basket meant for dirty clothes. But Louisa has already done the laundry.
She opens the top drawer on Whitney’s side of the closet. Her bras are structured and fresh. The shapes are still intact, the elastic straps still taut. She puts her hand on one of the firm cups, as though she’s holding Whitney’s breast.
In the second drawer, each pair of panties is folded into tiny squares and arranged like a box of chocolates. They are black and silk. Blair thinks of the pair she is wearing now under her own leggings. Pilled, once white.
She puts her hand toward the back of the third drawer, past the expensive scarves and pantyhose. She pulls out the soft blue shoe bag with two vibrators inside. One is small and red and firm and turns on with one click, the other malleable with various speeds and frequencies. She lifts each one from the bag to her nose. Sometimes the scent of Whitney lingers on the velvety-smooth rubber. Sometimes it’s the rosemary soap in the master bathroom.