Entering her bedroom, Karen glimpsed a sheet of bubble wrap poking out from under her bed—evidence of her latest online purchase, whatever it had been. In truth, she could no longer remember. By the time one of her many purchases arrived, Karen often didn’t even want whatever it was, or it failed to live up to her expectations, or it didn’t look like it had in the picture, or she’d find herself focusing all her energy and regret on the unnecessary amount of packing materials that had been used or the amount of money she’d spent that she shouldn’t have. Although she was capable of paying hundreds of dollars for a single-boiler espresso machine from Italy, Karen had a deeply ingrained cheap streak as well, which caused her to do things like go to the library and photocopy the crossword puzzle from the Sunday paper rather than pay for a subscription.
Karen lifted the bubble wrap off the floor, then sat down on her bed and began systematically to squish, row by row by row, every last pocket of air, as if, with the eradication of oxygen from that particular sheet of plastic, she would finally gain control over herself and the world. For several minutes, she fell into a mental state where no cogent thoughts entered her head, only the sound of pop-pop-pop. While the feeling lasted, it was nearly as blissful as her time in the hotel with Clay had been. But when she finished and the sheet lay flat—and then so did Karen—she felt as if the planet were careening off its axis, spinning wildly toward the sun. It was Karen’s impossible job to redirect its path before it crashed and burned. She went to the bathroom for a drink of water and an aspirin and came back. But the room kept spinning; the gods kept laughing. Matt didn’t come to bed till two a.m. Karen pretended to be asleep.
It was just another lie.
But in the morning, there was a small gift awaiting Karen. To her shock, Ruby didn’t complain about going to her new school. Mostly, she just seemed excited about seeing her mother again after a daylong absence. “Mommy Kajami!” she cried at the sight of Karen leaning over her bed.
“Hello, sweetheart—Mommy missed you so much yesterday,” said Karen. Her heart flush with an emotion that fell between love and regret, she brushed the hair off Ruby’s face.
“Me too,” said Ruby.
And after arriving at school, she scurried down the hall toward the staircase that led to her new classroom without further comment.
It was on Karen’s way to work, just as she was approaching the entrance to the train station, that her luck ran out. Walking by at the same moment was Lou. Unable to deal with the disapproval and disappointment that Karen assumed Lou would experience after learning that Karen had taken Ruby out of Betts, Karen had more or less shut out all thoughts of her in the previous week. But there was no avoiding them now. “Lou!” said Karen, for a brief moment entertaining the idea that she could tell her about Clay instead.
“Hey, stranger,” said Lou. “Long time no see.”
“I know—”
“Off to the office?”
“Unfortunately, I am—what about you?”
“I’m going to the dentist, if you must know.”
“I hope it’s nothing bad.”
“Just my lousy mouth with its many cavities.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I have the same lousy mouth.”
“I do feel better,” said Lou. “But what’s going on with Ruby? Zeke says she’s been out all week. Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” said Karen. “Well, it’s actually not fine. My marriage is literally on death row.”
“Whose isn’t?” Lou said with a laugh.
Karen knew she couldn’t keep up the banter indefinitely. “Lou, there’s something I have to tell you,” she began with a scrunched face. “I took Ruby out of Betts.”
“You what?” cried Lou, her eyebrows up near her hairline.
“I just—” Whatever remorse Karen had felt the previous night about sleeping with Clay was easily matched by the contrition she felt standing there. Maybe it was because her marital betrayal was an all-white affair, whereas her school betrayal contained a racial component.
“You just what?” she said again.
“I just got freaked out about Jayyden. That was part of it. He sort of made a threat against Ruby.”
“What kind of threat?”
“He told her he was going to—fuck with her.”
Lou paused to grimace before she spoke. Then she said, “Perhaps you’re unfamiliar with African American vernacular? Fucking with someone means you want to spend time with them.”
“I didn’t know that,” said Karen, staring at her shoes.
“And where is Ruby now?” asked Lou.
Karen motioned behind her. “She’s over there at”—Karen swallowed the final word of her sentence—“Mather.”
“Ah, the school Maeve fled to,” said Lou, reminding them both.
“Yes—except Maeve doesn’t actually talk to Ruby anymore.” But if Karen had thought she could enlist Lou’s sympathies by telling her about how Ruby had been blown off by her former best friend, she was mistaken.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Lou said after a while. But she didn’t sound sorry at all.
Karen couldn’t very well blame her. The silence that followed was as thick as concrete, and it ended only when Karen told Lou, “I’m sorry too—about not telling you sooner.”
“Well, I don’t know what to say,” said Lou. But she thought of one thing: “I guess I thought you were different from them.”
Lou didn’t have to explain who them were. The words were like a fist through Karen’s stomach. “I hope we can still be friends,” she said helplessly.
“Sure, we can still be friends,” said Lou. But in that moment, Karen saw that her and Lou’s friendship, however richly textured, was ultimately one of association. With Betts out of the picture, they no longer had enough in common. They were suddenly two women on a street, one with light skin and one with dark. Since Ruby had decided boys had cooties, Karen didn’t even have the excuse of their kids being close anymore. “Anyway, as I was saying, I have cavities to fill,” Lou went on. But her tone had already changed; now it sounded distant and matter-of-fact.
“Of course,” said Karen. “Bye, Lou.”
“See you,” said Lou. She didn’t even say Karen’s name.
As Karen walked away, she wondered if there was anyone in her life other than Ruby whom she wasn’t in the process of alienating.
By chance, Troy had business in the office that morning. “Oh no,” he said as he passed by her desk.
“How did you know?” she asked.
“One look at those liquid eyes and that quivering lower lip told me everything,” he answered.
“Can I buy you a coffee?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not really.”
“What do I do now?” Karen asked him in line at the Starbucks in the lobby. “Do I tell my husband?”
“If you want to be a single mother, yes,” said Troy. “Otherwise, I advise keeping your mouth shut.”
“But what if I can’t stop thinking about him?”
“Write bad poetry and never show it to anyone. Or listen to Coldplay—that should cure you of feelings…The only thing that guy is good for in the long term is a fat donation to HK before the end of the tax year.”
“Why are you always right?”
“Please. If I had all the answers, I wouldn’t be having a fling with a man whose supposedly affectionate moniker for me is Fatso and who makes me feel bad about myself for not going to the gym every day.”
“Troy, that sounds horrible! You have to get rid of the guy.”
“Just as you must get rid of yours,” he replied.