On Thursday morning, thirty hours before Karen was due to jet off with Clay Phipps for a romantic weekend in an unknown location, Ruby woke up with a cold. It wasn’t a particularly dramatic cold, but Ruby made a big production out of being “ill,” as she called it, and she had a temperature of 99.9. Karen didn’t consider it a real fever, but Ruby did and begged to stay home from school. And Karen eventually relented, even though it meant her missing a day of work. But Karen figured she could make up for her absence by going into the office on Friday morning instead.
Besides, a part of her welcomed the opportunity to play nursemaid. It was a role that, while mindless, was also clear-cut. And there was pleasure to be had in knowing what was expected and then fulfilling those expectations. There was also no denying that motherhood, even if it wasn’t necessarily enjoyable on a moment-by-moment basis, could make a woman feel necessary and therefore important and powerful in her own right. Plus, Karen and Ruby’s day together, with each in her assigned role, promised to absolve Karen of at least some of the guilt she felt about abandoning her sick child for the weekend so she could spend time with a man who wasn’t her daughter’s father.
But it’s only a cold, Karen attempted to assure herself as she lay sleepless in her bed that night, wondering what to do. And didn’t she deserve the occasional respite from the grind? Earlier that evening, Clay had sent Karen another text saying that his driver would be waiting outside her office at two o’clock the following day—and that he couldn’t wait to see her, couldn’t wait to kiss her all over.
She’d replied, Me 2, you dirty old man. As if it were all fun and games. But was she really prepared to play along?
Glancing at Matt, who lay next to her, lightly snoring and oblivious, Karen tried to feel guilty about lying to him. Never mind cheating on him. Yet she found she couldn’t summon the appropriate emotion. Her resentment at what she perceived to be his fundamental selfishness overrode it. Or was she lying to herself?
To Karen’s relief, the next morning, Ruby announced that she was feeling a little better. While she slurped away at a bowl of Cheerios and Matt slept, Karen went to pack. Staring into her closet in search of clothes for her tropical getaway, she again felt like Cinderella, only this time before the royal ball and as if thwarted in her destiny by her failure to own a ball gown and slippers—or, in Karen’s case, any halfway-decent-looking sundresses, sandals, tank tops, skirts, or shorts. Not having to obsess about her appearance had once seemed to Karen to be among the great perks of marriage. Now she wondered what she’d been missing. She also wondered if she’d have time on her lunch hour to sneak out and go clothes shopping. But then she risked Matt seeing the credit card bill and growing suspicious of the timing and peeved by the outlay. They were supposed to be saving for their own vacation.
They were supposed to be a happy family too. And they were—sort of. At school drop-off that morning, Karen hugged Ruby extra tight.
“When are you coming home?” Ruby asked her just inside the front doors.
“I’ll be back in a few days—I promise,” said Karen.
“Where are you going? I forget.”
“Miami,” she heard herself lying yet again. “Will you be a good girl for Daddy while I’m away?”
“Yes,” said Ruby. “But I don’t want you to go.”
As Karen pulled her daughter toward her, her heart lurched. “Me too,” she said with a gulp and wet eyes. And a part of her meant it.
Another part felt inexorably drawn to the abyss. Besides, it was only three days. “I’ll be back soon,” she told her again.
“You promise?” asked Ruby.
“I promise,” said Karen. “I love you so so so so so so so much.” After kissing Ruby a final time, she turned her around and sent her down the hall toward her classroom.
Karen was about to exit the building when a new idea popped into her head. Maybe she could take a short-term loan from the petty-cash box in the PTA office—just enough to buy a new pair of sandals and a cute top. Surely a working mother deserved a new outfit every now and then. And if there was some money left over for a new bathing suit whose nylon bottom wasn’t sagging nearly down to her knees, like her old black maillot’s was, so much the better. She didn’t even need five hundred dollars; four would probably do the trick. To her knowledge, no one even kept track of how much cash was in there.
Karen turned around and, at a brisk clip, started back down the hall. With the key she now kept on her regular chain, she let herself into the PTA office and closed the door. The last she’d seen it, the petty-cash box was in the second drawer down. Karen pulled it open.
At first, she saw nothing but the ledger, checkbook, and a few boxes of ballpoint pens. After ten seconds of rapid sifting, she found the petty-cash box obscured behind a couple of old announcements about a pie sale. She removed its dark wooden lid and quickly counted out three hundred and fifty dollars. It wasn’t as much as she’d hoped for. But it was still money. She was transferring the cash into her wallet and preparing to leave when a pair of brand-new taupe-and-white-snakeskin stilettos in an open white shoe box perched on top of the file cabinet caught her eye.
Given the fact that the shoes were still attached to each other with a plastic string, Karen assumed they were unsold goods left over from the school auction. She wondered what would happen to them and who, if anyone, they belonged to. She also found herself wondering if they’d fit and if she could even walk in heels that high. She didn’t see the harm in trying. It wasn’t as if they were doing anyone any good sitting up there. Karen took the box down from the top of the file cabinet, removed the stilettos, and ran her hand across their rough stippled leather. Had they really been constructed from the remains of a snake—a python even? The thought both fascinated and repulsed her. After she noted the number 38 printed on the inside of one shoe—it was her size too; a happy coincidence?—it seemed like fate that she should have them.