Mrs. Perfect

“Noooooo.”

“I heard about it on the Internet. This lady in Texas started it, and all we have to do is read the book, wear a tiara, and dress in pink and leopard skin.”

My jaw must have smacked the ground four times while Lucy was talking. “Lucy Wellsley, you’ve lost your mind.”

“There’d be no diet foods,” she continues cheerfully, “just good food, and no negativity.”

“Perhaps,” I say grudgingly, as I’m not ready for another book group, but I like seeing Lucy happy like this. “Do you still love Pete?” I ask abruptly. I don’t know why I ask the question or where it comes from, but I suddenly need to know.

She clasps her coffee and thinks a long moment. “We made three kids together, so part of me thinks I should love him, but I don’t like him. He’s been so ugly. It’s not just that he’s going after custody, but the things he says . . . I’m not a fit mother, that I’m a bad person, a bad woman . . . it’s so unnecessary. It’s as if he can’t help hitting below the belt, over and over. I can handle a lot, but the constant attacks wear me out.”

A shadow passes and then stops. Lucy breaks off, and we look up to see Monica standing directly in front of us with the PTA dad almost right against her side.

“Oh!” Monica exclaims, flushing. She takes a swift, self-conscious step away from the PTA dad. “I didn’t know you two were here.”

“We saw you when we came in but didn’t want to bother you,” Lucy answers.

“We were just having a meeting.” Monica takes yet another step back. “Taylor, Lucy, do you remember Leon Baker? He and his wife moved here from Philadelphia over the summer. Leon’s organizing the Fun Day with me this year.”

“Yes, I do remember you, Leon. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Lucy extends her hand. “I’m Lucy Wellsley, my younger two children attend Points Elementary. My older son is a seventh grader at Chinook.”

“Nice to meet you.” Leon shakes hands with Lucy, then turns to me. “And I remember you from Back-to-School Night. You gave one of the welcome speeches.”

“I did, yes.”

“You’re the auction chair, right?”

“I am, and at this point I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or bad thing. My auction co-chair is moving.”

Monica claps her hand to her head. “Patti’s party. I forgot. We were so busy talking about our ideas for Fun Day that I totally forgot to stop by the Belosis’.”

“I better run,” Leon announces. “I’ve got to get home to the wife and kids. We’re seeing Santa tonight. He’s apparently arrived here at the mall.” He lifts a hand in farewell. “It was nice to meet you. Monica, I’ll be in touch.” Then he’s gone.

Monica watches him leave for a moment before turning back to us. “So . . .” She struggles to smile, but she looks almost bereft. “How are things?”

“Fine,” Lucy and I answer simultaneously. Monica nods, and it’s awkward at best.

“Well, happy Thanksgiving,” she says.

“Happy Thanksgiving,” I answer, with Lucy chiming more or less the same. Monica leaves, and Lucy and I get up to go, too. As I dash through the rain to my car, I reach into my purse for my keys and my phone. Must call Patti. Must make sure she’ll stop by or meet me for coffee in the morning before she leaves.

Patti swings by the Yarrow Point house Sunday morning en route to the airport, with her kids and a tray of lattes and bag of warm, freshly baked bagels. “I got your message,” she says after I’ve introduced her to Mom and Ray and her kids disappear with mine to the now empty bonus room. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t at the Belosis’ when you arrived. But you know I’d never leave without seeing you first.”

I’ve been pretty damn stoic about her move until now, but suddenly I can’t do it. I can’t let her go. Tears fill my eyes, and I just look at her, shake my head. “Don’t go.”

“Taylor!” Tears fill Patti’s eyes, and she’s suddenly hugging me. “I can’t believe I have to leave you like this. Your life has gone to shit.”

I’m crying and laughing against her. “It sucks. It’s a nightmare.”

“You’ll get through it.”

“I know.” I step back, wipe my eyes on the back of my wrist. “Maybe that’s the part that makes me the craziest. I know I’ll survive. I’ve been through too much.”

“What’s the saying? That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger?”

We laugh some more and sit with our coffee on the staircase and talk about everything and nothing for a half hour until she has to go.

When we say good-bye this time, there are no tears. She’s my friend. I love her. I’ll miss her. But as women, we do what we have to do.

Mom and Ray leave Sunday afternoon. They have a 770-mile drive back to Santa Rosa. I had hoped they’d leave earlier, but Mom refused to go until all the boxes were out of the house and everything at the new house looked like home.

The kids hug Mom and Ray good-bye, and then I walk them out to their truck. “Thank you,” I say again. “There’s no way I could have done this without you.”

“Happy to help,” Ray answers, climbing into the truck.

Mom stands facing me. I look at her for what seems like forever. I haven’t seen her in a decade. How long will it be until I see her again?

“Sorry it was such a lousy Thanksgiving, Mom.”

She half smiles, her eyes a lighter shade than mine. “It was a good Thanksgiving, Taylor.”

“You had to work hard.”

“I got to see you and the girls.”

“Thank you.”

“Anytime, Taylor. Just pick up the phone.”

I look at her a long time, trying to remember her, trying to remember this. This is a good feeling. No anger, no resentment, no bitterness. “Drive safely,” I whisper.

Her eyes search mine. “We will.” Then she swings herself up and into the passenger side of the truck.

The girls come running out of the house as Ray starts the truck, and the four of us stand on our little lawn and wave them off while Tori blows kisses.

“I like Grandma,” Tori says wistfully as the truck disappears down the street.

“I like Ray,” Jemma adds.

Brooke grins. “I like Ray’s tattoos.”

It’s a battle getting the girls ready for bed tonight. As I make them take baths in the little bathroom with the hideous tub and sink (I couldn’t paint those), they realize for the first time that we aren’t going back to our house.

The rental house is home now. There’s no going back to the big, beautiful house on the lake. This dark, little house with low ceilings and narrow aluminum windows is where we live.

Wrapped in bathrobes, the girls huddle on my bed, crying as I comb out their long, wet hair.

“It’s only for six months or a year,” I say, trying to cheer them.

“But that was our house, Mom. That was where we lived,” Jemma protests.

“I know,” I murmur, carefully working at a knot in Brooke’s hair.

“Will we ever go back there again?” Brooke asks, wincing as the comb pulls on the knot.

I take the comb out of her hair and try to pull apart the knot with my fingers. “I don’t know.” Finally the knot’s out and all the girls’ hair is tangle-free. “Let’s try not to think about that house, not if it makes us sad.”

Brooke turns to look at me. “Does it make you sad?”

I look at their free, young faces. God, they’re still so young. “Yes, if I were to think about it too much. So I try to think about other things instead.”

“Like what?” Tori asks, scooting closer to me so she can claim my lap.

“This house,” I say.

“Ick,” Jemma answers, curling her lip.

“And Christmas in this house,” I continue. “And how the mantel on the fireplace is big so we won’t have any trouble hanging your stockings.”

Jemma’s still not happy. “But what about when Christmas is over?”

I shrug. “

I’ll think of something else then. Something nice to think about, something that makes me feel good.”

“Like what?” she insists.

Struggling to think of something on demand, I look around the room, at the odd putty color I painted the walls in here. The color wasn’t supposed to be putty, it was supposed to be a toasty taupe, but for some reason it didn’t turn out that way. “Well, look at these walls. They remind me of graham crackers—”

“Gingerbread!” Brooke cries.

“Gingerbread, yes, that’s even better,” I agree. “We’re now living in a little gingerbread house. And if we tell ourselves it’s fun, and if we make it interesting, then living here will be fun and not sad.”

“But it is sad,” Jemma says with a shake of her head. “It is, Mom. We don’t have any of our furniture anymore. We can’t have most of our toys. We only have two TVs—”

“We didn’t need all the TVs,” I interrupt.

“Still. I don’t like it. I don’t like not having our own house. I don’t like knowing we have to move again at the end of the school year. I don’t like knowing we can’t have people over—”

“Now that’s just silly. Of course we can have people over. Our friends don’t care if we have a big house or not.” I pause and see the way Jemma’s looking at me, so I hurry on. “And our friends will like coming here for dinner. In summertime we can still barbecue.”

“But how can we barbecue without Dad?” Tori asks.

The girls all look at me and wait for my answer. I wait, struggling to come up with a good answer.