to see whatever Pamela has to show her. She’s already in too deep, so deep that she had to confide in Carson, which was risky. Telling Carson did lighten Willa’s emotional load a little, and when Carson said she had no friends to tell, she wasn’t lying. Carson is a lone wolf. Willa is sure she has friends at the Oystercatcher and guys she meets at the Box, but she isn’t going to tell any of them about Pamela and Zach Bridgeman’s marital discord.
Everyone is so self-absorbed that it’s nearly impossible to find someone who can be fully invested in your problems. That has been Willa’s experience with the miscarriages. After the first one, people were sympathetic—but everyone wanted to hurry Willa along to “You can just try again,” rather than sit with her in the pain and the loss.
Except Rip.
And Vivi.
“Willa?” Pamela says.
“What?” Willa says. She yanks herself up out of the rabbit hole. “Um…okay, yeah.”
“You’ll come? Right now?”
“Yes,” Willa says. She will be invested in Pamela, she decides. She will go, right now.
Willa doesn’t have time to waste, however. She walks into the Bridgeman house on Gray Avenue and expects to see Pamela waiting, but the first floor is deserted.
“I’m here!” Willa calls out. “And I need to be back in my car in ten minutes!”
There’s no answer, and Willa is tempted to leave. This is so like her sister-in-law—impose on another person’s schedule, then make her wait. Willa knows that Pamela is this inconsiderate (and worse!) with Zach.
“Pamela!” Willa calls out. She hears footsteps upstairs; she thinks they’re moving toward the stairs—but no, they’re moving away. “Okay, I’m going to work, then. Call me later!” Willa manages to keep the annoyance out of her voice, but she’s miffed. She thinks longingly of pedaling past the turtle pond where Vivi used to take Willa and Carson and Leo when they were little kids. Vivi would patiently tie string around pieces of raw chicken and help them cast the lines across the surface of the water.
“Willa?” Pamela says. “Is that you?”
“Yes!”
“Be right down!” Pamela draws out the word right, letting Willa know that she won’t be right down. Willa hears a clock ticking in her head as she studies the family portraits on the server under the stairs. There are four years represented, photos taken by Laurie Richards at Steps Beach. Pamela, Zach, Peter. They look happy, is the thing. Pamela is actually smiling. Pamela and Zach are holding hands in a photo of just the two of them. Looking at these pictures makes Willa think of family dinners, weekly game nights, driving lessons in school parking lots, and Christmas mornings, not of a troubled kid at school and a husband who’s sleeping around.
Pamela finally descends the stairs. Her feet are bare, her hair is wet, she’s wearing a turquoise linen shift with a statement necklace (oversize wooden beads on a string that looks like a bigger version of something Peter might have made at the Children’s House), and she’s clutching something red in her hand.
She holds it out to Willa. “I found this in the laundry.”
“This” is a red lace thong. Willa has to fight to keep her morning tea down. She was right—she doesn’t want to see this, some other woman’s skanky underwear. At least they’ve been through the wash, Willa thinks.
“I take it those aren’t yours?” Willa asks.
“Uh, no. Does this look like something I’d wear?”
Definitely not, Willa wants to say—but that might be insulting. And the truth is, no one can tell what kind of underwear a person wears, just like no one can tell what’s lurking beneath a seemingly happy family portrait.
“They’re Hanky Panky,” Willa says without thinking. Despite her revulsion, she lifts the thong from Pamela’s palm.
“How can you tell? There’s no tag. Do you wear underwear like this?” Her voice sounds accusatory and also incredulous.
“No,” Willa says. She nearly adds, My sister does, but she stops herself. Pamela is right; the tag has been cut out, leaving a hole the size of a dime. A wave of nausea rolls over Willa; there’s no avoiding it. She races for the powder room right there in the hall and vomits.
When she emerges, Pamela opens her arms for a hug. “You poor thing. I made myself forget you’re pregnant so I don’t slip and tell someone.”
“It’s fine,” Willa says. The thong is lying on the server at the base of the most recent family portrait. What a juxtaposition.