from Isabelle and for a moment I think she’s going to cancel on me, that she’s got cold feet, and I’m already annoyed because I spent all week designing the menu: baked oysters and cheese puffs for entrées; venison Wellington with scalloped potatoes and cremini mushrooms in a cream and rosemary sauce; chocolate brownies which I stayed up until midnight last night to bake, to be served with mascarpone cream plus a dash of Grand Marnier for the adults; and I left work early yesterday so I could shop for it all and still have time to cook dinner for my family.
I call her back, the phone wedged in the crook of my neck, one hand holding my satchel open, the other shoving a bunch of papers inside.
“We’re still on for dinner tonight?” she asks. She sounds so sweet, so eager.
A bell rings and students pour into the corridor from various directions, out of one class and into another. Sorry Mrs. S, they mutter as they bump into me.
I picture the necklace and feel my pulse quicken. I decide to sound forgetful, because I can’t help myself. “Dinner. Tonight.”
“You don’t remember?”
“Oh, yes. Of course I do.”
There’s a pause. “Anna, it’s okay if you want to change plans…” Suddenly I think maybe I was too convincing, while another part of me—I am made of many parts—is thinking, Yes, please. I’m so tired. How about we do it another day and I’ll just go home and put everything in the freezer and curl up in bed and tell Luis I’m sick, and can he please deal with the kids and empty the dishwasher.
But I rally.
“No, of course not! There’s a lot going on here and my brain is like a sieve. I’m really looking forward to it.” I reel off the address and she says Luis already gave it to her, and can she bring something?
“Nothing at all, just you,” I say.
“Okay, I’ll bring some wine then. I’ll see you tonight.”
The upside of this, is that when Mila turns up to my office, tapping her watch, telling me she’s been waiting for me and did I bring my notes? I get to apologize profusely and tell her I’d completely forgotten.
“Brain like a sieve, I swear.”
I buy flowers on the way home, a bunch of cellophane-wrapped white lilies to cheer myself up. I’m so tired my feet are shuffling instead of walking. It’s going to be a long night.
Twenty-Two
I’ve put the flowers in a vase and I’m running an eye over the living room, checking every detail like a forensic scientist at a murder scene. I want everything to look perfect. I want everything to look happy. This is a happy home, I tell myself as I plump up cushions and wipe a wine stain from the glass coffee table. In the kitchen the surfaces are gleaming and still I run a cloth over them. Sometimes I go to other people’s houses and the first thing I see is the dirt crusted in the corners of the window frames or spots of tomato sauce on the splash-back behind the stove, and I have to fight the urge to pick up a sponge and scrub the place.
I’ve already made the cheese puffs, so they just need to be warmed up. The venison is cooking gently on one shelf in the oven, and I’m getting the potatoes and mushroom dish ready to put on the other oven shelf when the doorbell rings. Isabelle isn’t due for another forty minutes so it can’t be her, which is just as well because I am not ready. I’ve done my hair but I still have to do my make-up. I bought a contouring kit—completely unlike me, my make-up kit consists of one tube of mascara and one tube of lipstick. It goes without saying I’ve never used a kit before, but I checked out a couple YouTube videos on how to make your cheekbones higher and your eyes wider and your chin more defined, and your face more desirable, generally speaking.
I wipe my hands on the tea-towel, and for a crazy moment I think maybe it’s Geoff, that he has come to my house to… no. I’m going insane. Of course it’s not Geoff. Still, when Carla bounds down the stairs I put my arm out to stop her while I peer around the blinds.
But it is Isabelle after all, and I’m strangely disappointed. I would almost have preferred if it was Geoff, or Ryan even; anyone but