Stephen and Oliver argued through dinner, fought as they all watched a movie, finally quieted down for a story, and took some parting shots at each other while they lay in their beds, Selena lying on the floor between them.
“Boys, be nice to each other,” she whispered in the night-light-dim room. On the ceiling, stars glowed green. She remembered sticking them up there with Graham. It took forever, both of them with aching arms and backs the next day. “Love each other.”
“Ew,” said Oliver.
“Shut up,” said Stephen.
“I’m one second from leaving this room,” warned Selena. They both quieted down at that, Oliver with a huff, turning his back. She felt the heat of Stephen’s stare. When he was smaller, he would watch her until his eyes closed finally for sleep.
The hard floor felt good on her aching back. The day had been brutal. It required herculean effort to pretend that everything was okay when your whole life was about to fall apart. The energy that it took to smile, to talk with clients, to put on the mask of normal; she was drained, cored out from the effort. Her networking lunch—all idle chatter and polite laughter and immobile botox faces, and designer handbags worn like shields—just about did her in. She’d left with a pounding headache.
“You okay?” asked Beth in the cab afterward.
Did she not seem okay? She really thought she was putting on a good front.
“Fine,” she lied. “Great.”
Selena hadn’t been sure what it would be like when one of your best friends was also your boss; but it worked. Mutual respect, compassion, teamwork, lots of laughs. Wasn’t it only men who implied that women couldn’t work well together? She’d never had a problem with female colleagues. In fact, quite the opposite. Any leg up she’d ever had professionally had been due to female mentors and friends.
“Just allergies,” Selena conceded. “My head is killing me.”
She and Beth had been friends a long time. They were publicists together in their twenties at a small publishing house, been through it all—boyfriends, breakups, the death of a parent, meeting the right guy, weddings, pregnancy, the birth of children, Beth’s divorce, and Michaela, the friend they’d lost to a sudden heart attack.
Beth nodded and offered a sympathetic smile, a squeeze of her hand. Her gaze lingered a moment, and then she went back to the email on her phone. Her nails were perfect candy-pink squares, glittering like the diamond in the ring that she bought herself after her divorce. Their tapping was hypnotic.
“Let me know if you want to talk about it,” Beth said easily. Translation: It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me what’s really going on. But I’m here.
“I’m fine,” Selena said. “Really.”
“How’s Graham’s job hunt going?” Translation: When is your loser husband going back to work?
“It’s going.”
Another quick glance, then back to the phone. Beth didn’t like Graham. She’d never said so, but Selena could tell. There was a way she leaned on his name, a certain expression she wore when they all got together. But they didn’t need to love each other’s spouses, just be nice. God knows, Selena had put on a smile and endured Beth’s cheap, controlling, adulterous ex-husband Jon for the near decade they were married. That was the golden rule of friendship. Be nice. It was a decent rule in general, wasn’t it? If more people followed it, the world would be a better place. Also: let your friends keep their secrets. Support them when things go to shit.
As things had gone to shit last night.
All day, she tried not to think about the scene between her and Graham. Her own voice—low because of the sleeping children but sizzling white hot with rage—rang back at her. Shocking. The things she’d said. His words like punches to the kidneys. How ugly it had been. When had so much vitriol, so much anger grown between them? It was like toxic mold; they knocked down the drywall and all she could see was black rot.
“Dad didn’t call to say good-night,” said Oliver now, voice muffled.
“Must have bad service,” she said to the ceiling.
“He didn’t say goodbye.”
Selena felt a pang of guilt—for what had happened, for the lies she’d told. She was lying to her children now. Nice.
“He’ll call tomorrow,” she said lightly. “Now go to sleep.”
“Mom,” started Oliver. “I saw—”
“Not now, honey,” she said. If they started talking about this thing or that thing he saw in school or on television, or on