so Zoe wouldn’t see it. It was a lovely cake. It would be a nice dinner. She closed the refrigerator door and stood, just stood, with the stick of butter in her hand. The cake was in the refrigerator, perfect in the cold darkness. Mary found that she could not perform the next action; she could not touch anything in the kitchen. She watched it as if it were a replica of a kitchen on display behind glass in a museum. There was the wallpaper with its sheaves of wheat. There were the copper molds and the three-tiered wire basket full of Bartlett pears and Granny Smith apples. There were the potatoes hissing in the pan. It was a flawless representation of her kitchen and she felt as if something unspeakable would happen if she touched anything. She stood in the room but she was not of it. Carefully, she set the butter down on the countertop. From outside, Harry’s motor revved in the driveway and Jamal shouted, “Let me.”
Mary went upstairs to her bedroom. She would wait this out. She would freshen her makeup and come back downstairs and finish dinner. In her room she paced for a while, uncertain about where to settle. Everything was impossible. Leaf shadows fell from the window onto the snowy flowers of her bedspread. The bed stood again, bisected, at an oblique angle, in her dressing-table mirror.
Mary sat at her dressing table. There was her face in the mirror. She watched herself and she thought of how it would feel to not finish dinner, to remain here in her room. To refuse all comfort. On the glass-topped table before her, perfume bottles and a white leather jewelry box were precise, solitary, permanent. She watched those things. She did nothing else.
She could not decide how much time had passed before someone knocked at the door. Go away, Mary thought. She waited. There was another knock, and Cassandra’s voice.
“Mary?” Cassandra said. “Are you in there?”
Mary did not answer. She did not move.
Cassandra knocked again. “Honey, I’m going to come in, all right?”
No, Mary thought.
Cassandra opened the door.
“You all right?” she said. “Sorry to barge in like this.”
Mary nodded. “I’m fine,” she said.
“I went into the kitchen for a glass of water,” Cassandra said, “and I saw the potatoes just about boiled dry. And I thought, Mary Stassos is not the kind of woman who neglects her potatoes unless something really big comes up. So I came looking for you.”
“I’m all right,” Mary said. “Thank you.”
She assumed Cassandra would murmur something polite, and close the door.
Cassandra came into the room and sat down on the edge of the bed.
“It sucks, doesn’t it?” she said.
Mary didn’t answer. She turned back to the mirror, saw herself and Cassandra there. Cassandra was nearly bald now. As her hair and her flesh diminished, her eyes seemed to increase. Mary could see that Cassandra’s eyes were set in the sockets of her skull; she could see that Cassandra spoke to her from inside a skull.
Cassandra sighed, and looked around the room with the mild curiosity of a tourist. “This is a nice bedroom,” she said.
“Thank you,” Mary answered.
“I used to dream about a house like this.”
“Please don’t make fun of me,” Mary said. “Not right now.”
“I’m not. I couldn’t be more serious. When I was a little boy I used to fantasize about getting married and having a house with a big bedroom like this. It wasn’t an especially practical fantasy, but why would you want a practical fantasy?”
“I should sell the house,” Mary said. “It’s too big, I just rattle around in here.”“Mm.”
“You see,” Mary told her. “It’s just that. I can’t.”
“Can’t what?”
“This,” she said. “Any of it. I don’t think I can have this party.”
“Of course you can. It’s a nice little party. Easiest thing in the world to have, a party like this one.”
“I’ve worked so hard,” Mary said. “I don’t want to spoil it.”
“A quick little nervous breakdown isn’t going to spoil it. I have them all the time.”
“It seemed. It seemed like we could, I don’t know. Before everybody came I was just here, by myself, and everything seemed so perfect.”
“I know all about that,” Cassandra said.
“Maybe it would be better if I was alone for a little while.”
Cassandra said, “I don’t want to tell you how many hours I spend putting my drag together. What with shopping and, well, other forms of procurement, and doing my makeup, and my hair, and putting it all together.