was like this.
When she got back to the living room, they were shouting over one another.
“The wine bar?”
“We go there all the time. The point is to shake things up.”
“Margaritas at La Paloma?”
“Closes at ten.”
“Lanchard’s,” Stephanie said.
“Eww, that place is nasty. Your feet stick to the floor.”
“It’s fun,” Stephanie said. “Plus, it’s where the construction crews go to drink after work. Nothing wrong with some eye candy.”
Gwen pulled on her trench coat with an enthusiasm that surprised Elisabeth. She hadn’t taken her for the stick-to-the-floor, eye-candy type.
“I’ve got to run,” Gwen said. “We leave for Hong Kong tomorrow and I still have tons to do.”
“Hong Kong?” Elisabeth said.
“I’m going for work,” Gwen said. “My husband is tagging along.”
“What do you do?”
“I teach East Asian studies at the college, but I’m on sabbatical this year. I’m also a photographer, so that’s what this trip is about.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“Three months.”
Elisabeth felt crestfallen. Maybe she could walk Gwen home, at least. Test her hunch that the two of them might be friends.
When they moved here, she had imagined that the women in her neighborhood would be academics. Elisabeth fell in love with the house and didn’t worry about the rest. So much was up to chance. Somehow they had landed on a block full of upwardly mobile townies, plus Karen, who was from Minnesota and married to a professor, but still fit in like she had lived here all her life. Had Elisabeth and Andrew bought four blocks away, she might have lived next door to Gwen, and two doors down from Gwen’s friend, who taught narrative nonfiction. Elisabeth saw that other version of herself strolling along Main Street on the way to lunch with her new neighbors, and felt actual sadness over the loss.
“I should get going too,” she said. “I need to relieve Andrew. He’s been texting me every second.”
A lie, but the Laurels nodded knowingly.
“The best thing for him is to have this time with the baby so he knows he can do it,” Stephanie said.
“She’s right,” Debbie said. “I never did that, and to this day Craig calls me every ten minutes when he’s home alone with them. ‘Deb, where do we keep the Band-Aids?’ ‘Deb, where’s the little spoons?’ ”
Stephanie sighed. “As my mother always says, there are only two kinds of people in the world: women and children.”
Elisabeth promised them she would nip in the bud this problem that she didn’t actually have.
Everyone made their way into coats and out onto the lawn. Gwen had managed to slip off without notice. Elisabeth envied her to an unhealthy degree.
It was a warm, balmy night, probably the last of its kind until spring.
They ambled down the sidewalk.
When they reached her house, Elisabeth said, “Thanks for everything. That was so much fun.”
The porch light went on. Andrew appeared at the door.
“Let your wife come out with us,” yelled Stephanie, as if Elisabeth was the life of the party, even though they’d barely spoken to her all night. “Can’t you spare her this once?”
“Go!” Andrew said, too eager. The baby was asleep. His mother’s car wasn’t in the driveway. He was probably loving having time alone to watch sports or porn or videos of golden retrievers jumping into swimming pools.
“Are you sure?” Elisabeth said. She gave him a look, which she hoped made clear that this was an opportunity for him to be her hero, or for her to murder him when she got home, depending.
“Have fun,” he said.
When they reached the corner, Stephanie said, “By the way, I can’t stay late, guys, I have to go to Hong Kong tomorrow.”
The rest of them cackled.
“It’s like, we get it, Gwen, you’re important,” Debbie said. “You went to Yale. Big whoop, so did I.”
Debbie went to Yale?
“She’s one of those selfish, childless people,” Pam said.
“Pam!” Karen said.
“What? There’s something unnatural about a woman who doesn’t want kids. We all know that.”
“Would you want to have kids with Christopher?” Debbie said.
“You guys, our new friend is going to think we’re awful,” Karen said, looking at Elisabeth. “The thing is, Gwen can be a show-off. Her husband works with mine at the college. Different departments, but they’re both on some committee, and we seem to get thrown together at these boring faculty events. So that’s why we have to include her in book club. Her husband—he’s an acquired taste.”
“He’ll hit on you within five minutes of saying hello,” Debbie said.
High school never ended. It just took on different shapes,