1
NOW
She has a sneaking feeling that her friends are talking about her.
Anton and Lisa, outside on the patio, keep glancing at her through the kitchen window, where Aimee stands at the counter, dressing the salad. They’re sitting at the large patio table, too close together, too close for other people’s spouses, that is. What are they whispering about?
Her.
Aimee is sure of it. Probably talking about that stupid argument that she had with Lisa earlier, and the way she stormed off. Not stormed, exactly, but Aimee stood up so abruptly that her chair scraped the flagstone in an earsplitting screech as she announced, “I’ll get the salad.”
From where she stands inside her kitchen, Aimee has a good view of the two of them at the table. Through the large sliding doors to the right, she can see the whole of her backyard. At one end, all six of the kids are running around, jumping on the trampoline, chasing the dog. A plume of smoke curls from around the side of the house where her husband, Scott, and Lisa’s husband, Marcus, are presumably manning the grill, a behemoth of a thing she gave to Scott for Father’s Day a few months earlier.
Lisa and Marcus.
Gwen and Anton.
And Aimee and Scott.
The three families live on the same cul-de-sac, Nassau Court, in East Bethesda, just outside Washington, D.C. The five younger kids are all close in age and attend the same school—both setsof twins in first grade and Noa in fourth grade, while Lisa and Marcus’s son, Kai, has just started middle school. The three families have spent so much time together in the past year that Aimee can read Anton’s and Lisa’s body language even thirty feet away.
Gwen appears beside her with a bowl of potato salad.
“I think that salad is ready, girl,” she says. “You’re whipping it like it’s egg whites.”
Aimee looks down at the metal salad servers in her hands. She drops them in the bowl and sighs.
“What were you staring at?” Gwen asks.
“I was watching Anton and Lisa. I think they’re talking about me.”
“Hmm. Knowing Anton, he’s telling her to calm down, maybe not be so judgy?”
“Or maybe he agrees with her,” Aimee says. “That my mothering leaves something to be desired.”
Gwen sucks in her breath. “No. You’re an amazing mother. She was being a—”
“Don’t say it.” Aimee turns to smile at Gwen. Three-way friendships are tricky. She was friends with Lisa first. For a few years, they were the only families with kids on the cul-de-sac. When Gwen and Anton moved in next door a year ago, the three women formed a trio. Aimee loves having two close friends on her block that she can count on. Loyalty is everything to her. Sometimes, though, she senses an undercurrent of competition between her two friends.
“I appreciate your coming to my defense, but I’m fine,” Aimee says. She doesn’t want to encourage Gwen to say anything negative about Lisa. She loves Gwen, considers her one of her closest friends, but she can be a little sharp.
Still, Aimee is a bit stung by Lisa’s earlier sanctimonious outrage. Her tone was nasty.You let your daughter do what?
Gwen snorts and pulls open the sliding door to the backyard,and Aimee follows her, clutching the large wooden salad bowl as if it might protect her from incoming arrows.
This is their Friday night ritual. The three families pile into one of the backyards and either grill or order takeout. In the cooler weather, they build a fire and roast marshmallows. Sometimes they drink too much. Sometimes people say things they shouldn’t. But mostly they have fun.
“It’s getting chillier, but I’m so glad we can still eat outside.” Aimee puts the salad down and takes a seat across the table from Anton. The air has the slightest crisp to it, a hint of the autumn to come.
These cloudless September days are her favorite time to be working. In the fall, her landscape design business does not have to deal with the frantic panic of homeowners who want instant flowers in the spring, impatient with the pace at which most plants grow. In the fall, she gets a different sort of client. The ones interested in reshaping their yards, preferably with native plants—her specialty. She’d like to transition to only native designs, but the market isn’t there yet. People love their boxwoods and crepe myrtles.
“What’s this?” Gwen sits down next to Anton and picks up his glass, which contains one large square ice cube sitting in a golden-brown liquid, before taking a sip.
“Blandon’s.”
“Anton. Really. You brought your own?” She smirks at Aimee as she says this, her tone halfway between teasing and mocking. Ribbing her husband is a regular thing for Gwen, which sometimes leaves Aimee uncomfortable at the obvious underlying tension. She wouldn’t do that to Scott, nor he to her. They made a promise to each other to never become a publicly bickering couple. On the surface, Gwen and Anton seem perfect. Anton, the successful writer and university teacher, their beautiful twin boys, and sophisticated Gwen, who works part-time at a Georgetown PR firm and directs her excess creative energiesinto complicated holiday displays, interior design, and her own flawless appearance.
Aimee always feels slightly unkempt around Gwen. Probably because her own wardrobe consists of Carhartt jackets and cargo pants, and her hair is always up in a messy bun. Not that Gwen has ever said anything to make Aimee feel less than. Gwen can’t help it if she’s one of those moms who makes every other woman feel slightly inadequate.