into a loose sexy braid. She assesses her image. Yes, she looks the part, will be viewed by her family as a woman in love.
She leans in close, fragmenting her pupils, and in those fragments she sees the unjustified complications she’s brought into her life. She pulls back from the mirror and her pupils reassemble, black surrounded by irises of darkest brown, eyes so falsely guileless she has to turn away from herself.
She rustles through closets and drawers, delving through sedimentary layers of acquisitions, flinging out her choices, and packing them into her small rolling bag—used for all her loverly weekends away: an old one-piece bathing suit for the laps she always forgets to swim, a new bikini for chaise sprawling and oiling up next to the big pool alongside her sister and sister-in-law, another summery dress purchased to wear with a man a few years back who pursued her hard for a date and when she at last gave in stood her up, tennis shoes and shorts and a tank top from her youth for taking a walk in the heat with one or some or all of her family members, a college-era tennis skirt and shirt in case her father wants to play, silky pajamas that hold memories of an enjoyable four-week romp during law school, and the totteringly high silver heels purchased last week for the gala tonight, along with the ice-blue gown, already in its hanging bag. In go the miniature bottles of shampoo and conditioner and body lotion swiped from hotelsuite bathrooms these last six and a half months. Her lip-shaped cosmetics bag stowed inside the mesh netting.
She zips up the suitcase, sets it down on the floor. The tick-tick of the wheels on the wood puts Benny on notice. Until a moment ago, he was lounging on the unmade bed, but now lets out a quivering meow. He is her sweet affectionate thing, velvety fur hiding a small, solidly compact body. At night, he stretches out on top of her, his paws clinging to her neck, his purrs soothing her lonely heart.
Poor Benny. Her subterfuge has meant she’s deserted him for many three-day weekends since February, consigned to the care of her brother. Simon is responsible, showing up morning and night, filling Benny’s bowls, keeping his heating pad on the bed on high and cold water trickling from the bathroom sink faucet, playing with Benny for a few minutes before he heads to his own home, to his wife and children. When she returns from her weekends away, Benny is churlish, his outsized paws thumping when he lands on the kitchen counter, the dining room table, following Phoebe around, baying his disapproval at his most recent abandonment. When she is again in the bed that they share, Benny lets her know he’s forgiven her by arranging himself on her head, lashing her cheek with his sandpaper tongue. But Simon and family will be in Palm Springs, too, and Phoebe reluctantly asked a neighbor to care for Benny.
Raquel was thrilled when Phoebe knocked on Wednesday night. “I want a cat sososo much, but I haven’t pulled the trig. So how coolio. Yours. Def. No prob.”
Raquel is twenty-five to Phoebe’s thirty-eight, a secretarial temp slash aspiring actress slash aspiring model who might emote as well as the best but seems to Phoebe too short and curvy to model. And it irks Phoebe enormously that Raquel seems intent on believing they are nearly identical peas in a pod. This specious view of Raquel’s, and the fact that Raquel annoys her, has compelled Phoebe to ward off the young woman’s obvious desire to be friends. In her own defense, Phoebe would say that a friendship with any neighbor can too easily become an uncomfortable burden, and after an eventful workday, she’d rather not be accosted by anyone waving a bottle, saying, “Thought we might share this.” Only twice has Phoebe relented, and both times, watching Raquel swaying back to her own front door, Phoebe assessed the avenues of employment that would afford Raquel the ability to purchase such expensive wine. Ashamed by her assumptions, she has kept her distance from Raquel the last few months.
But Raquel was her easiest choice for cat-sitting Benny, and thinking about the young woman being alone in her house unescorted, peeking into her life, Phoebe is opening and closing cabinets, sizing her things up, determining what they say about her, if she needs to find hiding places.
She scoops out of her nightstand the few books of erotica, the vibrator, the hopeful, unopened box of condoms, and in the bathroom, the nearly full container of Percocet from her wisdom teeth removal last year, and stashes the loot at the bottom of her hamper, throws in the damp towel hanging over the shower door to be safe.
In her study, she slips folders containing client information into the desk drawer, along with her personal bills and checkbooks and bank and money management statements, and locks it with the key hidden beneath.
In the living room her brother calls empty and she calls minimalistic and replete with architectural details—rounded columns leading to the dining room, pristine nonworking fireplace with a mantel holding a single blue vase filled with bright orange gerbera daisies, massive window overlooking the street—she inspects, but aside from the suede sofa and chairs the color of tangerines, the three huge paintings on the white walls she accepted as payment for legal bills owed by painter clients, bookshelves categorically organized, high-tech sound system, and her objects of art displayed in the whitewashed nooks and crannies, there is nothing revealing.
As the coffee brews, she pulls out Benny’s dry cat food and cans of wet and places them on the kitchen counter. She wants to make it easy for Raquel, to keep her curtained in the kitchen, then a path straight out the front door.
She pours herself a first cup, hears her doorbell chime, and reluctantly pulls down a second cup.
“HI, FEEBS, REPORTING FOR duty,” is what Raquel says when she steps in. “I’m sososo jelly, where are you going? Tell me the deets.”
Phoebe hates that nickname to which she never responds, hates the way Raquel insists on shortening most everything. How much extra time does it take to say Phoebe, to say jealous, to say details? Is Raquel’s life so jam-packed she can’t waste a second, cares not a whit about being fully understood?
Phoebe gives her a big smile. “Come into the kitchen. I’ll give you some coffee, show you what you need to do.”
“Great, but first I want to hear about your hot and heavy weekends!”
What, Phoebe thinks, is Raquel is talking about?
“Please, please, spill the beans! I keep running into your gorgeous brother when he comes to feed Benny and he mentioned—Well, I got him to tell me why I’ve seen him so much. Because you have a new man in your life! Taking you away to cool places. Is he scrumptious?”
Oh. Raquel is talking about Aaron Green.
“Totally scrumptious,” Phoebe instantly says.
“So where to this weekend?”
“Home for a family celebration.”
“OMG, how exciting! Are you nervous? I’d be so nervous introducing my new man to family!”
Phoebe could correct Raquel’s mistaken impression, but says, instead, “No, I’m not nervous at all.”
“That’s when you know the love is real!” Raquel squeals.
And Phoebe, who doesn’t agree that’s the way you know, pours coffee into the cup on the counter, and points to the sugar bowl, and wishes seeing herself through Raquel’s eyes weren’t so inviting.
Phoebe would never confess to Raquel that the scrumptious man spiriting her away to cool places for long weekends, and whom she has just confirmed she’s taking home to Palm Springs, is fictitious.
She would never admit to Raquel that she created Aaron Green at midnight in late January, just home from the opening of a client’s new art exhibition, her family’s messages on her voicemail pissing her off, words throaty with exhausted hope that there might have been a man there who was “worth another look,” said Roma, Harry calling out, “Love is good, honey.” “Someone I would like,” Simon had said in his message, with Elena adding, “Just so he knows your true value,” and from Camille, “I hope he’s fuckable, because that’s always the point. No, I take that back, I don’t know what the point is,” and Phoebe, who had just hung up her short bronze dress and placed her high bronzed sandals in their box in the closet, stood nude in her bedroom.
She was tired of slicing open