The Smart One (40 page)

CHAPTER
19

Claire had broken even. Which was a miracle of sorts, really. She had barely any money in the bank, but her credit cards were paid off. And she felt rich. Now, when she signed on to her bank accounts, she felt like she could breathe, like her chest was open again. It hadn’t even taken as long as she’d thought it would. Apparently having someone else give you a place to live and pay your bills was a great way to get rid of credit card debt. Moving home had been the right thing to do.

It was good to remind herself of that, to remember that living at home had saved her. Because at the moment, the house was so crowded it felt like hell.

How had they all lived there at the same time? Sure, there wasn’t a pregnant Cleo living with them when they were growing up, but still. Claire didn’t remember it being like this. It seemed like every time she went down the stairs, she ran into someone. She’d go to the kitchen to get a glass of water and find that there were no clean glasses. Bowls of cereal were left out, balled-up napkins were all over the counter, and there were always crumbs—on the floor, on the counter, in the sink. Everywhere. It made Lainie’s house seem tidy and calm.

The bathrooms were a whole other story. The Coffey house was old, and some of the plumbing issues had never quite been resolved. If the dishwasher or washing machine was running while someone took a shower, there were bound to be shocks of cold water that spurted out. And if someone flushed a toilet while someone else was in the shower, the water turned scalding for about five to seven seconds. They’d all lived with this before, coming out of the bathroom looking to accuse
whoever was rude enough to flush the toilet while they were in there, but they hadn’t had to deal with it in a while, and now it just seemed absurd and impossible.

“I’m sorry,” Claire heard Weezy saying to Will one morning, “but there is too much laundry to do, and if I wait until everyone is showered, it will never get done. Maybe if the people in this house learned how to use a washing machine instead of throwing their laundry down the chute for me to handle, we wouldn’t have this problem.” Will grumbled something and walked away.

Trying to explain the water rules to Cleo proved harder than they thought. Over dinner one night—after Cleo had started the dishwasher while Weezy was in the shower and was faced with a screaming Weezy running down the stairs a few minutes later—Max tried to explain the situation.

“So if I flush the toilet, it will make the shower cold?” Cleo asked.

“No, it makes a spray of hot water come out,” Max said. “So you can do it, but you have to warn the person.”

“So what you’re saying is that you want me to knock on the bathroom door and tell whoever is in the shower that I have to use the bathroom somewhere else in the house?”

“Exactly,” Max said. He sat back and looked pleased.

“Maybe I just won’t use anything if anyone’s in the shower. Does that work?”

“You could do that too,” Claire said. She smiled at her and reached across the table to pat Cleo on the arm. She couldn’t believe that her brother was asking his girlfriend to interrupt showers at his family’s house. How stupid could boys be?

AT THE END OF MARCH,
Amanda decided not to come back to Proof Perfect. Claire wasn’t surprised one bit. As soon as Amanda had taken the extra three months, Claire could have guessed that she’d never be back. Who could blame her? The thought of returning from maternity leave to face crazy Leslie and all of the strange people here was pretty horrible. Leslie called Claire into her office to tell her the situation.

“What’s unfortunate is that we’ve paid for her health care for the
past three months. We believed her when she said she was coming back,” Leslie said.

“I’m sure a lot of people change their minds once they’re home with the baby,” Claire said. But Leslie shook her head.

“The good news is that we’ve discussed it and we’ve decided to offer you the job full time.”

“Oh, Leslie, that’s so nice, but I can’t take it.”

Leslie wrinkled her eyebrows and tilted her head, like she couldn’t possibly understand what Claire was saying.

“It’s just … I don’t plan to stay here long term.”

“Well, we all know that the best-laid plans always blow up in your face.”

Was that a saying? Claire really didn’t think so.

“I think I’m pretty set on moving back to New York,” Claire said. “But thank you for the offer and for the opportunity.”

“Why don’t you sit with it for a while? We’re not in any rush to find someone new. You can keep the job as a temporary situation and think about it for a month or two.”

Claire agreed, but her heart was pounding when she left her office. She felt like there was a chance she’d just end up trapped there. She tried to talk herself down, tell herself that it was a ridiculous thing to think. But she still felt a slight panic and she knew that sooner rather than later, she’d have to get out of there. June, she decided, was her limit.

LAINIE AND CLEO HAD TAKEN TO
going for long walks together after dinner. “You should come,” Lainie said, but Claire declined. She watched from her window as the two pregnant ladies walked down the sidewalk, their heads turned toward each other, Cleo laughing at something that Lainie said, while she gestured and shook her head. Lainie had invited Cleo over for lunch one day, and ever since then the two of them had been spending a lot of time together.

“She just needs someone to talk to,” Lainie said. “She’s scared out of her mind, and there’s no one she can really ask about this stuff.”

“That’s nice of you,” Claire said. She didn’t really mean it.

The first time Cleo and Lainie had met, a couple of years ago now,
they seemed to like each other immediately. They’d smiled at each other right away, and spent the night talking, bonding over (Claire could only assume) both being really, really pretty. And now, here they were, waddling off into the sunset together, talking about pregnancy and hormones and placentas. It reminded Claire of seeing Lainie talk to Margie Schuller in the bathroom that day, knowing that she was on the other side of something and that there was nothing she could do to join them. It felt a little lonely.

Her friend Katherine was calling her more often, asking her when she was coming back to New York. “I don’t think you should stay there any longer,” she said. “You really need to come back.”

When Claire thought about going back to New York, she felt calm. Was it wrong that part of it was because she knew that there were so many other women there her age who had jobs and were unattached and weren’t even close to having babies? Was it such a bad thing to want to be surrounded by your own kind? People had been doing it for years, really. Look at the ethnic neighborhoods that popped up all over. There were Little Italys and Chinatowns in every city. And weren’t there even midget colonies somewhere? She’d heard that once and it made so much sense to her, to want to be somewhere where everyone and everything was your size, where things were within your reach and you weren’t struggling all the time to fit in a world that wasn’t built for you.

That was all she wanted. To be back somewhere where no one looked at her strangely, where she fit in. And she knew that place was New York. Sometimes the thought of going back there overwhelmed her—she’d have to find a job, look for an apartment, and be shocked and disgusted at how much she was going to pay for a tiny place. But she could figure it out. She knew where she was supposed to be.

ON THE DAY THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE
her wedding day, no one said anything to her. She wouldn’t have forgotten anyway, but all of the places that she and Doug had registered sent her congratulatory e-mails. She had never bothered to take the registries down, or take her e-mail address off the list.

She wondered if Doug had gotten the same e-mails. It was so
strange to think that Doug knew nothing about what was happening in her life, and she knew nothing about his. She’d e-mailed him when she left New York, because it had seemed like the right thing to do, to let your former fiancé know that you were going to be living in a different city. He’d written back and wished her luck, but they hadn’t been in contact since.

She wondered what he’d think if he knew that she was living at home still, what he’d say about Max and Cleo having a baby, and about Martha’s trying to get her to go to therapy. She couldn’t imagine what he’d say if he knew that she was acting like a whole different person, smoking cigarettes pretty often, hanging out with Fran, sometimes smoking pot on weeknights just for fun. She would bet he wouldn’t believe it.

When they’d split up their stuff in the apartment, they had both wanted the expensive ceramic Dutch oven that they’d gotten as an engagement gift. It was bright orange and cheerful, and Claire loved it. When they registered, Doug had wanted a blue one, but she fought for the orange. She pointed out that he would eventually be with someone else, and that girl wasn’t going to want something that his ex-fiancée had chosen. He’d looked hurt when she said it, but nodded and let her have it. And she wondered now if he was with someone else, if he also was acting totally different than he had with her. Maybe he was engaged again. He could be married already with a baby on the way. (Okay, sure, it wasn’t likely, but Max and Cleo were proof that things sometimes happened much faster than intended.) She thought about e-mailing him, just to see. But in the end she left it alone. He wasn’t hers to know anymore.

AT THE END OF MAY,
they’d all trekked out to a yoga retreat in Ohio for Cathy and Ruth’s wedding. The place was called Bear Den Cottages and they spent the weekend sleeping in cabins, doing Downward Facing Dog, and drinking green tea. She’d told Fran that it was family only, which wasn’t true, but she didn’t want to invite him and anyway, she didn’t think he’d even want to go.

Claire had been dreading this weekend, but surprisingly it wasn’t
awful. Even pregnant Cleo seemed to enjoy her sun salutations. And while they all agreed that a lot of it was “hippie nonsense,” as Maureen whispered to them, it was all in all a pretty pleasant trip. And when Claire stood up front with Martha and Cathy, wearing her Driftwood bridesmaid dress that Martha had freaked out over, all she thought was that Cathy and Ruth seemed really happy. And when she realized that this made her feel happy, she was relieved, because she figured that meant she wasn’t a horrible, jealous person after all. And that made her even happier.

HER THIRTIETH BIRTHDAY WAS AT THE BEGINNING
of June, and she really meant it when she said she wanted to ignore it. But that wasn’t an option. Lainie insisted on throwing her a party. “We’ll have a barbecue,” she said. “It will be fun.”

“I really don’t feel like having a party,” Claire said.

“Don’t tell me you’re freaking out about turning thirty. Come on. It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Fine,” Claire agreed. It seemed easier than trying to fight it. “Fine.”

For three days out of the year, Claire and Martha were the same age. When she was younger, Claire loved this. She used to torture Martha with it, telling her that she was just as old as she was. Now it didn’t seem that fun.

Martha was concerned that turning thirty would send Claire into a tailspin, and she talked to her often about it. “It seems worse than it is,” she said. “The idea of thirty can be scary but once it happens, you’re totally fine.”

“I’m fine,” Claire repeated over and over again.

Martha thought Claire’s birthday was even more reason to go to therapy with her. Sometimes Claire thought she should just agree to go to shut her up about it.

“You’re probably stressed about things you don’t even know that you’re stressed about. That’s the best part of therapy,” Martha said.

“Martha, I’m going to tell you for the last time. I am not going to therapy with you.” Claire couldn’t help but yell it. That was another
reason she had to get out of this house. Each day made her act more and more like a teenager.

“You are being really closed-minded,” Martha said. She yelled a little too.

“Good,” Claire said. She didn’t care if she wasn’t making sense. The two of them left the room and slammed their respective doors. Anytime Weezy looked at them, she just shook her head.

LAINIE TIED BALLOONS TO THE CHAIRS
in the backyard and hung an old silver banner that read
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
. Claire hugged her when she arrived. “This is a big birthday,” Lainie told her. “You should enjoy it.”

Lainie’s boys were all dressed alike, in khaki shorts and light blue polo shirts. When she got there, Jack ran right up to her. “Remember when I was five and you babysat me?” he said. She nodded and he smiled. “That was fun.” He had made her a birthday card and helped her blow out her candles. He seemed to have changed his mind about her. Apparently, they were now the best of friends.

Lainie invited a couple of her sisters, Claire’s whole family, a couple of friends from high school, and Fran, of course. When she brought Claire’s cake out, which was a yellow sheet cake with chocolate frosting she’d made from a box, she said, “I just want to wish my best friend a happy thirtieth birthday. I don’t know where I’d be without you.”

It was a funny speech, considering Claire had always thought that Lainie would be just fine without her. She was the one that needed Lainie more. But maybe that was how all friendships were—one person was the littlest bit needier than the other one. And maybe sometimes it switched. Not often, but sometimes.

Fran had shown up at the barbecue wearing a collared shirt and no hat. It looked like he’d made an effort to look nice, and seeing him stand there and talk to her family dressed like that hurt Claire’s heart a little for reasons she couldn’t totally identify.

After Claire blew out her candles, Lainie brought out a cupcake with another candle in it and lit it for Martha. “It’s a few days early,” she said, “but we can’t forget the other birthday girl.”

Martha was pleased, Claire could tell. And Weezy was too. Even Claire felt good about it, and she realized that in every relationship, Martha was the needier one. And she knew that would never change.