“Oh, by the way, Jess?” said Audrey or Andrea. Jane could never remember her name. She stepped right up close to Jane and spoke in a low, confidential voice, as if she were about to reveal a deep, dark secret. Jane had gotten used to it by now. The other day she stepped up close, lowered her voice and said, “Is it library day today?”

“It’s Jane,” said Jane. (She could hardly be offended.)

“Sorry,” said Andrea or Audrey. “Listen. Are you for or against?”

“For or against what?” said Jane.

“Ladies!” cried Jonathan.

“Cupcakes,” said Audrey or Andrea. “For or against?”

“She’s for,” said Madeline. “Fun police.”

“Madeline, let her speak for herself,” said Audrey or Andrea. “She looks very health-conscious to me.”

Madeline rolled her eyes.

“Um, well, I like cupcakes?” said Jane.

“We’re doing a petition to ban parents from sending in cupcakes for the whole class on their kids’ birthdays,” said Andrea or Audrey. “There’s an obesity crisis, and every second day the children are having sugary treats.”

“What I don’t get is why this school is so obsessed with petitions,” said Madeline irritably. “It’s so adversarial. Why can’t you just make a suggestion?”

“Ladies, please!” Jonathan held up his starter gun.

“Where’s Jackie today, Jonathan?” asked Gabrielle. The mothers were all mildly obsessed with Jonathan’s wife, ever since she’d been interviewed on the business segment of the evening news a few nights back, sounding terrifyingly precise and clever about a corporate takeover and putting the journalist in his place. Also, Jonathan was very good-looking in a George Clooney–esque way, so constant references to his wife were necessary to show that they hadn’t noticed this and weren’t flirting with him.

“She’s in Melbourne,” said Jonathan. “Stop talking to me. On your marks!”

The women moved to the start line.

“Bonnie looks so professional,” commented Samantha as Bonnie crouched down into a starting position.

“I hardly ever run these days,” said Bonnie. “It’s so violent on the joints.”

Jane saw Madeline glance over at Bonnie and dig the toe of her sneaker firmly into the grass.

“Enough with the chitchat, ladies!” roared Jonathan.

“I love it when you’re masterful, Jonathan,” said Samantha.

“Get set!”

“This is quite nerve-racking,” said Audrey or Andrea to Jane. “How do the poor kids cope with the—”

The gun cracked.

Thea: I do have my own ideas about what might have happened but I’d rather not speak ill of the dead. As I say to my four daughters, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”

26.

Celeste could feel the pressure of Renata’s grip at the other end of the finishing tape, and she tried to match it with her own, except that she kept forgetting to concentrate on where she was and what she was doing.

“How’s Perry?” called out Renata. “In the country at the moment?”

Whenever Renata made an appearance at school or school events, she made an amusing point of not talking to Jane or Madeline (Madeline loved it, poor Jane not so much), but she always talked to Celeste, in a defensive, prickly way, as though Celeste were an old friend who had wronged her but she was choosing to be mature and rise above it.

“He’s great,” called back Celeste.

Last night it had been over Legos. The boys had left their Legos everywhere. She should have made them pick them up. Perry was right. It was just easier to do it herself after they were asleep, rather than do battle with them. The whining. The drama. She just didn’t have the resilience last night to go through it. Lazy parenting. She was a bad mother.

“You’re turning them into spoiled brats,” Perry had said.

“They’re only five,” Celeste had said. She was sitting on the couch folding laundry. “They get tired after school.”

“I don’t want to live in a pigsty,” said Perry. He kicked at the Legos on the floor.

“So pick them up yourself,” said Celeste tiredly.

There. Right there. She brought it on herself. Every time.

Perry just looked at her. Then he got down on his hands and knees and carefully picked up every piece of Lego from the carpet and put it in the big green box. She’d kept folding, watching him. Was he really going to just pick it all up?

He stood and carried the box over to where she sat. “It’s pretty simple. Either get the kids to pick it up, or pick it up yourself, or pay for a f**king housekeeper.”

In one swift move he up-ended the entire box of Legos over her head in a noisy, violent torrent.

The shock and humiliation made her gasp.

She stood up, grabbed a handful of Legos from her lap and threw them straight at his face.

See there? Again. Celeste at fault. She behaved like a child. It was almost laughable. Slapstick. Two grown-ups throwing things at each other.

He slapped her across the face with the back of his hand.

He never punched her. He would never do anything so uncouth. She staggered back, and her knee banged against the edge of the glass coffee table. She regained her balance and flew at him with her hands like claws. He shoved her away from him with disgust.

Well, why not? Her behavior was disgusting.

He went to bed then, and she cleaned up all the Legos and threw their uneaten dinner in the bin.

Her lip was bruised and tender this morning, like she was about to get a cold sore. It wasn’t enough for anyone to comment upon. Her knee had banged against the side of the coffee table, and it was stiff and painful. Not too bad. Not much at all, really.

This morning Perry had been cheerful, whistling while he boiled eggs for the boys.

“What happened to your neck, Daddy?” said Josh.

There was a long, thin, red scratch down the side of his neck where Celeste must have scratched him.

“My neck?” Perry had put his hand over the scratch and glanced over at Celeste with laughter in his eyes. It was the sort of humorous, secret look that parents share when their children say something innocent and cute about Santa Claus or sex. As if what happened last night were a normal part of married life.