A Field Guide to Deception (37 page)

“Yes, but your sled is too small for both of us.”

At the peak, Simon jumped off his sled and ran to another boy, said something and pointed back at Liv. He had to repeat whatever he'd said before the boy nodded, brought his inner tube with him as he followed Simon back to Liv.

“We're swapping,” the boy told her, handing her his double inner tube, and taking Simon's sled.

“You sure?” she asked the boy.

“Yeah. Take three rides, then we'll swap again.”

She agreed. Simon had already climbed in front, and instructed
her to get on. They were down so quickly that she almost hadn't had time to enjoy herself before she remembered she had two rides to go. Simon hefted his side of the inner tube, grinned across at her: “Hurry. Let's go.” And began to run back up.

They sledded for two hours, then stowed the sled in the truck and walked around the park, watching the hockey players; the women wheeling SUV strollers through the park with down-filled sleeping bags, like blinds, around the children; the kids building snowmen.

He kept his gloves on, and his scarf and hat. Occasionally, he'd nail her with a snowball. On the drive home, he fell asleep in his car seat, his head nodding abruptly as though sleep might give him whiplash. For a while, she drove around, stalling, enjoying the ridiculous yard displays, the electric candles in windows, the frantic lights.

Tomorrow she'd meet with Kyle to handle a couple of quick projects, and then she'd tackle the kitchen remodel for the retired Army colonel, Hoffman. Good, interesting work, all of it, and she hadn't advertised, oror had any famine spells. In fact, all of her customers had paid quickly, and praised lavishly. On side streets now, the fan roaring, Simon jolting occasionally beside her, she pronounced herself all grown up: practically thirty, a partner, a parent, a reliable and steady wage-earner, a reputed builder with a growing customer base. The girls of the summer were fable now. Stories her parents would tell. As relevant as firecracker bombs, or basketball brawls. Some crazy shit she got up to when she was wild.

Thirty-six

With with-child

Simon stood on the toilet seat, watching his mother's reflection. He'd applied lipstick repeatedly, to his tongue as often as his lips. He loved this part, the preparation. The smells, and trial of outfits, and his mother's wet hair, the curl and style of it—she looked most beautiful damp, and in progress.

“I want to come,” he said again.

“You'd be bored.” She hovered, inches from the mirror, her mouth opened as she applied eyeliner.

“Please.” Plaintive, the way she hated. “Please, Mama. I want to come too.”

“You're going to stay with Agnes, and sleep on bunk beds.”

“No. I don't want to.”

His mother's brown eyes—direct, cautionary—focused on him. He grinned at her, as though there'd been some misunderstanding. It didn't matter to her that she was beautiful. She didn't seem to notice.

“Tomorrow we'll watch movies on the couch in our pajamas, and eat popcorn and ice cream.”

He'd lost already. He knew, and almost didn't mind.

“These?” She held up a pair of dangling blue earrings, then a pair of silver ones. “Or these?”

“The silver,” he said.

She nodded, put the silver ones on, examined herself again. “Well?”

“Your dress.”

“I guess I'll wear the black one.”

She returned to her room; he paced behind her, certain she'd
choose something other than the black. She'd wear the dark purple.

Clothes lay strewn on chairs, the bureau, the bed, the floor. With no place to sit, he stood beside her, looked where she looked.

“The black, don't you think?” she asked.

“The purple.”

She bent, touched the purple dress, glanced at him. “The purple? You're sure?”

“Yes.”

She tried the dress again, and shut the closet door so that the full-length mirror aligned properly. “This one?”

“Yes.”

He would remember her like this always. His mother in stockings, a deep purple dress, the earrings he'd chosen flitting about her like summer insects. Both of them occupied, yet expectant, the party and the bunk beds, and the adventure ahead.

Liv's new pinstripe slacks were impeccably tailored. She looked, even in her own estimation, fucking hot. She'd left this much too late, but hoped to please Claire so much with the product, that the lack of foresight and efficiency might be forgiven.

They'd arranged to meet at the party. Now, in her new button-down silk shirt, and polished black shoes, Liv left the store amidst a clutter of people who were downtown for First Night—a tour of galleries, shops, and restaurants, replete with bands, food, and activities for the entire family—with their distinctive First-Night buttons and their best intentions.

Liv had been recruited to help Bailey shift her entire kitchen to Drake's. An hour's work had turned into three, and somehow Liv had forgotten that she still needed to pick up her pants—they'd been held for alteration—she'd arrived just before the store closed. She held her breath now, hurrying down the sidewalk, and exhaled slowly, a tension headache on the perimeter, threatening. They should have had the party at Bailey's: all that shifting, only to be shifted again tomorrow.

She checked her watch again, began to jog.

Claire envied smokers. Their unapologetic stall tactic, standing on the cusp, poised, observant, not quite ready to enter with the rest. She hadn't spotted Liv's truck, but couldn't wait out here for long. Bitter, insidious, the wind snarled at her.

Despite herself, she compared this party to the dinner party Bailey had thrown in her honor. Decades ago now, when she hadn't particularly cared for Bailey, and was terrified to find the life she had known crumbling beneath her. Another ten days, and her aunt would be dead a year. Time compressed and expanded around her like a brilliant accordion. Soon enough, Simon would be in school. There, on the sidewalk before Drake's house, she could see it, her future. Simon in a school play at ten, a soccer tournament at fourteen, theater his junior year. A Fresh Baked Café franchise would open downtown, another out north, and one in the Valley. Bailey would recruit bakers from all over, her own reputation highly lauded. Liv would incorporate, hire employees, and take on design jobs as well as building ones. Eventually they'd let Bailey buy the business, and they'd move to Portland, dabble in real estate, retire.

“Hey, beautiful. Aren't you freezing?” Her face flushed from cold and haste, Liv stood before Claire, bouncing in her dress shoes, and rubbing her hands together.

“Yes,” Claire said. Only just remembering they were going to a party, that the event had yet to transpire.

Liv kissed her, quickly, unexpectedly, and reached an arm around Claire as they dashed up the steps, urgent to get indoors, to join the revelry.

Liv took their coats, and disappeared, leaving Claire to navigate the crowds. She hadn't expected this many college students. Couldn't
remember the last time she'd seen such a horde. They were everywhere, in suit jackets, or button-down shirts with ties, the boys holding wine glasses solemnly, the girls in short dresses that glittered, their laughs like hatchets.

From the doorway, Claire could see a hierarchy to the arrangement, the students placed against the walls, standing, those perched on the furniture, those sitting on the floor looking up at Drake and two paunched men in sweaters. Drake saw her, called out, and waved. The students turned, applied their critical thinking skills, and began to write a character for the person they observed.

Claire waved back, edged through the fringes of the group, and into the dining room. Laid out on the dining table, delicacies on platters, several varieties of wine; on the floor in buckets of ice, beer; and a ruddy, soccer player fellow in the corner aspiring to bartend. He winked at Claire. Said, “Gin and tonic?”

“Is that your specialty?”

“Absolutely.”

Eventually Simon would be one of these. “Okay,” she said, walking over to him.

He poured an improbable amount of gin. Winked again when he handed it over. She took her drink into the kitchen.

“You're here,” Bailey said. From the stove, she pulled two baking sheets loaded with brown-crusted croissants. “I'm experimenting with marmalade.”

“I'll guinea pig.”

“Let it settle,” Bailey said, the pitch of her voice dropped to indicate seriousness. Claire had to be bullied into letting food cool properly.

“Have you left the kitchen?”

“This is my last batch.”

“How many people are here?”

“Julia says seventy.”

“Jesus.” She'd taken a sip of her drink, and asked Bailey now for a larger glass. In the fridge, she found several tonic waters, opened one to mix the drink properly, sipped again.

“OK,” Bailey said. “Try this.”

Claire bit into the croissant. Walked into her aunt's bedroom: English muffins on a morning tray, Simon with his trains in Dee's bed, giggling over some picture book she read to him. They both looked up when she helped herself to a bit of Dee's muffin, sat on the edge of the bed, insinuated herself.

“No?” Bailey asked, her voice anxious.

Claire couldn't speak, and put her hand, instead, on Bailey's arm, for support as much as reassurance. She wanted to take another bite, but feared the moment she interrupted them, knew herself to be an outsider.

“Is she alright?” Sophia's voice brought Claire back to Drake's kitchen. Claire let go of Bailey, watched the exponentially pregnant girl cross to the sink and fill a glass with water.

Another bite, then, as she tried to place that morning. Not the last, surely. But late, Simon in the red-footed pajamas he'd got for Christmas the previous year.

“Drink this,” Sophia said, handing her the water. “It'll help. Bailey, are these magic croissants? If you're lacing the food, that'd certainly explain what I just witnessed in the solarium.”

Claire swallowed the water. “No, Bailey, they're glorious. Really exceptional.”

Bailey shook her head. “Says the woman who blanched after a single bite.”