Page 90 of Meet Me in the Garden

And the rest of the girls chime in, disapproving or defending, claiming they’ve known all along or refusing to believe it.

Ivy says, “Odette, you’ve been awfully quiet.”

I can’t meet their faces, reach into my purse and take out my drawing supplies. “I admire people who do the things that make them happy,” I say. And then, even as the memories of Ginny and me play over in my head, I add, “Though sometimes those things can be difficult to understand.”

Lionel comes over for a drink that night, after the children are sleeping.

“I saw Ginny with a woman today. What’s her name?”

“Pamela,” he says.

“Do you like her?”

“Does it matter?”

I shake my head. I’ve asked the wrong question. “Is Ginny happy?”

“I’d say Ginny seems all right. Pamela’s crazy about her. That’s for sure.”

Her medallion is hard and warm against my skin. He yawns, stretches his neck toward one shoulder, the other.

“What about you?” I ask. “You still never think about settling down?”

“Nah,” he says. “Variety’s the spice of life.” I make a show of shaking my head and he says, “Ginny’s no saint, either, you know.”

“None of us are.” I divide the last of the bourbon we’ve been drinking between us. There’s an ache in my chest. “She told me she’d settle down for me. Over that summer, I mean. Before Pamela.”

He peers into his glass. I can’t read his face. “And you didn’t take her up on it?”

“It’s too great a risk. I’ve made peace with it. I’m glad she’s happy.”

He finishes his bourbon. Stands, sets his glass in the sink.

The windows are dark, just us reflected when I look. “Actually,” I say. “I haven’t made peace with it.”

“I know.” He kisses me on the cheek before leaving.

THIRTY

AT ADELE’S HOUSEONE NIGHT,she proposes a Halloween bash. “Now that the kids are getting older, it seems smart to be the fun parents, right?” she says. “The ones who throw the best parties. We can show them a great time while keeping them close.”

“Sure,” Claire says. “I miss planning parties together.”

Since Adele quit Les Dames Amis, Claire has taken on more responsibility, become Bea’s second in command. She tackles our Halloween party plans with new authority. We host it at Adele and Al’s. Lionel dresses as a skeleton. Nathalie and Clément and I go as ghosts, dressed all in white with pillowcases over our heads and circles cut out for eyes. We make ghost sounds when we enter, toss the pillowcases on a chair soon after. My sisters and I serve orange punch and play spooky music and the house is full of girls in the midst of growth spurts and boys with cracking voices. I join a group of mothers in the den, commiserating over how impossible it is to keep our refrigerators stocked and pantries full. “The children are, quite literally, devouring my husband’s paycheck,” one of the mothers says. She speaks huskily, scans the small crowd of laughing women, lands on me. Communicates something with her eyes. Like the surfer. Like Ginny. But not Ginny. I look away.

Later she finds me in the kitchen, leans against the counter with herdrink. Looks me over, my white dress and white stockings and white gloves. Gaze stopping again at my face. She’s dressed as a witch. My opposite, all in black. Square jaw and dainty nose and a mouth like a slash. “Claire and Adele’s elusive younger sister,” she says. “The one who skips the parties and rarely goes to Mass.”

“I didn’t realize I’d earned a reputation.”

“I’ve just noticed you over the years,” she says. “That’s all.”

And then Nathalie’s storming in, calling for me. “Rudy’s beinghorrible,” she says. “He keeps lunging at me with his stupid vampire teeth,” and she grabs my wrist and yanks me out of the kitchen and I’m glad of it. Released of the moment. No choices to be made.

The next week, I strip Clément’s bed and something on the sheets is glue-like, hardened. I tell Al the next day at the plant and he comes later. I eavesdrop from the kitchen as they sit on the sofa and talk about men’s bodies and what they can do. The responsibilities that come with it. Realize I should have had Al come sooner, before the dreams, and how alarming it must have been to wake up that way. But then Clément says, “I go toschool, Uncle Al. I know all about it. Plus Rudy’s been talking about this stuff forever.”

Later that night I call Nathalie into my room. We sit on the bed and talk about bodies. The words don’t come easily; I never had this conversation with Maman or my sisters. She says she already knows a little bit, but she listens intently as I describe menstruation, watches as I clip a pad onto a pair of underwear, tries doing it herself.

“We’ll keep one in your school bag, in case it comes while you’re there.”