“When?” he presses me.
“Soon.” He doesn’t look satisfied with this answer, so I add, “I have a great idea. Why don’t you go hit the ball around yourself in the backyard?”
His eyes light up. “I love having a backyard, Mom.”
Me too.
Nico goes off to practice on his own in the backyard, which is a luxury we didn’t have back in the city. I go upstairs to the bedroom and apply a fresh layer of concealer to cover the circles under my eyes that seem like they’re always there these days. I start to put on some mascara but manage to get a glob of it in my eye and then have to wash it all off because I’m tearing so badly. I apply a layer of something called nude lipstick, which is apparently lipstick that makes it look like you’re not wearing lipstick at all. I can’t imagine why they would make such a product, although a better question is why did I buy it?
We haven’t purchased a full-length mirror yet, so I am doing acrobatics to check my appearance in the small vanity mirror over the sink. It involves some amount of contortion, but I finally decide that I look fine enough. Anyway, I have to figure out the dessert situation, because that is my contribution to the evening.
On the way home from work, I stopped off at the supermarket and bought an apple pie. Now, don’t get me wrong—I love apple pie in all forms. But when I get downstairs to the kitchen and pull it out of the grocery bag, it looks like exactly what it is: a cheap pie from a local supermarket.
I can only imagine what sort of commentary I’m going to get from Suzette on this pie. She probably goes to some fancy French patisserie for all her desserts.
I pull the pie out of the plastic wrap but leave it inside the metal tin. Then I grab a fork from the silverware drawer. With artistic precision, I rough up the edges of the pie and poke the center a few times. The pie looks decidedly less assembly-line perfect now. Could I pass it off as home baked? Maybe.
As I’m scrutinizing the pie, the front door hinges squeal as the door swings open. Enzo is home. Thank God, since we don’t have much time left. I rush out to the front door to meet him, but immediately, my face falls. My husband is literally covered head to toe in dirt. And we have to be at the Lowells’ in…
Fifteen minutes. Great.
“Millie!” His face lights up when he sees me, but then I notice he’s looking at the pie. “Apple pie… my favorite American dessert!”
“I made it,” I say, testing the waters.
“Really? It looks like from supermarket.”
Damn. I guess I didn’t make it rustic enough.
He comes over to give me a kiss, but I back away, holding up a hand to ward him off. “You’re filthy!”
“I was digging a hole,” he says, like it would be silly to think he was doing anything else. “I’ll shower after I do the baseball with Nico. He wants to practice.”
“Enzo.” I glare at him. “Suzette invited us for dinner! We need to be there in fifteen minutes. Remember?”
He looks at me blankly. I am amazed by his ability to forget any sort of social engagement, although he seems to be very good at keeping track of his work obligations.
“Oh,” he says. “Was it in the family calendar?”
Enzo always tells me to put things in the family calendar on our phones, but as far as I can tell, he does not check that—ever. “Yes, it was.”
“Oh.” He scratches his neck with his dirt-encrusted hand. “I guess… I shower now then.”
Honestly, sometimes it’s like having a third child. Actually, he is more like the second child, because Ada is much more like an adult.
I turn back to the pie. On a whim, I throw it into the oven. Maybe if it’s hot, I can pass it off as my own. Somehow, I feel this desperate need to impress Suzette Lowell. I’ve worked for a lot of women like Suzette back in the days when I was cleaning houses, but I’ve never been in a position to be anything more than the servant of a woman like her.
I don’t like Suzette, but if we can be friends with the Lowells, it’s a step up. It means I have finally achieved the normal life I always dreamed of. The life I’d do anything to get.
SEVEN
Twenty minutes later, we are standing at the front door of 12 Locust Street.
It took a little longer than expected. Even though Enzo took a quick shower, he then came downstairs in wrinkled jeans and a T-shirt, because of course he did. So I had to send him back upstairs to change into something a little more respectable. Now he’s wearing the button-up black dress shirt I bought him six months ago when I realized he had absolutely no dress shirts, and as expected, it perfectly complements his dark eyes and hair, and he looks achingly handsome. Also as expected, he looks very uncomfortable and like there’s a chance he might rip it off at some point during the evening. (Suzette would die.)
The apple pie is now warm, which helps it look more homemade. It’s also very hot to hold. It’s currently scalding my hands, and I can’t wait to put it down.
Nico is tugging at his own short-sleeved dress shirt, which has an even higher chance of being ripped off due to discomfort tonight than his father’s. “Do we have to go to a boring dinner?”
“Yes,” I say.
“But I want to play baseball with Dad.”
“We won’t be there long.”
“What are they making for dinner?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can I watch TV while we’re there?”
I turn my head to glare at my son. “No, you cannot.”
I look over at Enzo for support, although he looks like he’s trying not to laugh. He probably wishes he could watch TV too.
After a minute of my hands being scorched by the supermarket pie, an unfamiliar woman pulls open the front door. She is about sixty years old and built like a linebacker, with graying hair pulled back into a tight bun. She has the most perfect posture I’ve ever seen—like if you put a book on her head and checked on it two days later, it would still be there. She’s got on a flowered dress with a white apron over it. She stares at me with dull gray eyes that bore right into me.
“Um, hello…” I say uncertainly. I check the house number on the door, as if I might have somehow gone to the wrong house next door. “I’m Millie. We’re here for…”
