Last night, after choking down a solitary dinner of overdone chicken, she’d waited for Bob. He’d come in after midnight and he hadn’t wanted to talk. Sylvie didn’t push it. Instead, she’d lain awake most of the night, sleepless and confused. She had—
Out of nowhere a car pulled out of an almost hidden driveway on her right. Sylvie moved the wheel and the convertible swerved responsively. A van was in the oncoming lane. The slightest touch brought her car back, long before the van was a real danger to her, but she was shaken. So were the groceries. Sylvie had to admit that the convertible was beautiful to drive, but she didn’t want it. It was wrong somehow. It felt all wrong.
What’s wrong with me? Sylvie thought. Most women would give up their husbands for a car like this. Or, for that matter, give up their cars for a husband like mine. And I have both. Rosalie is right. I’m very lucky. I should be grateful. She began her litany. I’m healthy, I love Bob, he loves me, the kids are fine. It’s a beautiful sunny day, and the leaves are just starting to turn. This unease she felt, this nagging sense of dissatisfaction, wasn’t like her. Sylvie felt ashamed at her unhappiness, but it was still there, right under her breastbone. She braked for a red light, the car gliding smoothly and effortlessly to a stop.
The steering wheel under her hands was wet with sweat. The feeling that had been building in her, lodging in her chest, now moved into her throat and blocked it. She tried to swallow and couldn’t do it. It didn’t matter anyway—her mouth was so dry there was nothing to swallow. Either I’m going crazy or something is really wrong, she thought as the light turned green. A horn blared behind her. The driver hadn’t even given her a minute. She accelerated. All at once she was swept with a surge of anger—of rage—so complete that she had trouble seeing the road. She looked in the rear view mirror at the old man in the big Buick behind her, gunned the motor, and flipped him the bird.
God! She’d never done that before in her life. Road rage? What was going on?
She realized that it was more than not wanting this car. Bob hadn’t thought of her when he took it off the lot. It was a reflexive gift, not a reflective one. He hadn’t reflected, thought, for one moment about what she might want. He took her for granted. He hadn’t listened about Hawaii either. When was the last time he had listened? Sylvie didn’t want automatic gifts, no matter how luxurious. She didn’t want to be taken for granted. She didn’t want to be ignored by Bob. There was so many things she had that she didn’t want, she felt almost dizzy and nearly missed the left into the cul-de-sac. She jerked the wheel and the new tires squealed making the turn. She drove slowly on Harris Place, the street she lived on, where her mother had the big house with the white columns and where her brother had lived in the Tudor before he’d divorced Rosalie. The few other houses on Harris were all traditional, well-designed and maintained. She drove past the beds of vinca in front of the Williamsons’ and the row of gold chrysanthemums unimaginatively lined up along Rosalie’s fence. Everything appeared so right, but this foreboding, this sense that it was wrong, became insupportable. She still couldn’t breathe. It was as if the open top of the car let the entire weight of the universe in to crush her. Her house, the house she loved, loomed up.
Sylvie made a sharp right and felt the wheels of the BM W effortlessly move over the curb. She drove the car calmly across her own side lawn and, when she reached it, through the flower border, right over the zinnias. She felt an icy stillness as she proceeded onto the back lawn and engineered a carefully calculated right turn, avoiding the slate patio. The aqua rectangle of the pool was right before her and, without slowing down, she headed for it, the car, like a homing device, moving toward the concrete edge of the eight-foot diving drop. As the front wheels spun out into empty space, just before they took the plunge into the turquoise water, Sylvie was able to take the first deep breath she had taken all day.
“Sylvie! Sylvie, baby! Are you okay?”
Mildred had been rehanging the bedroom curtains and had looked down to see the L her daughter made in the lawn as she had done this crazy thing. Now Mildred stood at the edge of the pool. She couldn’t swim—never had—but she’d jump in to attempt to save her daughter if she must. Mildred was relieved then to see that Sylvie’s head had broken through the leaf-strewn surface of the water. Sylvie, a good swimmer, breaststroked gracefully over the trunk of the car and across the pool, still holding on to her purse. Her shoes had fallen to the bottom, but the shorts and blouse she had on felt surprisingly heavy, pulling her down. Still, Sylvie managed to move through the cold water to the ladder.
Mildred was panting, one hand against the ladder rail, the other hand on her heaving chest. “You frightened me,” Mildred said. There was a scream from the other side of the property and Mildred started and turned her head. Sylvie, still in the pool, couldn’t see but knew whose voice it was. “Oh god,” Mildred muttered. “I know she never washes her curtains, so what’s her excuse for seeing this?” She squatted down to get closer to Sylvie and extended her hand to help her. “Your ex-sister-in-law is waving to you,” she said.
Climbing the ladder, Sylvie turned and saw Rosalie’s dark head over the pickets of the north fence. “Trouble in Paradise?” Rosalie yelled.
Mildred, ignoring Rosalie, carefully helped her daughter out of the pool. “Why did you do that?” she asked.
“So I’ll remember where I parked?”
“Are you being flippant with your mother?”
Sylvie opened her purse, oblivious to the water that poured out, and dropped in her car keys. She snapped the purse shut. The noise it made, like a tiny sedan door closing, did not sound as solid as usual. “Flippant?” she echoed, distracted. She was a little dazed, but at least she could breathe.
“Sylvie, you do realize you’ve just done a very strange thing? If you don’t, it’s even stranger.”
Sylvie turned to look at the scene behind her. Three nectarines and a head of lettuce were now floating on the top of the pool. The car glinted up from the bottom like a silver fish lying under aspic. What had she done? And why had she done it? She put her hand up to her eyes to wipe away the water streaming down from her hair, only to realize there were also tears rising over her bottom lids. What had she done? Was she crazy? “I just want Bob to notice me,” she admitted in a whisper.
Mildred nodded, then opened the door to the outdoor cabinet that Bob had always laughingly called “The Cabana.” Oh, he was a card, Bob was. Sylvie shivered in the cool autumn air as she watched her mother take out two faded beach towels. “Sylvie, sweetheart,” Mildred said, “men don’t notice their wives. A new blonde in the neighborhood, yes. A sports car, absolutely. But after forty-six years of marriage, just ask your father what color eyes I have.” Mildred looked deep into her daughter’s own eyes. “Give it up, Sylvie.” Mildred wrapped one of the towels around Sylvie’s shoulders and handed her the other one. “For your hair,” Mildred directed. Rosalie had thrown her left leg over the fence. “What can I do?” she hollered.
Exasperated, Mildred raised her own voice. “You can move out of the neighborhood, Rosalie. You’ve been divorced from my son for three years.” Rosalie had almost managed to breach the fence. Sylvie knew Rosalie was lonely since the divorce and with her kids away, but though she tried to feel for her, Rose was shameless in her interfering with the family. She wouldn’t sell her house or leave the culde-sac; she wouldn’t stop snooping and gossiping and showing up uninvited. After her settlement from Phil had left him broke, she still insisted he had secret funds. And that everyone was better off and had more resources than Rosalie.
Now Rosalie the Resourceful got her right leg over the fence and jumped into the yard.
Rosalie made a beeline for the pool and stared into it. “Holy shit! I heard it but I didn’t see it.” She squatted down, looked at the car, and grinned. “Is this gonna be covered by the warranty?” she asked. She reached out and grabbed the lettuce, floating near the edge of the pool coping, and brought it over to Sylvie. “God, you’re a mess,” Rosalie said as she surveyed Sylvie, who was dripping like a defrosting freezer.