But my husband, at that moment, let out a hearty laugh from somewhere behind me. He was telling a story, his accent strong despite two decades away from Melbourne. Men and women alike were drawn to that accent—imagining, I supposed, a swashbuckling hero in the outback. Heads turned to look in his direction, and in the swirl of voices, my words were lost.
“Oh, no, no, no,” Myriam said, stepping in to clarify. She handed me a glass, saying, “Cabernet.” Then to the room at large, she announced, “Phil is our new community relations specialist, but they’ll be living right here, on-site. Isn’t that fantastic?”
I nodded, ducking my head as if to study the wine more closely. Maybe she thought of us as charity cases, worthy of a fund-raiser. Donations will be accepted on behalf of the McGinnises, who have only been able to furnish half of their four thousand square feet.
“Let’s see,” Myriam said. “Where should we start? I suppose you’ve met the Sieverts.”
“I haven’t really met anyone,” I confessed. “What with all the unpacking...”
“Well, then, here we go,” Myriam said, taking a swallow from her own glass, as if to fortify herself.
For the past three weeks, I’d been watching my neighbors from the safety of my front porch with a morning cup of coffee, like an anthropologist afraid to actually encounter the natives. I’d seen them entering and exiting the community trail in their jogging clothes, the men with their long shinbones, the women with their tight ponytails. Our greetings had never gone beyond a raised hand of solidarity, a brisk Hello! Who were these people? I’d wondered. What did they do, how could they afford such extravagant lives? The answers were in a stack of file boxes temporarily relocated to our dining room while Phil’s office was being repainted. I knew it was wrong, or at least wrongish, as my sister, Allie, and I used to say, to sneak these clandestine peeks into strangers’ lives, but from the moment I opened the first manila folder, I lacked all willpower to stop. I pawed through housing applications, ogled the lists of assets (three thousand acres in Montana! The yacht, the wine collection, the jewelry!) and raised an eyebrow at the alphabet soup that trailed their names—CEO, CFO, MBA, MD. Someone in Phase 2 had paid $750,000 for a racehorse, and I still had four years of payments on my student loan.
I’d emailed Allie in Chicago: One of my neighbors has an actual Picasso.
She replied, I have a set of four Picasso coasters. I’d fit right in.
Being at the Mesbahs’ party was like playing a real-life game of Memory—matching the faces of the people in front of me with the snippets of information I already knew.
The Sieverts were our closest neighbors across the street. Rich owned a string of fast-food restaurants in the Bay Area; Deanna (only twenty-four, I remembered from their file), was his second wife. It was Rich’s son, Mac, from his first marriage, who drove the monster truck that blasted to life several times a day and was often parked crookedly in their four-car driveway.
“Don’t you just love living in The Palms?” Deanna asked. She shimmered next to me in a strapless green pantsuit, her question punctuated by the grip of her glittery fingernails on my forearm. Up close, her hair was a brassy, yellowish blond.
“I do,” I said, and then with more emphasis, as if I were performing for a lie detector test, “It’s really great.”
“Moving on,” Myriam murmured, her hand at my elbow.
The Berglands owned the colonial farmhouse closest to the clubhouse; they passed by our house a few times each day in a burgundy Suburban loaded with kids. Carly Bergland was so petite, her baby bump stood out like a ledge, perfectly positioned to hold a glass of mineral water. “You’d think we’d learn,” she said, rubbing her belly. “This is number six. But babies are our business, I guess you could say.”
“Carly and Jeremy own Nah-Nah Foods,” Myriam explained.
I remembered this from their files—Nah-Nah Foods was an organic baby food business. “That’s fantastic,” I said.
Carly smiled. “Have you seen our displays in Whole Foods? We mostly do formula, but we’ve been venturing into the world of purees.”
The one time I’d gone into Whole Foods, I’d left with a twelve-dollar carton of blueberries and vowed never to return. “I’ll have to look for it,” I said.
Carly took a sip of her water. “I have a mommy blog, too. Between the two ventures, we’ve been very successful.” There was no trace of modesty in her voice, none of the sarcasm or self-deprecation that was my staple. In his first weeks, Phil had received a number of complaints about the Berglands—kids’ toys on the lawn, bikes left at the curb. I wondered if she knew that.
“My oldest must be about the age of your daughter,” Carly continued. “Hannah. She’s fifteen.”
I smiled. “Danielle’s fourteen. Just starting high school. Where does Hannah go?”
Carly blinked. “Oh, no. She’s homeschooled. We won’t even dream of it anymore, with the state of public education—”
Myriam steered me away, her grip insistent. This was her task as a hostess, I realized, an obligation she was determined to fulfill so she could be done with me.
I recognized Trevor and Marja Browers as the couple who walked past my house each morning at sunrise, their two white heads bobbing in sync, their hands raised in benevolent hellos. I’d come to think of them as the grandparents of the community. Trevor was a laser specialist, officially retired from Lawrence-Livermore Labs, although he still consulted part-time. “He has top-level security clearance,” Myriam said. “And Marja, dear Marja...”
“It’s very secluded here, ja?” Marja asked, her Dutch accent strong. Her face was soft and friendly, accented with a slash of red lipstick.
I stopped myself, but only barely, from agreeing with a ja in return.
She smiled, revealing teeth that were charmingly crooked. “Sometimes too secluded, if you know what I mean?”
I did.
Oh, I did.
We were only a few feet away when Myriam whispered, “We call those socialist teeth,” with a wicked laugh at her own joke. I realized it was the same laugh she would utter when I left. We call those sales-rack shoes.
I decided right there that I hated her—that I hated all of them—as we worked our way through the room: the Roche-Edwardses, the Navarres, the Coffeys. They blended together, along with their details: the Mediterranean with the blue mosaic inlay, the husband in finance, the daughter who had been homecoming queen. I nodded along, my feet aching in my heels. Was it too early to leave, to grab Phil’s arm and make a run for it, claiming exhaustion or food poisoning or cramps? When I got home, I promised myself, I would toss these sandals into the depths of our walk-in closet, which was large enough to guarantee I wouldn’t have to see them again, ever. I would avoid all other parties, all fund-raisers and wine-and-cheese pairings. Where was the cheese, anyway? It was a horrible trick of advertising.
Victor passed, touching my shoulder. “Are you having a good time?”
In a mirror over the fireplace, I saw my own wine-stained smile reflected back at me.
Myriam pointed out Janet Neimeyer, who was anywhere between forty and sixty, her body toned and deeply tanned next to her white dress, skin stretched tight across her cheekbones. “She got the house in the divorce settlement,” Myriam said casually. “She likes her men, but if she settles down, she’ll have to kiss this place goodbye.”
“Oh,” I said, not sure how I was supposed to react. I looked mournfully at the half inch of wine