Dirty Laundry, page 13
“I had to bring Harry somewhere. He’s been driving us up the wall at home. Sean is minding Freya.” She spoke while she watched Harry build and destroy mounds of sand. “Shit, I’m sorry. Did you want to be left alone?”
“No. Not at all. This is not a problem.”
“I’m glad for some adult company, if I’m being honest. I don’t think I can praise another one of Harry’s sandcastles.”
Mishti had to smile at that, and Lauren looked encouraged. “Aww, look at her. Isn’t she just gorgeous. She’s the spitting image of you, Mishti.”
“My husband’s family thinks she looks like him.”
Lauren rolled her eyes at that. “It’s some kind of subconscious effort to lay claim, isn’t it? You gave birth to her. She came out of you. Insisting that she looks like him is their way of saying she belongs to him.”
Mishti’s breath stopped for a moment.
“Not that I’m saying there’s a chance she may not be his. Fuck! I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be cursing in front of the kids.” Lauren glanced down at her belly. “Besides, isn’t your husband a psychologist?”
“He is. And it’s okay, I’m not offended. I understand what you mean.” She was smiling even more now. “But I won’t try and run this theory past him.”
Lauren laughed and practically threw herself back on the sand. “Come on, try it. It’s nice down here.” She had her eyes closed against the brightness of the sky.
Mishti stared at Harry, who hadn’t moved from his original spot. She couldn’t think of an excuse fast enough. She felt Lauren’s fingers tugging at her wrist. She lay down beside her. The sand gave way a little, and then her body seemed to settle in, almost weightless. Mishti didn’t shut her eyes but stared at the clouds in the sky, and it felt like she was up there with them.
“It’s a little funny how we have to get away from the village just to find some peace.”
“I don’t go out much,” Mishti admitted.
“You’re a homebody, like me.”
“Not exactly. In Calcutta, I hated being at home. I couldn’t wait to get away from my family. I wanted to be free, to have my own life.”
“Do you still feel like you’re new here?”
“A little bit.”
“I thought you’ve made friends.”
“Only Ciara, and she has her own life.”
“And what a life she has.”
Mishti detected a touch of sourness in Lauren’s tone, and she was surprised by it. “Are you not friends?”
“It’s not up to me.” Lauren opened her eyes, then turned her face to Mishti. “Forget about it. Tell me how you’re feeling.”
“I feel okay,” she replied, but couldn’t seem to get past the shift of tone in Lauren’s voice. “I just need some time. I’ve only been here a little over two years.”
“I would hate for you to feel unwelcome. I know how things can get here if you’re different in any way.”
“Everyone has been very nice to us.”
“I’m glad to hear that. It doesn’t always go that way. People here like to stick to their own. Although something must be changing—everyone welcomed Ciara with open arms too.”
“She is very outgoing, makes friends easily.”
Lauren breathed in deeply. “Yeah, maybe that’s what it is. She made me a basket of scones when she first moved in. Did you know that?”
Mishti shook her head, a little surprised herself that Ciara had never mentioned it.
“We could have been friends too. I was having a bad day. A bad year, really.” Lauren chuckled half-heartedly. “And then it just never worked out after that.”
Lauren sat up with a jerk, like she’d only now remembered her son. “Harry! That’s enough. Please come over here,” she called out loudly, but not firmly enough.
Mishti sat up too, feeling too silly to lie on the sand by herself. She wanted to ask Lauren what was wrong. Something had to be wrong, she could feel it.
“I’m going to have to go get him,” Lauren mumbled when Harry didn’t so much as glance in their direction. She was struggling to distribute her weight appropriately in order to stand.
Mishti was about to offer help but stopped. “Do you feel unwelcome here?”
Lauren gave up her struggle and dropped herself back on the sand again. “I’ve lived here practically my whole life. You could say this is all I know. This feeling. I don’t have a name for it. Unwelcome could be one way to describe it, but I can’t imagine living anywhere else. This is my home.”
Mishti felt some relief, knowing Ciara had moved to the village within the past few years; she couldn’t be the cause of Lauren’s longtime distress. Mishti thought highly of Ciara and wanted to keep it that way. Whatever Lauren was experiencing must have been from before, from her childhood spent here.
“You don’t need to feel sorry for me, Mishti. The only thing I care about is my family. My kids and Sean. Everything else is just a bad background score.”
Mishti had never wanted to hug anyone as much as she wanted to throw her arms around Lauren then. She knew Lauren was lying. She was only saying this out loud so she could hear it herself.
“Okay.”
“But if I were you, I’d be careful with Ciara,” Lauren continued. “I don’t know what she wants from you, but it can’t be good.” Then she swung herself up shakily and headed in Harry’s direction.
Mishti waited a few beats, until she was certain Lauren wasn’t turning to look. Then she reached for Maya to wake her. She wanted to leave.
When she thought about it now, it was clear that it had always been about Ciara, from the very beginning.
The first time they’d met, Ciara had made an effort, a genuine effort, with her. Lauren was the one who chose the course of their relationship. Shortly after she and Gerry had moved into the house, Ciara knocked on Lauren’s door with some freshly baked fruit scones in a basket.
They had chosen this house, this village, because it made perfect sense. They decided against the city because she wanted to live in a sprawling space. Ciara said she wanted to see potential in a house, a place she could make her own. She was full of ideas, and Gerry didn’t want to hold her back. He didn’t complain about his forty-minute commute to work, and she didn’t complain about how close they were going to live to his mother.
Ciara had seen flashes of Lauren through the hedge that ran between their two houses, heard the cries of a child on the other side. She was eager to make friends, like she’d always been.
“Hello, neighbor!” Ciara said brightly, when Lauren opened the door.
Lauren’s brows were furrowed, and she looked at the woman standing at her doorway with confusion.
“Hello? Can I help you?”
Ciara was taken aback too. Lauren wore a fabric contraption tied around herself in multiple layers, squeezing a small baby to her body. Lauren’s eyes were droopy; dark circles exaggerated them and made them appear more dramatic. She smelled sour, like milk gone off. There were fresh wet stains down the front of her tank top; an oversized patchwork shirt hung off her shoulders; her feet were bare and dusty like she’d been working in the fields. Every item of clothing on her person could have done with a wash, and Ciara had to wonder if this woman had showered recently. She cleared her throat while Lauren stared at her.
“Oh. You bought the big house.”
They both looked over at the other house, standing tall and proud on elevated ground, much like a castle on a hill. Both their back gardens had several levels and slopes. Ciara was in the process of planning, planting, and sculpting, while Lauren’s was untamed. There were patches of severe overgrowth, the tall grass was overrun with daisies and dandelions. There was one section of the hedge between the two houses that was viciously swarmed by bees on Lauren’s side. Ciara hoped she could offer some neighborly help and advice, but Lauren was looking at her with judgment.
“I just wanted to come over and introduce myself, as I’m not rushing off to work for once,” Ciara continued, trying to remain chirpy. She was still at Horizon, which meant that the weekend was her only opportunity to socialize, amidst working with their landscape artist and meeting with the interior decorator.
“I’m Lauren,” the woman said, but didn’t invite Ciara in. Instead, she shifted the wrapped child to her other side, impatiently.
“I’m Ciara. And who is this gorgeous little thing? She looks so peaceful and snug in there.” She had some inkling of what to say to new parents, even though her ovaries weren’t exactly exploding.
“Freya.” Lauren smiled then, as she gazed down at her sleeping baby.
“That’s a beautiful name. I made scones this morning, and I brought you some.” Ciara held out the basket.
“Oh, thanks,” Lauren said, looking at the basket but not reaching for it. “But we’re gluten-free.”
Ciara was so surprised, she took a few steps back and attempted to hide the basket behind her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
A banging sound came from somewhere within the house, which made Lauren look over her shoulder. “I’m sorry, we’re having quite the morning. Nobody here has slept.”
Before Ciara could ask, Freya woke up from the sound. With her eyes still shut, she wriggled in the tight confines of the sling and let out an ear-piercing shriek.
“For fuck’s sake,” Lauren mumbled. “Sean! Keep it down!” she yelled over her shoulder, and the banging stopped. She turned back to Ciara and began bobbing up and down, sideways, back and forth, apparently in an attempt to lull the child to sleep.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Ciara asked.
“Not unless you want to go up there and help my partner take down a rotting wardrobe.” Lauren shouted the words over her daughter’s cries of distress. Ciara wished she would just take the baby out of the thing, just rock her in her arms like a normal mother would do.
“It seems like I’ve caught you at a bad time.”
Lauren patted the baby’s bottom, while she transferred her weight from one foot to the other.
“It’s always a bad time around here these days.” She rolled her eyes upward, and Ciara tried to smile. She couldn’t tell if it was a joke.
“Maybe we should have a coffee or something one of these days, some weekend. You could come see the house; I’ll give you a tour. We’ve been working hard on it—I mean the interior designer and I. Gerry doesn’t care about all that,” Ciara continued. “I’m sure you remember what the place used to look like before.”
“Can’t. I’m off caffeine too. I’m breastfeeding.” Lauren glanced at Ciara’s house and then at her again. Her forehead was wrinkled, like she couldn’t believe Ciara was even standing in front of her. “And you don’t appear to have any kids. Trust me, you wouldn’t want to spend any more time around a newborn than absolutely necessary.”
“I don’t know about that. Freya seems lovely.” There was a smile plastered on Ciara’s face, but it was fading fast.
Lauren rolled her eyes. “You say that now, but you don’t know. I’m trying to do you a favor.”
“I’m not sure what I’ve done to offend you.”
Freya’s cries had turned to whimpers, while her mother continued to sway.
“I’m not offended. Maybe I’m just tired; we haven’t been sleeping much. I don’t know.”
Ciara stared at her blankly.
“What I mean is…with the baby, and Sean trying to make repairs on the house—we’re just kind of a mess right now.” Lauren waited several beats for Ciara to respond; she had been silent a long time, allowing Lauren to feel like a fish out of water, slapping itself on a rock. “Why would I be offended by you? You’re only trying to be friendly, aren’t you? Coming here and telling me about your house.”
Ciara tipped her head to one side. “So it’s my house. It’s my house that offends you, isn’t it.” It was done. This other side of her was slipping into place. It always reminded Ciara of the mornings she’d sit on the steps, watching her mother pull clothes off the line in the garden. There was a certain way she’d snap each piece of clothing in the air before folding it neatly in the basket. That was the sound she heard every time she changed into this other person. The person who didn’t want to make friends. The sound of fabric whacking the wind, and then everything around her looked a little grayer.
“Why would your house offend me? Because we’re so miserable over here on this side of the fence?” Lauren had one hand on the side of the baby’s head, almost like she was forcibly keeping her pressed to her chest.
“Am I wrong?”
“And you are doing us this big favor, feeding us? Bringing us food?” Lauren’s eyes scanned Ciara head to toe. Her sixty-euro blow-dry. The dainty gold chain at her neck, with her initial engraved on a pendant. Her pointy red pumps.
“You could, at the very least, be polite. We are going to be neighbors.”
“Yes, just neighbors.” A collection of voices sounded from somewhere down the road. Female voices Ciara didn’t recognize but was now grateful for. She caught Lauren trying to catch a glimpse, up on her toes, straining her neck. Then her shoulders relaxed, and she breathed in deeply.
“I suggest you take those scones over to them. They’ll be better appreciated over there. In fact, tell them Lauren sent you.” With that, she shut the door with a slam.
Ciara stood on the step for a few moments, staring at the door, until the chatter grew louder. She turned around to find a handful of women in Lycra, walking together with Vitaminwaters in their hands. They slowed down when they saw Ciara in front of Lauren’s house, like they too couldn’t believe she was standing here, of all places.
A few moments, then there was that whack in her mind again, and everything was restored to its natural color. Ciara presented them with her brightest smile.
“Hello, ladies! I made a big batch of scones this morning.” These women assessed her too, quickly taking in the flawless foundation, the brand name embossed on the leather of her handbag, the hunk of diamond on her ring finger.
“You must be Ciara Dunphy,” one of them said.
And that was that. Ciara was relieved. None of these women were anything like her, and she didn’t expect them to understand, but she was glad she’d found her crowd.
Lauren was six when she was invited to the birthday party for the O’Brien twins. They were turning seven, and all the kids from their class were attending. Still, Lauren couldn’t believe she’d been invited and that her parents were considering letting her go.
At first she thought it was her absurd amount of freckles that set her apart, then the fact that she was ginger; then it had dawned on her that maybe it was the way she dressed. Her parents rarely ever bought her clothes. She wore what her gran picked out or her brother’s hand-me-downs. The older she got, the more obsessed she became with the idea that it was her gran’s old-fashioned ways. She went to school in tight pigtails, with her skirt hemmed below the knees. Her parents didn’t buy her nice-smelling erasers and Tamagotchis either. Her gran sewed and stuffed handmade dolls for her instead.
As much as she loved her gran, she also wished she didn’t exist.
Her mother was pouring more milk in her brother’s bowl of Nesquik the morning they discussed the party. Lauren had been staying with her parents for a few nights because her gran had the flu and could barely make her own tea. Lauren knew that the moment her gran was feeling better, her father would drop her off over there again. At least he had the decency to come up with legitimate-sounding excuses: that they’d be working late all week and there would be nobody to make Lauren her dinners, or that Evan was having a hard time and needed all their attention, or that Lauren had been asking for her. Her gran never complained, and neither did she.
“I suppose we’ll have to send her to the O’Briens’ party,” her mother said, stirring Evan’s cereal.
Her father didn’t look up from the newspaper, while Lauren’s brother, practically a man now, popped a whole sausage in his mouth.
“If she doesn’t go, people will talk,” her mother continued.
“We’ll have to get those girls something if she goes.” It sounded like a complaint, coming from her father.
Evan stood up and stomped out of the kitchen, leaving most of his breakfast behind. Lauren caught the look of longing in her mother’s eyes as he left. All she had ever wanted was a son she could mother. Lauren was an afterthought; there were twelve years between the two of them.
“I don’t know what these girls would want. Do you know what we could get them as presents?” All of a sudden, both her parents were staring at her, and Lauren was stumped.
“Friendship bracelets,” Lauren blurted. It was what she wanted to give them, because then they’d have to wear them, sealing the girls in friendship together forever.
Her father folded the newspaper away. “I don’t have the first feckin’ clue what those are.”
Her mother sighed and nodded. “They can’t cost much.”
Two weeks later, on the afternoon of the party, her mother forced her into the Bo Peep dress. It was Lauren’s frilliest frock, and it made her look like she was headed to her own Communion. Evan walked her to the party, chain-smoking the entire way, so that by the time they arrived, Lauren could smell her brother’s smoke in her hair.
She had the two gift-wrapped pouches in her hand. Friendship bracelets weren’t available at the shop in the village, so her mother had to drive into town for them.
