Page 17

‘I don’t know. I could make some mac and cheese?’

‘Could we order pizza?’

She nodded. ‘On one condition.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘What is it?’

‘You go and have a shower. One during which you use some soap. In fact, lots of soap.’

In the Interests of Fairness

Mary could hear the shower running as she tried on the red dress. She seemed to be at a stage of life when her body was changing more rapidly than at any time – other than pregnancy – since she was a teenager. She not only noticed it in how her knees felt when running, but in how her back felt (stiff) if she sat for too long, in her inability to read without reading glasses, and in the way that when she tried on outfits they no longer seemed to fit in the hips or chest or arms or shoulders.

They had fit the last time she wore them. Some of them pretty recently.

And the red dress was no different. She had to sort of squeeze into it, and, to her eyes, she looked like an overcooked hot dog.

Lovely.

She needed a whole new fucking wardrobe.

So it would be the floral dress. She didn’t love that either, but anything was better than walking around wondering whether anyone else was looking at her and thinking overcooked hot dog.

Which they would be. She had no doubt about it.

Her phone rang. It was Rona, a former attorney who had stopped working in order to be a stay-at-home mom and had never gone back, not that that stopped her offering legal opinions on all and any topic that happened to come up. She had a catchphrase with the other moms, a phrase which began most of her legal musings: When I was a lawyer … It served two purposes: it reminded everyone that she had, once, been a lawyer, and it gave weight to whatever she was about to say, although generally most people weren’t listening.

Her oldest was the same age as Otis and played the same sports, so their paths had often crossed, which gave her plenty of opportunities to discuss legal matters with a fellow attorney. She did not seem to draw any distinction between those attorneys who actually practised law, and those who did not. Mary didn’t bother to help her draw it; she allowed the fountain of advice to enter one ear and exit the other without making the slightest imprint on its way through.

She ignored the call. But her phone rang again. Rona, again. If she didn’t pick up, the missed calls would be followed by a barrage of messages.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Sorry I didn’t answer. I’m getting ready for the library thing.’

‘The what?’ Rona said.

Shit. Rona and her husband, Byron, were often not invited to things. Rona, because she was annoying, and Byron because he was a shifty character who was never around but didn’t seem to have a specific occupation. Mary had often thought it was a bit unkind, but as time had gone on she realized why.

People just didn’t really like them and, in the end, people did what they wanted. They would talk about ethics and doing the right thing but it didn’t mean much. People did what they wanted to do.

And for the most part they didn’t want to spend their time being lectured about politics by Rona or trying to avoid having to talk to her evasive and oddball husband.

‘Oh, just something at the library. A small gathering.’ She chose not to add Of about two hundred people.

‘Oh. Well, have fun.’

Mary was surprised; normally Rona would have dug for details, but not tonight. Instead there was a tense edge to her voice. She waited to find out why.

‘Did you hear?’ Rona said.

Mary stiffened. It appeared that Rona had something else on her mind. Generally this was not a good thing.

‘Hear about what?’

‘The soccer team. They were given their team assignments this evening.’

Oh. Mary had not asked Otis whether Rona’s son, Faulkner – known as Forkie, and Mary did not want to be judgemental, but was there a more pretentious name than Forkie? – had made the varsity team, but she suspected from that strained tone in Rona’s voice that he had not.

And Rona was not going to like that at all. Her son, as far as Mary could tell, was a completely average player with only two standout characteristics: an overly competitive, aggressive streak, and a strutting, ill-placed arrogance. The competitiveness he had inherited from his mother; the arrogance came from his father.