Turn 18 of 44

You wait in front of the door for Fred. You think about your last name, it’s Austin. Margaret Austin is your name. The only reason you don’t call Vivian by her last and the same with you is because your best friends. Soon, Fred arrives home you start doing the housewife routine after their husband arrives home. You give a massage as dinner is already ready. He eats while you clean.

You stand in the front hallway, waiting. Margaret Austin, you think, trying the name on like the pearls. It fits. It fits the way the girdle fits, the way the bob fits — snug and right and shaped for you. Margaret Austin. Of course you don't call Vivian 'Mrs. Hartley,' and she doesn't call you Mrs. Anything, because gals who are best friends don't stand on ceremony. Best friends. You've known her your whole life, practically. Practically.

At nine-fifteen by the kitchen clock — he's late, men are late, that's just how men are — tires roll soft onto the driveway, and the porch light catches a broad shadow through the frosted glass. You smooth your skirt, check the smile, and open the door before he can fumble with his keys.

"Hi, honey, I'm home," Fred says, and his coat smells of pipe tobacco and something colder underneath, like air from a room nobody heats. He's tall, square-shouldered, handsome in a way that makes you think of photographs rather than faces — a jaw like an ad for razors, a smile you've somehow already seen.

"Welcome home, Fred," you say, taking his coat, and the routine runs itself through you like a well-oiled machine. His slippers are waiting by the footstool. You settle him into his chair and your small hands knead the knots from his shoulders while he sighs and unwinds, and the whole time your mind is as smooth and pleasant as the lacquered shine on your bob.

"Dinner's kept warm," you say. "Fried chicken and fixings." "Good girl," he says, and the words land warm as casserole.

He eats at the head of the table and you move around him — clearing, wiping, running the water — and it doesn't feel like serving. It feels like being the clock in a clock tower. Everything in its order.

"Vivian says the neighborhood's coming along," Fred says, cutting his chicken. "Says you're a natural, Margaret." He uses the name without anyone having told him.

"Says there's a gal on this street she wants handled. The one with the little book club."

"Ruthie," you say, and giggle, and the sound comes out sweet as sugar in tea.