After the Reunion Read Free

other people were starting their day. She might as well start hers, before Adeline came, or she wouldn’t have a moment’s peace.
    It was too late. Engine growling, exhaust smoking, there was Adeline’s enormous, ancient convertible, low to the ground like a boat. She got only nine miles to the gallon on it, as she never tired of complaining to Emily, even though Ken paid for her gas. They should have given her the station wagon. But Ken, who adored Adeline, said Emily was crazy to think of it. Why not, Emily asked, since other people bought cars for their housekeepers, and the station wagon was old and not worth very much? He’d just blown up at her. Ken, who had been the most generous of men, had started to act stingy about the strangest things. He’d go out and order cases and cases of the best, most expensive wine, because someone had recommended it, and then he’d glare if Emily bought a dress, which she hardly ever did anyway as she wasn’t much of a shopper. She didn’t like it when Ken called her crazy—it reminded her of when she had been, and she wished he would think of anything else to call her but that when he got annoyed. He knew how she felt about it, and she had the terrible feeling he did it on purpose, which again was just so totally unlike him. Maybe they could sit down and talk about what was happening, if she could ever catch him when he was alone and not harassed.
    Adeline was sitting at the kitchen table having breakfast and reading the morning papers when Emily came down. The smell of fried bacon hung like a reproach and a challenge in that abstemiously red-meatless house.
    “Good morning , sweetie!” Adeline sang out.
    “Good morning, Adeline. Don’t bother, I’ll get my own, you just finish your breakfast,” Emily said. She poured a cup of coffee and dropped a slice of diet bread into the toaster. Adeline had come to work for them five years ago, and had gradually exerted her power to where she ran everybody. She had Emily absolutely cowed and behaving like one of the children. Half black, half American Indian, huge, willful, and inscrutable, she seemed ageless and she wasn’t telling, but Emily had to pay her in cash to stay. Adeline did all the cooking now, and Emily went to the supermarket with a list—she who had been such a gourmet cook and had taken so many courses in the cuisine of any country you could name was now allowed into her own kitchen only on Adeline’s days off. Ken thought Adeline was a gem, Kate and Peter liked being spoiled by her, Emily couldn’t stand her but no longer could do without her, and nobody ever knew what Adeline thought.
    The kids were coming for dinner, and Emily could already see the long shopping list on the kitchen counter, and the cookie sheets laid out in readiness. She wished at least she could make the cookies. Cookies were love.
    “You better go early before Gelson’s get too crowded,” Adeline said.
    Oh, God, Thursday! Coupon day. The day when there were all those ads about specials in the newspapers. Adeline should have sent her yesterday … or she should have remembered and insisted.
    “Maybe I’ll go somewhere else,” Emily said timidly.
    “I like Gelson’s,” Adeline said, in a voice that clearly meant Emily was making a big mistake. Emily remembered that voice from her childhood, when she’d gone to buy clothes with her mother. Was that why she was so afraid of losing Adeline’s good will that sometimes her throat closed up with anxiety when Adeline didn’t agree with her? After all those years of analysis, wouldn’t you think she’d be over her compulsive need to please everybody? She was the good child, the good wife, the good mother, and the invisible person.
    “All right, I’ll go to Gelson’s.”
    By the time she’d taken a shower and washed her hair and dressed, and put on a little makeup because you never knew if you’d run into somebody who’d tell people you were looking awful, Emily knew it was already