Happily Ever After: A Novel Read Free Page B

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    Downstairs I hear the door slam, which means it’s now exactly 7:00 A.M. You know those atomic clocks that are so accurate they lose only one second every 30 million years? Well, they’ve got nothing on Greta. My German housekeeper, somewhere between the ages of sixty and infinity, walks in the door every morning at exactly seven o’clock. In the ten years we’ve been together, she has never once been late, making it the longest and most fulfilling relationship I’ve had in my adult life. I mean, Greta does things. She cooks. She folds. She irons. If she’s mad, she refuses to acknowledge my existence for a few hours and then gets over it. There’s no backstabbing or cheating. I trust her completely. That she may be the only person I can say that about is alarming only if I spend time thinking about it.
    Plus, on the first day Greta and Allison met, when Allison was a mere twelve months old, they gazed into one another’s eyes and fell in love. They simply adore each other. Sometimes when I watch them together, I feel as if I’m on the outside looking in, like I’m in a bubble with impenetrable walls.
    One minute after the door slams, I hear dishes being hauled from the washer and put away. Next, the strong aroma of coffee wafts up the stairs and lures me from my bed. Downstairs, Greta hands me a mug with a layer of warm, foamy milk on the top. I want to kiss her, but she doesn’t do touchy-feely with me. At all. Ever.
    “Thank you and good morning,” I say. She nods without saying a word and turns to Allison, who has joined us in the kitchen. Allison holds up two shirts.
    “Which one?” she demands. I should have done the bathroom thing.
    “Pancakes or waffles?” Greta shoots back.
    “Pancakes,” Allison says.
    “The stripes,” Greta says, pointing at a shirt. I watch this exchange like I’m a referee at the U.S. Open.
    “Great!” I say. “That’s all settled.” Neither one acknowledges my existence. I take my coffee to the table and hide behind the pages of the local newspaper.
    I don’t do a lot of cooking. Allison says the food I prepare is awful because I don’t pay attention and usually forget a key ingredient or two. Which is true. It can be distracting trying to figure out how many ways Aidan Hathaway and Lily Dell can fuck in 250 pages. It’s not world peace, I know, but it does require concentration.
    While Allison and Greta chatter in German, I, who did not grow up with a German housekeeper and speak little more of the language than Ich bin ein Berliner, stare blankly at the headlines and try to chart a course through the day that will allow for everyone’s needs to be met. It won’t work. Something will slip through the cracks. I’ve come to think of my to-do list as a work in perpetual progress. It is an epic that will span many years. It will never end! If I could make it more interesting, I might be able to convince my publisher to serialize it in an e-book.
    “Do either of you need anything from Target?” I ask.
    “Pink nail polish!” shouts Allison.
    “Laundry detergent,” says Greta.
    Greta does most of our shopping, or “marketing” as she calls it. But she draws the line at Target and Home Depot. There is something about the vastness of these stores, the overwhelming quantities of cheap merchandise, that offends her sensibilities, and I understand this to be a nonnegotiable aspect of our relationship.
    As I’m just about to clarify the shade of the pink and the brand of the detergent, I’m suddenly swallowed whole by a prickly, cold sensation, as if the icy ghost of Christmas Future has wrapped himself around me and begun to squeeze.
    Panic. I lean both hands on the marble kitchen island for balance, closing my eyes against the dizziness. A sheen of sweat breaks out across my forehead, and I shudder from its chill. I gasp, a sharp, awful sound. My lungs feel small and useless.
    “Mom?”
    I open my eyes to see Allison staring at me, alarm splashed all over