Lydia's Party: A Novel Read Free Page A

concern.
    Lydia was moisturizing her face now with the antiaging upward strokes recommended by beauty experts and wondering who among her circle of friends had had plastic surgery. She regretted not getting that eye tuck she’d considered a few years before. She’d planned to pay for it with the unexpected tax refund she got that year but felt guilty and ended up donating the money to an animal shelter instead. Elaine had breast reconstruction after her mastectomy—she’d had both of them done so they’d match—but that didn’t count. Maybe Jayne? She had that perfect little nose, but some people just did. Lydia would never ask.

Lydia: The Guest List
    Lydia made a mental list of who was coming tonight: Elaine, Celia, Maura, Jayne, and Betsy. Them, plus her, made the usual six. Seven, if Norris showed up.
    Usually she didn’t. Though every year Lydia invited her, and suggested that Norris stay at the house, to make it clear it was a sincere invitation. Norris had never taken her up on it. Chicago bungalows were not her style, not anymore. Lydia knew for a fact that when Norris did come into town she stayed at a hotel.
    Lydia no longer expected Norris to come to the party. Lydia’s friends weren’t really Norris’s friends and Norris spent most of her time in Michigan now. The years she’d shown up, she’d only stayed for an hour or two, on her way to somewhere else. So Lydia was surprised this year when Norris e-mailed to say she had business in the city and planned to stop by.
    •   •   •
    They’d all met twenty years before, at the godforsaken suburban community college that still employed Lydia, an association that Lydia supposed Norris wanted to shed.
    The first year she’d given the party, Lydia had just been hired, adding the school to the roster of small colleges where she already taught part-time—a course here, a course there. They’d given her three classes the first semester and implied there might be a real job in the offing. The possibility had made her feel hopeful and expansive, more open to making friends than usual, in these often transient posts.
    She taught a little of everything in those days—drawing, painting, art appreciation. The art department had shared office space with English and Humanities then, and that’s how most of them met. They’d hung out together in the faculty lounge, a smelly, windowless room outfitted with a minifridge, a filthy microwave oven, and two leatherette sofas. They’d brought their lunches to save money and gathered there to gripe. They graded papers and shared food. Bonds were forged.
    •   •   •
    Elaine had been Lydia’s first friend there. Elaine was older than Lydia. She’d worn boxy suits in an era of blue jeans and had taught English composition; she was the only one of them with tenure. Lydia got it later, but back then the place was a boys’ club. Most of them weren’t even full-time. They were paid per course, a fraction of what the full-time faculty got, and worked multiple jobs, hoping something would happen to change their lives. They’d felt abused and scared, buried alive, commuting into the arid and airy suburbs from their dark city apartments in broken-down cars, their trunks crammed with books and papers. It had been an uneasy time, though looking back, Lydia could see that being an outsider had had its advantages. She’d had impetus to paint, then. Teaching was a sideline, she’d thought, a way to pay the bills.
    Of course, it hadn’t worked out that way. Teaching, not art, became her career. Eventually she found she was good at it, and when they offered her a real job she’d grabbed it, for dental insurance and a retirement package that now she might never use.
    Mental note, she thought—reread the packet on short-term disability insurance.
    Much later, Lydia found out they’d offered the job to Norris first, for better pay, and that Norris, two years out of grad school and twelve years younger, had