Perfection Read Free Page B

cooking for an extra, very appreciative male pal, and I often found them together in the kitchen, drinking a beer, deep in conversation. When I entered, I became an intruder. Talk stopped, and I always left quickly with the feeling of having interrupted a confidential moment. Tomas had well-known girlfriend problems, the subject of small-town gossip. He was at our house the nighthis girlfriend broke up with him on the phone. He came into our bedroom, sat down on the bed, and cried. We, the long-married couple, were quietly supportive and comforting.
    Liza loved riding up the stairs high on Tomas’s shoulders and wrestling with him on the living room rug. She giggled when he tickled her. He listened generously to the stories she told about her school day—who was mean, who got in trouble, who she played with at recess. She loved drawing pictures with him at our kitchen table.
    And having an outsider around kept Henry and me from squabbling.
    While I was folding laundry one evening, Tomas looked at me in a strange way, and said I was beautiful. I thanked him—while my stomach turned somersaults—and kept folding laundry. Most of my life was spent at home, working and mothering. I felt invisible to other men, especially young, handsome men.
    Once his new house had plumbing and electricity, Tomas moved out of our attic. I was surprised how much I missed his company. The next time I folded laundry I smiled, remembering his compliment, happy for the safety of his absence.
    Henry envied Tomas’s new bachelor life. One evening, as we cleaned up the kitchen, he remarked, “How would you feel if I moved in with Tomas and just visited you and Liza on weekends? Then it would be more like you were my girlfriend.”
    I looked up from the sink of dirty pots and pans and forced a laugh to show him I knew he wasn’t serious. “No, I wouldn’t really like that.”
    “And you should have an affair with Tomas,” he continued, clearly enjoying this game. “Don’t you think he’s attractive? I wouldn’t mind at all.”
    “Tomas is very good looking, but right now I’m married to you. Why do you even say things like that to me?”
    Henry never gave up. He was like a cheerful dog, playing with a bone. “Would you mind if I went out on a date with his hot new Mafia Princess girlfriend?”
    “You definitely don’t get to go out on a date with the Mafia Princess.”
    I scrubbed at a dirty saucepot with extra effort. Sometimes Henry really was just maddening, though there was always something exhilarating about his willingness to push the limits.
     
    Back in full New Year’s Eve party hostess mode, I brushed by Tomas again on my way back to the kitchen to find more plastic cups. He took a swig of his beer and smiled shyly again. Tomas and I were similar—we both preferred solitude and quiet and were perhaps a bit out of our element at this large gathering.
     
    Cathy, her husband, Steve, and their daughter, Amy, arrived with some of their friends from church. Steve was tall and handsome in an American, square-jawed way. Wineglass in hand, he took up his prearranged position as oyster server. A crowd gathered immediately around him, and he beamed from the center of his small theater in the round. Amy bolted upstairs to find Liza.
    My friendship with Cathy was the common result of exurban parenthood. You move to a new place with your not-quite-two-year-old. After the Tuesday run up to the shopping center to buy cleaning spray, laundry detergent, and diapers in bulk, you head to the local playground. Your kid sees another kid the same age. They bond while building sand castles and riding on the seesaw. You check out the parents. Maybe they aren’t exactly the people you would choose for friends, but they seem responsible, educated, not ax murderers. Though different in personality, Cathy and Henry were both writers and had seemed to bond quickly over their work.
    Until this past summer, Cathy and I had been inside each other’s