The Deep End Read Free

budding smile.
    “Who told you that?”
    “You do,” Lulu informs her. “All the time.”
    This time, Joanne’s smile spreads beyond her fingers into the corners of her face. “You mean you actually listen to what I say? No wonder you’re so smart.” She kisses Lulu as many times as the child will allow, then watches her run down the stairs to Paul’s car. Robin is immediately atthe door behind her. “Will you at least
try
to have a good time?” Joanne asks.
    “Sure, I’ll have a ball,” Robin responds pointedly, using Joanne’s words.
    “I think you’ll see that we made the right decision …”
    “You
made the decision,” Robin corrects. “Not me.”
    “I meant your father and me,” Joanne continues, aware that she has never made a major decision entirely on her own in her life. “We all need time to cool off and think things through …”
    “The way you and Daddy are doing?” Robin asks with just enough politeness for Joanne to wonder if the implicit cruelty of the remark was intentional.
    “I guess so. Anyway,” she stammers, “try to make the best of things. You may even find that you enjoy the summer.” In spite of yourself, she thinks.
    “Sure,” Robin grunts.
    “Can I kiss you goodbye?” Joanne waits for her daughter’s permission and interprets her silent shrug as a go-ahead, enveloping the girl in her arms and kissing her heavily rouged cheek. Robin’s hand moves to smooth the makeup her mother may have disturbed. Or is she erasing my kiss? Joanne wonders, seeing Robin as a child, stubbornly wiping unwanted kisses away. “Take care of yourself,” she calls after her older daughter, watching her skip down the front stairs and disappear into the back seat of her father’s car.
    Paul climbs out of the front seat and looks toward the house. “I’ll call you.” He waves to his wife before driving away.
    The phone is ringing as Joanne steps back into the house. She ignores it as she proceeds past it through the kitchen,bending down to unlock the Charley-bar at the bottom of the sliding glass door, flipping open the additional lock at its side, and sliding the door open. She steps onto the newly erected back porch, still awaiting a final coat of varnish, and walks down the newly constructed steps that lead to the pool. Slowly, the phone still ringing behind her, she lowers herself onto one of the rose-colored slabs of flagstone that surround the concrete-lined hole and dangles her feet into what was supposed to have been the pool’s deep end. It’s hard to feel too sorry for a woman with a swimming pool, she thinks, looking up at the house next door and catching sight of her best friend, Eve, staring down at her from the bedroom window.
    Joanne raises her hand and waves, but the shadowy figure in the window suddenly backs away and is gone. Joanne brings her hand up to her eyes, shielding them from the sun, as she tries to relocate her friend. But Eve is no longer there, and Joanne wonders if, in fact, she ever was. Lately, her mind has been playing tricks …
    (“I’m not saying that someone isn’t phoning you,” she hears Eve say.
    “What
are
you saying?”
    “Sometimes the mind plays tricks …”
    “Did you talk to Brian?”
    “Of course,” Eve tells her, suddenly defensive. “You asked me to, didn’t you? He says that everyone gets obscene calls and that you should just hang up on the guy.”
    “I’m not even sure it
is
a man! It’s such a strange voice. I don’t know if it’s young or old, male or female …”
    “Well, of course it’s a man,” Eve states flatly. “Women don’t make obscene phone calls to other women.”
    “These are more than just obscene calls,” Joanne corrects her. “He says he’s going to kill me. He says I’m next. Why are you looking at me like that?”
    Eve is about to protest but changes her mind. “I was just wondering,” she admits, trying to soften the harshness of her suspicions with an understanding smile, “whether