The Switch. Olivia Goldsmith
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He was driving pretty fast but I could have sworn you’d lost weight. I thought you’d lost weight,” Rosalie said doubtfully, looking at the wet clothes clinging to her sister-in-law.
“I wasn’t with Bob in his car the other day,” Sylvie said. “He moves too fast.”
“He was putting the moves on you, all right.”
“Go home, you loon,” Mildred snapped and began propelling Sylvie away from the scene of the crime. Sylvie knew Mildred felt sorry for Rosalie, just like she did, but still, the woman was brash and insensitive. That’s why she’d been such a perfect match for Phil, and it had broken Mildred’s heart when they split up.
“I wasn’t in Beautiful Baby,” Sylvie called over her shoulder. Did all of Cleveland spend its free time sighting her in places she wasn’t? Next she’d be seen with Elvis.
“You’ll have to continue this little chat later.” Mildred turned her back on Rosalie and guided Sylvie gently but firmly into the house to the music room. She locked the French doors behind them and sat Sylvie down on the bench.
Rosalie, outside, tried the door handle.
“I haven’t ridden in Bob’s convertible in years. I’m not totally crazy,” Sylvie told her mother.
“Evidence to the contrary,” Mildred said, and took the towel from around Sylvie’s head. “You need a touch-up at the roots,” she added.
“I’m letting them gray and grow in,” Sylvie said.
“Then you are crazy,” Mildred told her daughter.
“Why? Bob didn’t even notice when I changed the color.”
“Well, he’ll notice this,” Mildred predicted, looking at the pool.
“My god. How will I tell him?” Sylvie felt her stomach lurch.
There was a banging on the window. Rosalie was pointing to the door lock. “As if,” Mildred sniffed. Sylvie looked at the poor locked-out woman. But she just couldn’t cope. She needed comforting now, and some calmness. Rosalie was too self-involved to offer that. For some reason, imagining Rosalie alone in her house next door made Sylvie lonely herself. Well, she realized, she was lonely. Even with her mother here beside her. She gestured for Rosalie to go away. Rosalie paid no attention.
“Maybe I am nuts,” Sylvie said, and nearly sobbed. “It’s pathetic to be so hurt because your husband is ignoring you. I just can’t figure out if he always did and I didn’t notice because the kids were around or if he’s ignoring me in a whole new way.”
“Oh, Sylvie,” Mildred sighed. “This is all so normal and predictable. I did the car thing too, back when your father was still running the lot. Maybe not as dramatically, but every time we had a big fight, I’d rear-end somebody.”
“You did? What did you tell him?”
“That the brakes failed, and that’s back when they were still calling it ‘the ultimate driving machine.’”
“So it’s hereditary?” Sylvie asked. “Being crazy?”
“From your father’s side.”
Rosalie began rattling the door. Mildred turned and surveyed her. “Isn’t it strange? She seems to think it’s accidental that she’s excluded,” Mildred observed to Sylvie. “Just remember,” she added, “I didn’t like her while she was married to Phil.” She turned her full attention back to Sylvie. “But I admit my son unhinged her. Poor thing. She’s crazy by marriage.” Mildred sighed. “Phil could make any woman nuts. Not like Bob.”
Sylvie felt the towel between her and the bench turning sodden and stood up.
“We better go upstairs,” Mildred told Sylvie. “If she can’t see or hear us, Rosalie will get tired and go home and the neighbors won’t hear her banging to get in. Otherwise this will be all over town by dinner.” Sylvie nodded, though it would be all over town by dinner anyway. Mother and daughter moved together from the brightness of the music room into the darkness of the hall. Mildred sighed deeply as she shepherded her daughter up the stairs. “Maybe the family business made all the rest of us crazy. But I thought you and Bob were immune.”
They got to the landing, where a picture from Reenie and Kenny’s tenth birthday party hung. Bob had been dressed up as a bagel, the twins’ favorite treat at the time. “Remember how much fun Bob used to be?” Sylvie asked.
“Fun? No. Intense, yes. Fun, no.”
“Yes you do,” Sylvie urged. “He was such a great dancer. And he was always playing the piano.” She lowered her voice. “The music in him has died.”
Mildred gave her a little push and propelled her up the rest of the stairs, still carrying the head of lettuce. “Oh, please, Sylvie! Those artistic dreams always die. There’s not a chiropractor in Shaker Heights who didn’t think, at one time, he had a novel in him.”
Sylvie shook her head, unutterably sad. They entered the bedroom. It was all so pleasant—the bed had an antique headboard she and Bob had bought and refinished together years ago. She’d found the chest of drawers at a Cleveland thrift shop and had painted and decoupaged it. The quilt had been her grandmother’s. It was a room with a lot of history. So why did she feel so desolate? Sylvie stood there and dripped on the floor. Mildred unbuttoned the back of Sylvie’s blouse and began helping Sylvie off with her wet clothes. Sylvie felt absolutely limp.
“I don’t know. I thought after the kids went off to college that …”
“… the two of you would … yeah, yeah, go on cruise vacations, dance until midnight.” Mildred pulled at the wet blouse, dragging it over her daughter’s head, then caressing her wet hair. “Just like your father and me,” she said. She shook her head. The gesture made Sylvie feel somehow bereft. “Where you got the idea that marriage was supposed to be romantic is beyond me,” Mildred said. “You certainly didn’t get it in my house.” Sylvie knew her mother was trying to cheer her up, but jokes were no comfort—if Mildred was joking.
Mildred turned Sylvie around to look at her. “Listen to me: you want excitement? You want affection and devotion and some nights out in the spotlight?”
Sylvie nodded her head.
Mildred brushed her hand tenderly across her daughter’s cheek. “Then take my advice: raise show dogs.”
Sylvie sliced the rescued head of iceberg lettuce into four quarters and then took two of them and halved them again. She wondered if being submerged in the pool had poisoned the stuff. She’d removed the outer leaves and then washed the lettuce for almost ten minutes. Was it enough? Sylvie shrugged. What the hell. If chlorine in the pool didn’t kill you when you got a mouthful of pool water, she supposed it wouldn’t kill her husband when it was spread on a vegetable.
Bob had come home while she was showering. She’d come downstairs, neatly dressed and her hair freshly blown dry, but he had been on the phone in the dining room. For that she was grateful, because it gave her a few moments to prepare for her confession. When moment stretched into a tense half an hour, she went into the hallway looking for him, only to hear the shower running upstairs. She shrugged and began preparing dinner, mentally rehearsing what she could possibly say.
She looked at the lettuce. She didn’t care for it, not really, but no matter how hard she tried, Bob had never graduated from iceberg to mesclun greens or even Bibb. Sylvie reached for the balsamic vinegar in the cupboard on the right. She was almost out and took a moment to jot that down on her grocery list. Then she glanced out the window at the pool. Because the kitchen was slightly above ground level she could just look into it and see the BMW’s right fender and part of the trunk. God! She was nuts. Well, she’d done what