Read Amanda Bright @ Home for Free Online

molecules in a room. The child of a white mother from an old New England family and a black professor of economics from Chicago, Susie had been blessed with the unexpected features that elevate great beauty over run-of-the-mill prettiness: bronze skin and silky hair, eyes that were widely spaced apart, a full mouth set in a delicate chin. Had Susie ended up in a city like New York or Los Angeles, she might have faced more serious competition from starlets and fashion models seeking bigger prizes than best-looking girl in Wichita or Kalamazoo. But Susie’s ambition to be a political commentator had brought her to Washington, where beauty is notoriously scarce outside cherry blossom season. Her unconventional package—this face, this figure,
plus
an opinion on the latest education bill!—had taken her very far indeed.
    “Thanks, but it’s getting harder.”
    “Come off it.”
    Amanda shifted restlessly in her deck chair, wishing Susie would get to the point. Long experience had taught Amanda that Susie wouldn’t anytime soon. Once Susie had gained her attention, she would keep it, indifferent to the maternal alarm clock inside Amanda that was frantically ticking off the minutes she had left to get to the store, the minutes before the video would end, the minutes before the next round of demands would come clumping down the stairs.
    “Have you heard from Liz lately?” Susie asked, changing topics. Amanda wondered what Liz had to do with Susie’s news. Liz was a friend from college who had moved to upstate New York and joined Amanda in the ranks of unemployed maternity.
    “I spoke to her last week. Why?”
    “I just wanted to know how she’s doing.”
    So the news wasn’t about Liz.
    “She’s fine.”
    “Still obsessing over her house?” Amanda didn’t quite like the edge to Susie’s tone. Susie seemed interested in Liz these days mostly as an object of sport.
    “I wouldn’t call it ‘obsessing.’ She’s re-covering her sofa, if that’s what you mean. And you know Liz—she’s doing it herself, the slipcover, everything.”
    “I knew it!” Susie exclaimed in triumph. “I knew it would be something like that. She can never talk about anything else. It’s either decorating or the kids. That’s why I stopped calling her. She’s like some prefeminist nightmare. It’s hard to believe she has a degree in women’s history. Thank God
you’re
not like that.”
    “Her kids are still very young,” Amanda said in her friend’s defense, but she was pleased by the compliment.
Susie doesn’t think I’m like that!
“It’s hard when your children are that age to do or think about much else.”
    “You’ve managed to keep your brain alive.”
    “Not always. I seem to remember some anguished discussions with you about potty training.”
    “Yes, but I could always count on you to snap back. Five minutes later you’d be going on about the election.”
    Susie had nearly finished her glass of iced tea. Amanda glanced toward the house expecting to see the children by now but there was no sign of them yet. Her eye caught the rip in the screen that Sophie had made three months ago. The rip bothered Bob—not that he nagged her about it, he was too New Man for that. He only ventured to point it out once, courteously, as something Amanda “might see about getting fixed.” Every time he passed it, though, she was aware of him noting it with a little sigh, as if to say,
I’m not trying to suggest you’re not busy at home with the children all day, and honestly, I respect what you’re doing, but couldn’t you find time to make one lousy phone call? It’s not like I don’t have endless trivial things to attend to in my day, too.
    “How’s Brad? …” Amanda prodded. Brad was Susie’s occasional boyfriend and the usual reason for Susie’s emergency calls.
    “Brad?” Susie seemed puzzled by the mention of him.
    “Yes.
Brad
. The man you’ve been dating for, what is it now, two years?” Amanda had