makeup. Little packets of carefully clipped, long-outdated coupons. Aspirin so ancient it crumbles to
powder when Lottie shakes it out. Stacks of magazines:
Ladies’ Home Journal, Family Circle, Woman’s Day
. And empty bottles hidden everywhere, of course, like some bad joke about
a drunk.
This was what it was, her childhood on this block. With the other, very different childhoods going on just steps away. She gets out of Cameron’s car and crosses the street slowly back to
her house. Inside, after the freshness of the early morning air, she’s aware of the smell of the chemicals they’ve been using all summer – paint, polyurethane, turpentine. As she
passes through the dining room to the kitchen, she stops to open each of the windows, shut yesterday against the rain.
In order to make coffee, she has to push aside some of the stuff she left out on the kitchen counter last night. While she waits for the water to boil, she tries to call Cameron. Maybe he can
tell her what’s going on, what happened at Elizabeth’s. His answering machine cuts in after the fourth ring, and his voice says simply, ‘It’s Cameron Reed. I’m not
home. Wait for the beep.’
Lottie leaves a short message, asking him to call her back. Then she goes into the kitchen and clears a corner of the table for Ryan, so there will be a place for him to have breakfast when he
gets up. When the coffee is done, she takes a cup upstairs and sets it on the rim of the sink while she showers.
At home, Lottie always takes baths, long baths. She likes to read in the tub. But the tub here is a claw-foot model with the drain hole installed too low to allow it to fill deeply enough for
comfort. And it is stained brown with mineral deposits, in themselves harmless enough but somehow, in light of all the roomers who have shared the tub over the years, who’ve cleaned or
haven’t cleaned it after they used it, unwelcoming to Lottie. This is unreasonable, she knows. She’s had roomers in her apartment in her poverty-stricken years and never felt such
suspicions about them. In her youth, she was a roomer herself, in a boardinghouse in Cambridge. She’s always been a good citizen, a scrupulous and lavish user of Comet or Ajax or whatever was
provided. No doubt her mother’s roomers have been too. Richard Lester, for instance, with all the prescription bottles lining the medicine chest: would he have so many pills if he
weren’t careful about his health? Doesn’t it argue that the tub is antiseptic?
It does, but that doesn’t matter. Here, Lottie showers, touching the embrowned porcelain with only the soles of her feet. This morning she soaps herself vigorously. Her elbows whack the
circle of cracking plastic shower curtain suspended from the chrome ring above her. As she’s rinsing off, she remembers again the ambulance, the little helpless crowd of people left
behind.
The betrayal in our bodies, she thinks, and her fingers rest for a moment on the white scar on her breast.
She imagines Elizabeth’s mother, her frightened, plump face. Touching her own body, she imagines for a moment – she can’t help it – Emily’s naked, fat body. She has
seen women’s bodies in all shapes, all sizes, in the locker room at her health club. Almost all of them are pretty to Lottie. But Emily is too fat; something bad could have happened.
Surely not. Surely not, or Elizabeth would have said so on the telephone.
She steps out of the tub, she wipes the steamy mirror off and applies her makeup, sipping at the cooled coffee between foundation and eye shadow, mascara and lipstick. Then she pulls her clothes
back on and takes the empty cup downstairs to the kitchen for a refill. It’s almost seven-thirty by the clock on the stovetop, the time by which the newspaper delivery is guaranteed. She goes
outside to sit on the front porch steps and wait for it.
At the top of the sloping street, one of the neighbors is out bending and moving in her garden.
powder when Lottie shakes it out. Stacks of magazines:
Ladies’ Home Journal, Family Circle, Woman’s Day
. And empty bottles hidden everywhere, of course, like some bad joke about
a drunk.
This was what it was, her childhood on this block. With the other, very different childhoods going on just steps away. She gets out of Cameron’s car and crosses the street slowly back to
her house. Inside, after the freshness of the early morning air, she’s aware of the smell of the chemicals they’ve been using all summer – paint, polyurethane, turpentine. As she
passes through the dining room to the kitchen, she stops to open each of the windows, shut yesterday against the rain.
In order to make coffee, she has to push aside some of the stuff she left out on the kitchen counter last night. While she waits for the water to boil, she tries to call Cameron. Maybe he can
tell her what’s going on, what happened at Elizabeth’s. His answering machine cuts in after the fourth ring, and his voice says simply, ‘It’s Cameron Reed. I’m not
home. Wait for the beep.’
Lottie leaves a short message, asking him to call her back. Then she goes into the kitchen and clears a corner of the table for Ryan, so there will be a place for him to have breakfast when he
gets up. When the coffee is done, she takes a cup upstairs and sets it on the rim of the sink while she showers.
At home, Lottie always takes baths, long baths. She likes to read in the tub. But the tub here is a claw-foot model with the drain hole installed too low to allow it to fill deeply enough for
comfort. And it is stained brown with mineral deposits, in themselves harmless enough but somehow, in light of all the roomers who have shared the tub over the years, who’ve cleaned or
haven’t cleaned it after they used it, unwelcoming to Lottie. This is unreasonable, she knows. She’s had roomers in her apartment in her poverty-stricken years and never felt such
suspicions about them. In her youth, she was a roomer herself, in a boardinghouse in Cambridge. She’s always been a good citizen, a scrupulous and lavish user of Comet or Ajax or whatever was
provided. No doubt her mother’s roomers have been too. Richard Lester, for instance, with all the prescription bottles lining the medicine chest: would he have so many pills if he
weren’t careful about his health? Doesn’t it argue that the tub is antiseptic?
It does, but that doesn’t matter. Here, Lottie showers, touching the embrowned porcelain with only the soles of her feet. This morning she soaps herself vigorously. Her elbows whack the
circle of cracking plastic shower curtain suspended from the chrome ring above her. As she’s rinsing off, she remembers again the ambulance, the little helpless crowd of people left
behind.
The betrayal in our bodies, she thinks, and her fingers rest for a moment on the white scar on her breast.
She imagines Elizabeth’s mother, her frightened, plump face. Touching her own body, she imagines for a moment – she can’t help it – Emily’s naked, fat body. She has
seen women’s bodies in all shapes, all sizes, in the locker room at her health club. Almost all of them are pretty to Lottie. But Emily is too fat; something bad could have happened.
Surely not. Surely not, or Elizabeth would have said so on the telephone.
She steps out of the tub, she wipes the steamy mirror off and applies her makeup, sipping at the cooled coffee between foundation and eye shadow, mascara and lipstick. Then she pulls her clothes
back on and takes the empty cup downstairs to the kitchen for a refill. It’s almost seven-thirty by the clock on the stovetop, the time by which the newspaper delivery is guaranteed. She goes
outside to sit on the front porch steps and wait for it.
At the top of the sloping street, one of the neighbors is out bending and moving in her garden.
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