Page 44 of Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon
Not that Anna would ever appear that way in front of a family member either, because she respects them and she respects herself too. It’s true she doesn’t believe in the power of the hairdresser the way her mother does but she always made sure she looked nice around Gary, just as she expected him to look nice around her, because she cared about his good opinion. Once upon a time.
Anna – and Ingrid too – doesn’t know when the belief started that we should demonstrate how much we love someone by being as lax as possible around him or her, but she doesn’t approve of it. She loves her children more than anything, which means she wants to look nice for them. She wants them to be proud of her, as she is proud of them. It is inconceivable to her that she might show them how much she loves them by looking like she simply doesn’t care. Or that she’s given up. If she gives up on herself she simply can’t take care of anyone else, and she very much wants to take care of them.
Of course, she had given up on Gary, once he pushed her to a certain point – yet now, as he pulls out the chair for her in this tiny French, or trying-to-be-French, restaurant in Gosford, she can see he hasn’t altogether given up on himself, so she feels a sprouting of respect. Which may or may not grow into anything more. It will require light and warmth, and those two things are in short supply in their relationship. Is it even a relationshipany more? She supposes it is, because they have the children. It just feels more like an interaction now. Which doesn’t explain why she accepted his invitation to dinner, so maybe it is still a relationship. One that she needs to maintain because of the children.
The things mothers do and the things motherstell themselvesthey should do for their children. Like, ‘I’m staying for the children.’ She feels the children need a mother who stands up for what she wants and for the integrity of her person. If that makes her a selfish bitch – and oh, she knows people think that about her, because Jeanette, among others, has told her – so be it.
‘You look lovely,’ Gary says once he’s sitting across from her, his hand halfway across the table, as if he wants her to take it.
She glances at it instead then looks away. ‘Thank you,’ she says with a tight smile. Her hair is in a ponytail – an easy and neat way to present it – and she is wearing a purple dress with bigger shoulder pads than she usually wears, along with a pair of earrings the size of doorknockers which she likes because they feel almost like armour, even as they whack her in the cheek if she moves her head too quickly. She did her eyes tonight – eye make-up is not something she used to attempt but since Gary left she’s been experimenting and she finds it fun.
‘Would you like wine?’ he asks, picking up the wine list that was left on the table by the maître d’.
‘A glass would be nice.’ More than one and she may start to forget she doesn’t like him any more. Wine can do that to a person.
‘Red? White?’
He seems so nervous. The Gary she knew was never like this.
‘You can choose,’ she says, and he looks like he’s won a prize.
The waiter takes their drinks order and leaves them with menus.
‘I don’t know that I’ll have the escargot,’ she says, scanning the list of dishes far richer than she’s used to. Her mother once told her that all French cooking tastes wonderful because everything has a tonne of butter in it, but butter is something Anna eats rarely. So she’ll have the fish. That tends to be the lightest fare on a French menu.
‘Me either!’ Gary almost giggles and she stares at him.
‘Are you all right?’ she says.
‘What?’
‘You seem a little off. Are you unwell?’
‘No. What? Why?’ Now his eyes are darting around. Then he sighs loudly. ‘I’m a bit nervous,’ he confesses.
‘Why?’
‘We haven’t …’ He gestures to the table. ‘It’s been a while since we’ve been out to dinner, just the two of us.’
She runs through the calculations in her head. Renee is seven, and she thinks the last time she and Gary had dinner alone was when she was pregnant. After Renee was born it was harder to find someone to babysit two kids instead of one Troy, so they didn’t attempt it. Perhaps that’s where things started to go wrong.
‘Not since Renee,’ she says softly.
He nods slowly. ‘No.’ He nods again. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘For what?’
‘I should have tried harder.’
Their eyes meet and she’s not sure if what he said refers to dinners out or their relationship in general. She’ll take the first option to be safe.
‘It was busy, having two little ones so close together,’ she says, letting them both off the hook. ‘I guess we …’ She shrugs.
‘Forgot?’ he suggests.
He’s right – they did forget to make time for each other. But that’s also not an acceptable excuse because she had toremember a lot more than he did. He had to remember to go to work and mow the lawn. She had to remember every little detail of the household and the children’s health and their teeth and their toilet habits and their haircuts and their school lunches and their uniforms and their friends and their friends’ birthdays and their friends’ mothers’ names and their teachers’ names …
Little wonder she forgot to organise a dinner out with her husband. Big wonder it should be something she’d even have to consider.
