Page 29 of The Wives of Hawthorne Lane
Before
Halloween
19
Libby
Hawthorne Lane
“I’m so glad we could all get together,” Georgina says, daintily dotting her lips with a cloth napkin. It comes away with traces of her red lipstick clinging to it. “I know we don’t usually do this sort of thing, but I thought it would be nice.”
“Well, I’ve never been one to say no to a mimosa,” Audrey chimes in.
Hannah smiles politely. “I’m glad we’re doing this too. I thought it would be hard being the newcomer in town, but you ladies have made me feel right at home.”
“To the ladies of Hawthorne Lane,” Audrey says, raising her glass in a toast. She lifts her phone in her other hand and snaps a photo as all of their glasses clink above the table.
As her friends sip their mimosas, Libby looks down at her own phone, hidden in her purse. There’s a new notification waiting for her from the dating site. She reaches for it, her fingers twitching over the phone’s screen as she debates whether she should open it now. But maybe that would make her come across as too eager? Too desperate? Too much of a pathetic, middle-aged, soon-to-be divorcée?
She suppresses a sigh as she drops the phone back into her bag, snaps it shut. How do people date at her age? Libby already finds it exhausting and she’s been on the dating site for only about a week now.
She was jittery with nerves as she signed up for it. It was the kind that you have to pay for and then fill out a questionnaire that asksyou about everything from your star sign to your favorite sports team. She’d hated every second of it. But Bill was moving on, so she thought maybe it was time that she try to do the same.
Libby thought this kind of site would give her the best chance of finding someone who wanted the same things she did. Someone she might go to dinner with from time to time and who would never send her an unsolicited photo of his…nether region. She’d heard the horror stories from some of her single friends. About the types of men who swam in the murky waters of the later-in-life dating pool. They’d either never been married, which to Libby was a red flag (Didn’t they know how to commit? Were they serial daters, self-proclaimed perpetual bachelors?), or they’d been married and it didn’t work out. Another potential red flag. (What happened the first time around? Was it something they’d done that ended the marriage?) Libby knew she was being hypercritical. After all, wasn’t she in the same boat? But she just couldn’t help but feel bitter about the whole thing. At thirty-eight years old, Libby wasn’t supposed to be here. This wasn’t supposed to be her life. She cursed Bill under her breath as she typed in her credit card number to pay for a service to help her meet his replacement. Libby didn’twantto replace him.
But now he has Heather. They’re living together. Libby is certain of it. She’s not proud of it, but she’s driven past his town house more times than was strictly necessary, and she’s always there, her little red Fiat parked infuriatingly in his driveway. Bill isdating.
And now here’s Libby, with her photo cropped into a little square, her life summed up in a few scripted lines, and a message from a strange man waiting on her phone.
It was one thing to fill out the profile, to put herself out there into the void of the internet, but it’s another thing entirely to actuallytalkto someone. How is she supposed to do this? Bill was the only man Libby had ever seriously dated, and she’d managed to meet him only because he literally ran into her. She pictures herself on a date now. She can see the setting: a white tablecloth, leather-bound menus, dim lighting, maybe a flickering candle. But when she looks up at the man sitting across from her, the only face she can envision is Bill’s. He’s been all Libby has known for so long now thatshe worries she won’t know how to start over. What would she talk about with someone who doesn’t already know everything about her?
She takes a long pull of her mimosa, cringing as the bubbles tickle her nose. She’s mad that she even has to think about these things. God, is she mad. Her anger has been hovering under the surface for the past two weeks, ever since the first time she saw Bill and Heather through his living-room window. She feels as though it’s been building, gaining momentum, bursting out of her at the most inconvenient times. She snapped at Lucas yesterday for leaving his muddy cleats in the front hall, and the day before she’d been short with a customer who complained that she didn’t have the specific type of orchid his wife preferred. Didn’t he have any real problems to worry about? She’s trying to keep it together, she really is, but inside it feels like she’s being slowly eaten alive.
“Lib?” It’s Georgina’s voice, and it snaps Libby out of her reverie.
Georgina is a vision in shades of white today, her red hair shining in the sunlight that streams in through the café window. She looks so put together. She’salwaysso put together. It’s part of the reason, Libby suspects, that their early friendship burned out. They were two totally different people. Georgina was, well,Georgina.And Libby was always one misstep away from falling apart. “Sorry, lost in thought there for a moment. What were you saying?”
“I was just asking if you’re going to the PTA goodwill auction next week.”
Libby groans. “I’d forgotten about that. But yes, I’m going. They’re raffling off a gift basket from Lily Lane.”
“Wonderful!” Georgina clasps her manicured hands together in approval, the diamond bracelet on her wrist catching the sunlight. “I just extended an invitation to Hannah and Mark as well. Colin’s firm sponsored a table, so there are plenty of extra seats. Audrey, I do wish you and Seth would join us.”
Libby glances in Audrey’s direction. She suspects there is nothing Audrey would hate more than crowding into the high school gym with a pack of PTA moms. She tries to picture her there, Audrey, her hips wrapped in designer jeans, her Hermès purse tuckedunder her arm, standing under the paper streamers. She can’t quite conjure the image.
“Appreciate the invitation and all, but that’s a hard pass for me,” Audrey replies, adjusting the oversize black sunglasses that are perched atop her head. “And Seth will be out of town anyway.”
“Is he on another book tour?” Libby asks. “I thought I saw somewhere that he recently had a new book come out.”
“No, not on tour,” Audrey replies, her gaze shifting across the room as she smooths a lock of her thick dark hair. “Just a meeting with his agent.”
Hannah props her chin in her palm, her elbow resting on the white linen tablecloth. “I find it so impressive that he’s a published author. He must be so proud.”
Audrey shifts her attention to her drink, rolling the glass stem between her fingers. “Yup.”
It seems to Libby that Audrey would prefer to talk about anything but her husband. She briefly wonders why, but then again, Libby isn’t too keen to bring up the topic of her own marriage, so she’s not exactly in a position to judge. “So,” she starts, diverting the conversation into less troubling waters as she turns toward Georgina, “I’ve noticed that Lucas and Christina have been hanging out lately.”
Georgina lifts one of her perfectly sculpted eyebrows. “Have they? I did see that he gave her a ride home from school once. That’s quite a car Lucas is driving these days, by the way.”
