Page 8 of The Wives of Hawthorne Lane
Libby sighs inwardly. She sometimes forgets what a small town Sterling Valley is.Toosmall, if you ask her. Of course word of the moving trucks coming and going from her block already hit the rumor mill. Something about the big houses, the secluded location, makes Hawthorne Lane and its residents a favorite topic of discussion.
“I do, but I’m afraid I don’t know much about them yet,” Libby says with a tight smile, and Beth’s look sours. As the town’s reigning gossip, she was probably hoping for some exclusive insight into the newcomers.
“I saw that Bill’s brokerage was the listing agent for the property. I considered buying it myself, but the timing didn’t work out.”
Libby nods, distracted with thoughts about how to politely extricate herself from this conversation.
“Anyway,” Beth plows on, “that must have been quite a sale for Bill. Good for him. Howisthat husband of yours anyway?”
Libby flounders over how to answer the question for a moment. She hadn’t realized that Beth even knew Bill outside of a few times they’d met at school functions. But she shouldn’t be surprised. Libby supposes that many people in Sterling Valley have a faux familiarity with her husband. After all, it’s his face grinning out fromSoldsigns all over town, his rakish smile on a park bench on Main Street, one rogue curl flopping disarmingly over his forehead. And isn’t that the whole point? He’s a familiar face, a friend, a neighbor, someone you can trust. Everyone except for Libby, that is. But even as she thinks it, she knows it’s not true. That’s the problem with Bill. It’s hard to hate him. He’s not a bad person. Not really. He’s the guy who runs over with jumper cables if he sees that you’re having car trouble; he’s the neighbor who is happy to hold the ladder while you clean out your gutters and even happier to crack open some cold beers, glass bottles clinking, when the work is through. The thing is, Libby’s husband is a genuinelynice guy.A fact that infuriates Libby to no end as of late. The only fault he has, as far as she can tell, is that he’s stopped wanting her.
“Good,” Libby manages, “he’s good. Busy as ever.” Beth is the last person Libby wants to discuss the details of her tumultuous marriage with. And anyway, soon this absurd separation will end, and no one will have to be the wiser.
“I’m sure,” Beth replies, her tone betraying her boredom with Libby’s surface-level response.
“Anyway, I really should be going, I—”
“Since I have you,” Beth interrupts, “I know the new school year hasn’t started yet, but I was hoping to get a few volunteers lined up for the goodwill auction—”
“Actually, would you mind shooting me an email with the details? I hate to cut this short, but I have to open the shop in a few minutes.”
Beth’s friend smiles wryly.
“Of course, of course,” Beth replies with a shooing flick of her wrist. “You get going. I know how busy you must be, running your own business and whatnot! I simplydon’tknow how you do it all!”
Libby flashes her a quick smile. She’s almost out of time. “Thanks, Beth! Talk soon!”
Libby race-walks to the bakery counter and places her cake order, drumming her fingers on the countertop while she waits.I should be able to make it to the shop on time if I don’t run into any more delays.She watches as the young woman attempts to write Erica’s name in pink frosting with an unsteady hand; she has to scrape it off and restart the process twice.
“Sorry. I’m still training,” the girl says sheepishly.
Libby realizes that she’s probably making the poor kid nervous. “It’s no problem, take your time,” she replies through a forced smile, stilling her anxious fingers. She decides to leave the girl to it and distract herself by perusing the rows of rolls and French breads. Maybe she should pick up something to bring to the barbecue Georgina is hosting over the weekend to welcome Hannah and Mark Wilson to the neighborhood. Libby considers some of the packaged pastries, imagines them sitting in their plastic clamshells on Georgina’s artfully arranged dessert table beside her own homemade confections and decides against it.
“It’s really a shame,” Libby hears, the words floating over the display and pulling her from her thoughts. She recognizes Beth’s voice but can’t see her. She must be in the next aisle. “I heard her husband justlefther. Walked out on her and her kid.”
“I can’t imagine why.” Her friend giggles. “She seems so pleasant.”
“Oh, stop,” Beth chides, laughter bubbling beneath her words. “You’re so bad. Anyway, he’s with some other woman now. At least that’s what I’ve heard. Melissa Welton—do you know her? She said she saw Bill Corbin out with some woman, and it looked pretty hot and heavy from how she described it. I wonder if Libby knows aboutthat.If she did, she’d probably be a little less smug, always bringing up her shop, howbusyshe is, and rubbing it in people’s faces like we’re supposed to be impressed.”
The conversation continues—“By the way, have you seen the new principal at the high school yet? He’s not hard to look at, I’ll tell you that much!”—but the words are nearly drowned out by the ringing in Libby’s ears. She slides to the floor, her purse landing with a thud next to her. She hardly even notices when the contents spill out onto the ground, her lipstick rolling away. She barelyregisters the salesgirl who’s run around the counter to check on her.
“Are you okay, ma’am? Are you okay?”
All she can hear is Beth’s voice, her nasty little words echoing in her consciousness:He’s with some other woman now.
7
Audrey
Hawthorne Lane
Audrey looks out her kitchen window across her vast green backyard. It’s nearly dusk, but the gardener has only just arrived. He whizzes by on his ride-on mower and waves. She lifts her hand, gives him a slight nod and a tight smile in return. Everyone loves Tony Russo. Theyraveabout him. He’s the gardener of choice for all of Hawthorne Lane. Personally, Audrey doesn’t understand what he’s done to earn such a standing. She suspects there are plenty of other middle-aged men who are capable of wielding a hedge trimmer, but it is what it is. She was hardly going to be the only stuck-up bitch on the block who refused to let the guy ride his obnoxiously loud mower back and forth over her lawn. And so she and Seth dutifully leave a check for him in their mailbox once a week, just as their neighbors do, and she pretends not to notice the unnerving way he stares through their windows.
Audrey opens the wine refrigerator, pulls out a bottle of pinot grigio, and tips a generous helping into her glass. She needs a little something to take the edge off. It’s been two weeks since Seth returned from the latest leg of his book tour, and things have been tense ever since. From what Audrey gathers, his new Detective Marlow novel isn’t being received as well as he’d hoped, and as a result, there have been an endless slew of closed-door phone calls with his agent, his editor, his publicist. Audrey has largely just tried to stay out of the way.
There’s a loud bang outside and she watches as Tony disentangleshis mower from her wrought-iron garden bench. Audrey huffs. You’d think he might feel compelled to be a little more careful, what with all the money he makes on this block alone.Perhaps I should take his job,she thinks.Get myself a ride-on mower, collect all the checks lined up in the mailboxes.She can’t help but laugh as she imagines Seth’s reaction if she were to tell him she was going to quit her job atTop Castto be the neighborhood gardener. It’s not so much that they need the money she makes as an executive editor—Seth’s books are certainly successful enough that they don’t need Audrey’s income—it’s the principle of the thing. The optics. Seth Warrington’s wife in khaki pants with a leaf blower strapped to her shoulders.
Audrey shakes her head at the very idea and turns to make her way into the dining room. As she does, she catches sight of the invitation stuck to the side of her refrigerator with a magnet. A barbecue being hosted by Georgina Pembrook to welcome the new neighbors. Audrey rolls her eyes at the formality of it all. A simple text would have sufficed, but of course Georgina ordered printed invitations on thick, creamy card stock and hand-delivered them to each mailbox. She never does anything halfway. Audrey once watched that woman serve a five-course meal in Louboutins without breaking a sweat. But it feels performative to Audrey, this pretense Georgina insists on keeping up that they’re all the best of friends simply because they happen to live on the same block. It’s not that Audrey particularly dislikes her neighbors, but she sees them as exactly that: neighbors. Friendly enough, but certainly notfriends.If they were all real friends, maybe one of them might have noticed how unhappy she’s been in her marriage these past few years. Maybe she’d have wanted to confide in them about how lost she’s felt, how lonely. But none of that happened. Because the relationship among the wives of Hawthorne Lane is a surface-level one—no deeper than waves from the ends of their driveways, forced smiles over a shared fence. Audrey doesn’t understand why they should pretend it’s anything more than that.
