The Grangers
The summer house was everything Anouk had imagined. Huge Spanish archways, walls covered in ivy, a balcony overlooking wild greenery that stretched all the way to the ocean. On one side of the house was a gazebo with four wooden posts and a tarnished picnic-style table beneath it. She thought of all the dinners that had taken place there, all the people Michael and Marina had seduced and danced with under the moonlight.
Marina was radiant in the evening glow. The waning light flickered against her rose-gold earrings, a glint of honey in her wild black curls. Her tan linen dress clung to the outline of her body, which was a sea of curves. Anouk had opted for a dress that was shorter, less elegant, flaunting her long legs. Michael enjoyed watching his two lovers walk in front of him: Marina, so sure of herself, so confronting; beautiful in an ancient way, like a sculpture that had fled from a museum. And Anouk, so fair and awkward, like a fawn that had just come out of its mother’s womb. He stared at her knobby knees, her winged shoulder blades, the dark brown moles smattered across her back. It was a perfect summer evening and things felt light and the weight of permanence felt very far away.
Phillip was more attractive than Anouk expected, his sage-green eyes gentle beneath bushy eyebrows and thick-rimmed glasses. There was an air about him that felt patronizing, as if he didn’t approve of Anouk’s immortal beauty. Marina and Anne kissed each other’s cheeks like debutantes. It made her slightly nauseous.
“Anouk! Open the wine for our guests,” piped Marina.
“It’s a nice bottle of orange,” Anouk said in her thick French accent as she lifted it from the table. The bottle made her spindly arms look as though they might snap off. “It’s kind of . . . how do you say . . . scintille?”
“It’s effervescent,” Marina corrected.
“Well, come on in then! I’ll give you the grand tour,” said Michael. He was in one of his lighter moods. Relaxed and calm yet anxious to please.
“I’m going to the kitchen to put this on ice,” Marina announced. Anne joined her and they disappeared down the hallway, their words and laughter funneling into a faint echo.
Michael put his hand on the small of Anouk’s back as he led her and Phillip into the living room.
“You have a wonderful collection,” Phillip said.
Michael looked around, pride flickering in his eyes. When he revealed his sensitivity to things, he took on a childlike sense of fascination. It was one of the things that endeared him to Anouk, this side of him that was so innocent, so pure.
“This is one of Phillip’s paintings,” he said to Anouk. It was of a woman, of course, a nude woman, or at least the outline of her. A soft line of terra cotta charcoal washed with splotches of teal and ultramarine. A rip-off of Schiele or Matisse.
“It’s beautiful,” she lied.
“She looks like you, Anouk,” said Michael.
A smile curled at the edges of her mouth, but Michael’s attention was directed at Phillip.
Marina and Anne were already tipsy, teetering on the kitchen barstools as they traded stories in the other room. The two women spoke of their husbands as if they were test animals in an experiment they were unsure the point of. They were guffawing like teenagers when Anouk walked in to use the bathroom.
“That one’s broken dear,” Marina said. “You’ll have to use the one in our room.”
Anouk walked up the stairwell, the tile cool against her bare feet, and instead of heading toward Marina and Michael’s bedroom she crept quietly into Marina’s office. In the closet hung dresses from well-known designers, coats and jackets with elaborate embroidery, leather shoes with thin straps and pointed heels. Serums and perfumes were strewn chaotically across the vanity. Anouk spritzed one of them onto her wrist, dragged the scent from the vein of her neck down to her collarbone. She examined her reflection in the mirror. Her stomach was starting to fill out, her ribs not so prominent. Had she been eating more because she was happier here? Or was it the opposite?
Anouk sifted through Marina’s desk, cluttered with flyers for exhibitions, a half-eaten bar of dark chocolate, and a mug of stale coffee with spores of mold floating on the surface like urchins. She picked up a framed black-and-white photograph of Marina with a boy perched on her hip, his saucer eyes fixated on glossy bubbles floating through the air. Marina’s hair was different, short and jagged in a way that made her look bohemian, artistic. Her smile was radiant and full of truth.
A sharp pang bloomed in Anouk’s chest and carved down her pelvis. Had they not mentioned having a son? Envy crept up her spine like a vine crawling up a trellis. She felt a visceral desire for something as all-encompassing, as enrapturing, as motherhood. She had always wanted children. A boy first, then a girl.
Bewildered, wounded, she wandered down the hallway to the master bedroom. She could hear rustling and breathing on the other side as she peered through the crack in the door.
Michael’s pants were around his ankles, his linen shirt unbuttoned. One of Phillip’s hands gripped Michael’s flexed, rippled abs. His knees buckled as he thrust into Phillip’s mouth, moaning and snorting like a bull. Anouk’s cheeks went hot. Shame bolted through her body. She took a step back and caught her breath, but immediately pressed her face back up against the door frame. Phillip’s finger was now inserted into the back of Michael, the other hand wrapped around the most beautiful part of him, his warm tongue dancing around Michael’s rose-colored crown. Phillip continued to pull at him until Michael convulsed and unraveled, whimpering.
The violet moon was rising fast as Marina set the table. Anne brought out a salad in a ceramic bowl, the gems of lettuce glistening and wet as Phillip tapped his wedding ring against an empty wine glass.
Michael waltzed over and sunk sloppily into one of the wicker chairs. He had been pissing in the garden.
“Finally! I’m so hungry I could eat an ox.”
