Free Love Anthony by Lisa Genova Page A

eyes return to her closet. “How about after Figawi?”
    “How about tonight?”
    “Petra, I don’t have to go at all.”
    “True.”
    “But I can’t stand not knowing who she is.”
    “Well then.”
    Beth chews her thumbnail. “Can I borrow your turquoise necklace?”
    “You got it. I’ll be over a little before seven. You okay?”
    “Yeah.”
    “It’s not even noon. You should get out of the house. Step away from the closet.”
    “I will. Once I figure out what I’m wearing.”
    “Black top, skirt, turquoise necklace. You’ll look great. See you tonight.”
    Black top and a skirt. She pulls out her white peasant skirt and considers it. She walks into the hallway and stops in front of their most recent family photo hung on the wall, the one taken last summer on Miacomet Beach. She wore this skirt. She, Sophie, and Gracie wore white skirts and black tops; Jimmy and Jessica, who won’t wear anything but pants, wore white shorts and black tops. It’s a beautiful photograph. They’re all sitting in the sand, beach grass, wispy white clouds, and soft-blue sky behind them. Jimmy has his hand on her knee, touching her skirt, this skirt now in her hands, touching her so easily, so naturally.
    She remembers those days early on, when they were dating and first married, when he touched her, even in passing, and she felt it. Really felt it. That magnetic, electric heat of his hand on her. That invisible, magical, chemical connection. Where did that go?
    He was cheating on her when this picture was taken. Beth pinches her eyes shut and swallows, trying to keep it together. What does Jimmy feel when he touches Angela? Does he feel an invisible, magical, chemical connection? What doesn’t he feel when he touches Beth? When he used to touch her. She opens her eyes and steps back, taking in the whole wall—seven years of family portraits and a black-and-white photo of her and Jimmy from their wedding day. She looks at everyone’s smiles, her happy family. Her life. She clenches her teeth and blinks back tears. Her life is a fraud.
    She straightens two of the frames that were tipped just slightly to the right of level, returns to her bedroom, and crawls back into bed. The bed feels good. The bed feels safe.
    And she knows how to dress for bed. She’s wearing her old, pink flannel pajamas, covered in nubs, the most colorful things she owns. She should go to Salt in her pajamas. Then she’d really make an impression. Not the kind of impression she wants to make though.
    But what kind of impression does she want to make? She wishes she didn’t have to make one at all, that she could go in disguise, sporting a wig and dark glasses, so she could see and not be seen. But she also fantasizes about going and being noticed by everyone. She’d strut into Salt, looking confident and sexy (tastefully sexy, not trashy sexy), and shy of that, at least better than Angela, a difficult goal to set since she has no idea what Angela looks like. She’s terrified of giving this woman any reason to feel any more superior to Beth than she probably already feels. Unfortunately, realistically, there’s an awful good chance of this. Beth’s not feeling confident or sexy. And she never struts. She looks into her pathetic closet, rolls over, closes her eyes, and tucks the blankets up to her chin.
    Behind her closed lids, she envisions Jimmy shaking a martini, then stopping midpour, struck by the sight of her as she struts into the restaurant with her friends. She imagines him pulling her aside, telling her that he feels like an idiot for leaving her. She imagines him begging her to take him back right there at the bar, right in front of Angela.
    She directs the entire Salt scene, smiling as it plays out in her head. She’s even cast a fictitious Angela, devastated and defeated, with sleek black hair, thick eyebrows, severe makeup, and a spandex dress (trashy sexy). The only person she can’t see in this little fantasy is herself.
    Damn