Free The Deep End by Joy Fielding Page A

didn’t do anything right. You have two beautiful daughters …”
    “I have two beautiful,
obnoxious
daughters,” Joanne corrected and looked guiltily around her in case one of them had crept, unnoticed, into the room. “I mean, I love them more than anything else in the world, but I don’t know what happens to girls when they get to a certain age. Were
we
like that?”
    “According to my mother, I still am.” Eve shook her head. “Maybe it’s a good thing I had that miscarriage,” she continued matter-of-factly, sitting down again, this time on the blue-and-beige-striped velvet sofa facing the two cream-colored chairs. “She’s always wished on me a daughter like the one I was. That’s the only reason she wants grandchildren, you know. So she can watch me suffer. Anyway …” She clapped her hands on her knees. “We are not talking about my mother, we are talking about you, about how you haven’t done anything right in twenty years and probably your whole life for that matter.” Joanne tried to smile but failed. “You’re not a great cook? Is there anyone on earth who makes better pies and cakes than you do?”
    “That doesn’t count either.”
    “What do you mean it doesn’t count?”
    “It would only count if I had a full-time job.” Joanne stood up, moving her hands in front of her body as if she were physically collecting her thoughts. “I’ve been baking a
lot
of pies and cakes this week,” she explained, nodding as she spoke, “and while I’ve been baking all these stupid pies and cakes, I’ve been thinking about the last twenty years, and how I’ve spent them … what I’ve been doing and what everyone else has been doing … and can’t you see, Eve? I’m an anachronism. Everything I was brought up to be went out of style.”
    “Being a loyal wife went out of style? Being a good mother went out of style? Being a terrific friend doesn’t count anymore? Says who? Show me who says it and I’ll beat him up right now, the bastard, may he rot in hell.” She stopped. “Anyway, I better not say anything else because if I do, and you and Paul get back together—which you will—you’ll hate me and I’ll have lost my only friend in the world.”
    “You’ll never lose me,” Joanne smiled. “You’re the one constant in my life. I can’t imagine a time that we wouldn’t be friends.”
    “I love you,” Eve said simply, walking toward her.
    “I love you too,” Joanne repeated. The two women drew together in a long, comforting embrace. “What time is your doctor’s appointment tomorrow?” she asked, the first to pull away.
    “Oh, forget it, you don’t have to take me.”
    “Don’t be silly. Why should you go alone? Besides, if I stay home, it just means I’ll bake more of those dumb pies and cakes.”
    “Okay, you talked me into it. I’m supposed to be there at nine-thirty. And I can’t eat anything after midnight, so don’t mention those pies and cakes again.” She caught sight of her reflection in the glass of one of the many paintings that lined the walls. “Oh God, who
is
that woman? Look at me! I look awful.” She pushed some stray hairs away from her forehead. “Look at this.” She rubbed the skin around her eyebrows so that it produced small flakes which fluttered into her lashes. “I’m falling apart.”
    “It’s called dry skin,” Joanne told her.
    Eve laughed. “Terminally dry skin. I don’t know, I always used to have oily skin.”
    “The joys of middle age.”
    “I suppose. Anyway, I’d better go. I have a million papers to mark.”
    “Eve …” Joanne’s voice stopped her friend as she reached the front hall. “What do you know about that woman in Saddle Rock Estates?” Eve regarded her quizzically. “You know, the one who was murdered.”
    Eve shrugged. “Not much,” she said. “Just what I read in the papers. She was raped and beaten and strangled and stabbed. Anything that he could do to her, he did.”
    “And you said she’s