Free Sussex Drive: A Novel by Linda Svendsen Page B

American one too, and the whole global financial system is on life support, and your husband’s lackeys are phoning me and fucking lecturing me right and left and—I’m not donating one fucking cent to this illegitimate turkey called the Conservative Party of Canada. And I’m not shutting up. You’ve never picked the right man, Becky. Your heart’s in your—”
    Becky heard her mother in the background, yelling at him to stop, just stop.
    The line went dead.
    At the party that evening, Becky noticed there was a moment when both sides of the room were engaged in discussing the American election. The corporate wives were exchanging tidbits about Cindy McCain and rumours of a lover and also about Sarah Palin and the nasty interviewing techniques of a certain female anchor.
    “Why didn’t she just interrogate Sarah about Dostoyevsky?” demanded a thrice-married high-tech mogul’s wife.
    “One of the oligarchs,” deciphered a Cegep-graduated figure skater.
    Meanwhile, the hockey wives were full of admiration for Michelle Obama and her Target and Toledo wardrobe mash-up, intermingled with knowing comments aboutBarack Obama’s tight butt and cerebral sexiness. “His brain goes right to my clit,” said one, setting them all howling.
    They seemed to have completely forgotten that their hostess’s husband was battling for his own return to office. But that didn’t bother Becky. It was something she’d laugh about with Greg on the phone before turning in.
That’s Cana-dumb for you
, she’d say.
So busy gawking on the front porch, anyone could come in the back and rob the place blind
.
    The women spilled through the main floor, waltzing between the dining and living rooms, and pieces of epic Canadian art and outdated floral drapes resembling castoffs from Buckingham Palace. For Becky, it was a bit like home, before Ottawa, when a house party meant a keg in the back of the truck and a group howl at the moon.
Mi casa es su casa
. Yes. And the pitchers of
mom-jitos
, the recipe her mixologist had concocted, were going down swimmingly.
    All Becky had to do was relax and mingle and foster goodwill among the insipid women. The boys had worked with the tutor and were now off at violin with an aide-de-camp. Martha was resting. Dr. Cambridge had spent considerable time with her, even asking Becky to leave the room for a few minutes, and she’d advised Becky to let Martha stay in bed and skip her internship the next day. If it was Norwalk, it was mild. When Becky had pressed and asked for a firm diagnosis, the doctor said she’d know better tomorrow. She spoke of a swab. “All will declare itself,” she’d said with a shake of her stethoscope.
    Lise, as she always did, worked the rooms, the main halland the corridors. Outfitted in a sizzling golden shalwar kameez, vintage, a gift from the current president of PEN International and one of Mahatma Gandhi’s descendants, she went on a spree of hugs and flesh kisses, posing under Pachter’s iconic flag portrait on the entry stairway, complimenting highlights and new geometric cuts, laughing too forcefully at their jokes, tearing up at a confidence, dragging the Indonesian transgendered chef in to praise the mango-cilantro prawns. She cradled the sweet six-week-old infant, Tiramisu, conceived out of wedlock in a Tuscan villa; nobody knew if it was a boy or a girl. She remembered everything the women had ever implied and shared raunchy confessions about René’s adventures in the acting trade and his day of shooting with, yes, Penélope Cruz! No, they didn’t embrace,
merci, mon Dieu
. Corporal Shymanski, with his limp, shadowed the GG and Becky noticed that he needed to shave. She was relieved that Martha was in quarantine.
    Lise kept avoiding Becky, or so it seemed to her, bare shoulder inclined a little the other way, gaze aimed at Becky’s forehead rather than her eyes. Out of nowhere, though, while Becky was in the midst of inviting the first line forward’s main