Is She Really Going Out with Him?

Chapter 16

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Dee Dee Warwick, Suspicious Minds music video

On Wednesday, I have dinner at Dan’s to look forward to. I’d rather stick toothpicks in my eyes, but I’ve left it too late to cancel and I suppose I should meet Sylvie if she’s going to be part of the children’s lives. I also need to appear normal and “non-stalkery” after the late-night phone call incident. The last thing I need is for Sylvie to think I’m still in love with her boyfriend. Jess and Ethan seem inexplicably excited as the three of us walk the four blocks to Dan’s house.

“Sylvie’s a great cook,” Jess tells me. Stab to the heart.

“Dad’s place smells funny now,” says Ethan .

“Funny how?” I ask hopefully. “Funny bad?”

“Sylvie uses scent diffusers. I like the smell,” says Jess. Second stab to the heart. Our house probably smells of residual cat litter and damp washing. “You’ll like her, Mum, she’s smart, she reads loads.” We haven’t even arrived yet and I’m already at nine out of ten on the “Sylvie is unbearable” scale.

“Hiiiiii!” Sylvie cries, opening the front door. Though I’ve seen pictures of her on Instagram, nothing can prepare me for how beautiful she is in real life. She’s willowy and long limbed, with taut, tan skin, white-blond hair, and impossibly straight teeth. She’s wearing a camel cashmere sweater, gray leggings, and Ugg boots, as though she’s modeling quiet luxury at an alpine resort. I knew she was going to be pretty, but she’s absolutely fucking luminous. How did Dan wangle someone like her? But then perhaps I’m thinking of the old Dan, depressed and withdrawn. Sylvie’s with shiny, new, highly motivated Dan, who is triangle shaped rather than oblong.

“So great to meet you,” Sylvie simpers, putting a hand on each of my shoulders. “Obviously I’ve seen photos, heard your voice on messages.” She leaves a loaded pause. “But it’s so special to finally meet you in real life. Goodness, aren’t you tiny!” Already low-level barbs about the drunken voice note and my small stature, and I’m not even through the door. Man, she’s good.

“Hey,” says Dan, coming up behind Sylvie and putting a hand on her waist. He’s wearing a jumper that looks identical to hers. They’re wearing his-and-hers jumpers. “Come in, come in.”

I’ve been to this house before. I’ve picked the kids up from outside or from the hallway, but I’ve never been all the way in. When he left us, Dan rented a flat, then took out a “huge mortgage” to afford this three-bedroom home. The first thing I’m struck by is how neat everything is. There is no mess or clutter or washing racks full of laundry. Where is all their stuff? The walls are white, and the furniture is gray and beige. It reminds me of a White Company store running low on stock. The only color comes from the huge, framed photographs of Dan and Sylvie adorning the walls. In each one they are posing while doing wholesome outdoor activities like hiking up a mountain, riding their bikes, or holding surfboards on a beach.

“Wow, so many photos,” I can’t help observing.

“Daniel hung them all himself,” Sylvie says, wrinkling her nose at me in an expression I think is meant to be a shared acknowledgment of how cute Dan is, but if it’s that, then she’s misjudged her audience. Looking at all the photos of the places they’ve been, I wonder how they’ve fitted so much in. They can’t have been together more than three or four months, yet they’ve been on all these trips and had time to mount them on the wall like relationship hunting trophies.

Sylvie puts a throw over the white sofa before indicating I can sit down. When I turn around, I discover the kids have abandoned me and disappeared up to their rooms. Traitors. On the glass coffee table, Sylvie places a bowl of pistachios and an empty bowl beside it.

“For the shells,” she mouths, as though I am a heathen who might be planning to simply slip the shells down the back of their sofa. I set myself a secret challenge to see how many nut shells I can slip down the back of their sofa.

“It’s so nice we can do this, isn’t it?” Sylvie says, perching on the arm of the beige armchair opposite, then fixing me with a huge smile of dental perfection. “Daniel and I were just saying last night, there’s so much toxicity around divorce, with terms like ‘broken home.’ So unnecessary, so damaging.” I’m seized by an inexplicable urge to throw the bowl of pistachio nuts all over the rug and start crunching them into the luxuriously deep pile. “Words are important. People need to use the right terminology; it’s about creating a loving coparenting dynamic.”

“Sure,” I say, forcing my mouth into a smile as Dan hands me a gin and tonic. He’s made it just how I like it, with plenty of ice and lime. This annoys me too. Maybe I’ve changed. Maybe I don’t like my gin and tonic this way anymore. Maybe I’ve gone off limes entirely. He’s reinvented himself as “Daniel,” he’s become a totally different person, living in a different house with a different woman, and here I am, just the same, drinking the same predictable drink.

“My grandparents were divorced. They modeled what a healthy separation looks like. I’ve seen it done right.” Sylvie is still talking at me. “I think it can be amazing for kids to have exposure to two different mothering figures. Variety can never be a bad thing, can it?”

Two mothering figures? They do not have two mothering figures, they have one mother and one Sylvie. My skin starts to itch. I don’t know if I have the strength to endure this.

Looking across to the kitchen, I watch Dan dressed in his preppy-style outfit rinsing dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. How many times did I ask him to do that? Did he ever do it? No, he did not. Now Sylvie’s got him doing it in a matter of months. Don’t say anything. It will just make you look bitter and petty.

“Did you hear that Katniss died?” I ask him.

“Oh yes, the kids said. I’m sorry.” Dan briefly bows his head. “I know you loved that cat.” Did he not love that cat? She lived with us for seven years.

“So much sadness,” says Sylvie, giving me a pained look. “My friend Vespa had her dog’s ashes made into a paw-shaped pendant. Just precious.”

“Mum, look at this!” Ethan shrieks, running down the stairs and charging across the living room with something in his hands.

“Ethan, let’s remember to use our indoor voice,” Sylvie says in a gentle, singsong way, but Ethan doesn’t take any notice, he’s too excited to show me a Lego car he’s been building. I am thrilled by his return. “Isn’t this awesome?” he says, showing me. “I did it all by myself, no help. It goes and everything.”

“That’s brilliant, well done, you,” I say, watching as he demonstrates all the movable parts.

“We’re trying to encourage non-screen-based activities when the children are here,” Sylvie explains. “All the Silicon Valley guys who invented this technology, they don’t let their own children near screens. What does that tell you? Our house rule is no screens upstairs or after dinner, isn’t that right, Daniel?”

Dan is constantly on his phone, so I’m expecting him to give me a look that says, “Yeah right.” But he doesn’t; he just nods, then walks across the room to hand Sylvie a soda water, kissing her lightly on the head as he does so. “There you go, honey.”

“Sorry to be a party pooper, I’m not drinking right now,” Sylvie says, giving me a strange, unblinking look.

“You’ll never wrestle Anna’s nightly G it’s better for the children. Though I’m not quite ready to feel it, I also know that deep down, I am glad he is happier. He has obviously found whatever it was he was looking for. On autopilot, I pick up my phone and open Instagram. It’s what I reach for when I’m feeling anxious or upset. But today, peering through these windows into other people’s lives doesn’t bring me the satisfaction it usually does.

Closing the app, I open my e-mail and send a message to Johnny the handyman, asking when he might be available to come and repaint my kitchen cabinets. No more compromise. Then I pull up a paint website and search for the exact shade of dark green paint I have always coveted. This Cinderella might not have a prince, but she shall go to the Farrow & Ball.