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Part 2: Five Plates
The backyard was silent.
Vanessa stared at the box. Then at the four women standing behind me.
Linda spoke first. She said, quietly, Hi, Vanessa. Tom says thank you for the cookies.
Sharon said, Bill too.
Pam said, And Dave.
Gloria said, My Frank is seventy-eight. He was very flattered.
A few people laughed. Nervously.
Vanessa’s face went red. She said, This is ridiculous. I was being neighborly.
I said, You told me you were going to take my husband. At my kitchen table.
Vanessa didn’t answer.
The husbands were standing by the grill. All five of them. Irvin. Tom. Bill. Dave. Frank.
None of them said a word. They just looked at their shoes.
Vanessa slammed the lid on the box. She said, Get out of my yard. All of you.
We left. Quietly.
Irvin walked home with me. He held my hand.
He said, You know I would never.
I said, I know. You brought me the cookies the first day.
He said, You put them in the freezer. I thought you were going to throw them away.
I said, I was saving them.
That night, I sat on my porch with a cup of tea. I could see Vanessa’s kitchen light through the fence.
She was sitting at her table. Alone. With the box of cookies.
At ten o’clock, my phone rang. A number I didn’t recognize.
A man’s voice. He said, Is this Maureen? My name is Carl. I’m Vanessa’s ex-husband.
He said, Linda’s husband Tom is my cousin. He called me tonight. He told me what happened.
He said, I’m sorry. She did the same thing to my sister’s husband. Before we split up.
He said, I’m not calling to defend her. I’m calling because I’m worried.
He said, After our divorce, she told me she’d show everyone she could still get any man she wanted.
Then he said, quietly, She hasn’t been okay for a long time.
Part 3: Seventeen Years
I didn’t sleep much that night. I sat on the porch and let myself count.
Seventeen years married to Irvin.
He proposed in a parking lot. His car broke down on the way to the restaurant. He said, I can’t wait anymore.
I counted the bad years. Two. When his father was sick. When we lost our first pregnancy. We almost didn’t make it.
We made it.
I counted the times Irvin brought Vanessa’s cookies home. Five. Every single time, the same day.
He’d hand me the plate. He’d say, She’s at it again.
Then I counted the other wives.
Linda. Married twenty-two years. Vanessa told Tom his wife didn’t appreciate him.
Sharon. Married thirty years. Vanessa told Bill he deserved more excitement.
Pam. Married eleven years. Vanessa asked Dave to fix her sink three times. Pam found out from a neighbor.
Gloria. Married fifty-one years. Frank told Gloria that Vanessa winked at him at the mailbox. Gloria laughed for ten minutes.
Then I counted Vanessa.
Forty-four years old. Married eighteen years. Divorced last year.
Carl told me the rest on the phone. Their marriage ended after Carl had an affair. With a younger woman from his office.
Vanessa found out on their anniversary.
She moved to our street with half the furniture and a broken heart.
Then she spent four months trying to break five other marriages.
The next morning, someone knocked on my door.
It was Vanessa.
She was holding the gift box. And a casserole dish. My pie dish. From the day she moved in.
Part 4: Vanessa
Vanessa stood on my porch. Her eyes were red. She hadn’t slept either.
She held out my pie dish. She said, I never returned this.
I took it. I didn’t invite her in.
She said she’d come to say something. She said she didn’t need my pity.
She said, You think you’re so smart. Getting all those women together. Making me look like a fool.
She said, Do you know what it’s like? To be forty-four and alone? To watch everyone on this street go home to someone?
She said, My husband left me for a twenty-six-year-old. After eighteen years.
She said, I just wanted to know if I could still make someone look at me.
Then her voice hardened.
She said, Everyone on this street is talking about me now. I can’t even go to the mailbox.
She said, You did that. So you fix it. Tell them it was a joke. Tell them we’re friends.
Then she said the thing she came to say.
Or I’ll sell this house and tell everyone you drove me out.
I felt that one land. It was meant to.
Because I knew what being humiliated felt like. And I didn’t want her to leave our street hated.
I took a slow breath.
Vanessa, I said quietly, I’m sorry about your husband. That’s a terrible thing.
She looked away.
But you sat at my table and told me you’d take mine, I said. You tried with four other husbands too.
I’m not going to tell anyone it was a joke.
Vanessa’s face crumpled.
But I’m not going to drive you out either, I said gently. Nobody on this street wants you to leave.
You can stay. You can walk with us. Every morning at seven.
Vanessa stared at me.
She said, Why would any of you want me there?
Then a voice spoke from the sidewalk behind her.
It was Gloria. Seventy-four. In her walking shoes.
She said, Because, honey, I was the one who got left. Forty-eight years ago.
Frank’s my second husband. My first one left me for my best friend.
I tried to take three husbands on my street that year.
Part 5: Seven O’Clock
Vanessa turned around. She stared at Gloria.
She said, You did?
Gloria laughed. She said, The baker’s husband. The pharmacist. And the priest, once. That one was a mistake.
Vanessa laughed. Then she started crying.
Gloria walked up the porch steps. She put her arm around Vanessa.
She said, The women on my street could have run me out of town. Instead, Eleanor Brown knocked on my door and asked me to her quilting circle.
Took me two years to stop being angry. Then I met Frank. At that quilting circle. He was the teacher’s brother.
Vanessa came walking with us the next morning. At seven.
She didn’t say much. She walked at the back.
The second week, she walked beside Pam.
The third week, she apologized to all five of us. One by one. On the walking trail.
She said, I’m sorry. I was trying to prove something to someone who wasn’t even here.
Linda said, We know, honey. Keep walking.
Vanessa started seeing a counselor that fall. She told us about it on our walks. About Carl. About eighteen years. About finding the hotel receipt on their anniversary.
She cried a lot that fall. We let her.
In the spring, Gloria’s husband Frank had his brother over for dinner. A widower. Retired music teacher. Sixty years old. Named Walter.
Gloria invited Vanessa.
They talked until midnight. About jazz. About gardening. About being left.
They’ve been seeing each other for eight months now.
Last week, Vanessa knocked on my door.
She was holding a plate of cookies. Chocolate chip. Wrapped in plastic.
I raised an eyebrow.
She laughed. She said, These are for you. Not Irvin.
She said, I made six plates this morning. One for every woman who walks with me.
I took the plate.
Then I went to the freezer. I took out the box. The one with the five plates of untouched cookies.
I handed it back to her.
I said, You can have these back. They’re probably still good.
Vanessa looked at the box. Then she laughed so hard she had to sit down on my porch step.
She said, quietly, I don’t need them anymore.
Then she tore open the plastic on her new plate.
She held out a cookie to me.
We sat on my porch step together and ate them.
Both of us.
