Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney - The Nest

“I’m sorry I missed it,” Melody said. “I meant to go. Is the information online?”

“I thought you were all set,” Jane said. “I thought you and Walt have been saving for college since your first date or something obnoxious like that.”

Melody squirmed a little to remember how she’d bragged at one of the Mom Nights last spring. She hadn’t explained about The Nest per se, just mentioned that she and Walt had a “college fund” and that they probably wouldn’t need financial aid. She’d regretted the words as soon as they’d tumbled out of her mouth, and now she could kick herself, especially thinking about her offhanded and inaccurate phraseology— we made saving a priority .

“You know what investments are like these days,” Melody said, inexperienced at posturing about money; she was probably the color of a beet. “We might need some help after all.”

“Let me save you some time,” said the Poodle. “You already make too much money and the colleges don’t care about kids from Westchester, so unless you guys are going to declare bankruptcy or somebody loses a job, you’re toast. The whole meeting was a colossal waste of time.”

“They’ll take one look at that scarf and kick you out,” Jane said, gesturing at Melody’s neck and the pretty lavender scarf Francie had given her.

“It was a present,” Melody said.

“It’s lovely,” Jane said. “It suits you.”

At one time, Melody had wanted nothing more than to be friends with these women, would have loved nothing else than to bump into them in town and have them admire something she was wearing. Now, she wanted to run and hide. Their conversations made her want to scream. They complained about money, while breathlessly recounting expensive house renovations ( How many blow jobs for a Sub-Zero? she wanted to ask) or recent European vacations ( How many for a trip to Paris? Ten? One?). And then, invariably, they’d look at each other and shrug and say, “luxury problems,” cackling like some modern skinny-jean-wearing equivalent of Marie Antoinette’s court.

That kale juice you’re drinking is six dollars! Melody wanted to say. Your kitchen is the size of my entire downstairs! They made her so angry and anxious, she’d gradually learned to avoid all of them. She fingered a corner of her pretty scarf and looked at her watch. “I’d better get going,” she said, gesturing to the consignment store behind them. “I have to duck in here before I go home.”

“Nice,” Jane nodded approvingly. “A little retail therapy.”

“We just had a pleasant chat with Walt, too,” the Poodle said.

“Walter?” Walt was supposed to be grocery shopping and not in the village where the only food stores were very precious and very expensive. “Where?”

“He’s with Vivienne,” Jane said, pointing across the street.

Melody was grateful in that moment that she’d had so much practice not visibly reacting to these galling women because she was able to keep her face calm.

“Right, of course,” she said. “See you later.” As she hurried, her heart was pounding so hard she thought it might cross the street ahead of her. She thought, in the moments before she charged through Vivienne’s door, that this must be what it was like to catch your husband with a lover; in flagrante delicto was the phrase that popped into Melody’s head, a flagrant offense . Betrayal. This is how Victoria must have felt after Leo’s accident, Melody realized, experiencing a tiny flash of empathy for the woman who had never even been civil to her. And as she stepped up on the curb, careful not to slip on the slightly icy walk, she knew she’d rather catch Walter in an amorous embrace with Vivienne, would rather he have Vivienne bent over the table in her office that was covered with local maps and magazines and restaurant coupons and be taking her from behind than this —calmly sitting at her desk in plain sight at Rubin & Daughters Realty. Vivienne Rubin was the Realtor who’d sold them their house.

The first time Simone kissed Nora, furtively in her family’s kitchen where they were momentarily alone because Louisa was down the hall in the bathroom, she moved swiftly, before Nora understood what was happening and retreated before Nora could object — or respond or acquiesce or participate. That afternoon, when Simone heard Louisa’s footsteps in the hall, she casually went back to spreading almond butter and jam on brown-rice cakes. Nora couldn’t fathom how Louisa could be oblivious to the new charge in the room, not even notice how the molecules in the kitchen had briefly combusted into something intoxicating and scalding and then quickly resettled into the familiar tableau: bowl of polished apples on a butcher-block island, marble counter with a six-burner range, gleaming teakettle with a plastic whistle in its spout shaped like a little red bird. Behind Louisa’s back, Simone smiled beguilingly at Nora, who was consumed for the rest of the afternoon by one thought: Again .

Sometimes Nora and Louisa babysat the little boy across the street, and what he loved most was for them to each take one of his hands and walk across the front lawn, swinging him by the arm, high into the air. Again! he would shout, gleeful, the minute they reached the perimeter of the yard. They’d turn around and go back in the other direction and before they even reached the fence on the opposite side, he’d start yelling Again! Again! When he’d see them in the street, he’d start bouncing in his stroller. Again! he’d yell, waving at them. “Tomorrow, Lucas!” they’d call. “We’ll play tomorrow!” There was never enough Again for Lucas. No matter how many times Nora and Louisa swung him across the front lawn, until their arms were tired and their shoulders sore, no matter how they tried to refocus his attention with cookies or the swing or by playing peekaboo, when they stopped, he would cry and cry.

After Simone, Nora knew exactly how he must have felt. Thought that the sensation he must love when being lifted off the ground, propelled forward by some bigger, outside force, the swinging, the swoop of belly, the weightlessness, the sense of flying, it had to be almost sensual, a little-kid precursor to pubescent desire, lust, hunger.

Again was exactly how Nora felt after Simone kissed her. Nora couldn’t stop thinking about the kiss, about the velvety feel of Simone’s almond-flavored tongue in her mouth, about the almost-imperceptible brush of Simone’s fingers at her waist — or about when it might happen again.

It didn’t take long. The following week they went into a store to try on clothes and Simone slipped into Nora’s dressing room. The minute the door was closed, Simone had Nora pressed against the wall and Nora did what she’d been thinking about doing all day and all night for a solid week — she kissed Simone back. Exploring Simone’s mouth with her tongue, biting her bright and full lower lip, grabbing fistfuls of Simone’s long braids and wrapping them around both hands and tugging lightly until Simone’s head tilted back, exposing her long, elegant throat and Nora fastened her mouth, the tip of her tongue, to the precise spot on Simone’s neck where her pulse fluttered. That day, they’d pressed against each other until a saleswoman had gently knocked on the door and said, “How’s it going in there? Anything working for you?”

“Absolutely,” Simone said, cupping Nora’s ass and smiling, “everything in here is working great.”

SOON, NORA AND SIMONEfigured out that the Museum of Natural History was the easiest place to lose Louisa. Like so much of New York, the crowds lent them a privacy that Simone’s two-bedroom apartment couldn’t. Louisa would bring her sketch pad and set to work and Nora and Simone would say, “See you later,” and then sneak away into a multitude of dimly lit corridors, empty restrooms, darkened screening areas. They became experts at exploring various body parts, triggering certain sensations, without ever fully undressing. At first they were tentative, a quick finger here, a flick of the tongue there, but they quickly learned where they could be brave, how to deftly circumvent buttons and waistbands and bra hooks while still staying clothed. Simone made Nora come for the first time in a restroom off the Hall of Invertebrates, without even moving aside the slight bit of purple thong that Nora had bought on the sly and tucked into her backpack for this exact purpose. The first time Nora took Simone’s breast into her mouth, down a deserted corridor of offices that were closed on the weekend, they’d almost been discovered by a lost mother looking for a restroom with her two little kids. Simone had hurriedly pulled on her T-shirt when they heard the kids running down the hall, the mother behind them yelling, “Don’t touch the walls, guys. Hands to yourselves!” which had reduced them to nearly hysterical laughter. While sitting in the deserted last row of the IMAX movie (later, neither of them would remember what the movie was about), Nora inched Simone’s tights down to her knees and slipped her fingers inside Simone’s underwear and then inside Simone, who was warm and wet.