Chapter Twelve
Trina handed Joanna a beer, then sat in the fluffy chair opposite her. They clinked bottles. Max and Hazel circled them like Tasmanian devils, leaving a trail of discarded toys in their wake.
“Stay out of Daddy’s office!” Trina called after the dervishes as they ran out of the playroom and into parts of the house unknown.
“Sorry,” Trina apologized to Joanna. “I would blame it on the rain, that they’ve been cooped up all day and that’s why they’re being crazy. But the truth is, they are always like this.”
“Always?”
“Always. Except at bedtime. They are surprisingly good at going to bed.”
“They’re exhausted. I’m exhausted just watching them.”
“You get used to it.” Trina shrugged, taking a sip of beer. “Oh, hey, I just lied to you.”
Joanna laughed. “They were easier when they were babies?”
“Well, they didn’t run around. But they also didn’t go to school. For nine months out of the year, they’re the teachers’ problem. God bless ’em.”
“Poor teachers.”
“Oh, they listen to the teachers. Sometimes I think they save all of their energy up until they get home.”
Joanna shook her head. “I still can’t believe it.”
“What? My transformation into Betty Draper?”
Joanna took in her friend’s skinny jeans and oversized Replacements shirt. Betty Draper would never put black streaks in her blond hair. Trina was always more of a Debbie Harry. Except now she had a Pin-terest board.
“You’re totally a cool mom.”
“Thank you. Please tell my children that.”
“Tell us what?” Hazel was suddenly hanging on the arm of Trina’s chair, her mouth lined with something blue.
“Are you in my makeup again?”
“Just the play stuff!” Before Trina could respond, Hazel and her curls were bouncing down the hallway.
“Play stuff?”
“Max is obsessed with makeup. And I love my children very dearly, but the first time they destroyed my MAC Ruby Woo . . .”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, ouch. So I bought them some cheap stuff and told them if they ever touched Mommy’s Very Expensive Makeup again, I would trade them in for a litter of kittens.”
“Mean Mommy.”
“I know. The idea of kittens living in this house without them was very upsetting.”
When they were in high school, Trina was a good girl. At least when adults were around. The truth was, Trina could outdrink and outsmoke even Joanna. And even though she was determined to stay a virgin (she was saving herself for love, and because she liked a challenge), she still managed to get plenty of action. She just somehow never got the reputation that came with it.
If Joanna didn’t like her so much, she would hate her.
Sometimes she did hate her. But that wasn’t Trina’s fault. It was this town, this small place that arbitrarily picked one girl and called her a slut and picked another and called her a flirt. The Carringtons were a rich, nuclear family, and Joanna had been abandoned by her parents. There was no contest who was going to get picked on.
Trina always stood up for her. She gave out her share of black eyes to guys (and on one memorable occasion, a girl) who thought they could say whatever they wanted about Joanna as if she wasn’t right there. Trina was her staunchest defender.
Sometimes Joanna wondered if she wasn’t so perfectly imperfect, if she would have resented Trina less.
She certainly didn’t want her life now.
“Are you really happy here?” Joanna asked.
“I can’t imagine why you would ask that,” Trina said, miming downing her beer.
“No, really. I mean, you have a minivan.”
“The minivan is Rick’s. I drive a badass truck.”
“Remember your Bug?”
“Oh, God, that old thing? Damn, I loved that car.”
“Mommy said a bad word!” came a shout from down the hall.
“Grown-ups are allowed to say bad words!” she shouted back. “How many times did we hotbox in that thing?”
“Before every football game?”
“How else were we supposed to get through a football game?”
“And now you’re married to a football player,” Joanna said, swishing her beer bottle toward the family photos on the wall.
“Ex-football player. But yes, I married the enemy.”
“With a house in the suburbs.”
Trina shrugged. “What can I say? The heart wants what it wants. Anyway, you’ve never seen Rick without his shirt on.”
Joanna dropped her head in her hand. “Trina.” She laughed.
“What? My husband’s hot. But he’s also sweet and tough and he has great taste in music. And he knows how to be happy, you know? He knows what he loves, and he does it.”
“Selling insurance is what he loves,” Joanna asked, dubious.
“I meant me, dummy.”
“Romantic.”
“It is. He does his nine-to-five, the kids are psyched when he’s home, and he goes crazy when he sees me with power tools.”
“Don’t you ever feel, I don’t know, stifled?”
“Not really. But I never had the same relationship with this place that you did.”
“You mean you didn’t hate it with an undying fervor and literally count the days until you could leave?”
“I hated that calendar of yours. I wanted you to stick around so badly.”
“You could have come with me.”
“I had to go to college.”
“What, so you could stay at home with your kids?”
Trina narrowed her eyes at Joanna. “You’re doing it.”
“Doing what?”
“Something is bothering you, so you’re picking a fight with me.”
“I’m not—” She totally was.
Damn best friends, all knowing you and stuff.
Rick walked in, loosening his tie and saving Joanna from too much self-reflection.
“Hey, babe,” he said, and kissed Trina on the top of her head.
“Hey.” She turned her head up and waited for a real kiss. He obliged, then reached around her for her beer.
“Hey! Get your own!”
“Daddy!” A stampede careened down the hallway and into Rick’s gut. Trina took the opportunity to stand up and reclaim her beer.
“Children!” he said, swinging each one up in turn. Swinging needs met, they ran back down the hall.
“That’s a new shade for Max.”
Trina shrugged, then smiled as Rick put his arm around her. She smiled a little less when he took her beer bottle and took a healthy swig, but she was still smiling.
“Hi, Joanna. Nice to see you again.”
“You, too.” She raised her bottle from the comfort of her easy chair. “Been a while.”
“Too long. Remember that wild week in LA?”
“That was before we had kids.”
“Babe, I think that was when we made the kids.”
“Don’t traumatize Joanna with your fertility.”
Joanna had always liked Rick, even if he was a football-playing meathead. Ex-football-playing meathead.
“Do you know how happy this woman is that you’re back?” Rick asked her.
Trina ducked her head. “She knows.”
“Just for a little while,” Joanna added. “But I’m glad, too.” Mostly glad. Afternoons like this, definitely glad.
“So what’d you gals talk about? You getting the band back together?”
“Hardly,” snorted Joanna.
“Why not? I heard you guys used to rock.” He held up his hand in devil horns and stuck his tongue out.
“Don’t make fun,” said Trina. “We totally rocked.”
“And I bet you’d look great in those leather pants.”
Now Trina snorted. “After two kids I think they take away your right to leather pants.”
“What are you talking about,” Rick mumbled into Trina’s ear, then kept mumbling into her neck as his free hand reached around to her ass.
“Gross!” came the shout from down the hall.
Rick stepped back. “How do they do that?”
“Don’t look at me.” Joanna shrugged. “You made them.”
“Hey, progeny! Go get Daddy one of his special juices!” The other room was suspiciously silent. “Fine, I’ll get my own beer. What did we have kids for, anyway?”
“Bombastic egotism?” Joanna suggested.
Rick shook his head. “Great to see you again, Joanna. But for reals, you should do it.”
“Honey, Joanna does not want to talk about music.” Trina shot her husband a look that said we talked about this when we had private couple time and were talking about Joanna behind her back.
“Hey! I’m going to get a beer!” Rick practically ran out of the room.
“Sorry about that,” Trina said.
Joanna took another swig of beer.
“But now that it’s out . . . Are we gonna talk about it?”
“What?”
“I don’t know if you know about this thing, it’s called the Internet? And it means that public figures don’t have a private life anymore?”
“I’m not a public figure.”
“Joanna.”
“Fine! It was nothing, okay?”
“Didn’t look like nothing. Looked like you abandoned your bandmates onstage and now you’re here. And if you try to tell me you came here for Peggy, I’ll make you babysit.”
“I didn’t abandon them.”
Trina waited.
“It just . . . it wasn’t right. It wasn’t what I set out to do, you know?”
Trina watched her, waiting for the rest of the story. Joanna fidgeted. The label on her beer bottle was suddenly very interesting.
Trina sighed. “Fine, we won’t talk about it.”
“Thank you.”
“So, are you done with music now, or what?”
“I don’t know. I’m not really qualified to do anything else.”
“Maybe we should do it.”
“Do what?”
“Delicious Lies.”
“I don’t know—”
“Just while you’re home. My drums are in the barn. It’ll be fun. Come on, just until you figure out your life.”
“No big deal.”
“You always land on your feet. Anyway, Bunny Slippers suck. You’re so much better than that.”
Joanna smiled. “Thanks.”
“And walking off the stage like that? Totally punk rock.”
“Totally.”
“So you’ll do it? Delicious Lies?”
“Yes, okay, fine!” Joanna wasn’t sure why she was pretending to be annoyed. This was the first good idea she’d encountered since she’d moved home.
“Yes!” Trina jumped up in triumph. “Did you hear that, hon? We’re getting the band back together!”